Do you notice a theme, here? Like these productions, I too, had a blonde best friend, the seemingly

Do you notice a theme, here? Like these productions, I too, had a blonde best friend, the seemingly “protagonist” of our adolescence. The one all the guys had a crush on; the one all the moms wanted their sons to ask out to the school dances; the one I would accompany to the movies when she wasn’t comfortable going alone with an interested prospect. When our names were mentioned in a sentence, hers came first. It wasn’t my friend’s fault for being the ‘main character,’ however, it was just how society perceived girls who looked like her to be: more important. I don’t even think I realized I lived in a shadow until I tried to step outside of my arena of accomplice and the one of desire. I quickly learned though, that I wasn’t welcome there.
Imagine a young girl, with warm, golden brown skin, dark curly hair, a metropolitan accent, and a funky last name. When she smiled, she could warm the entire classroom with what felt like sun rays from a Sunday afternoon. She was poised, well-spoken, and polite. That girl was me. I was nine years old when I moved to a small town in West Virginia. Not only was I new, but few girls looked, sounded or acted like me in my rural community, and apparently my qualities weren’t normal for a person of color. Despite my differences though, I looked for validation, but no group would take me in as their own. I wasn’t ‘black enough’ for the black kids, I didn’t have any cultural connection to my Hispanic heritage at the time, so I didn’t relate to the few Hispanic kids, and I’m not white.

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Before moving to West Virginia, I lived in an affluent suburb outside of the Washington DC area and subsequently, I found that I most naturally gravitated towards my white friends. It’s not that I particularly related to them more, but with them, I wasn’t challenged for trying to be someone I’m not. I was accepted (or I thought), as I was. The thing is, making white people my exclusive friend group came with deceptions and disappointments. Every person of color who grew up or has been in saturated white environments can attest to that initial ‘HAHA-YOU-THOUGHT-YOU-WERE-ONE-OF-US’ moments. The most memorable one for me was when I tried to spark the interest of I guy I liked.
“I don’t date black girls.” He told me through messenger on Myspace. I was a freshman in high school. I was a flyer for the varsity cheerleading team, I started wearing makeup, I had freshly-baked skin from spending a week at the beach, and I had just gotten copper-colored highlights in my hair. The world was in my hands, I was finally a teenager, and fearless about dating — until that was said to me.
Although, he didn’t really know he was talking to me. He was talking to her. My best friend gave me her password to edit her bio on her account when I messaged that guy, someone our group of friends idolized. Obviously, I had no business messaging anyone on her account and had I not done that, I could’ve avoided the knot his words tied with my guts that evening (and took years to dissemble), but even so, had I not heard it that day, I would’ve found out another. The ideals of my community were clear, it just took me until I was 14 years old to truly see it. White was beautiful. Black was not…and anything that resembled it.
At first, he was dry and curt towards me, until I mentioned one of my features, which was really one of her features. He then asked if I was the “blonde one” and I said yes. After that, everything changed. He admitted he thought I was the “black one” and that he doesn’t “talk” or “date” black girls. Now, that boy had every right to maintain his preferences. Some people do prefer blondes, and others prefer brunettes.
Not all guys, especially a decade ago in rural West Virginia, are into ethnic girls like me, and that’s okay. Nonetheless, I knew his preferences had a deeper connotation than a mere disinterest in black girls, especially given the area he was from. He was from a town smaller than mine, known for its racist, poorly educated inhabitants. This ‘disinterest’ stemmed from sexual racism.
Sexual racism is an inclination towards or against a potential partner based on perceived racial identity. It didn’t matter to him that I was a varsity cheerleader, or that when I straightened my hair, the texture was identical to my white friends, or that I had freckles, Hispanic heritage, lighter skin, or anything that seemingly distanced me from being a typical ‘black girl.’ For him, there was nothing I could do to prove that I was worth his time because to him, that’s what I was: a typical black girl. In that one moment, I felt dismissed, misunderstood, and fundamentally, silenced.