Growing Up Halo-Halo

Growing up, I took whitewashed and internalized it as a term that equaled acceptance. As long as I had molded to the fray, belonged in the space, that word could continue to be tolerable, used both for me and against me. It's a sad realization knowing that it had stung the whole time, but the thing about stings - the more you endure, you eventually go numb. Sometimes you can't feel them in the first place, and then it's too late.  Numb, like not being able to talk about it, and not knowing how to push away from it.  Numb with compliance, docility and resignation. A misplaced acceptance of others shaping a warped version of your sense of self. Numb to the idea that being anything other than white was an offense; an offense that sorely needed to be prosecuted.  The numbness is melting away, leaving the feeling of pins and needles that resembles something like regret.  Whitewashed was and is a way to explain me away. It's appellation of something you don't understand a...

 And oh how I wish I could erase it.  How much strength would it take to push it away, push it down? How much pain would it inflict to strip it from myself, from the inside out? How hard should I scrub to get this layer off of me? How much wealth would I have from the amount of people that tell me You're still white.  Have I talked about my proximity enough?  Have I talked about my privilege enough? Have I talked about my resentment enough? You're still white. It's never, do you identify as white? It's never, are you connected to your Caucasian background? I was born into a western society, and so I live accordingly. Held by both bigoted cuffs and resignation. Constraints I viewed as real, rules that felt like binding contracts I didn't even realize I signed. Whose hand was it that held the pen? From all the time I absorbed other people, shaped myself to who they saw, accepted that this was what I was supposed to be. I swallowed their words You're still white. N...