We Good

Recently, my fiance made a post about being who she is--mixed with black and Filipino, equipped with an immense love for people and animals. She was fed up with people trying to fit her in a box. She's aware that she's different in many ways. Many may not understand how she operates. Does it matter? According to her, myself and may others, nope! 

Being black and living in a middle /below middle class house hold with an educated mother who taught elementary school for forty years and two, intelligent older sisters doesn't disregard my black experience. It makes it different than others. We both have decided to not make it our primary objective to be fully accepted into the black culture. We are what we are. Yes, we're black, but we're also Christian. We love 90s pop, rock and RnB music. We watch Golden Girls and New Girl on a Saturday night via Hulu. She likes to cook lumpia and I love to eat it. We're in our thirties and we wish to waste no time worried about if we're accepted by the black culture based on our own preferences. 

The two pieces below reflect our final stand on who we are based off how we were created. The first piece is titled "I'm Not Sorry". This is actually a Facebook post from my fiance that I formed into a poem. It was such a solid post to read that I wanted to illustrate it in a different format. The second piece is something I wrote months ago, for it was at that moment I gathered a similar epiphany:

I’m Not Sorry

Facebook post written by Adrianne Marcia

I am mixed.

I am proud of my Filipino culture.

My grandma was a little Asian catholic woman, always praying.

Being black is something very unique to me.

I’m not angry, I require no apology.

•

I am sensitive, not sorry about that.

I cry when I’m upset. My wires cross where yours doesn’t.

I care what people think and feel.

It is a positive attribute.

A good life requires me to care about people.

Pretending I’m Luke Cage never got me anywhere.

•

I have respect for animals. I love (and own) cats and dogs.

I believe in humane treatment of pets, farm animals, and wild life.

I have a black and white Tuxedo cat named Kitty.

She is my favorite person when I’m tired of “humans”. She will live with me,

I’m fine with people not coming over because of her presence

And that of others with fur or feathers.

I’m not sorry about being different,

Just sorry you’re wasting time concerned about it.

Answer Me

Am I black enough?

The only shots fired

I’ve heard we’re on YouTube

comedy roast sessions.

I don’t drink Hennessy

or eat potato pies, 

Patti Labelle, if only you knew

how much I preferred your voice

opposed to your Commercial sweets.

Am I black enough?

I’ve never been to Queens

and I’m no King of spades,

but a fan of Kevin Spade

in Grown Ups with

The King Of Queens ,

Kevin James ,

I’m familiar with Wu-Tang

and Woo staring Jada Pinkett.

I know you’re thinking, 

is he really asking this, 

and the answer is yes, 

but what is yours?

I bump Toby Mac

and slip Kenny G

into my ears while taking a nap.

That makes me feel 10 again, 

then again, that’s all the Jazz

I knew three years after 1992.

Am I black enough?

I never held a gun

or had a friend held

on six shoulders

because someone

thought a gun was God

deciding death

earned merits for a gang’s reputation.

I never owned the Jordan elevens ,

Threes or black and red ones ,

My number one shoe

is a pair of chucks, tailored

for fitted jeans and a baseball cap,

I’m fluent with the dap, hug

and snap, but not Atlanta trap,

music makes me move

Like Weekend at Bernie’s ,

me and RnB are like

Burt and Ernie.

I enjoy movies

with predominantly white casts

if the content answers

psychological questions that I have.

I enjoy The Breakfast Club, 

both the 1985 classic

and the radio show

where Charlemagne’s insults

are sadistically fantastic.

I will ask it until I get a reply, 

am I black enough

because statistics say yay all day,

expecting fatherless experiences

and a need to only read

when Hip Hop teaches relevancy

in 16 bars or more.

Being black isn’t something

I can buy from a store,

but a solid assumption

declaring my race when one is robbed

or shot through ,

I’m through with trying to satisfy you .

Black is what I am, 

despite your retort

or report of what I can or cannot do

on a basketball court.

I am black.

I am that.

Exact.

I take the question back, 

don’t retract your facts

because I need them

to prove

nothing.

Black, I am

going to always be

until it no longer matters.