(The following is an excerpt and adaptation of a personal essay I wrote for BuzzFeed in 2018 titled Measuring My Blackness: Realising I’m Black-ish Even Though I’m Just Black.)

I went to an independent boarding school and was recently part of a group of Black and biracial students who shared our racial experiences with the school’s senior management team and came up with suggestions for reform. Having done that, it only seemed fitting that I revisit this piece.

I’d say I was about 22 when I truly began to realise just how much my Blackness had affected my treatment at school and many of my life experiences. Admittedly it was a lot to process and so, I wrote about it to help remove the weight of it. An anecdote, if you will, because if we can’t laugh we have to cry, right?

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Growing up as a Black African Woman in a predominantly White environment, it felt as though the colour of my skin was often used as a breakdown of my personality as opposed to a description of my physical appearance. It was almost as if people were measuring my Blackness against a checklist of stereotypes.

To some the colour of my skin meant that I would display an attitude, a tendency towards unwarranted aggression. That I would speak and carry myself differently to my White peers because, of course being the Black girl I would be loud and outspoken. And obviously, I’d have rhythm, like certain types of music, and sports, running in particular – but of course, I wouldn’t be able to swim. More insidious was the notion that I came from an impoverished background because apparently, Lord knows that I didn’t get to where I am without some White guilt charity. But on the flipside, maybe if you asked me nicely enough I might, contrary to popular belief, let you touch my hair.

Coming into my GCSE year I started to notice that many people at my new school saw the colour of my skin in a way that I didn’t take note of theirs. It was like being a blood diamond in a sea of diamonds. I was lovely and shiny just like all my non-Black peers; however, there was something about me that some felt wasn’t quite right – and no, it wasn’t that my skin was chocolate coloured. It was that I didn’t act like my skin, I didn’t follow the checklist – which meant that somehow, I, the only Black girl in a year of 150 students, was not Black enough.

At school being Black wasn’t necessarily a negative thing. To some, it made me intriguing. Ironically, it meant that the pressure to conform didn’t apply to me. It presented me as laidback and secure in myself, even though I knew that on some level I would never truly fit in, no matter how much I wanted to. It meant that I held a certain mystery and was different, but for all the right reasons. More interestingly, it meant that some came to me in search of my approval as ‘Black’ had become a synonym for ‘cool’. This was in direct contrast to their own race, which was used to insinuate the opposite.

“You’re so White”, I was told. Another strange moment, in large because I am yet to hear a Black person in reference to someone’s coolness say “OMG, you’re so Black”.

At first I didn’t pay much attention to the opinions and assumptions made about me. However, it’s something that must have subconsciously sat with me over time.

“Are you even a real Black person?” Let’s analyse this, shall we?

Why was I so White? For one, 14-year-old me didn’t listen to rap music. At that age, it just wasn’t my thing. Instead I listened to bands like Fall Out Boy and lived for the Destiny’s Child hits of the noughties.

To some of my peers who dabbled in the genre, my lacking interest gave them the right to state, “I’m Blacker than you”. Which, for the most part made me want to roll my eyes, but also, for a moment felt true after repeatedly hearing it. Though today, I can confirm that I feel no Blacker listening to Jay-Z than I do Snow Patrol, so the eye roll stands. The statement is dumb.

It’s safe to say that the Wayans brothers left a wealth of quotes in the mouths of trigger happy teens who saw the N word as their rite of passage into my Blackness. Though, it was never used with malice. Instead it was assumed that I would meet your greeting with some sort of warmth because what Black person doesn’t love hearing the N word come out of a White person’s mouth?

Why was I White? As per stereotype, my appearance meant that many assumed I was at my school on scholarship because naturally, being Black my family couldn’t possibly afford it or be above working class. Thus, any attribute I displayed to counter this belief was met with palpable surprise.

Worse still however, was my African stereotype. I was once questioned whether I saw lions roaming around from the window of my hut when I went back to the motherland. Rude, but to answer, yes. The lion is mine, he is my pet and I named him Mufasa.

Why was I White? My angelic voice, of course. My accent and articulation meant that when I opened my mouth to speak eyes widened and I was often told that I spoke White. Something I’ve been told many a time by White and Black people alike.

Why else was I white? Looking back, I lacked an understanding of where colonialism had left people of colour in the UK. I understood it in the context of my Southern African roots. However, somewhere between me falling for the “we are a diverse nation of equal opportunities” line and finishing my time at school, I missed the signs that informed me that racial prejudice was alive, well and creeping all around me whether I realised it or not.

I also must have missed a few history lessons, given that the closest to a full education of Black history I ever really got was a lesson in year six on Nelson Mandela – which left everyone believing that he was my grandfather. However luckily for me, some of the students at my new school made sure to fill me in on a lesson they’d had before I joined, imitating the accent of Kunta Kinte around me as they recalled it. Which, looking back on it, I find kind of wild.

So, going over our checklist: I didn’t listen to the right kind of music, I didn’t “speak Black”, I wasn’t on a scholarship and I most certainly did not regard my fellow schoolmates use of the N word as a term of endearment. Even the way that I carried myself was seen as White – whatever that meant – and so, according to this I most certainly was not Black. Except for the rhythm! I put my hands up and say that I can two step to a beat!

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All joking aside though, the checklist is silly. The colour of someone’s skin will not tell you a single thing about who a person is, what they like or what their story is and any deduction that you make based on skin tone is a racist assumption.

Yeah, I said it. Racist.

Now I must emphasise, not everyone I met at school was like this. Alas the voice of the ignorant often sounds louder than rest and the silence of the passive only ever contributes to the noise.

It was comments like theirs that added to my sense of being lost and wandering. Though in truth, the voices of unknowing White teens would not have jarred as much had they not been accompanied by the chimes of people who looked like me.

Whenever a Black person has told me that I am White because of something like my accent I’ve always wondered; if being articulate makes you White then what does that mean for Black people? What are you saying about yourself?

PSA: Stereotypes are perpetuated when members of a racial group not only adhere to, but inforce said stereotypes on themselves and other members of their racial group.

Food for thought.

And on that note, I trained Mufasa to eat racists, just so you know. *Sips Tea*

(Image of Marlon and Shawn Wayans in White Chicks / Via themoviedb.org)