Brown Skin: My Contribution to the Conversation We All Need to Have.

I watched the show Meeting David Wilson on MSNBC last night.  I have realized that the conversation about race is one we as a county need to have.  I read a moving diary earlier today, it was called For A White Girl by RoCali.  I decided to contribute to the conversation about race in my own way.   My experiences are different, I think, from most people, so I decided to share them.
I am a 30 Year old African-American female.  I grew up in an upper-middle class  neighborhood about a half-hour outside of Detroit MI.  When I first started school, I attended a mixed race private school.  I, of course, knew that I was Black and the other kids were whatever race they were but it never bothered me.  I was friends with every one and I never thought people were any different because of their race.  Until I was 9 years old.

At that time,  and I switched schools.  In 4th grade, my parents enrolled me in public school. The city we lived in at the time had a 1% Black population.   There was one other Black student in the whole entire school and she was in 2nd grade and I was in 4th.  From my first day there I immediately felt different.  It is hard enough, as a nine year old, starting a new school, but it is even harder feeling like you are completely different from everyone else there. I noticed that my hair was puffier and not a straight as my peers.  I wondered why my skin was so dark, why couldn't it be lighter like my parents.  Because maybe if my skin was lighter, I might blend in better. People were nice to me, but I had a hard time making good friends.  I spent my time trying to do my hair like, or talk like my White friends, because I thought they would accept me if I was more like them.  I had birthday parties and none of my "so-called" friends from school came, and when my "so-called" friends had parties, I was never invited.  As a nine year old child, I came to believe that the reason I wasn't invited was because of my skin-color.
The first time I ever experienced overt racism was when I was 10 years old.  One of my class-mates asked me what it felt like to be a "ni**er?"  I went home crying, I told my parents that I hated my school and I never wanted to go back again.  I remember my dad telling me, that the world was full of, and run by white people.  If I ever wanted to be successful, I had to learn how to get along.  
When I graduated from middle school, we had an 8th grade dance.  All of the girls had dates and were getting pretty dresses, expect me and the other four black-girls in my eighth grade class.  There were no black boys in the eight grade, and of course the white boys weren't going to ask us to go.  So I went by myself, and I danced with the other Black girls who didn't have dates either.
The older I got the more Black people started moving into our area.  By the time I got to High School there were about 45 out of 3,000 total students.  
I remembered being thrilled to be around other people like me.  Not because I was racist, or because I didn't like white people, but because I wanted to be around people I could relate to.
But when I got around those other people that I thought would accept me, I realized I was different from them too.  They had just moved to the area,  they had spent most of their lives among other people who looked like, and acted like them.  They asked me why I talked so proper, and why I talked like a white person.  I got called an Oreo, because they said I was Black on the outside, but White on the inside.  So I continued hanging out with my White friends, I was called snobby, uppity, and people said I thought I was better than them.  From about the ages of 9-16, I felt that no matter where I turned, I didn't fit in.  
At about age 16, I realized that those weren't the people that I wanted to be friends with anyway.  I stopped trying to pander and be something I wasn't.  As a 16 year old, I had to figure out who I was and what I wanted.  I had to realize that I was a Black kid, and there was nothing wrong with that.  That I spoke good english, and there was nothing wrong with that.  That I had a majority of white friends, and there was nothing wrong with that.  
Because of my life experiences, and because it took me so long to feel comfortable in my own skin, I am very sensitive to issues of race.
In this 2008 election, I started off supporting Joe Biden.  I wanted Barack Obama to do well, and even though he inspired me, I wasn't sure he was ready to be president.  I payed attention to the campaign since Obama announced his intention to run in Feb. 2007.  Little by little, Obama managed to win me over, by the time Iowa came around I was a full-fledged Obama supporter.  I came around to him because of the issues and because he inspires me.  But after the South Carolina Primary, I realized what his election would mean in terms of race relations.
I realized that if my 3 year old son, is able to grow up seeing a president who looks like him, will never feel the way I felt.  He will never feel like he has to change things about himself to fit in.  He will never feel like he has be anything other than what he is if he ever wants to be successful in this world.  Because he will see, somebody with beautiful brown skin like his, running the greatest, most powerful country in the world.