IM BLACK

There’s something strange that happens when I say that out loud.

Not strange to me
Strange to the room.

Because suddenly, what should be normal becomes uncomfortable.

But let’s be clear:

Nobody gets uncomfortable when people say they’re Chinese.
Nobody hesitates when someone says they’re Jewish.
Nobody flinches when identity is claimed
Until it’s Black.

And that’s where the distortion begins.

Because “Black” was never meant to be just a color.

It was a category created,
a history interrupted,
a people renamed without consent.

I’ve done the research.

I’ve checked my ancestry.

There are roots deep ones
stretching back to West Africa.

Not surface-level. Not symbolic.
Real lineage.

But somewhere between that origin
and my existence today,

There’s a break in the record.

A forced one.

The transatlantic slave trade didn’t just move bodies.

It disrupted identity.

Languages erased.
Names replaced.
Histories fragmented.

Long before I was called Black, my lineage moved through systems, empires, and structures that understood wealth, trade, and power in ways history doesn’t fully teach today.

So now people ask:

“Are you African?”

And the truth is layered.

My ancestry? Yes.
My roots? Without question.
But my lived identity?

I am Black.

And that word carries everything.

Survival.
Adaptation.
Creation under pressure.
Culture built from fragments and turned into influence.

So no
I’m not going to whisper it.

I’m not going to dilute it into something more “comfortable.”

I’m not going to replace it with softer language just to ease the room.

Because I’ve noticed something.

There’s a certain level of success
a certain level of wealth
where people start distancing themselves from Blackness.

They’ll embrace “global.”
They’ll embrace “diverse.”
They’ll embrace “multicultural.”

But hesitate to say:

“I’m Black.”

Some people don’t reject Blackness…
they reject what they were taught it meant.

I don’t have that hesitation.

Because I understand something deeper:

Black isn’t something I need to escape.

It’s something that survived everything designed to erase it.

And me saying “I’m Black”
is not an attack.

It’s not exclusion.

It’s not resistance to others.

It’s recognition of self.

You don’t have to agree.
You don’t have to analyze it.
You don’t have to turn it into a conversation piece.

Just understand this:

I’m not asking for permission to exist as I am.

I’m not adjusting my identity to fit comfort.

I’m not removing history to make things easier to digest.

I’m Black.

Fully. Clearly. Present.

And if that makes someone uncomfortable…

That discomfort doesn’t belong to me.