Featured With Voices True Narrative

Madison Chambers, Notre Dame sophomore majoring in neuroscience and global affairs

I have older sisters, who are my half-sisters, so they’re fully white, and they always had their hair dyed blonde. And if I think about my race and growing up, literally, all I can remember is just wishing I looked like them and wishing I was blonde and wishing I was white. And I had all these thoughts about how I couldn’t be pretty; that was such a big part of me growing up, was that I was so different from everybody and I didn’t feel like I could ever be pretty to anyone, which shouldn’t matter. But unfortunately, when you’re a little girl, it’s pretty important.

I think I face discrimination in a different way, just because I feel like I don’t always fit into a box.

I’m definitely more white presenting, which I think in a way saves me from discrimination. But one thing I noticed when I got to Notre Dame was that people would almost discriminate against me for my lack of Blackness. I in no way receive the same type of or the same amount of discrimination as other, blacker looking people. But I think I face discrimination in a different way, just because I feel like I don’t always fit into a box.

Once I had somebody blatantly argue out loud in class. Me and this girl were both half Black. We were talking about it ourselves together. And someone overheard, and he was like, “Oh, she’s way Blacker than you. Madison looks like she’s from a whole other country,” in class where everybody could hear. And I felt like that just summarized how I feel people see me here, which is really frustrating, because I don’t know why that matters to anyone. It doesn’t change what I’ve felt or experienced, and it doesn’t change my family’s history, or what we’ve experienced from our Black culture, my culture runs just as deep. And it shouldn’t be measured like that by students who don’t even have anything to do with it.