The Colors in Between the Rainbow
I am brown and I am beautiful. I am brown and I am strong. I am brown and I am confident. If only it didn’t take me 14 years of having to sit through several incidents of casual racism to figure that out. Ever since I was in preschool, my skin color has made me become an easy target for racist bullies. I was merely four years old and was continuously getting called “a monkey.” After five long years of me being compared to other Indians, being constantly asked if I’m another brown person’s “sibling” simply because we were the only two brown people in class, I finally reached middle school: the bridge between SAT’s and AP’s, and field days and seasonal plays. The vivid memories of me getting mocked by classmates but staying silent have been etched into my brain. You’d think it would be enough for bullies to mock me, call me a b*tch, the R slur, autistic, or even body shame me, but racist classmates managed to reach me as well by calling Indians as a whole: “useless and ugly.” Not once in preschool, elementary school, or middle school have I spoken out about racism because I thought that what I was experiencing was normal.
“Not once in preschool, elementary school, or middle school have I spoken out about racism because I thought that what I was experiencing was normal. ”
But what I have recently realized is that this is not normal, it’s just normalized. I am so glad I have recently opened my eyes and realized that I don’t have to sit down to these crude acts of racism. It wasn’t until recently that I found I had a voice, yearning to be used. These past few months, I have opened my eyes to a society that is not as “peachy keen” as I’ve always thought it out to be. I thought speaking out for what I believe in was acceptable to society as well but you never really realize how much backlash you can get from doing so. In these past few months that I’ve called out society, I have been called a liar, someone who is dividing our community, and I have been told to commit suicide. I will not stop, for this is only the beginning of a journey that I expect to get front row seats in. I am brown and I am bold. I am brown and I am intelligent. I am brown and I will not be silenced.