GUEST POST: Blessing Or Curse


Written By: Ornella Green


     Every morning I wake up and do the same thing. I look in the mirror, inspect my features and wonder. Why was I put in this body? Why was I given this skin? Is it a blessing or is it a curse? Is it a badge of honour or a badge of shame?

     With a black mother and a white father I've come to have the complexion two shades lighter than a chestnut. I have fair facial features from my father’s ancestry  Small beady eyes light-brown in colour, a small curvy mouth and a button nose smack dab in the middle of my neatly proportionate face. On the other hand, my body is that purely of a black woman. With a minuscule stature and a desirably curvaceous body I seem to be the envy of many women and the desire of many men.

     The Englishman refers to me as a ‘mulatto’ but in Jamaica they just say ‘brownin’.
“Psst brownin’,” they constantly scream as I walk down the street with my friends.
Ugh, I hate that word. Last time I checked browning was a seasoning and it looked quite black. But still, they persist. But it isn't their words that bother me. No it’s the meaning behind it. “Brownin’” and “Mulatto”. They both mean the same thing to me: you don’t belong.
     Where does my identity truly lie? Is it with my father or with my mother? Is my light complexion considered a diluted black or a darkened white? Where do I lay my loyalties? How do I blend in with anyone when I stick out like a sore thumb? My country’s motto is ‘Out of many, one people’, yet everyone wants to know their identity. Everyone wants a group to identify as their own.

     I've always been treated differently. As I child I was always singled out from my friends and siblings who were all a bit darker than I am. Sometimes I would be adored and other times scorned, all because I have a complexion that is different. Why?
     I stand there, staring at my reflection and wonder. Where do I belong? The question resonates through my mind and ricochets through my body. Where do I belong? This is the internal struggle I face every day. A woman searching for her identity in a world that seems latch on to similarities and cast off all that is different. I peer into my eyes with a stark expression, examining all that I am, rotating once or twice as if trying on a fabulous new gown. And still the answer evades me. Where do I belong? Am I to be embarrassed or proud? Is this a blessing or a curse? To this day the question haunts me and I'm still searching for answers.




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2 Comments

  1. excuse my week English well i guess it's a blessing 100% because you belong to both white and black and few person have this chance in fact you are beautiful in a special way and it's not your fault that you've been treated differently there's something wrong with theme not you.I'm from Algeria and here there's a diversity in skin's color white brown black even some look like Asians yet I don't understand what my skin's color is surly not white,comparing to my blond friend i think I'm black but I'm not cause to my other black friend I'm waaaay lighter once they told me you look like Indians O.o what ??!!! others said you're a Latina and I've been treated differently to but lately i discovered that I was feeling and acting differently and once that changed people looked at me normally .I want to say is be grateful and don't bother with other opinions long as you love your self and skin cause brown skin is better then white and black and all colors match it brown girls are the sweetest

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    1. Thank you for your input :). I'll let Ornella know

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