had an interesting discussion recently that I want to build off. we were not born with the perceptions we’ve created throughout our lives.  in fact, my perceptions at this moment are vastly different than what I thought I knew five years ago.

think back to your earliest memories of race and of a particular experience you can remember that was a changing moment in how you thought about race.  it may not be a first experience but it may be one that particularly stands out.  it may not be a bad experience.  not all racially motivated experiences are.  but can you remember how these perceptions were socially constructed in your own life?

I remember back when I was seven or eight years old. i grew up in an neighborhood socially and physically constructed for immigrant families…. you know…. the type of neighborhood that when you’re driving around with a realtor, they’ll drive past the “white” neighborhoods, and into a particular community where they’ll stop and say “here’s where you should be” …. “here’s what you may be looking for.” yeah, those neighborhoods.

so all my friends were first either “first-generationers” or immigrants themselves. never knew what race was, never had a conception of color except that we were all different shades of something. then one year, my family and i took a trip out of the country and into middle-of-nowhere, USA. And that’s when I first felt it. you know…. it. that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when you feel like you’re on display. but at that time, i couldn’t place it. i didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate how i felt or the capacity to understand why i felt it. what i did know was that it was the color of my skin that made the difference.

-joy.