So basically, my mom called me last week and said, “I’m a mutant. I have a mutation in my blood.” And I was like, “Mom, what do you mean?” She said, “I have a mutation in my blood,” and we didn’t know what it was or where it came from. They’re running all these tests. I told them we’re African American, but they said that, according to our blood, there’s a little bit more going on.
After doing further tests, they kind of narrowed the region down to North Africa—Arabic areas. They also mentioned Southeast Asia at the time. And I was excited because I love cultures, I love learning about new things. I was excited to figure out what else is part of my history, something else I could immerse myself in.
And, you know, I was telling all of my Persian friends, “Maybe I’m Persian!” I was telling all of my friends how excited I was—like, maybe I’ll have another layer added to my lore.
And yesterday—like I said, it’s been a really crazy week—she got final confirmation from her doctor that it’s definitely an Arabic country. So it’s giving North Africa, it’s giving Iraq, it’s giving Egypt vibes. But they’re going to do the DNA test, and we’ll find out exactly in a month.
I was excited. I was like, “Yes!” I downloaded Duolingo—started learning Arabic. I’m just really excited about this.
Then I went to see Sinners last night. The picture… I’m an old-school person. The picture really spoke to me. And it shifted—it just shifted everything for me.
It was like, Girl, be excited about learning new things about your lore, whatever—but also remember your roots. Remember where you came from.
Like, you are Black. I am African American. Period. No matter what else is back there, I am a descendant of slaves. That is… not my birthright, but that is something in my blood. And that honestly informs everything I do.
I’m going to grad school next year to get my master’s in African American Studies. That’s everything. That’s it.
So seeing the movie yesterday just… girl, it snapped me back to reality. It was like, Girl, we have work to do.
Yes, it’s exciting, and yes, we can multitask—because these are your roots. This is what you were put on this Earth to do: to inform, to learn, and to educate.
And yeah, that’s my story.