Ordinarily, when the doorbell rings, I’m still donning my thick, charcoal-colored, ankle-length robe and black satin doo-rag, working at the tiny glass and metal desk positioned at the corner of my bedroom.  I always stay seated, ignore the doorbell, and let the Instacart delivery person leave the groceries by my front door.  Getting my groceries delivered isn’t something I do often; but have come to appreciate it as an indulgent option when I’m too mentally tired to be seen.

Being Black in America, means sometimes feeling invisible: existing in a place where people are so blinded by prejudice that they can’t truly see you – your individual personalities and features – but only the mere stereotype of you.  

Conversely, there is also the problem of feeling too seen – too visible.  Sometimes as a Black person, especially when I am in an environment where I am one of the only people of color, I feel as if I am on-stage with a hot, bright spotlight beaming on me.  I, a home-trained actress who has been playing her role since birth, immediately goes into action.  Slight smile (so I don’t seem angry); obvious movements (so it’s obvious that I am not stealing); tempered voice (so that I can’t be deemed loud).

It is one of those annoyances like a raised mole that your necklace sometimes gets caught on – most of the time you forget it’s there because it’s just a part of you, yet sometimes you just want to cut the damn thing cut off.  You crave to be invisible – to blend.

I typically blend when I am in a diverse crowd; so, I had concluded that this issue was based upon race and difference.  I assumed that I felt “too visible” because I was different from everyone around me. But my recent trip to Eastern Europe (Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro) has put my theory into question.  At most, I saw 3 Black/Brown people in the 2 weeks I spent in Eastern Europe, yet I felt completely, remarkably and happily invisible.  My friends remarked that they felt the same way.  No one looked up from what they were doing to look at us quizicaly as if our presence was a surprise, no one’s gaze followed us, no one stared just a second too long, no one felt the need to come and talk to us as if we were a character at an amusement park.  We didn’t feel that uncomfortable shift that happens sometimes when we walk down the street, into a restaurant or a store.

We were able to simply be – without the uncomfortable, hot spotlight on us.

I now better understand the impact of a country’s past.  A nation’s history greatly informs how they treat people; and the experience of those people in the country.  Difference is one factor (as much as people try to deny it our brains notice a person’s race immediately); but the way one reacts to difference is fueled by what information is stored in their brains about that difference.  The weight of being Black is lighter in countries that don’t have a legacy of slavery because there is not nearly the baggage attached to that melanin.

So, those who say that we should get over slavery, stop talking about slavery are ignoring that the impact of slavery – that remains inherently and inextricably baked into our brains—affects everything we do, how we see, receive and react to people. Until we own our country’s ugly history and heal from it — there can be no progress and the comfortable “invisibility” I felt in Eastern Europe will remain out of reach.