In Their Eyes

By:Shanelle Wint

“You’re a woman and you’re Black. That’s two strikes against you already.” My mother told me this the day I came home and told her for the first time in my life that I had failed something. It was hard to hear a statement that negative yet honest. My parents, my mother largely,  always expected me to work harder than everyone around me. Failure was not and is not an option. Some events did lead to failures but those failures made me who I am.

I was born in Bronx, NY, to a single, immigrant mother of two. My sister was 13 when I was born so I didn’t really have anyone to play with as a kid. I learned how to be by myself at an early age. Growing up, I wasn’t the stereotype of every black girl, I was the one that rather listen to symphonic orchestra than rap. In general, I didn’t act like everyone else. I wasn’t and am not the stereotype that Society shows. Everyone saw that I was “different.” I would rather sit by myself and read than go outside and play with everyone else.

I tried to make friends but was treated as if I was the plague. Making friends became even harder as we continued to move over time. More moving lead to new schools. New Schools meant new people with their own ideas of who I should be. I was bullied and picked on before for my differences but it didn’t really turn for the worst until I moved back to New York after living in Georgia for sometime. I still vividly remember the first day of school when I moved back.

I met the two people that I would be friends with and the day was going pretty well outside the side comments that were made when I said or did anything. As lunch came around, my target was to find my new “friends” and sit with them. Instead, I was side tracked by a couple of students that were also in my class. They seemed harmless at the time so I decided to sit with them when they told me to join them. Big mistake on my part.

They asked the usually questions you would ask as anyone when your  getting to know them.  They started by asking where I was from from. I explained how my mother was from Jamaica and how I was raised in Angier, North Carolina, and that was when it started. I was told that I didn’t sound black but I sounded white. They questioned why I dressed as If I  was white.

From then I knew things would go down hill from there. They wanted me to also speak Patois, also known as Jamaican Creole. When I refused, they started to call me a “Jafaken”, a  fake Jamaican. They didn’t believe that I was black or Jamaican American because they only saw what they wanted to see. I continued through the year being tormented and gained a new name.

As I started over again in a new school later on, I started to care about my peers thought of me. I worried about the way they saw me. It was something that took over my mind. I wasn’t “black enough” for them in their eyes. I still remember being told that I just wanted to be a white girl. I took that to heart. They went out of their way to tear me down and I allowed them.

They weren’t the only ones ruining my confidence, I was too. It was not from just believing in their words but by allowing them to have an effect on me. Somewhere along the way, I gave up on myself. I lost my way. I started to change to fit in. From the way I talked to the way I dressed, I made the drastic transformation in hopes that I would be treated differently. It was pointless, I was already the oddball out.

As I saw that there was no way out, I started to slip into a depression. I would find any excuse to not go to school. I started spending more and more time by myself, not wanting to be around people as much as before. Thoughts of suicide started to take over my mind as I slipped deeper.

I started blaming myself for things that were out of my control. I started having anxiety attacks; they proceed to get worse as I didn’t know how to handle them. I didn’t let anyone know the pain I was going through. Holding it in didn’t help. I continued to fight these demons straight through high school.

The summer of my freshmen year of high school, I made a promise to myself to be happy and gain my self-confidence. I had to learn to love myself again to be able to do that. Not just as a woman, but as a black woman. I learned that not everyone was going to like me but they will judge no matter who I was to them. I came to terms with that along the way. Living in the past has never helped me, so I stopped looking back. I had to move passed it and leave where it belonged.

I stopped trying to please everyone and choose to make myself happy. I didn’t care if I was seen as “different.” I threw myself back in my schoolwork and found people that liked me for me. I fought my depression and anxiety. I found different methods to better control them. There were always counselors that I would talk in any moment of doubt. I found that physical activities and music that helped me stay balanced.  After that, with time, things started to fall into place for me. I wasn’t sad anymore. The judgment of others didn’t have a hold on me anymore. I could finally be happy.