In Honor of Black History Month

Last Saturday night, I accompanied Banana to the local dollar store to get cleaning supplies for the house. As we traipsed down each of the aisles for no reason whatsoever, it occurred to me that I was in need of shampoo. Of course the prices at a dollar store are not conducive to stocking name brand items. So I picked up a huge non-descript bottle of herbal revitalizing shampoo whose only distinction was it's bright purple lettering.

So today, I finally used it seeing as I had more time in the shower than my usual get clean before work flashes-in-the-pan. Upon opening it, I immediately was taken back to the memories of my childhood. For some reason, I was back on the pre-gentrification Fort Greene in Brooklyn, when the buses weren't so environmentally friendly. Little girls in barettes and ribbons doing double dutch at any location that offered them enough space were immediately dancing in my head. The simple scent of the shampoo took me back to the idea of blackness I always surveyed from a distance.

As a youth, I was already aware of different colors and shades of the people that lived around me. Due to early childhood experiences, I was aware that blacks and whites lived very different lifestyles. The way I was raised would be likened more to a "white" style I guess, which is why I always looked at black people with a sense of wonderment. My visits to the barbershops were like anthropological expeditions. And that shampoo smell brings me to those sauntering summers when haze made it seem like everyone was moving and everything was black and wonderful.

My blackness was something I never wanted to dwell upon. True it is a part of my identity, but not by any means a definitive one. I had my grunge phase with Nirvana lyrics peppering my notebook. And even though my love of hip-hop has grown, it had nothing to do with my blackness. If anything, my journey was started like most white people who enjoy the music. It was the flashy, dancing videos of the Bad Boy family that initially piqued my interest. Luckily I fell into Tribe Called quest before it was too late, but even now when I go see those groups, I still feel more in tune with the predominant white part of the audience. As the few African-Americans come to those shows, I love to look at their beauty contained in their natural hair styles and definitive features and I long to be a part of that world. I always feel as though I am a satellite orbiting that world but never really on it.

But I am proud of my melanin. I recognize that I am me and that is all I can be. I'm black and I am proud.