Posts tagged racism
So, You Joined a Sorority
So, You Joined a Sorority

Derby Days is the first convergence of Greek life on campus during the fall semester. It is your introduction to the Greek life competition, and it must be taken seriously. At dinner, some of the girls who will be participating in the lip sync competition tonight start to arrive. Someone tells you that they will be lip-syncing to some rap song. You can’t help but laugh because you can only imagine how funny it will be to watch a group of skinny white girl’s rap. You’ve just finished clearing your plate when you exit the kitchen and see something you’ve only ever seen in pictures. You see Sister S, in full blackface. Sister S is wearing baggy blue jeans, a wife-beater, an oversized button-down tied around her waist, a bandana wrapped around her head, and chunky skater sneakers. You don’t realize that you’ve been frozen staring at her until she comes up to you.

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True StoriesKristina Buschcollege, racism, friendship, sororityComment
Oreo
Oreo

We were all dressed in the checked, green gingham, but it was their bodies that moved expertly to the rhythm. They swayed their hips and shook their behinds, to Tony Matterhorn’s “Dutty Wine.” I watched from the sidelines, with a book in hand. All I could do was tap my feet. It was not in my muscle memory to jive to the steelpan beat. Our outer coating was the same—melanin rich, yet like mismatched puzzle pieces, I did not seem to fit.

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True StoriesGuest Userracism, black women, women Comment
Mexican Boy
Mexican Boy

I lived in Pico Rivera when I was eight. I was among hundreds of Latinos that made up the majority of the population. We lived with my Mexican grandmother who grew weed in her garden for her arsenal of homemade medicines. Everything she had was homemade: her bras and underwear to her skirts, hand stitched with pockets added to them so she could carry her money and medicines around. Her brother lived in the shack besides ours, badly built by Mexicans with muddy pants and dirty work boots, placed in my grandmother’s back yard. We didn’t have a home of our own. I spent most of my childhood running around my grandmother’s garden and eating the dumpster dived food my great uncle would fish out of bins while my parents worked. 

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True StoriesGuest Userracism, identity, self love, self care Comments
Shine A Little Light
Shine A Little Light

You see, I was born into a system, a family, whose very history is fraught with the most insidious abuses; kept in the secret and in the dark.  When you come into a world like that, you lose your power and your voice before you can even walk.  Even as I took my first steps and learned my first words, how was I to know that a monster would step out of a closet and snuff out my life before it began?

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True StoriesJulia Nusbaumfeminism, Storytelling, black women, racism, white women, systematic oppression, white privilege Comment