Real with Rue

This Black History Month has definitely been more poignant to me than others. I think working in a predominately white space, I consider my blackness and, how I conduct myself more than I did at University. Growing up in a predominantly white town, I knew I was black and felt that I was black, I can’t describe the feeling but being consciously aware of your race is exhausting.

The fact that I constantly reduced my personality and my ”blackness”, as a means to cope with being in certain spaces, is something I told myself I no longer want to do. It’s not even the big things, for example, in secondary school I consistently thought about how I was going to explain the dramatic change in length of my hair.

When I started 9-5:30, I wondered how I should represent black people, considering there is only 4 of us at the firm. The burden to uphold a reputation for a varied, colourful and extensive group of people is tiring. I noticed that it was affecting my mental health, consistently having this sense of imposter syndrome, in case I ‘ruined it for the blacks.’ You know what is crazy, I have never heard someone say ‘he ruined it for the whites.’ Recently, someone told me you will never stop being tired as a black person and, I realised things need to change.

Firstly, I see myself as a Christian because the foundation of God’s love for me, is not rooted in my actions. I have decided its okay to be my definition of an average woman. I’m accepting the peaks and troughs that, not everyday will be black excellence. I am going to give myself the grace to make mistakes without, considering the impact on the black community. Because I am not Martin Luther King, I am not having any dreams which solve all the issues within the black community. It does not mean that in any situation I won’t consider my blackness. Unfortunately, racism doesn’t give black people the opportunity to do so, but I definitely won’t let it drive me. I think this perception of ‘having it all together’ affects every race, but there is something about black people that hits harder.

Part of me thinks that the dictation of black people is so negative, many of us try and counteract the stereotypes. I know for me, I hide a lot of my true self at work (and will continue to do so), because I want to appear a certain way. Although, there’s too many standards black people have to live by, not just from an internal but external perspective. I am just going to try to be Rue, and that’s all I can do right now.

Its been real,

Rue