— “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” – Lila Watson
The first time I, as well as my brothers, were made aware my grandma was black, was when I was 5 years old. It was not from spontaneous self-discovery, or by doing research that I came to such a conclusion. In fact, it was my dad who revealed to me, what I once believed was the biggest lie ever created—that grandma was in fact, a black woman. My grandma was born in Haiti and immigrated to Canada in the hope to graduate college and find a better life. My Haitian roots are deeply implemented in my values and my family holds great importance in celebrating Haitian cultural traditions. As a child, my mum was put to bed by my grandma singing her creole lullabies, I was put to bed by my mum singing me creole lullabies, and every time I put my one-year-old cousin to sleep, I cannot help to softly murmur, “dodo ti piti manman, do-o-do ti piti manman.”
Growing up in a small town on the south shore of Montreal, racism, classification, and even microaggressions, was never something I experienced. In fact, the middle school I attended was very much diverse—white kids represented the lower half of all students. As I became older, I was made aware that being mixed, or black, or Asian, or any ethnicity other than white was deemed different and it was only towards the end of my teenage years I started noticing subtle, but obvious racial injustice, I was once too young to understand.
For as long as I can remember, we were the only mixed family in my small town. People would easily recognize my grandma walking around town, “it’s easy” they would say “she is the only black in town”. A small comment, that many would characterize inoffensive weighed a lot on my young conscious—we were the only ones in town. I was never ashamed of being so-called different. In fact, I was never criticized for it, no one classified me as “the mixed-race girl” when I was younger. From what I can remember, racism was not something I ever experienced or witnessed my family experience for the most part of my life.
I always considered myself very fortunate and highly privileged. All my life, I never lacked anything—we had plenty of food available to feed my family of six, we were able to afford two vacations a year, my parents both worked full-time jobs, my three brothers and I had access to top private education, and we all had the chance to play sports we loved. In fact, I would consider my family above the economic average because the truth is, my family is part of the small portion of our population that falls above the middle class. My dad’s dad, my grandpa, founded a very big and successful finance company that has been growing more and more since its creation. It is the pride of the LeBlanc family and the legacy my grandpa wishes to leave all of his grandkids is something we will forever be grateful for. Everyone knows my family in my town, and I am not saying this to brag, but simply to add on to my point—I have always been highly privileged.
I have been playing tennis since the age of four years old. It was my dad, Sebastien LeBlanc, who recruited my brother Alex, and Me, to play this amazing sport that has forever changed our lives. Because of tennis, we were able to travel, become trilingual, make friends across the globe, and train in conditions any tennis player would only dream of.
At the age of 13, both my parents, with the approval of Alex and I, decided to send us to Spain to train in a well-known academy. As you can imagine, sending two kids to a different continent, without their parents, was something most people do not approve of. The number of times my parents were called crazy or told they would lose my brother and me is one I cannot count with my fingers. But criticism has only been proved to be one, if not the greatest, motivators for the LeBlanc family. And regardless of the comments, my parents were confident that it would be the greatest lifetime opportunity and took a leap of faith. On January 13th, 2013, they drove Alex and me to the airport, kissed us goodbye, my mum obviously cried, and watched their two oldest kids walk into the departure terminal.
We lived in Spain for about four years. Every day, we would wake up at 6, bike to the academy, which was about ten minutes from our beach apartment, train from eight am to twelve, do school from one to three, and then hit the courts once more from three to five. Every day was the same—intense practices, fitness, set play, and school. We had a tutor who helped us with a few classes and made sure we stayed on track. Online school was hard, we had to motivate ourselves to study, as we were two of the few kids who also had to keep up with their education while training intensively.
In addition to all this, each month we would travel around Europe or Africa to go play ITF juniors. Throughout my years in Spain, I probably stepped foot in twenty new countries, three continents, learned to speak English and Spanish, played hundreds of tournaments against hundreds of players—all while living alone with my little brother, graduating high school, and managing my teen life crisis all by myself. Those four years were not easy, I went through a lot of ups and downs. I struggled with my self-confidence more than I had expected, my body changed, and I did not accept it well it, I lost friends due to distance, my mental health hit an all-time low, I struggled with heavy anxiety and could not find a proper support system. All in all, Spain had so many highs I will remember for the rest of my life, but it was also during these that I realized my so-called rock bottom kept getting deeper. Navigating my teenage years away from my parents and discovering my identities without help definitely made me a strong, determined person, who wishes to please everyone around her to a great extent.
Everyone wondered why parents would put their kids through all of this, they believed it would negatively impact us more than it would benefit Alex and me—but the truth is, the majority did not even know why we were doing all this. Behind every radical decision is a precise goal, a dream, and you know what they say about dreams, “don’t tell people your dreams, show them.”
