This is an important point because it shows the inherent difference between the lives of many people of color and those of many white people. Angie didn’t set out to write a book about racism or oppression; she set out to write a Black girl’s story. But to tell most Black stories, it would be inauthentic not to include the racism impacting their world. This is another benefit of white privilege: white storytellers don’t have to create characters or worlds that are impacted by things such as police brutality or systemic racism if they don’t want to.
ANGIE: I hear white authors saying things all the time like “Oh, I just decided to make this character Black because it would be great to have that. But I’m not doing any research on Black people.” You know what I mean? It’s like you just took a white character and essentially gave them blackface, and no, it doesn’t work like that. There are certain things, there are certain experiences, that Black characters are going to have that’ll be different. So it’s always good to take note of that. It’s always good to be aware of that.
Let’s say, for instance, if you were writing a story about time travel, and you were sending characters to the 1960s. It’s going to be a whole different experience for a Black character than for a white character. You have to know these things. You have to be aware of these things.
In order to know these things, you need to first acknowledge that there is a difference. You need to see race. My experience at Patrick’s house didn’t happen because I’m “a human”; if so, it could have happened to Matt. But it didn’t happen to him; it happened to me, because I was the Black person there.
ANGIE: I tell people, just say no to color blindness. I hate that phrase “I’m color-blind, I’m color-blind.” I don’t need you to be color-blind. I need you to see me as I am, I need you to see that I’m a Black woman. I need you to read my characters and see that they’re young Black people. I need you to take note of that. I need you to recognize that, because it makes a difference. That’s the world we live in. But when somebody says, “Oh, I’m color-blind,” that also means they’re purposely being blind to the things that affect me as a person of color.
In my opinion, the idea of being color-blind and of trying to steer conversations away from race are the most manipulative and powerful tools of racism. They allow white people to continue to be comfortable. No awkward conversations about race! No having to account for the centuries of brutality and injustice perpetrated by people who look like them against people who look like us!
But that color blindness doesn’t help people of color who are in uncomfortable or downright dangerous situations every day because of race. And refusing to acknowledge race certainly doesn’t save the lives of those who are killed because of it.
Think I’m overstating the impact of color blindness? I suggest heading to the encyclopedia, my friend.
The inability of people to accept accountability for doing things that are wrong is in the DNA of America. It’s why people can’t accept that America was founded on land stolen from indigenous people and that Black people are still feeling the legacy of slavery.
I’m going to assume (hope) that you’ve heard of Black Lives Matter—the movement that started in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin, which seeks to draw attention to the disproportionate degree of police violence experienced by Black people in this country. You’ve probably also heard of All Lives Matter, which might seem like a fairly neutral statement but is actually anything but. (And then there’s Blue Lives Matter—the movement to remind everyone that white killer cops are people, too.)
All Lives Matter is directly related to white people not wanting to see color and not wanting to make things about race. It’s an effort to derail the people who are saying that Black lives matter while they are burying children like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice. It’s an effort to neutralize the message that we need to uplift the importance of Black lives because so many people act as if those lives don’t count. I want you to see my race, and I want you to see the race of other people of color and the traumas many white people have caused us, and I want you to own those traumas and to be better.
But I also want you to see more than our pain and our struggle. I want you to see the beauty in our differences.
I want you to see Black mothers perfecting their collard greens recipe. I want you to see Chinese grandparents teaching their children to make dumplings by hand. I want you to see Puerto Rican fathers teaching their children the history of salsa music. I want you to see Indian mothers placing colorful saris on their daughters.
I don’t want to be seen as “a human,” I don’t want to be seen as “the same.” I want to be respected. I want to be special. I want to be jazz. I want to be soul food. I want to be poetry.
I want to be Black.
I was in the cafeteria of my new high school, and someone started playing a Backstreet Boys song. Of course I went over and started singing along.
Keep in mind, boy bands were a staple of my childhood. You would’ve had to be from Antarctica to have never heard anything by the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and 98 Degrees.
98 Degrees was actually the best of the boy bands, and I will gladly die on that hill. I’ve been making this point for years, and no one wants to listen. Go compare and see for yourself. Anyway, back to the story.
So there I was, in the middle of finally enjoying myself with all those white kids, but then someone cut me off in the middle of singing and said, “I didn’t think you would know this song . . .”
“Why wouldn’t I know the Backstreet Boys?”
He responded, “You know, you guys mainly listen to rap and stuff like that!”
There it was.
One of the things I remember most from high school is the idea of Oreos. Not the cookies—I’ve been very familiar with those amazing creations for as long as I can remember. No, I’m talking about the term “Oreo” as in the phrase “You’re like an Oreo: Black on the outside and white on the inside.”
I had never heard this term until I transferred to my new high school, and then I heard it A LOT.
I stood there, dumbfounded. Not only because I had never heard this stereotype before, but also because I couldn’t believe he thought that was true. But I found out through the years that he wasn’t the only white person who thought this way.
Since I was a kid, my interests have always been diverse and dynamic. I’ve always loved all types of movies, shows, books, and music. Most of the music I was introduced to was through my mother.
When I was growing up, my mother listened to everything. On any given day in my house you could hear the Bee Gees, Carole King, Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles, and more.
Because of this, I never saw certain genres or musicians as reserved for white people. It was the music I grew up hearing, along with DMX, Mary J. Blige, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and Miles Davis.
But I learned during high school that liking things that weren’t “Black” meant I was some type of special Black person. Like a mythical unicorn, or some sort of rare trading card that the white kids (and some of the white teachers) wanted to show off to people. Or a damn cookie.
If I knew a Fall Out Boy song, I was an Oreo. If I watched One Tree Hill, I was an Oreo. Hell, I couldn’t even play certain video games without being called an Oreo.