When I Recognized Race: Alicia Akins

by | Apr 16, 2020

I came late to loving my skin. I was the fairest-skinned in my family and they teased that if I stayed outside for too long, I’d become as dark as they were and never fade. So I avoided sunlight. I’d bought into colorism—the idea that the lighter your skin the better. That’s was the start of When I Recognized Race.

I grew up in a military family. After short stints in Kansas and Japan, I spent my early elementary years in Michigan. My friends were mainly white and, for the most part, I felt at home with them while also knowing in a superficial way I was different. My first crush was my white neighbor and I remember my sister telling me white boys didn’t like black girls.

In fourth grade we moved to Virginia. Although I could’ve rooted myself within a black community, being shunned by them as too culturally white to fit in deterred me. Black people accused me of being an Oreo (black on the outside but white on the inside), but I was just me: a girl who’d lived in three states and two countries by the time she was ten and hated the sun. I felt unavoidably and painfully black.

I naively thought I could accomplish my way into blending in among whites. It was less uncomfortable to be too black for my white friends than to be too white for my black ones. I was disillusioned after my boyfriend’s mother called me “lazy like all black people.” (She said this because I had an opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall but wasn’t taking it due to a schedule conflict). He later admitted he knew she was racist and pressure from her contributed to our eventual breakup.

God delivers in strange ways. Through moving to Laos after graduate school, at 28 I finally learned to love my skin. Lao people are many-hued and I found myself admiring the darker of their skin tones. Through seeing the beauty of their skin, I began to see my own.

I began reckoning with the words of Malcolm X:

Who taught you to hate yourself? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?…You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.

I also wrestled with the words of God: he’d knit me together and I was wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-14), he determined the times and places I’d live (Acts 17:26), part of the glory of heaven itself would be its diversity (Revelation 7:9), God detests dishonest weights and measures (Proverbs 11:1)—in ascribing value to people as well as in commerce, human sight was deceptive in judging each other (1 Samuel 16:7), God gave greater honor to the parts that lacked it (1 Corinthians 12:24), we do not make ourselves beautiful the way the world does (1 Peter 3:3).

The evidence was overwhelming. Who was I to refute my maker?

One of the biggest areas I’ve had to learn to trust God with over the years is believing he didn’t make a mistake or limit my possibilities for flourishing by making me black. He made this deliberate design choice while keeping in mind my highest good and his promise of life abundant. My blackness does not preclude me from those but invites me to them. I had thought being black held me back but, in some ways, it has given me a greater sensitivity to and awareness of the outcast, marginalized and weak. My perpetual otherness has primed me more easily for empathy and I am a steward of the sensibilities that gift endows.

I’ve also learned to be on alert for making assumptions of my neighbor based on the assumptions I fear they’re making of me. I need to keep vigil over my own heart for unforgiveness, bitterness, or resentment just as my neighbor needs to search theirs for prejudice or unhealthy ethnic pride. In my fight for equality I’d forgotten one thing: I would not be called to give an account for their heart, but for my own.

 

In Conclusion, When I Recognized Race

Now, as a black Christian woman in a predominately white denomination (PCA), I continue to work out the implications of my race within this community to which I feel called. I do not take a race-blind approach to thinking about how I can serve, but rather ask how can the ways I’ve been formed by my experience as a black woman uniquely benefit the church and reflect God’s character. I ponder how my own journey to find a beauty hidden in plain sight might lead me to other beauty I otherwise may have missed.

 


Prayer Requests:

  1. For black Christians in predominantly white spaces to have an understanding of identity rooted in God’s sovereignty and goodness.
  2. For healing from past pain around racial difference inflicted by family, friends, or strangers.
  3. For the holy imagination of the majority culture to value diversity as much as the God who created it.

 

Recent POdcasts

HOPE in Washington D.C. (w/ Thabiti Anyabwile)

HOPE in Washington D.C. (w/ Thabiti Anyabwile)

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” Psalm 32:1 Episode Overview: Despite division over their alma maters, Thabiti Anyabwile and...

read more
Who Are We, Anyway?

Who Are We, Anyway?

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor." Ecclesiastes 4:9 Episode Overview: In this episode, the rest of the leadership team join Isaac to talk about what roles they play on the United? We Pray team, and why they do what they do....

read more
Christian Civility (w/ Trillia Newbell)

Christian Civility (w/ Trillia Newbell)

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Colossians 4:6 Episode Overview: How are you praying for the 2020 election? How might we as Christians prepare to speak about it with one another in a...

read more

Upcoming Events

Isaac-Adams-United-We-Pray-speaking-at-an-event

Click Here to View Now

Recent Articles

Meet the Black Church: Richard Allen

Meet the Black Church: Richard Allen

Many take Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to appreciate love, however they may define it. Yet it’s as good a time as any to appreciate the love of God had by a man born on Valentine’s Day. His name is Richard Allen. Allen was born a slave on February 14, 1760 in...

read more
The Danger and Blessing of a Single Story

The Danger and Blessing of a Single Story

In her TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, talks about the stories she read as a child, which bore little resemblance to her life in Nigeria. They instead featured blue-eyed characters who played in the snow, ate apples, and talked about...

read more
Do You Understand the Words Coming Out of My Mouth?

Do You Understand the Words Coming Out of My Mouth?

A few years ago, a Korean missionary couple visited my majority-Caucasian church to talk about their missionary experience. After eating lunch with them, I got up to leave early. I waved goodbye to everyone else, then turned and meekly bowed towards the missionaries...

read more

We’d love to hear what you think about this article. Submit your feedback by clicking here to contact us.

Author

  • When I Recognized Race Alicia Akins

    Alicia Akins is a writer and recovering expat based in DC. She is a student at RTS Washington and serves as a deaconess in her church, Grace DC Downtown. You can find more of her writing at www.feetcrymercy.com and follow her on twitter @feetcrymercy.

    View all posts

Related Articles

Stay Connected

Thanks to a generous grant, all donations to United? We Pray are being doubled through year-end.

A gift of any level will be matched at 100%,

doubling the impact of every single donation.

 

 

We humbly ask you to give today