Boundless think pieces and commentary has been made about the racist acts, seemingly aided by equally racist cops, in the trespass and raiding of the capitol earlier this week.
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“Mommy, I want a blonde braid so I can be pretty” my daughter said. “You want a what?” I said with a slight cringe in my voice. “A braid like Elsa” she replied. This statement took me off guard and immediately led to me having a conversation with my then 5 year old.
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I remember hearing this while listening to a podcast called, “The Secret Lives of Black Women” and they interviewed a high spirited, fun-loving, eclectic, and passionate singer by the name of Tarriana “Tank” Ball. She discussed how surrounding herself with people who spoke life into her craft, believed in her, and supported her was fundamental in life and her career as an artist.
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Are there places (outside of Africa) where black women are respected and seen as beautiful?
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Years ago, I knew myself. When I was a child, I felt solid and still. I felt like me. I didn’t care about facades or about wearing the kind of mask Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote about in his poem “We Wear The Mask”. In his poem, he wrote about the mask our ancestors wore to survive, assimilate, and cope with being members of the marginalized race. As I grew in age, I ironically regressed in wisdom and adopted a persona akin to the mask Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote about in his poem. Hints of this mask appeared in my life in many ways; among them, my physical appearance.
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“Mommy, why can’t my hair be down and straight like yours?” With a sad face, those were the piercing words that one of my three-year-old twin daughters asked me, as her sister gazed at me for an honest reply.
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Beyonce’s much anticipated visual album was released for streaming on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. (Isn’t everything Beyonce does “much anticipated”?) Anyway, as usual I was late to the party and finally sat down to watch it this weekend.
Read MoreDo you have a friend that’s always acting like a “white girl?” She’s the one that shows up at mimosa Sunday wearing cowboy boots instead of stilettos.
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“So, how are you going to wear your hair to your interview?”
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A memory that haunts me at night, is from my middle school days in English. I was in eighth grade and at this time of my life my hair was done by my mom and my attire was a school board mandated uniform. On this particular day, we were watching a movie in English. My teacher did the spill about how this movie tied into our lesson. An interesting fact about this class is that my English teachers gave us assigned seats. So, sometimes I was lucky enough to be sat by my friends or assigned by someone she thought I would not talk to. After she gave us the spill, she went to the back of the room to turn out the lights. A boy in my class turned to another boy and said, “where did Brooklyn go?” This was a joke that was used often in school.
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I had to really think about why I have been so profoundly hurt and upset by Beyoncé's, Amanda Seales’, Tracee Ellis Ross’ and [insert light skinned woman’s name here] of the world.
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Alopecia. Just typing the word still gives me chills. It’s as if my body has a visceral reaction to reject the diagnosis, because it seems so...permanent.
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"Pretty, for a dark-skinned girl." No, pretty period!
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Wearing “the natural” back in 2001 before it became trendy, proved to be a surprisingly emotional journey. What made it emotional? The fact that I got the most negative reactions from my own...other black women.
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In a southern small town far far away... lived a little black girl who “wasn’t like other black people.” For as long as I can remember white people and black people alike have been telling me that I am “not like other black people.”
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Mental health is such a hush-hush conversation in the black community that when you do try to talk about it, it’s like you said a bad word. I can see it now, you come in from school with a grimace on your face and the first thing mama says is “girl, you better straighten up that face before you come in here! What’s wrong with you?” When you try to explain that you had a bad day, the response was often, “Ain’t nothing wrong with you. What you got to worry ‘bout, you’re just a child?”
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Watching the documentary Skin on Netflix was such a personal experience in some ways and so removed in others.
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“Oh my gosh, baby, I am so proud of you. This is such a beautiful house. Now all you need to do is fix your hair and lose a little bit of weight”. These were the words my mother spoke when she toured the house
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YouTube tutorials have a weird way of giving you a false sense of confidence. We ALL have a failed tutorial story.
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In my practice, I am privileged to be able to work alongside Black womxn on their journeys of healing and self-discovery. I think we can admit that Black womxn are in fact magical. We are literally able to do all the things, all the time. We have a certain glow, a mixture of both strength and softness. We are able to get things done, in spite of. And with that magic comes decades of pain. See being a Black womxn, is an interesting place of intersectionality where we are required to think about how both our race (read: racism) and gender (read: patriarchy) shapes our life experiences.
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