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.
