Being BLACK

    Being Black has to arguably be the most complex things to be in America.. anywhere. You are born into a society where there is an underlying hatred, envy, fear, confusion towards people of a darker complexion. When I was younger, it seemed so ludicrous to me that simply because my skin pigment was a few shades darker then the next person I was subject to discrimination. This was my mindset as a young child, before I even began to learn of the horrific institution of slavery and then later, the civil rights movement. To be black means to sometimes be so overwhelmed with the state of racism in our society that you decide that it might actually be easier to simply ignore it.

    To be black means walking into clothing store and walk slowly and always make sure you're in view of a sales-worker to ensure that they don't think you'll steal from them. To be black means speaking in the clearest way possible to your white counterparts so that they do not think you're uneducated. Being a black woman means speaking softly to other white women so that you do not intimidate them with your “aggression”. Being a black woman means having to be the only race that is asked to have their hair touched. Being a black woman means bleaching your skin because successful black women that you admire do not believe their skin is beautiful. It means sewing in the hair of a horse's tail so that you may conform to the European standard of beauty – because that is the only acceptable form of beauty. It means having to accept the term “exotic” as a compliment for being a beautiful black woman. It means claiming to be mixed with any other race to escape your blackness, because essentially we are taught to believe that anything is better than being a black person in America.

     Although, as I began to learn more about the world that we live in, I began to learn more about myself as well. To be a black no longer had a negative connotation to myself. To be black meant to have beautiful skin that stayed youthful and supple until old age. To be black meant having long, thick, full hair. To be black meant being descendants of Kings and Queens. Being black meant knowing values such as discipline and respect towards our elders. Being black meant learning how to be resilient from a young age because we had no choice. Being black means working hard to succeed and enjoying the fruits of our labor because we earned it and were not handed it on a silver spoon. Being black means being beautiful both inside and out -- let no one's insecurity and self hatred tell you otherwise.