All I Want For Christmas....

....is a new name.

According to the article published in The Kansas City Star, a bi-racial girl of African-American and Caucasian descent desperately wanted to change her name from Keisha to Kylie. Reportedly, she wants to change it due to the ridicule, negative remarks and bad treatment she has received, as a result of her name. Personally, she believes the name Keisha is beautiful. It's just been uncomfortable for her to carry it, as it doesn't fit her.

Keisha/Kylie's mother, who is Caucasian, said she picked out the name Keisha for her daughter before she even gave birth. In her mind, the name Keisha represented a 'strong, feminine and beautiful' black woman and she wanted her child to carry it with pride. She hoped her baby girl, that she named Keisha, would feel proud and connected to black culture. Instead, the very opposite happened. Raised in a community where it's said to have a small black population, Keisha was subject to the ignorance of those around her who made negative assumptions and dead-wrong generalizations about her name. They asked if she had a 'La' or 'Sha' as a prefix to Keisha and they assumed she was 'a certain kind of girl.' She had to change her name, she said, because, with it, she just didn't feel like herself.

Huh?

As much as our names can have an effect on how we are perceived and treated and be an indicator of what culture/racial group we belong to, it has nothing to do with how we are as a person. We are born with certain genetic markers, dispositions and characteristics but nowhere have I ever read that a certain name effects the kind of person you become or determines how you carry yourself. Names can be a source of pride or angst but it's not a source of character or state of being. People change their names for various reasons, and they have ever right to. Change your name, Keisha, but please be honest (with yourself, more than anyone else) about the reasons behind it.  

You didn't change your name because of how other people perceive it and treat you. No Keisha, you changed your name because you agree with those negative perceptions and generalizations. In the back of your mind, you think just like those who shamed, judged and belittled you. To you, the name Keisha represents the loud, ghetto, poor, unworthy, promiscuous, video-vixen wanna-be girl; it represents everything you don't want to be associated with, which boils down to (what you and the ignorant folk around you see as) 'blackness.' So you want to be Kylie. It's no wonder you chose a name such as that because it brings to mind privilege, beauty, class and all things good & white. Instead of embracing your name and showing the people around you that the name Keisha represents all the black and white goodness that you are made up of (as a friend suggested you do, according to the article), you opted to abandon the name in the hopes of abandoning the stereotype.

With your new name, you hope to be treated with respect and dignity, as you very well deserve to be. However, you're missing the part about people mistreating you due to their own issues with your being black, not what name you carry. Therein lies your real problem, Keisha/Kylie. You can never replace the black part of you. A name does not change the fact that you are and will always be (perceived and treated as) a black woman. As a black woman, sometimes you will experience discrimination, racism and prejudice. That's just a fact of your half-black life. You cannot control other people's behavior but what you can do is be the best half-black Keisha/Kylie you can be. No matter what name you choose to buy for yourself, you must make peace with, love and respect yourself, as you are, before anyone else will.

LOVE or HATE?

There’s been a lot of talk about our golden girl, Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast, Gabby Douglas, who, at just 16 years old, not only led the U.S. women to Olympic gold in gymnastics but she has also landed magazine and cereal box covers. So why are people – black people, mainly – talking about Gabby’s unkempt hair instead of her achievements? Some would argue that ‘that’s our problem now’, we are always focused on the ‘wrong’ things. We would rather talk about hair and other superficial matters than important stuff like, a young black girl accomplishing her dream of becoming an Olympian instead of somebody’s baby momma or the fact that dedication and hard work paid off in Olympian gold for Gabby not celebrity-inspired gold bought by a drug-dealing boyfriend or the fact that Gabby is more concerned with keeping her body fit and healthy in order to perfect her gymnastic moves and not ‘drop, stop and poppin’ moves. While I agree that sometimes, we (black people) do get caught up in appearances, material things and glitz & glamour, we're not the only ones (hey, fellow Americans!) and I think there’s another perspective to this hairstory.
First of all, we are taught, from an early age, that one must put forth their best appearance as first impressions are critical and appearance does matter. A person who is neatly dressed and coiffed will have the edge over someone who isn’t. A person who is fashionably dressed is received better than, say, a plain jane. Not that any of that has a darn thing to do with the skill it takes to become an Olympian, but I’m just saying (our obsession with appearance didn't just come out of nowhere). Secondly, I am a woman and mother of a daughter. Throughout my life, if ever I had some place to go (or not), my mother kept my hair done. If there was a special occasion or an extra-special destination I was going to (say, London for the Olympics as an Olympian), my hair would be extra-tight. Not extra tight in a painful way but extra tight in a way that every hair would be perfectly in place and shining like the sun. I was taught that you should always try to put your best face forward and when out in public, you are representing not only yourself but your family, too. So, when people started saying, ‘Why wasn’t Gabby’s hair done?!’ I thought it came more from a familial, loving and protective place than a place of misplaced focus, unordered priorities or hateration.

I’m not gonna lie. When I saw her on the Olympic floor, I said, ‘Now why is her hair like that?!’ This was while beaming with pride from seeing a black teenaged girl doing her thing on the Olympic floor, instead of somebody’s club floor. I know nothing about the Olympics, their schedule, if/who was responsible for getting Gabby’s hair done – maybe she missed her appointment, maybe the stylist didn’t show up – but what I do know is that, in her most glorious moment, she should’ve been coiffed to perfection – just like all the other girls were. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say ‘all’ because I haven’t actually seen them all but all the ones I did see had their damn hair done. I’m not suggesting she should’ve had a long, wavy weave, 40 inch ponytail or bone straight tresses blowing in the wind. But I do know that the ‘do she was sporting could’ve been done much better than it was. A little bit of gel and a few – okay, maybe more than a few – jewel-adorned bobby pins could’ve turned that ‘who didn’t do it’ into a pretty, perfectly pinned pony. Hopefully, instead of taking the complaints as just a bunch of grumbling black folk, Gabby and her parents/team will take something positive from the backlash and put more effort into the golden girl’s future appearances. In the meantime, we are proud of you, you done great and we look forward to you doing, being and looking even greater. Keep going for the gold GABBY! We do love you!