This is for the Black girls who refuse to be boxed in. Your Blackness isn’t something to prove or perform, it just is, in all its depth and nuance. It’s time to shake off the pressure to fit a script and own the fact that you’re already whole, just as you are.
Written by Hannah Gates
Dear hood, suburban Black girls,
Some people might look at you and think, “She’s just so well-spoken,” while others might wonder, “Why doesn’t she know how to do her hair?” – two judgments from opposite ends of the spectrum, yet both are dead wrong and unqualified to speak on the subject of you.
How do you explain the depth of someone who grew up in the suburbs, moved to the hood, then back to the suburbs, then to a rural area and then to a gentrified city?
Where are you searching for acceptance? Is it in that job or class you attend weekly, where the welcome feels warm but is shadowed by the passive-aggressive, microparasitic comments from the white girl you sit next to during meetings, always telling you, “Wow, I love how your eyes are shaped… they’re so... oriental?” Or is it with that Black man you met on Bumble, the one with radiant dark skin and a smile that melts you, but whose unconventional remarks about you being a “good girl,” and the judgmental glances from his peers slice through your style and your story?
What do you do when you feel isolated, like nobody truly understands you, and you start forcing a version of yourself that doesn’t reflect your true nature – just to seem powerful, impactful and seamlessly connected with people of every background? Just to seem like you have your identity all figured out.
Can you even acknowledge that being Black isn’t just a culture, it’s proof that you have the space to be whoever you want to be? A so-called “whitewashed” Black girl with hood tendencies, casual language around peers and no interest in getting a sew-in or a quick weave just to fit someone else’s idea of beauty – whether it’s from your own race or anyone else?
Have you ever considered that the world might embrace you more – and you might embrace yourself more – if you took pride in the fact that your Blackness is so much more than the societal pressures placed on you, both within the diaspora and beyond?
Who decided that being Black comes with one set of expectations, and being white comes with another?
"We shouldn’t have to conform to anyone else’s idea of Blackness or success. If I don’t fit into a certain mold that’s fine."
I had a conversation with a white man who grew up in the hood and had a Black, dark-skinned girlfriend for five years. He loudly said, “I'm gonna call up a real Black woman so you can see what I mean when I say you're whitewashed.” I let out a heavy sigh and told him straight to his face that Black people can’t act a certain color. I then asked him, “Do you enjoy being ignorant?”
I truly believe ignorance is a choice. I’ve done the work to better my mind, to look at myself and see the image of God, not the image of a made-up color. Yet, there are still white people out here intentionally choosing to be foolish and ignorant, all while wearing my culture like a cloak.
You see, I listen to my white friends complain about their pale complexion as they rush to tanning salons and change colors like chameleons, while I struggle to accept my own skin. It’s weird, if a Black girl bleaches her skin, it’s seen as a problem, but if a white girl darkens hers, it’s considered normal.
Here are my two cents: changing your color, whether to look or feel satisfied or culturally accepted, is weird – regardless of your race.
Has anyone ever taken the time to look deep within and ask where their desire to hate their complexion even comes from? What is it really stemming from?
I know where mine comes from. It comes from the world telling me that being a Black girl is strange. It comes from the little white boy I had a crush on in elementary school telling me he’d never date a Black girl and that I wasn’t his type. It comes from the racial remarks about my hair, my clothes and my taste in music in high school. It comes from my parents not teaching me about the history of the Black experience. It comes from my lack of confidence when I walk into a room and am faced with being the only Black person, having to either adjust or be persecuted. It comes from the world of Black people around me, all collectively deciding that we don’t all have the same struggles, and that means we isolate ourselves from each other and embrace the victimhood the world has already imposed on us.
And let me not forget how we ourselves treat each other. I got bullied badly in highschool for not listening to certain types of music, dressing in tie-dye colors and wearing my hair natural.
I don’t like listening to Rod Wav, or Kevin Gates. Honestly, I don’t even know who they are.
Those names just came to mind. Nonetheless. Why is there this image we throw on ourselves, placing ourselves in these boxes that only make us hate ourselves more? I don’t fit the narrative that Sexy Redd sings about in her songs. I don’t ever see myself wanting to have a fat ass, jeweled out acrylic nails or a “30-inch bust down.”
Honestly, acrylic nails always mess up my nail beds, and are extremely expensive.
On a serious note, why should I feel pressured to fit into this stereotype?
Let me say this loud and clear: I don’t care if you listen to those artists, if you like getting your nails done or if you like the idea of having a "fat ass." But for me, I don’t vibe with a materialistic lifestyle, and that should be socially acceptable within our community. It should be okay to exist outside of those narrow, stereotypical boxes that people try to put us in.
This one always gets people in my diaspora tight – I’m marrying a frisbee-playing, blond and blue-eyed white man.
Honestly, I never thought I would. My intention was always to date within my own culture and race, mostly out of fear of being unaccepted by the white community. But God had other plans. Now, I get comments from strangers and even close family members saying that dating outside my race is an example of hating myself, or not being pro-Black.
Do you know how much I rebuke that ideology?
I love, love.
The color of someone’s skin doesn’t matter to me. If you and I are ordained by God, then that’s the standard I follow.
When we, as Black people, start putting limits on things like dating outside our race or even having friendships outside our race, we start enforcing the same negative narrative that was once inflicted on us.
The truth is that we all have the right to define our own identity and what matters to us. If I don’t align with a certain cultural trend that doesn’t make me any less Black, worthy or valid. What I like or don’t like is my choice – and that’s okay.
We shouldn’t have to conform to anyone else’s idea of Blackness or success. If I don’t fit into a certain mold that’s fine.
We’re all different and that’s what makes us unique. It’s time we start respecting each other’s individuality and breaking down these harmful stereotypes. Own who you are and don’t let anyone make you feel like you must be something you’re not.
It’s crazy how much we let these trends and pressures shape us, how we try to be something we’re not just to be seen, just to belong. But at the end of the day, who are we really fooling? Not ourselves, not God.
I have to say, we can do better. I have to say, you should want to do better. Pretty brown-skinned girl, you are worth the effort from yourself. You are worth the love that comes from that place within you, the one that tells you to do better, let go and release all those things you’ve been holding on to.
I know what it’s like to question your identity. To ask, “Am I smart? Am I pretty? Am I worth the time?” I know that the world has tried to tell you, in more ways than can be counted, that you’re none of those things and never will be. But when I tell you those are lies straight from the pits of hell, I mean it. The truth is that you are wonderfully and perfectly made. And that – that is what makes the world want to hate you. It’s not because you deserve to be hated, but because what you’ve been made into is a direct reflection of the diverse and beautiful creation that the Lord has designed.
People will hate you until the end of time, especially if you’re living in your truth. But I believe it's worth the trials. Learning to love yourself is worth going through what has been thrown on you.
Shine, girl, or let the world trample you and snuff you out. The choice is yours. No one else can have that kind of power over you, unless you let them.