[lovelyivy84]

(((Nikki1920))))

That must be so difficult.

I think I am lucky in that my family is West Indian. They never expected me to do anything but outstandingly in school because that was the whole point of us being in this country. They didnt come here so their children could be mediocre, they expected you to shine and Lord help you if you didn't (talked about forEVA, lol)!

Of my US-born cousins, no male has more than one child. Most of the women and men hold degrees, many of the women hold advanced degrees. Almost all have spent some time in college, if not graduated. Blue collar jobs are fine and accepted, but those in blue collar positions are expected to bust their ass to get their kids to the next level. That's just how it is.

Culturally it was also a good situation for me- none of them could reasonably expect me to be Jamaican- I'm too much a Yankee, born here with American expectations. Black American culture is not our culture so a whole set of stereotypes in food, music and clothing hold little to no meaning for my family. While we all have outside friends or interests the family really is at the core of who we are- I was never around other kids enough to care if they thought I sounded 'white', my cousins were like my sisters and brothers. There wasn't a need for more approval than theirs for me.

We're black not because of how we dress or speak, but because that is the identity that we acknowledge. None of us went to college only to never speak to another black person. None of us working in white collar positions are allowed for 10 seconds in the day to forget that we are BLACK and seen as INFERIOR by the majority in this society. We just haven't internalized those expectations for ourselves.