• vleep@lemmy.zip
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    8 hours ago

    When I was 9 My parents took me to toys-r-us to get a GI Joe. I picked the black one which really irritated them “but ur white”?! Yea, no shit.

  • Nangijala@feddit.dk
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    5 hours ago

    I grew up with a TV program that was hosted by a black woman and a gay man - its called Bullerfnis. I never thought about the fact that she was darker. I also went to school with kids who were mixed and had a black parent, but I didn’t think about it.

    One of my classmates from first to fourth grade was half black. The only thing I considered about her was that I thought it was really cool that she got to go to Brazil sometimes to meet her extended family. She gave me some stickers after one of her trips, with cartoon characters from a Brazilian show and I still have them to this day. I treasured them because they came from the other side of the world. I don’t even know why she gave them to me. We weren’t super close friends, but we did play together sometimes. Her dad made a traditional Brazilian confectionary for us one time and I thought it was super weird because I had never tasted anything like it before. It wasn’t bad, just different.

    I think I was 6 years old when I first realized that black people look different from me, lol. There was a parent who came to school one day and he wore dreadlocks and had very colorful clothes from his culture, so he stuck out a bit and that was when in my brain was like “wait, some people are dark?”

    Needless to say, I am a bit slow on the uptake sometimes.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    21 hours ago

    I think I was like six years old when I talked to someone, and he said no hablo English, and I freaked out, because it was the first time that I encountered someone who spoke a different language.

    Years later, Sesame Street would start showing segments in English and Spanish.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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    23 hours ago

    I wonder if having absolutely no white friends until I was 6 is why I don’t give a shit about race. Everyone I knew back when I was living in San Jose was Mexican, Black or Asian. I have no memories of playing with any other white kids until my family moved to the central valley when I was 5 going on 6.

    • proudblond@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Yuuup, people don’t believe me when I say that my pasty white butt was in the minority growing up. I’m pretty sure my middle school in SJ was about 50% Vietnamese only, not even accounting for other POCs.

      • DagwoodIII@piefed.social
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        15 hours ago

        I can’t remember who said it. Chris Rock, maybe?

        If there are 10 Black kids in a school with 500 White kids, the White parents will tell you their school is integrated

        If there are only 10 White kids in a school with 500 Black kids none of the parents think the place is integrated.

    • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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      16 hours ago

      MJ had medical conditions and tried to make the best of them. It’s also cool to let the man rest now.

      Edit: what offensive thing did I say?