Personal Narrative: My Black Is Showing

“Your black is showing.”
I’ve been made fun of, excluded, and, of course, called a nigger, the timeless classic, but this comment stung the most. It came from my best friend at the time, in computers class. I misunderstood a concept or maybe a joke- I can’t remember now. Since then, I’ve thought of thousands of witty retorts, many of them bitter and malicious, but at the time, I sat in stunned silence. Then I slowly laughed along with him, because that’s what I’d always done. I used to be under the impression that there are two kinds of people. Now I know better.
“Your black is showing.”
I am half black and half Asian, but upon first glance, the only side that is apparent is that I am black- the other half remains a mystery. Before my worth
When I was five years old, my mother told a woman in the supermarket that it did, in fact, make sense for me to have my own watch, because I could, in fact, tell time in spite of my age. I beamed when I came back from Christmas break of first grade already knowing my times tables. I basked in phrases like, “You’re already reading far above the expected standard,” and “You can skip the next grade if you’d like,” and “Most people don’t perform this well on the first try.” I’ve never been an average student. I prided myself not on the fact that I was an exceptional student, but on the fact that I was more exceptional than was expected of my skin color. As could be expected, I was subjected to many “It’s because you’re Asian!” jokes. That stung and infuriated me, because my Asian father was the high school dropout and my black mother was the college graduate with a nursing degree, but I played along. I started bubbling in “Asian” on standardized tests, and if they weren’t so uncomfortable, I would’ve worn contacts to display my eyes, which are my most striking Asian feature. At that time, my answer would’ve been, “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who are intelligent, and those who are
I worked harder than ever to get the best grades possible, I stopped going to great lengths to include the Asian tag while introducing myself. I strived to embody the traits of the Acceptable Nigger that you see in movies and on television shows: gets phenomenal grades, speaks the right way, goes to college, the whole nine yards. I bubbled in “black” on my standardized tests. I prided myself on my grades and my work ethic, and it showed, but the day in computers class stayed with me. I wondered how I was supposed to prove myself to be good, to be better, when I was doing everything right and I still couldn’t propel those nasty stereotypes and ugly comments away from myself. I don’t know what I would’ve said are the two kinds of people at this