Blessing or Curse by Ornella Green

This is the 4th week in the prompt and the theme was "Heritage". I choose the sub-theme of "Mixed children". And if you want to check out other writers doing the prompts and their work feel free to click on the link: http://50for50jubilee.wordpress.com. So without further ado, here goes:

Blessing or Curse

Ornella Green

Every morning I wake up and do the same thing. I look in the mirror, inspect my features and wonder. Why was I put in this body? Why was I given this skin? Is it a blessing or is it a curse? Is it a badge of honour or a badge of shame?

With a black mother and a white father I’ve come to have the complexion two shades lighter than a chestnut. I have fair facial features from my father’s ancestory. Small beady eyes light-brown in colour, a small curvy mouth and a button nose smack dab in the middle of my neatly proportionate face. On the other hand, my body is that purely of a black woman. With a miniscule stature and a desirably curvaceous body I seem to be the envy of many women and the desire of many men.

The Englishman refers to me as a ‘mulatto’ but in Jamaica they just say ‘brownin’.

“Psst brownin’,” they constantly scream as I walk down the street with my friends.

Ugh, I hate that word. Last time I checked browning was a seasoning and it looked quite black. But still, they persist. But it isn’t their words that bother me. No it’s the meaning behind it. “Brownin’” and “Mulatto”. They both mean the same thing to me: you don’t belong.

Where does my identity truly lie? Is it with my father or with my mother? Is my light complexion considered a diluted black or a darkened white? Where do I lay my loyalties? How do I blend in with anyone when I stick out like a sore thumb? My country’s motto is ‘Out of many, one people’, yet everyone wants to know their identity. Everyone wants a group to identify as their own.

I’ve always been treated differently. As I child I was always singled out from my friends and siblings who were all a bit darker than I am. Sometimes I would be adored and other times scorned, all because I have a complexion that is different. Why?

I stand there, staring at my reflection and wonder. Where do I belong? The question resonates through my mind and ricochets through my body. Where do I belong? This is the internal struggle I face every day. A woman searching for her identity in a world that seems latch on to similarities and cast off all that is different. I peer into my eyes with a stark expression, examining all that I am, rotating once or twice as if trying on a fabulous new gown. And still the answer evades me. Where do I belong? Am I to be embarrassed or proud? Is this a blessing or a curse? To this day the question haunts me and I’m still searching for answers.