Azikiwe Mohammed: My First Time

I grew up in the Virgin Islands, it’s an extremely multi-cultural community, white Black Hispanic Asian, every race you could imagine. And, as a result, never really experienced racism of any kind. Graduated from high school and went to a small community college in Palm Beach. My girlfriend at the time, Elsa was from St. Croix, she was white, she graduated, and so we both went to community college together. I remember one Saturday afternoon, we were walking thru the mall and were probably holding hands and I kept noticing all these people looking at me. And I was like what the fuck, I was like, what’s, what’s the issue. I tuned to her and I was like what’s going on, she was like, Andrew. You’re not in St. Croix anymore. What do you mean? She said you’re not in St. Croix anymore. Ok, and? She’s like Andrew, you’re not in St. Croix anymore, you’re Black and I’m white, and in that moment, it was my first understanding of, oh, you are colored. It was a little shocking to me, you know at the same time it was like oh, this is what racism and color looks like. So for the rest of the afternoon walking thru the mall I purposely held her hand and hugged her and started observing the looks of people as we walked by. Most of them, didn’t even realize what they were doing until they made eye contact with me. It was a very interesting experiment, and that was the uh, moment I realized I was Black.  

I have ideas about when those were, I can’t pinpoint if any of them were accurately the first time. And I’m also toying with the idea that in some ways, I may not feel Black yet in the sense that all Black people are to some extent still forging our identity, and identities. I’m still trying to navigate the dynamic of trying to prove Blackness while at the same time having to deal with a Blackness that does not look like others, a Blackness that we can’t escape. And by escape I don’t mean running from who we are but I do mean trying to deal with an identity that we did not define ourselves. I’m always troubled by the idea that in a lot of ways Blackness is not defined by Black people, exclusively. And that before we had ideas of what Blackness was, before we had the modern idea of Blackness, there’s Blackness and there’s whiteness, and then a little later on we started to see some nuance in that and understand there’s brownness throughout the world, there’s other ideas of race there’s also things to think about later but I’m just trying to deal with that history and the idea that before white people needed to define whiteness. That Blackness was not I think as dynamic and as fraught, the idea of Blackness. And then I also try to keep in mind when I’m trying to answer this question that I have a different, a very unique and different experience with Blackness than even my Black brothers and sisters, who are peers right now  .The reasons that my Blackness I think are particularly weaker than, one  I’m first generation American my Blackness is not steeped in the history of American Blackness in a lot of ways. However, my understanding of Blackness is very much informed by Blackness in America as I learn the history. 

My name is Jules Schexnayder. I spent my teenage years in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. I was there for, by the time I turned 17 I was old enough to join the Navy. But before I joined the Navy I used to work at a restaurant if you can imagine being a teenager, 16-17 years old, I worked at a restaurant, and I was a cleanup person, a custodian. And I was making 15 dollars a week in 1952 I joined the Navy to serve my country. I worked aboard a ship, an aircraft carrier. I spent 6 months there and I toured the Mediterranean. And even on the Mediterranean things were ruff for a Black person. But before let me say this, before I say this, that, I grew up in Louisville, there was a thing called segregation. On the buses on the city buses they had little boards on the buses on the high back of each seat and colored people had to sit behind those boards. I was going with a near white girl I was dating a near white girl and whenever we went on a date together, downtown to a movie, we rode the city bus I had to sit behind this partition. She sat in the front and I sat behind because of our differences in skin color. It was, the other things went off, but, all thru my navy career, spent 21 years in the navy. In 1974 I retired, and I remained in California and that’s where I am now.  

So, when I was born my mom had a really close-knit group of amazing Black women who pooled and celebrated me, and, from the time I could open my eyes, and until the time I could understand the words they poured upon me (can’t make out)  and even though in 1985  they were not super easy to find, I always had a lot of books with awesome little Black heroines and amazing Black families, so, I had grown up in a world where the media I was consuming, the books I was reading all contained worlds where there were Black people, and, my family is excellent and our community was excellent so I always knew I was Black, the first time I realized it mattered, um, was when I was in it must have been daycare (can’t make it out) and we were playing and my good friend Hannah said lets be princesses. Victoria, you can be snow white. I thought that was awesome. Because snow white is awesome. And another little girl turned around and said she cant be snow white, she’s Black. I don’t think the other little girl was trying to be mean I don’t think she was trying to be hateful. I pretty sure she was just trying to work out the world in her own little way, and I didn’t really understand, it took me a minute, like, oh, can I be snow white? She’s not wrong, I am Black. My sister said I’m pretty sure mankind has called us to go on with our lives but I do often think of that especially when princess Tiana came out, and everybody said I don’t understand what the big deal is, so she’s a Black princess, big deal. Well, that’s the big deal. So that now a little girl has a princess that she can be and a backpack she can buy and a fairytale she can envision herself in. Thanks! 

So around the age of 5, um is when I realized I was Black my father was Black and my mother was Puerto Rican and my grandmother my Great Grandmother. Objected to my mother being married to a Black man. When she died, she died (can’t make it out) on 110th street. And, me and Lorraine were not able to go into the house, they used to have the coffin in the house. And we had to sit in the hallway, but my younger sister Monica because of her being light-skin with blue eyes was allowed to go in the home, but we weren’t. And I knew from then, that we were Black. You know how loving I am and we just don’t care, we take anybody in, and even in those time you would think that it wouldn’t be so prevalent within your own family. But it was. You know it really was. So, I mean I knew then, and, I guess it was bothering as a child but then you can’t make somebody love you, or think anything different she was not my, she was the same complexion as me but you would think that it was a real big deal. Cause she thought she was, you know, lighter than us, or, me and my grandmother had the same color complexion. So it was just weird, but um, yeah that was it. And I knew from then honey.  

I mean I kind of always knew I was Black. Like as soon as I was aware of my own existence I knew I was a little different. No problems, but a little different. But my first real memory of noticing my contrast was in the first grade. It was Miss Hepkins class, actually remember her name. She called me up to her desk. And then she was grading some kind of paper, some drawing I did. Her hand was right behind the desk, and I had never seen a white hand that close to me for that moment of time. And um, she was immaculate in a way that when she actually ended up becoming the principal and so on, with the rings and her nails done perfectly, and I reached out and I grabbed her hand. I grabbed her hand, I’ve always been curious to a fault. I had to touch her hand, Was it like my moms? Was it like (can’t make it out)? she didn’t move, she didn’t move her hand. She looked at me, I looked right back at her that blew me away almost as much just as the closeness, you know, she smelled great.  It was definitely definitely, different, and that’s what I remember she was definitely, you know the contrast of her skin, (can’t make it out)  but uh, yeah that’s when I knew I was Black.