With this month being pride month and my partner’s birth month, I’ve been thinking a lot about celebrations, but there’s also another one I want to acknowledge as well: Caribbean American Heritage Month.
My Afro-Caribbean family has definitely shaped me with a lot of the cultural considerations of where they come from. Although I’ve had a rocky path with many of my family members and in the way their culture gets them to think about queer people, I don’t want to feel shame in it.
As I’m learning while still struggling to move toward a path of self-love for myself in all respects, as hard as it’s been as of late, I don’t want to forget about including all respects. Accepting myself as black is one thing, but acknowledging how my family and heritage has shaped me is another. I have a long history of wanting zero to do with my cultural upbringing, even to a point where I upset my uncle one time by being ashamed of saying that my folks hail from Trinidad and Tobago, and as I lessen my internalized racism more and more, I hope to not only overcome shame in my skin color but also acknowledge that Caribbean culture and people can be beautiful as well.
