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it wasn’t because I did anything specifically black, like I wasn’t all of a sudden rocking hip-hop and wearing a hoodie.
    I got black when I was like, “You know what, I see racism in a lot of things that people don’t like to acknowledge.”
    And they’re like, “Why are you so black?”
    And I was like, “Whoa, but I didn’t do . . . It’s institutionalized.”
    â€œYes, Negro, we understand you’re militant, get over it.”
    â€œI haven’t even raised my fist. I like brunch! I don’t know why you’re yelling at me!”
    I remember my uncle said that I was trying to be a white boy, because I referred to my mother as “mother.” I would go, “But mother is saying so and so.” [He would say], “Why you try to talk like a white boy?” That’s stupid.
    In high school—I must have been in tenth grade—a classmate turned to me:
    CLASSMATE: Why do you talk like the teacher?
    ELON: What are you talking about?
    CLASSMATE: You try to talk like the white kids.
    ELON: What white kids? [I went to a black school.]
    I found myself constantly defending my place in the ranks of blackness.
    DAMALI AYO
    I am so black that the other day a black person asked me what race I am. That’s how black I am. I was like, “Excuse me?” I apparently am the switchy-changy black person. People like to see me as white or as black as they like to see me. I’m so black that everybody says I look like their cousin. I am so black that I don’t have to bring up the race card. I am the race card. I am so black that I grew up with a black history bulletin board in my hallway as a child. I’m so black that my father looks like Malcolm X. That’s how black my shit is.
    DERRICK ASHONG
    I am very black. I come in the more ebony shade of jet! I’m a little chocolate-flavored chocolate.
    I remember a kid in high school, who said to me once, “Yo, you’re not really black. You don’t have any slave blood.” And I was like, “Wow, you have not been going to enough school. And we need to stop talking, because I would like to get to college someday.”
    For me, I’m very Pan-African, I’m very much in touch with my African roots. I speak my father’s language. I get by in my momma’s language. When I was in college, I did Afro-American studies because I wanted to study African-American culture and see what the differences were.
    I was really interested in what happened in the African Diaspora and how you could think about diasporic identities and how having those identities, understandings of each other, could empower and strengthen your understanding of self, rather than feeling like, “You came up from this circumstance, and this is the length and the breadth of your history,” which is largely told by someone outside of your community, who may not have the same vested interest in you feeling good about yourself, or seeing the value in who you are and where you come from.
    I engaged in that kind of study, and that is where I think a lot of my idea of blackness comes from. And it’s an inclusive sense.
    In a nutshell, I am black insofar as I embrace the idea of a Pan-African and diasporic identity. But in my language, if you ask me who I am, I’m Ebebinyi . I’m an African. The word we use for a white person is Obrunyi , which is a non-African. The color thing, it does not compute.
    JACQUETTA SZATHMARI
    I don’t think I’m very black. It’s been a point of contention for other black people for a long time. People have always made it very clear to me that I wasn’t being black enough. Then I’ve had lots of white people [say], “I don’t even notice you’re black!” Which usually means you’re not poor and smoking a five-piece on the corner and trying to rob my sister. I don’t think I’m considered to be very black in the