Blackie

My oh my, how many times have I heard that word “Blackie”?  Along with tar baby, purple, ashy, Ms. Night, grease monkey and any other negative words someone could conjure up about my skin tone to try and cut me down. The words came from my own family, and other associates from the black community, which really hurt. It was a tough pill to swallow because I and many other dark-skinned children weren’t shown any value from most adults in my community, simply because our skin was dark. This attitude trickled down to their children, and one could then understand why the children acted that way. Just like African Americans always complain about the white man teaching their children racism toward us, we do a pretty good job ourselves of causing division in our own community by making such stark differences in light or dark skin. Each time I think of that fact, even as I’m writing this, I continue to be puzzled. How in the world could we allow ourselves to be bamboozled, to the point that we carry this nonsense on for hundreds of years? In my opinion, it is one of the primary reasons our community has not come together like so many other races have. We will sell each other out in a minute, to get ahead in this country. What do you think?