Proving My Blackness

I am Puerto Rican and I am Black.

My maternal family is rooted in African and Taíno descent. Their skin is much darker than that of my paternal family and other Puerto Ricans I know. In fact, several of my uncles have had experiences where they’ve found themselves in situations where other Spanish-speakers resorted to bad-mouthing them in Spanish to their face, not realizing that they too understood and spoke Spanish because of the color of their skin.?

I don’t have quite the same experience - quite the opposite, actually. I grew up in both the Black and Puerto Rican cultures and I’d never doubted my Blackness until I got to?college. There, I met more Black and Brown folks and sat in circles where race and ethnicity were discussed often. In those circles, I was told that it made a Black friend uncomfortable that I used certain terminology because I had no right to use it - in her opinion, it did not belong to me.?

This was the first time I questioned my Blackness. I had never felt like I needed to prove anything to anyone, but her comment hit a nerve. In those circles, I became more reserved when expressing myself because I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable even though I knew I was Black, but feeling like I had to prove myself was exhausting.?

Fast forward to March 2020 and the murder of Breonna Taylor - the match that lit the beginning of the social unrest fire in the United States. Finally, more than just Black folks seemed to notice and care. Everyone seemed to be more hyper-sensitive to injustice, inclusivity and appropriation.

This made me even more hyper-aware of making another Black person uncomfortable, fearing that I’d be told the culture did not belong to me -- so much so that I was hesitant to have my hair braided, anxious that I’d be made an example of.?

It took many conversations with my family and close friends on colorism in Hispanic culture and our roots to finally feel comfortable claiming the culture again. Many Puerto Ricans consider themselves Black for visual reasons, but when it comes to identity, they choose Puerto Rican because of the racial disparities that exist in the world.?

What our discussions ultimately came down to, in addition to our links to African ancestry, was our visual appearance. The one thing we could agree on was how the world sees us: no one cares about your ethnicity when you’re walking outside; decisions are made about you based on how you look every day and we are no exception.

To this day, I still feel apprehensive in some spaces, worried that someone will question the authenticity of my background, but I’ve learned how to shake that feeling because no one can take my Blackness from me if I don’t allow them to.

I won’t forget those moments of uncertainty, anxiety and fear because it forced me to reckon with self-doubt that I’d internalized before anyone else could ever doubt me and I don’t know that I ever would have without it.