Deceived Myself More Than Anyone. I Am

¶ … deceived myself more than anyone. I am an African-American woman who grew up in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, NY saying the pledge of Allegiance everyday before school started. So I also grew up believing in the ideas that are etched on the American seal: freedom, equality, and justice for all. I was led to believe these were the principals of a great democratic country.

I learned in history class that the forefathers of this nation fought to preserve and maintain a "more perfect union." However, as I began to grow up and expand my vision of the world, I realized that freedom, equality, and universal justice were only abstract principles of the nation, and did not automatically translate into a meaningful way of life. Blissfully unaware of any innate defaults in my person, I was introduced to a way of thinking that contradicted everything I believed.

At age five on my vacation in Florida, I was told by one of my neighbors that he would not play with a nigger. This event henceforth and indelibly changed the way I envisioned myself and my home country, America. Upon informing my parents and grandparents of the incident, they explained to me that my color made me different from other individuals and that some would hate me because of it.

This came as an absolute shock to me, and forever altered the way I would think of myself, my neighbors, and my country. To my dismay, insults and harassments like these followed me throughout my childhood and adolescence. America was suddenly not the place I had thought it was; instead it became a world where I had to watch my every action and word so as not to affirm any stereotypes attributed by my color.

Gradually I was forced to realize that justice and equality often did not work in my favor. Various incidents like the one I experienced in Florida caused me to become increasingly uneasy with who I was. I began to slowly take note of the injustices that I had experienced, most of which were associated with skin color.

Uncomfortable and unjust situations seemed to pile up on me, such as being followed while shopping in a store, noticing people pulling their pocket books close to them as I walked by, watching a black person die before anyone else in a movie, noticing that the primary role for a black person on television was either as a destitute and lost soul or as a nefarious drug dealer. I listened intently to news stories on racial profiling or on cops killing black men due to their automatic and biased assumptions.

These experiences and observations transformed the way I envisioned myself, my race, and my country. However, with the help of role models such as my parents and grandparents, I slowly began to recognize and overcome these prejudices. I realized that my elders had lived through harsher and more degrading experiences than I had and prevailed in spite of it. My friends had also seen and experienced similar incidents to what I have and yet they are still proud of who they are. It.