I moved back to Montreal in august 2017, and everyone around me assumed I was done with this crazy journey and that I would adhere to a somewhat normal life. In December of the same year, is when I received a full scholarship, to the #2 ranked university in the west region of the United States, the University of Portland. I was just at the beginning of my lifelong dream—attending an American university, with a full scholarship, that is a part of the NCAA Division 1 level. What in the world was my life at this point? I had not been living at home for the past five years, I barely had any friends, I had not stepped foot in a classroom in maybe five years, never studied in English, and did not even know what I wanted to do in life. My biggest dream had been achieved. Deep down I felt like I had arrived at an endpoint, but I was just getting started.
My first year of college was great, I met amazing people, and tennis became this team sport where I could be as loud as I wanted. I went to my first parties, met my first boyfriend—overall it was a great year for my social and athletic life. Education-wise, not so much, in fact after my first semester, I got put on academic probation because I failed all my classes. I did not know how to take notes, study, or do group work. I managed my time poorly, I did not sleep enough, I was stressed and missed home a lot more than I had expected. Thankfully, the competitive athlete in me did not give up at the first glimpse of failure—I pulled myself up, raised my grades significantly, and am proud to say I have reached an average GPA above 3.6 each semester since.
As I am writing this, I have just finished my last semester of Junior year, I have a clear idea in mind of what I want to do with my life—I found new passions. I joined the first cohort of the Innovation Minor, was voted Vice-President of the Student-Athlete Association Committee. I sit on various Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees on campus, and have improved my tennis game significantly. I’ve picked myself up from rock bottom many times, but finally decided to work on myself, heal my pains a little bit every day, invested in weekly self-care and life started making more sense. Do not get me wrong, I have made plenty of mistakes. However, I have climbed each wall life raised in front of me and gained more knowledge from each of them. Because sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.
The reason why I am saying all this is that although I was highly privileged, I struggled because like everyone else, life surprised me, scared me, challenged me, and yet I still live.
One thing I never understood as an obvious privilege for me was my whiteness. This notion of white privilege, this social privilege that benefits my everyday societal life, was never one I was made aware of. I am bi-racial, and although I deeply identify with my Haitian roots, nothing will change the fact that I bear light skin privilege with me. As a woman of color, I was made aware that my skin color impacted, to a great extent, the way people interacted with and viewed me when I moved to the United States. This awareness also helped me connect the dots of past experiences and made me realize that in fact, I had been the victim of gender and racial discrimination more times than I can count. I recalled my time in Spain when I would straighten my gorgeous curly hair every single day because boys told me I looked prettier without them. Or the time I was put on a strict diet, because coaches wanted me to lose weight, only to realize afterward that it was in fact because they believed I looked overweight and not because I would become a better athlete by doing so (which was what I had told myself).
These experiences may appear small and insignificant to many, but it affected the way I loved and respected myself greatly. It resulted in me putting all of my needs below everyone else’s, and I became highly influenced by the way others would perceive me. It was almost a drug, I wanted to look certain ways, be seen as a certain way, I could not accept anything other than being liked by everyone, I needed to be perfect, in everything I did, on the daily.
In my sophomore year, my team took a trip to Hawaii— to this day, it is one of my favorite trips. Every day, we played tennis, right next to the beach, ate amazing food, and created many memories. I loved every single minute of it. As a person of color, I have always been slightly darker than your average white skin individual. Moreover, I tan very easily—when I train in the sun, I become very dark. To be truthful, it’s the version of myself I love the most because it is when I’m baring dark skin that people are able to recognize my identity fully, they see me as a person of color, and not this girl who might have a diverse background. I am proud of my darker skin, in fact, I wish to be seen as a person of color, as I take great pride in carrying the legacy each of my ancestors has left me with.
As you can imagine, when I got back from Hawaii, I was dark, as we had been training all day long under the warm sun of Honolulu for a week straight. The first week back to school was very destabilizing for me, acquaintances laughed and called me burnt and questioned if I had badly applied fake tan. I even had someone wipe their thumb on my forehand to check that I was not lying about never having applied fake tan. I was back from three weeks in Florida, a week in Hawaii, where I had been training intensively in the sun. I was proud, I loved my skin, but others could not help but laugh and tease me about it. It became hurtful. However, being teased for the color of my skin was the last thing I would let destroy me, I had been through worse, and I concluded that by the time January would end, the Portland winter would have turned my skin to a more acceptable color anyways.
It was when moving to the United States that I was made aware that my skin color, and the skin colors of everyone that was not seen as white, affected the way people interacted with me. I was sitting in class one day when a teacher was reading the Martin Luther King, I Have A Dream Speech, with putting special emphasis each and every time he read the word negroes. It felt like he was adding such pride, and weight, to each repetition of the word negroes, as if he were making a clear statement— “I am a white male and I am pronouncing the N-word, look at me go”. The whole class felt uncomfortable—to be honest, I understand the text mentions such words and in order to keep the context, maybe it is necessary to read it as it was written, but what triggered me was the meaning he added behind the word. I can almost guarantee this teacher was aware that in any opportunity outside of his classroom, he knows not to speak such words, and he probably did not mean to offend the class. But the almost aggressive, proud emphasis, he added on each repetition of the word negroes felt like a slap in the face.
Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story, when my teacher finished this awkward passionate reading, he looked at a friend of mine, who happens to be the only black student in class, myself, and without hesitation said “God, I never would have wanted to be a black slave back then. It must have been awful”. My jaw dropped. I mean no one wished to be enslaved. Obviously! None of us can begin to imagine to what extent these individuals have suffered. Although you can deeply sympathize with the cruel life enslaved people have lived— the reality is, you are a white male, in no way were you ever enslaved, will be enslaved, or can know what being enslaved feels like. Additionally, you do not wish to be a slave, you are enslaved, you do not choose slavery as a career choice, white men chose to enslave human beings, it was never an individual choice.
I have used every single opportunity I have received, to use my privileged voice and lift those of the voiceless. I do not wish to speak for them or whitewash their history—my goal is to emphasize, raise, and bring to attention what black, indigenous, people of color, have already been fighting for. My goal is to pave the way, so their voices can be amplified and heard. I take great pride in advocating for my community, standing up for equal rights, and continuously raising awareness on social justice issues. For a few months now, with the help of a few other athletes, I created a safe environment, where student-athletes at my university participate and are welcome to discuss and learn on various social justice topics. Each week, I make sure to provide resources, to share with everyone to allow everyone to feel comfortable about our weekly topic. These Talks have allowed me, my community, and many athletes, to find a safe space where they can express themselves and learn tremendously. And as I remind everyone each Talk, I am not here to dictate what is right or wrong, our goal is to engage in respectful discussions, around hard topics that need to be discussed more.
I only hope it has benefited each athlete and staff, as much as it has impacted me, and although I may never know, I can see significant improvement in the campus climate. But, one thing I can be sure of, is that despite all efforts, I am still angry, exhausted, and again, mostly angry.
I am angry that we still need to justify, in 2020, that QTBIPOC rights are human rights. I am angry that we need to justify that when we state Black Lives Matter, we are not saying that Black lives are above everyone else’s. I am angry that people cannot recognize their own privileges. That people associate privilege with being the richest, or the most famous, when in fact privilege is being educated, having a roof over your head, being able to eat three meals a day, your parents still being together, being able to afford family vacations and I pass. I am exhausted that when people get confronted about their privilege, they have the audacity to call it oppressive. Dear white people, in case you have not heard it enough, you have never been oppressed or will be. Comparing your life struggles with those of BIPOC is like believing the earth is flat—it is wrong on so many accounts. And when I say wrong, I do not mean to invalidate your struggles, because you probably have struggled, way more than I have, maybe more than many BIPOCs, but your reality is, your struggles have never been influenced by the color of the skin you were born with.
I am angry and exhausted from repeating over and over again that people being killed, discriminated against, and treated unfairly because of their skin color is not normal. I am angry that people have the audacity to try and justify murders. I am angry that to this day, I still sit in classes, where some students believe reverse racism is a thing. And that despite us, QTBIPOCs, having the courage to share our experiences, of what it’s like to be a person of color, or identify as queer, at a primarily white institution, we get gaslighted or invalidated. “Well you knew what campus was like before deciding to come here” – but truth is, it should not be about us having to mentally prepare for the harsh reality of experiencing racial or gender discrimination when walking around campus. The issue should not even be about you, not being educated enough. The problem is the system we were all raised in, because it is that very same system, who has silenced, marginalized minority groups, and whitewashed our history since its very creation.
I am exhausted and tired of hearing false promises being made over and over, to all of us. Those “this year will be different” speeches or the “we will take actions” emails, when in fact the only thing that seems to be changing is the number of Instagram posts, the so-called allies, have stopped sharing because to them, BLM was just a trend.
Now I want to end this by being very clear. That although I am angry and exhausted, there is not a part of me that will raise the white flag. Silencing me will only motivate me to raise my volume higher. So when you come to me, with your “white people are being oppressed too” or “being trans isn’t normal”, I will take the immense pleasure to put you back into your place, respectfully. Because we did not come this far, to only come this far. Until we see a future, where QTBIPOC rights are recognized as human rights, and women becoming POTUS is not considered out of the ordinary, you will hear us fight. Until we see a future, where students are no longer forced to access education in primarily white institutions and to sit in classes where they feel unsafe and unrecognized, you will hear us fight. You may think I am stubborn, that I speak too much, or argue too much. But love it or hate it, as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez once said, Bitches Get Shit Done.
Remember, the fight is not slow, it is long, so when you come marching next to us, and use your voice to demand justice, the only question in your mind will be “what’s next”.
