To Be Black - By PJ Smith

The first time I was racially profiled back in my freshman year of college, I felt ecstatic. It was validating in the worst possible way. One would think that growing up in the environment I did I'd feel more comfortable in my own skin: Two loving, God-fearing parents with well-paying careers, living a comfortable, middle-class life in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world and doing life with a comparably diverse church community. In many ways it did, and I count myself as blessed beyond comprehension that I have not had to suffer to simply be seen as human the way my grandparents and those before them did. What this upbringing did challenge me with, however, was a question. What does it mean to be black?

Taking a glance at me, you likely wouldn’t guess that I’m half black. My dad is clearly a black man and my mom is clearly a white woman. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve eventually been met with the same question by nearly every person I’ve ever met: “So, what are you?” As if my ethnicity was a gameshow question with a million-dollar prize. And if that were the prize, there would be many disappointed and million-less contestants. I’ve heard hundreds of guesses that I’m Mexican, Filipino, Salvadorian, Middle Eastern - any conceivable shade of brown. But I’ve heard maybe five people in my whole 21 years of life guess what I really am. And in my mind, starting from a very young age, I thought to myself that if it’s so universally hard to believe I’m a black man, I must be doing it wrong. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I was directly confronted with this crisis. In a conversation with a mentor and a close friend about us joining the ministry at Pepperdine, my mentor expressed how excited he was to have more men of color on campus. My joke of there now technically being “one-and-a-half more of us” was met with a singular deadpan statement: “PJ, you’re not black”. This other student was a disciple of almost five years.

This conversation served as a rude awakening to a truth I had run from my entire life. My family never gave me a reason to question who I am, but I was always bothered that I didn’t look like my dad while my brother did. Apparently, as a baby, he would take me to the park and get asked if I was really his child. When showing pictures of my family to friends and

acquaintances alike, I’ve been met with numerous declarations of shock, my favorites being “THAT’S your dad?”, and “are you adopted?” And before a few years ago, those statements regularly made me spiral. I was too dark to be white, but I was too fair to be black, so what could I possibly be? It wasn’t until deeply studying Galatians during quarantine that I finally found the answer to that burning question. When Paul reminds us that there is no Jew nor Gentile, he isn’t saying that those identities don’t matter, but that they aren’t what defines us nor what we were created to be. The answer to the question “what does it mean to be black” is not to change how I speak, to change how I act, or to modify anything else about myself, but to be black is to be clothed in Christ with robes that were tailor-made for me and me alone. Now I’m more confident in my identity than ever before, and my biological family is one that is beautifully and wonderfully made. And if I can teach my spiritual family one thing, it’s to never let anyone tell you how to be you.

Favorite food: Baby back ribs

Favorite Scripture: Galatians 3:26-29

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.