Submission by Cry-baby101
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"Black Girl, Black Girl" a poem by Kaitlyn McNab.
When I was in middle school, I went through a phase.
I wore distressed skinny jeans and alternative rock band tees and studded belts and belt chains and low canvas converse of nearly every colour in the rainbow.
I listened to what to some, would be called "white people music."
I didn't know how to control my hair back then, so a ponytail with more of a mane than a tail was the backdrop to the abstract work of art that was my pre-teen face.
Amtrak braces going across jaggedy mountain teeth and two bushels of eyebrows protecting the fortress of chunky black glasses.
I was different.
There were a group of girls at my school that were more popular than the rest.
They all wore Hollister, Abercrombie, carried Coach wristlets and pranced around in this season's new Ugg boots. And only those.
They were acquaintances, but not friends.
I thought they didn't like me because I was different.
And then I remember my sixth grade self thinking about all the differences between me and these girls.
And I remember my sixth grade self zeroing in on one specific difference that I had to question more than the rest.
And I remember my sixth grade self asking my mum on the car ride to school,
"Mommy? Do you think they would like me more if I was white?"
And my mum didn't know exactly how to respond.
Part consideration and part hesitation. She didn't know how quite to respond.
Because being one of the few black beings growing up in white suburbia did not exactly provide the best answers to these types of questions.
But you know what she told me?
The truth.
"Maybe sweetie. Maybe."
I remembered thinking that that was just so unfair, so rude, so ignorant of them.
And then I said, "Oh well. Their loss."
But now I'm 17. And social media is desensitising my generation and granting people cyber courage to say things they would never say in the world outside their front door and attaining opinions that would never be claimed as their own if it weren't for this twisted society we let inside our homes.
Boys, NOT MEN, have become more picky, or excuse me, vocal about their preferences and choices in women lately on social media. And I quote:
"I only like snow bunnies and Latinas."
"I never once said black girls don't look good, I just said white and Spanish girls look better."
"I don't date black girls."
"Brazilian girls are the best then white girls then Spanish girls then dirt and then black girls.
End quote.
I am a black girl and I live in a world where the men who look just like my father with the same brown skin as me that I wear proudly tell me that they do not prefer my race of women, that we are at the bottom of the food chain, of the romantic hierarchy, of motherfucking society.
Black girls in a media picture get painted and depicted as bitter and loud and unattractive and uncivilised and uneducated and bestial and inhuman.
And that is not fair.
To me, my sister or my entire culture.
Just because my hair doesn't morph into perfect circular ringlets when wet or my complexion isn't fair enough to get off scotch free from the cops or I'm not mixed with enough nationalities to represent an entire melting pot, you're telling me you can't love me? Or you don't want to, because that's what society is telling you?
A surprising number of black males have been the culprits of this bullshit and buffoonery.
"I don't like black girls at all."
Look up from your insensitive tweet on your insensitive phone in your insensitive hands and tell me what you see in front of you, feeding you, clothing you, loving you?
Your mother. A black girl.
When black men get murdered without justice across America, who is there, behind you, supporting you, standing up for you, fighting for you?
The black woman.
"Everybody has preferences, you have to respect them!"
Oh I'm all for respecting people's preferences but once their preferences lead them to disrespect me, fuck that, I don't know who told you respect was a one way street.
Stop feeding into society and basing the image of your ideal soul mate off of fetishes and novelties.
Stop throwing us into a corner and then turning us against each other with statements such as:
"Lightskin girls are winning"
"Brown skin girls are winning"
"Dark skin girls are winning"
Light, brown, dark, yellow, chocolate, caramel, copper - it does not matter.
We are all black girls and we all win together.
I do not want this racially infused hatred to be injected into my blood stream so that when I have a baby black girl she is born with insecurities.
I don't want her to come home to me and tell me that she likes a boy but she has to see, because she doesn't know if he likes black females.
I don't want her to come home to me and beg me to try and make her hair curlier or straighter or lighter or softer or longer because she doesn't think people will like her.
I don't want her to come home to me and tell me that she liked Devon but Devon liked Brittany more, and ask me, "Mommy? Do you think he would like me more if I was white?"
I do not want to give her the same answer my mum gave me.
I want to tell her, "No, sweetie, Devon doesn't like you because he's a fuck face who is blind to all the fantastic things that make you phenomenal."
I want to tell her that she can be loved no matter what her race is.
I want to tell her that love is based on the details of her heart and the contents of her mind, not the colour of her hands that she will use to flip you bastards off.
I want to tell her, that just because the movies and tv portrays her as loud and uncontrollable, she doesn't have to be the opposite or just like it.
I want to tell her that if a man lumps her in and generalises her by saying "He dates only black girls," she should dump his ass, because she is not a novelty.
I want to tell her that she doesn't need someone to love her, for her to love herself.
I want to tell her to empower herself and prove them all wrong.
I want to tell her to carry herself like royalty, no matter what she is told otherwise.
Because she is a black girl. And that makes her a flawless queen.
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