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20/F/Czech Republic
This page is my personal therapy, my deepest thoughts put into written words. Please enjoy a glimpse into my mind. I am thankful for every …
29/F/California
Hello! My name is Ɛli. I don't post as much anymore, but I'll pop in every so often if I get re-inspired to write. *All …
The beginning of purpose is found in creating something that only you understand. That is why i am a discolored fire.
Poems
Ciarra Reneé
Dec 2013
the amount of melanin in my skin often seems to conjure up some controversy so when I sit down to write and I see my hands, my light skinned not quite black but surely not white hands I think about the privileges thrusted upon me and when I begin to write I feel my hair against my back, my curly ***** but not quite ***** hair I wonder how what's on my head could make what's in it so frazzled
I often frustrate myself because I feel like my writing often centers around the fact that I am a woman and I am colored
and the fact that when I say I'm colored some look lost
in fact, in the film, for colored girls
Thandie Newton's character says "being alive and being a woman is all I got, but being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet."
and I found it frightening how relatable that was to me, being that I'm not quite almost a woman and not quite almost colored
but when I look at my poems they reflect that I indeed am
even though I'm lightskinned and I'm 16 and according to my white friends I'm, just like them because, as I've discovered our definitions of what a black girl sounds like and acts like and is like are extremely different
and I guess that reflects on who we've been introduced to
I have cousins and aunts and grandmothers and sisters
who represent what I believe emulate what a black woman is
and these white kids see what the media feeds about how black women walk and talk and act and lack
see when I picture a black woman I see beautiful smooth chocolate skin full lips round ******* wide hips and a smile as brilliant as her mind
when these kids picture a black woman they see ***** hair dark undesirable skin soup cooler lips and a mind filled with ignorance
and this is where my struggle begins
But in every ethnic group there is good and bad
and I am sick of black women only being associated with the bad
the fact that when most non blacks think of what a black woman is, they imagine an unintelligible mindless sassy loud mouth is over whelming to me
if you're skin isn't light enough or your behind isn't big enough you're only "pretty for a black girl"
I not only want to raise but destroy all expectations society gives black women
but I cannot do this alone
because we are smart and we are beautiful
we are troubled and we are strong
and we are one
once we stop tearing eachother down we can all be one
and I'm not sure why god blessed black women with so much beauty or why I'm so blessed to be one or why he put this determination in me but I think I will recognize it the day the world recognizes how beautiful are we.
I often frustrate myself because I feel like my writing often centers around the fact that I am a woman and I am colored
and the fact that when I say I'm colored some look lost
in fact, in the film, for colored girls
Thandie Newton's character says "being alive and being a woman is all I got, but being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet."
and I found it frightening how relatable that was to me, being that I'm not quite almost a woman and not quite almost colored
but when I look at my poems they reflect that I indeed am
even though I'm lightskinned and I'm 16 and according to my white friends I'm, just like them because, as I've discovered our definitions of what a black girl sounds like and acts like and is like are extremely different
and I guess that reflects on who we've been introduced to
I have cousins and aunts and grandmothers and sisters
who represent what I believe emulate what a black woman is
and these white kids see what the media feeds about how black women walk and talk and act and lack
see when I picture a black woman I see beautiful smooth chocolate skin full lips round ******* wide hips and a smile as brilliant as her mind
when these kids picture a black woman they see ***** hair dark undesirable skin soup cooler lips and a mind filled with ignorance
and this is where my struggle begins
But in every ethnic group there is good and bad
and I am sick of black women only being associated with the bad
the fact that when most non blacks think of what a black woman is, they imagine an unintelligible mindless sassy loud mouth is over whelming to me
if you're skin isn't light enough or your behind isn't big enough you're only "pretty for a black girl"
I not only want to raise but destroy all expectations society gives black women
but I cannot do this alone
because we are smart and we are beautiful
we are troubled and we are strong
and we are one
once we stop tearing eachother down we can all be one
and I'm not sure why god blessed black women with so much beauty or why I'm so blessed to be one or why he put this determination in me but I think I will recognize it the day the world recognizes how beautiful are we.
Lost in shadows
Jan 2014
From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.
Examples of Jim Crow Laws
Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which ***** men are placed. (Alabama)
Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for white and colored races. (Alabama)
Railroads: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. (Alabama)
Restaurants: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectively separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.
Pool and Billiard Rooms: It shall be unlawful for a ***** and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. (Alabama)
Toilet Facilities, Male: Every employer of white or ***** males shall provide for such white or ***** males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities. (Alabama)
Intermarriage: The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a *****, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void. (Arizona)
Intermarriage: All marriages between a white person and a ***** person or between a white person and a person of ***** descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited. (Florida)
Cohabitation: Any ***** man and white women, or any white man and ***** woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars. (Florida)
Education: The schools for white children and the schools for ***** children shall be conducted separately. (Florida)
Juvenile Delinquents: There shall be separate buildings, not nearer than one fourth mile from each other, one for white boys and one for ***** boys. White boys and ***** boys shall not, in any manner, be associated together or worked together. (Florida)
Mental Hospitals: The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together. (Georgia)
Intermarriage: It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void. (Georgia)
Barbers: No colored barber shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls. (Georgia)
Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons. (Georgia)
Restaurants: All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license. (Georgia)
Amateur Baseball: IT shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the ***** race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race. (Georgia)
Examples of Jim Crow Laws
Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which ***** men are placed. (Alabama)
Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for white and colored races. (Alabama)
Railroads: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. (Alabama)
Restaurants: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectively separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.
Pool and Billiard Rooms: It shall be unlawful for a ***** and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. (Alabama)
Toilet Facilities, Male: Every employer of white or ***** males shall provide for such white or ***** males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities. (Alabama)
Intermarriage: The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a *****, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void. (Arizona)
Intermarriage: All marriages between a white person and a ***** person or between a white person and a person of ***** descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited. (Florida)
Cohabitation: Any ***** man and white women, or any white man and ***** woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars. (Florida)
Education: The schools for white children and the schools for ***** children shall be conducted separately. (Florida)
Juvenile Delinquents: There shall be separate buildings, not nearer than one fourth mile from each other, one for white boys and one for ***** boys. White boys and ***** boys shall not, in any manner, be associated together or worked together. (Florida)
Mental Hospitals: The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together. (Georgia)
Intermarriage: It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void. (Georgia)
Barbers: No colored barber shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls. (Georgia)
Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons. (Georgia)
Restaurants: All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license. (Georgia)
Amateur Baseball: IT shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the ***** race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race. (Georgia)