Day 24: Those People by Amira Hattab
I google searched “those people” and found 2 results:
A movie about a young gay painter from Manhattan who was torn between his obsession with his best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.
(derogatory) Any outsiders of a clique. Members of a particular group, collectively.
I wished I was the gay painter from Manhattan struggling to choose between 2 hunks.
You see, I never knew I was "those people" until I entered the space where I was nothing but. Until then, I was simply myself, an unbothered existence moving through the world as it was meant to be moved through. But then, I walked into their room, their streets, their expectations, and suddenly, I was no longer just a person. I was a category, a cautionary tale, an afterthought wrapped in whispered warnings and side eyes.
To my mom and dad, I was beautiful. I was the girl with unruly, crazy black curls that defied gravity, eyebrows black as night, olive skin that reminded them of the trees at home—strong, rooted, and full of life. I was euyeni, their eyes, shielding me from seeing the hate. I was esemche—the sun, radiant and warm. I was benti, their daughter, their pride. They saw me as a masterpiece before they tried to reduce me to a rough draft. In their eyes, I was whole and unshaken, long before I ever had to defend it.
It was there, in that space, that I learned my voice was a disruption, my presence a question no one had asked but everyone was answering. They saw me before I saw myself, defined me before I had a chance to introduce myself. I was "those people."
At first, I searched for the insult– You know? The flaw, the thing about me that warranted the label or box. I turned myself over like a stone in my own hands, looking for the crack that made me different. The stain that made me unfit. And then, I realized—I had never been broken. The weight was never mine to carry.
Because to be "those people" is to be the reminder they try to ignore. The evidence of a history they rewrite. The future they cannot outrun. We are the rhythm in their silence, the color in their gray, the question in their certainty. They can shrink from us, they can sneer at us, they can try to erase us, but they cannot make us anything less than everything we are.
So, let them clutch their pearls and their prejudices. Let them redefine excellence so it never quite includes us. Let them gawk and whisper and fear.
Because if I must be "those people," then I will be.