The Skin I'm In

"What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?"

Michelangelo

So I must admit that I enjoy my job. I get to meet interesting students, network with colleges, work with a staff that can go from Arabic to English in a millisecond.... For a girl who has loved being in diverse places all of her life, this job is a little bit of living out a dream.

On the other hand, the reality that plaques even the most privileged and comes up so often is the issue of race and shade. I was talking with a student today who comes from privilege but feels that she isn't pretty because of she does not look like her family. If they were in the US, her parents would probably be mistaken as Hispanic or mixed heritage, while she appears white. On the ever important college applications, students are confused about what to mark as their race. Are they white? Are they Asian? Are they more than just an Other? What to mark?

I was very naive to think and believe that in a country where all different shades exist, that the hangups of race  would not be an issue. It's not really race as much as it's shade of skin.

I think back into the history of countries like the USA, like South Africa, that the shade of skin determined your place in life. The lighter the skin, the better off you would be to society; but among your race, depending on the time in history, the lighter the skin the less black you were. Heaven forbid if you used complete sentences or did not dress a certain way. I know that a significant part of my life among classmates, and even among some family, white girl was the moniker given to me. But it took my parents, and my faith to help me become comfortable with who I was. Although my life and views are ever evolving, I have learned to embrace my skin tone, my shade.

I don't know what to say to students when this issue comes up. I am normally at a loss of words because I know how they feel about shade of skin. And the goal in conversations with students is to not sound like a greeting card or a commercial. I do ask them how does that make them feel, or how do they overcome. But I also share a piece of wisdom that I feel that has been shared with me. That is simply that yes people see the outside and make assumptions, positive and negative. But it takes a strength, patience, wisdom, and a little bit of time for people to see and understand the kind of person you are. That is the lasting impression that matters. Not exactly the skin that you are in.