so you really are black? LOL. What an amazing post, Lauren….thanks for sharing!

good lord woman why were we both in DECA and capt. of the dance team??? I have often found myself the only raisin in the rice patty so to speak and it continues professionaly (im a fashion stylist–whoo boy are there some stories there!). thanks for sharing, from one valley-girl-speaking woman to another…

Someone publish this essay in the New Yorker. So smart, so honest, so important. I hate the phrase "black experience," because it suggests that there's only one. And I hate the indignant rage that self-righteous idjuts like Elisabeth Hasselbeck feel towards Rev. White and his "racist" comments, or Obama using the phrase "typical white person"…because it's coming from a place of total non-understanding of American social history (awkward sentence). We used to be ILLEGAL in this country. The collective memory of that effects everyone, not just black people. Laur, you did a very brave thing. And I loved the pics.

Beautifully told, Lauren. I came of age just a little later than your parents. We had 'nigger' painted on our house, shrubs set on fire, and racist anonymous phone calls FOR YEARS. The white woman who lived next door to us (and we "blockbusted" the neighborhood) renamed her dog 'nigger', and used to need to call the dog whenever we played outside. This was not the south, by the way.
I'm glad so many young people didn't have to go through the litany of racist shit I went through, but I do not think it's a totally new day.
I think we used to care about each other more, and look out for each other way more. I miss that. On the other hand, I'm glad I'm no longer young.
I was behind a couple of young boys (10 or 11 years old, maybe) recently, and heard them say, "So who's going to be at the party?" And the other responded, "You know, just some bitches and niggas." And it made me tear up a little. We certainly have thrown out more than a few babies with the bathwater.

Wonderful read, Lauren. Thanks for sharing this intelligent story.

I second the motion for a New Yorker spread!

Lauren your talent is only surpassed by your beauty. Your story made me cry, even if half of it was about my life. I keep forgetting how well you express yourself using the written word. And then I remember all the money I spent for you to graduate with your Masters in Journalism for Syracuse!!

So you experienced the bubble of Columbia, Maryland. I can completely relate. My valley girl accent is the brunt of all jokes. If anything, I presumably know more about the "white" experience than I do about my own (Black, Nigerian experience).

I totally felt this piece. Thanks for sharing and showing pics of your beautiful family. No black experience is the same, but they are all significant and totally worthwhile. Cheers.

UVA 03' Represent!

We had a unique black experience. With the Rugby row frat houses denying us space to party in…and even when they did open their doors, the paddy wagons were outside waiting for us to get unruly, as the white folks did crack/cocain/whateverthehell drug was cool…the Daisy Lundy beating…the black bus stop… black eating time. I also felt like a lot of black women (myself included) suffered from various degrees of eating disorders b/c we were constantly around these tiny chics that had different ideals of beuaty.

That was a sub-black-culture that I wouldn't trade in for anything!

Great writing.

This was great Lauren. Keep up the good work.

I know where you are coming from with the whole creole thing. My moms mom is creole and they hail from Opelousas, Lousiana. Her dad is half Black half American Indian. But people always ask my mom if she is from Ethiopia…go figure.

Lauren, this was an excellent piece. You continue to depict the many layers we Blacks in America have, and I love that about this blog. BTW, I was a chaperone on that Lee trip, and I so remember you were so quiet on the way home. It was probably best that you didn't tell me, 'cause I would have raised Cain on that one.

Great work, Lauren.

Great writing - You're a powerful writer - you captured IT in this piece!

Growing up Black (guB!) in the DC area gives one a splendid perspective. We see "successes and failures" of all races and never questioned the "realness" of the Cosby Show. As the proud mommins/mommee of two of the cutest Rudys (Rudith Lillian Huxtable) one could ever behold (with a dash of Denise's spice and Vanessa's mouth!) I am thrilled to read your piece because you so beautifully validate the variety of experiences we all have. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And, by the by, we all know that the true gift of the Gold Coast is known as Simyun - Holla!!!

That was fantastic! It reminded me of my college experience(which just ended a year ago!). But its reversed and everything happened in opposite schools.

I have so much to say here! BRAVO! It's such a pleasure to read your writing, and to compare our experiences as black women in the same family — I'm amused by the similarities and intrigued by the differences.

I too have heard legend of this Simyun.

Lauren,

If you can, please pick up a copy of Kinky Gazpacho:Life, Love & Spain. In so many ways your story mirrors mine. I was nodding my head all the way through your essay.

Your experience is 'THE' Black American experience so many of us had but it's never been 'celebrated.' Thanks for sharing. And BTW love the pictures.

Lori L. Tharps

Ren,
I am trying not to be hugely disappointed with my aversion of cameras during college and missed opportunity to be recognized as one of your friends. I do remember this picture.

