SUE | PRODUCER AT CBS CHICAGO

I grew up in middle class, white America as one of three Black families in my school. It was hard, it was an internal struggle, and it was my reality. 

The amount of times I was called Nigger or Oreo for not being “Black enough” is immeasurable, but it’s made me the person I am today: A Mother and Wife, A Journalist… A Strong Black Woman!

I can remember it as if it were yesterday. I was in 5^th grade and it was “50’s Day” at school. I couldn’t wait to wear my cashmere sweater with a pink poodle skirt. I even had the black and white saddleback shoes to match. I topped it off with a great pink lipstick. Then I arrived to the bus stop. Everyone laughed and asked, How did you make your lips so big? I mean they are so, so big.

What I realized right at that moment was that I was different—physically different.

Other than my own family, I had never seen anyone who looked like me with curly hair, and big, ethnic lips. I had never thought about it until those kids at the bus stop pointed it out. Today, people are PAYING to have their lips enlarged to my size and beyond. But in 5^th grade, as a young girl at that bus stop, I didn’t know it would become a feature to be proud of.

It’s never easy to hear: You’re pretty, for a Black girl. You’re not like really like the rest of the Blacks.

I never forgot that moment at the bus stop in 1981. As a result, I acclimated my look to “fit in”. I straightened my hair always and rarely, if ever, wore lipstick. It was how I survived until I turned 30 and realized I wasn’t happy with this facade. I wasn’t my true self.

I started wearing my hair curly when I wanted to, on my terms, and I wore RED lipstick! Can you believe it? While pink is my color of choice, RED lipstick is my signature to being unapologetically Black and Proud.

Sue