I must say my proximity to whiteness doesn't dilute my blackness, but my blackness is polluted by the images imposed upon me by whiteness, my mind has been conditioned with the constant barrage of things seen through the white gaze. Many times I can say with a sigh that I'm tired of whiteness, this overwhelming and often toxic image that is pushed onto my plate to devour in whichever way it seeps into my life, whether that's via culture, my day to day via the gatekeepers at cultural institutions which you have to impress to further your career, or bosses, boyfriends and whoever else pops up with some level of dominion over me.
Finding your place in this world is usually decided by the majority, a job, a house, a partner, all of these things mostly fall upon the other race and if that said race has reservations on you purely due to your colour then, of course, you're going to fall behind others. If you exist in a society that refuses to accept you into a community and decides to hire or offer someone who looks more like themselves an opportunity. Essentially this behaviour keeps us in place - a space below them.
I don't think white people understand how privileged they are to walk into places for example like cultural institutions and be of the populace, these spaces are already intimidating enough for me, as I've always felt pretentious for liking what I like, I didn't grow up in a cultural environment and my parents still don't understand what I do/ have done, I've always felt like I don't belong in these spaces and the way people stare sometimes is like that question I'm asking myself is answered right there... what I also wonder is where are my fellow people of colour? Are these festivals boring for us? Maybe the line up isn't diverse enough and in turn appreciative of minorities contribution to culture? What is western culture but a continuous conversation dominated largely by cis white men making work that speaks to other cis white men, the critics who applaud, the cast/ crew/ producers, studio execs. It's a long game that needs to change.
In many ways, it drives me crazy that I still have to be so conscious of my race. I get bored of having to impress individuals who don't know too much about my full experiences and don't care either, people who limit the black experience to pain with stories told about slavery or being drug dealers/ criminals the ones that people outside of ourselves relate to and consume.
It seems it's easy to clutch pearls and slowly sip wine when looking at the POC experience with a distance! It's also funny that any movie with a black cast or predominant one is labelled as a black movie even if it touches upon universal themes. It seems they want to judge us simply on the basis of what they see first - my colour. I want to move beyond this and into a place where I'm a person that's allowed to be confident in their skin yet not wholly defined by it and the negative stereotypes attached to blackness.