I moved a lot during my childhood years and this gave me the unique ability to adapt to my surroundings; accent and all. I remember my Dad used to have us watch "Eyes on the Prize." Whatever. I say all of this to say that the "black experience" truly is individualized just as much as it is collective. The cultural differences among black people are so diverse. I remember being somewhat criticized by my college peers in my first year of college because I didn't choose to always go to the black functions. It was all a part of growing up and learning to be an authenticated me. Thank you for sharing Ren.
I'll be in the background beaming when you get your Pulitzer. Probably behind your gang of family and friends who don't possess a natural aversion for cameras!

Lauren, you are an exceptional writer. I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. You are so right…this so called "black experience" is undeniable unintelligible. I have known you for a long time and have always thought of you as a great person and never "not black enough." Why is it only black people know what it is to be not black enough??? We need to stop trying to define one another's position and help elevate each other. I hope you continue to spread light to an issue that is unique and usually hard to capture as creatively as you have done so. Keep up the good work and continue to lift me from my boredom all the way on this side of the world. (Shots out to New Zealand!!!)

thank you for sharing a little of yourself! and the pix are awesome as well. i love this blog and seeing this insight into your world makes me love it more.

You and I have similar stories, Lauren. I am also a military brat and I grew up with hearing "you're not like OTHER black people."

For the most part, my parents went out of their way to give my sisters and I black books, dolls, and watch black TV shows often times because we were the only black people in the area. My racial "loyalty" was never questioned…only until I went home to North Carolina or to visit my father's family in New Orleans. To many of the people there, I was seen as "stuck up" because I didn't socialize with the other black kids. It wasn't because I believed I was better than any of them. It was just pure shyness.

I guess to the black people that I was around, I got the whole "you act like a white girl" thing because THEY have/had a negative interpretation of what it means to be black.

We as a people should stop playing into the stereotype that "being black" means being poor or uneducated with a million flaws. "Being black" does not mean refusing to live up to your full potential and to live in blissful ignorance.

I usually just lurk around and hardly ever comment, but your essay has struck such a chord in me I don't even know where to really begin. First, I am currently a junior at the University of Southern Mississippi in my home town and yes it is the "deep south." We are perhaps sixty miles inland and were hit terribly hard by Hurricane Katrina.

Your words about southern colleges being completely socially segregated could not be more true. There are so many other points in your work I can bring up and can definitely identify with, but I would be here all day if I did that - from seemingly innocuous white kids bringing up my Blackness as a negative(let's not talk about the rampant racism allowed to take place within the Girl Scouts) to having to defend my Blackness to other Black children who would ostracize me for speaking a certain way and being "too light to be Black."

My family is deeply inundated here - people hear about & sympathize with the atrocities committed against Blacks in this region, I have an aunt married to one of the late Vernon Dahmer's sons. I've seen alot, but I haven't seen it all. My Black Experience is one that I've been aware of, sometimes painfully, my entire life. I wish my younger self had been spared the ignorance of some experiences, but for the most part they've helped me grow.

Thank You for the essay, I think it helps alot of us too frustrated to fully open up about our own experiences. I laughed and even came close to tears a few times. Thanks again.

Righteous piece, Lauren!

Great story! We all have stories to tell, some similar in ways, and some very different. I grew up in NYC where i was oblivious of the "true" racism that exists until i went to college in Florida. In NY, its not a black thing, or a white thing, rather, its a green thing. As a child in NYC (upper west side)Its all about how much money your parents make and what your parents do for a living. I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone was of a different (if not mixed) race and then there was the random "boring" white kid. It was in college that i realized i was different, and it was then that i had been discriminated against by both the white kids and the black kids. I wasnt white, and i wasnt black enough.

Lauren; I thank you for this essay - I am truly touched by it. Quiet often my blackness comes into question, the irony of it though is that I am black African born in Africa, raised in Europe, Asia and North America. My blackness is questioned by not just whites, but also blacks for the simple fact that to most I am not perceived to have "typical" African features. For many years the questions used to bother me especially when its followed by - well why would you say you are black when you don't look it or why would you want to be black, when you could pass for Hispanic, Asian, Indian or my personal favorite "other" (can anyone explain to me what other means). What hurts most is when black people bring your blackness into question, as if they are ignorant to the fact that we don't all look the same ( do we forget the legacy of slavery or the history of colonialism in Africa and the West Indies.)

I grew up in Germany where early on I got slapped around by the ugly hand of racism, where my mother was subjected to the N word or names such as Kunta Kinte (as if the legacy of Kunta Kinte is something to be ashamed of) and her automatic response would be, "And proud of it!!"

I cringe every time I hear blacks refer to each other by the N word, why would we voluntarily accept a word that puts us in the worst light possible, especially when nothing about that word should define us as a people. To whites especially in Europe their is no distinction, we are all black, maybe some less than others but at the end of the day the N word applies to all no matter how dark or how light.

