My Games, My Music, and My Internalized Racism

I immigrated to the States from my little town of Barranquilla, Colombia in South America to Providence, Rhode Island when I was three years old. I don’t remember much, but can remember years later, my mom giving me a purple GameBoy Color with Pokemon Blue when I entered the first grade. I didn’t know how to use it, I didn’t know how to read English, and I, for sure, didn’t know how to get through the little Ratata encounter on your first patch of grass in Pallet Town. But, I know my mom, who from then until now had to raise three very troublesome kids on her own, worked hard to get me something her amiga from work said “kids probably liked,” and I couldn’t show that I was ungrateful about it.

It was a mess, but luckily I had a teacher assistant who was all about Pokemon and translated what terms in the game meant like HP, Potion (he related this to the strawberry milk I had at lunch, that strawberry milk helps me feel better, and that potions will help my character feel the same way,) and so on. These were humble beginnings. I Iearned more English and played the game religiously, just exploring, and honestly… I don’t think I ever beat the game. I had a ton of fun grinding for no reason though.

Years later, my younger brother and I woke up to the PS2 Slim and Shrek Super Slam on Christmas Day. After gaming through my Gameboy and good ol’ flash games on the public library’s computers, I felt a rush of excitement. But little did I know it was going to be the start of something that would impact me for years to come.

We bought games through yard sales, rented through Blockbuster, borrowed from friends at school, and I was on a race to beat them because I couldn’t convince my mom how important it was to have a memory card (honestly, now thinking about it, I don’t think we could afford one). As I played, I noticed a pattern of no black or brown representation that didn’t rely on harmful stereotypes. 

Along with being the only girl at the time in a Catholic immigrant household, I wasn’t allowed to ever leave the house without my mom, so I spent a lot of time watching TV when I wasn’t gaming, and let very dangerous views on people of color become my own views because mid-2000’s television really was something else. Additionally, Latinos are known for being anti-black, and are vocal about it, but of course I’m not speaking for all Latinos. I had to be around that constantly with a conservative mother that dealt with some internalized issues, with her just as conservative friends that also dealt with similar problems. So that, combined with arguably just as harmful representation in gaming, took a toll on little Monti.

Me, a (still) chubby and (still very) brown girl, grew a tick in the back of her head that maybe, black and brown people aren’t great, because that was being told all around me from games, tv, movies, etc. This is internalized racism, internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated.

The avatars I would make in character custom screens were always white, because anything darker looked ‘dirty,’ and my avatars always had pin straight hair, because all curly hair was ‘nappy and bad’. All incredibly terrible things to think. The way I looked at these small Gaia Online avatars, my gorgeous Blood Elves in World of Warcraft, choosing to be the pretty blondes in game start screens, and even the little premade icons from profiles you can make on yahoo answers, it made me feel validated. This validation made me feel the satisfaction of being the kind of beautiful I desperately wanted to be, because in the mirror, early teen Monti was ugly; she was dirty because of her skin color, she was nappy headed because her hair had some curl, and being anything in the realm of fat was a bad thing. Who she was, was the worst thing she could be, and her environment, television, and games made her believe that.

But, oh boy, wait till I dragged that mentality over when I started discovering another realm of media, Alt-Rock music.

Now I’m using alt rock as an umbrella term here, from grindcore, to emo, to screamo, to post-hardcore, etc, I listened to it all and absolutely loved it. But the community? Did they love me? It was safe to say, they didn’t.

Posting pictures of myself wearing my favorite band shirts on MySpace, and getting comments that I’m n*gg*ring up the scene, messages stating why they are blocking me because they’re a “NO FAT CHICKS ZONE”, going to concerts as a high school teen and getting called a monkey because I had to push through a guy to go to the bathroom, and he somehow felt threatened. This wasn’t fun, I didn’t have fun, but I couldn’t convince myself that I hated it.

Despite playing video games with no characters that looked like me, or made me out to be the bad guy, I convinced myself to like them. Liking these video games made me different from other people. I was unique. It made me ignore how much I hated myself and people that looked like me, because being unique was a positive thing and I held onto that so much. I couldn’t possibly be bad to myself or other people when I was just so ~DIFFERENT~ from everyone else (there were like 20 girls like me in my school dealing with this, could’ve woken up from this sooner if we all collectively had a crying session, but we weren’t friends because we all hated each other for being latino and black, and only wanted to bask in the achievements of having just white friends; we truly were so fucking stupid).

Liking Alt Rock, I was friends with people who made racist jokes, said absolutely disgusting things towards women who were victims of abuse in the music scene, and didn’t even see me as their equal. I was nice and brown-nosed these people who I thought were my buds, because I wanted so bad to hear that validation that I was one of the good ones, that I wasn’t “ghetto,” I wasn’t “ratchet,” that I wasn’t like those other “sp*cs.”

I was digging myself into this hole to hide from who I was, thinking I would what, just wake up white, thin, and with straight hair? I was so depressed, coming out of an abusive relationship, opening up about my sexual abuse, that I didn’t want to come to terms with the fact that the two things that made me “happy” were slowly making me feel worse, pulling me into this depression until eventually, I had to take a two year break.

It wasn’t until I was in a rabbit hole of reviews on skin bleaching products, wondering why women use these creams knowing the MASSIVE danger they can do to themselves, and my little sister, who was about eight at the time, was watching me see these review videos on my laptop. 17 year old Monti really woke up when her sister said “Oh I wanna do that, I want my skin to be pretty!”

I can still remember yelling “WHAT THE…..” before I gave my sister a lecture on why she was beautiful the way she is, and then took the rest of the day to really accept that I let this disease of racism take over my whole life. I was unsettled, but motivated to quickly jump off this train of BS that I was on.

The soup of self hate was really coming together. I took a sniff, almost barfed, and started to move away from these views that have made my life worse and me harder on myself. I started catching myself, correcting my behavior, and learned how to implement ways to counter my internalized racism.

“Are these people really bad, or are you being prejudiced? Would you hold white people to the same standard?

“Do you look ugly, or are you being mean to your hair, or your one of a kind skin?

When dealing with internalized racism, I truly believed in: “I’m not the problem for thinking like this, it’s everyone’s else’s fault;” my self hate was affecting my fellow fat friends, and people of color, and with time, the whole “it’s not me, it’s you” thing really becomes “y’know.. It really is me, and I have to step it up.”

I’m 23 now, and proud that I pushed to overcome this. Both the video game and music industries are shifting, not at the pace I wish they could be, but currently, seeing more brown and black people at the top, sharing their unique experiences, seeing communities coming together and calling the BS out, and just surrounding myself for those who are also grinding for change, has been absolutely amazing. Little Monti would’ve loved it, things would’ve been so much easier for her. She would’ve been so much happier.

Because of efforts from people who want these industries to change for the better, I’m happy now, things are getting easier, people are catching the “small” problematic things in media and not letting it slide. This is all very exciting, and we are only getting started. I’m living for my amazing color, my one of a kind hair, and my soft body, all while kicking shitty nerds and music lovers alike to the curb.