In preparing for this piece, I asked a few people how they knew that they were black. This survey did not go the way that modern media might have led us to believe.
After looking at me in puzzlement, people that I asked took a moment and then talked about externalities—black isn’t a thing, it is a negative space. Being black is not a quality we are consciously born with, it is a social marker we adopt and live with. Most people just know that they are people, full stop. Colour is a taught thing. But who teaches it?