At this point in my life, I have taken the position of: Fine if you want to question my blackness. Whether you accept it or not its up to you. I know who I am and I have no issues with it.

I have passed your essay to rest of my family members in hope that it would give them comfort in knowing that that their experiences are not just unique just to them, but that across the lines there are people who share similar stories and experiences whether from Africa or America.

Sharing is caring…

I was most intrigued by P3 in this piece, "and for the first time …the full weight of what I thought it meant to be black hit me." The timing, in the 4th grade, is interesting. and that existential awakening being tethered to sexuality … kind of makes "the black experience" uniquely different for men and women. potentially.

guess i'll see what cord says to see if that holds up in this case.

Wow, this is spectacularly well-written and expresses SO MUCH for such a brief essay. Amazing job, Ms. Williams. After reading Cord's piece, and now this one, I have a recurring thought: What feeds this ongoing separation among Black people about the correct way to be Black? Definitely highlighted here and in Cord's article is the pressure that lighter-skinned and middle-class Black people can feel from peers to be "Blacker," whatever that is. But we also can't deny that it goes the other way, when Black people are embarrassed by the actions or speech of other Blacks, or like Bill Cosby start to openly scorn the supposedly homogenous group of Black folks who live in poverty 'in the ghetto.' In both cases, we're blaming each other for the way that social, political, environmental circumstances have shaped us. Maybe we can ease up on each other.

And a side note - to Ms. Williams - my family also comes from the land of Creole people in southern Louisiana. I took a field trip to Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches in elementary school. Good times.

I wrote an op-ed piece last year to ask folks to try and define "blackness." It was a facetious look at the question: Is Obama Black Enough? I could understand Obama's plight being an American born to African parents of distinct backgrounds and have had the opportunity to live in other countries.

I now live in a region of America South Florida)that though it's apparent to the naked eye I'm black someone would still stop me at least a couple of times a month to ask me where I'm from. So how black enough am I for ya?

that was beautifully written, lauren.

i went to UVA for law school. The first time I was ever followed around in a store by a sales associate with suspicious and penetrating eyes was in Charlottesville in 1998. I was 24. I'll never forget it.

You are soooo talented!
This article was definitely needed. And I agree that the "black experience" while dynamic, is very unique to each individual. Talking about these things will not only help us understand eachother better but it can also bring about unity.

Keep up the good work…

really wonderful piece. Excellent writing…loved the honesty and openness!

Merci,Cher.

I DO like U more!
(Just playin'!)

Peace

Your article drives home the notion that the black experience should result in that moment where you no longer try to define yourself to fit in your or someone else's box. Thank you for writing it.

I think just cause i'm white….that all rap songs should be changed to sound more audibly ledgible.anotherwards …..Black rap song artists should be seud for racism and descrimination because i cannot understand their getto language…ha. and because racism is so one way I mean every word. WORD!@

Also….I don't understand why black Americans would ever want reperations. I am a small part American Indian and the rest white. I don't want anything for what whites did to my ancestors. Whites back in the day didn't come to my homeland and make me a slave and take me to their land. No.They just slaughtered us and put us into concentration camps. Hence the whole state of Florida. From what I understand. Blacks in Africa back then were enslaved by their own families and sold as slaves. Plus their own people were selling their own flesh and blood kin for a hundred yrs. before America was even concieved. So why don't more Blacks in America want to go back to Africa. hmmmmmmm……..

@Whitey, what the hell is your purpose on here? No one is talking about rap videos. No one is talking about reparations, and for "blacks were enslaved by their own families and sold as slaves" is BEYOND stupidity. And, by the way, what the hell is "anotherwards?" Maybe you meant "In Other Words"?!

Anyway, I just stumbled upon your blog and I just read this entry. It broke my heart to read about your experience on the plantation with the yellow dress. I have always wondered where my experiences as a West African girl falls. I struggle with finding an identity in this country daily, and reading about your experiences puts me at ease a little. I can now attempt to own my experiences and define it according to my own terms. I truly wish you the best in all your endeavors! Thank you for writing this!

I'm cracking up laughing at how similarly we grew up… even though I lived in the projects and no one would have mistaken either one of my parents for white. I was always the only black kid in class, the only black kid in the "gifted" classes in high school and all the way up until college I hung out with white kids, though I felt like I was def missing something. I couldn't wait to go to college and have black girlfriends… and then I chose one of the whitest schools in the country. Um… yeah. AND I was afraid I'd get cracked on because of the way I talked, the way I dressed and the music I listened to. But Lord, once I HAD my black girlfriends, I was so happy I didn't know what to do! Anyway, I feel ya girl. For real.