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Most black people grow accustomed to the fact that we have to excel just to be seen as existing, and this is a lesson passed down from generation to generation. You can either be Super Negro or the forgotten Negro.
“From the second you took your first breath, you were worthwhile and valid. And I’m sorry you had to wait so long to learn that for yourself.”
I resolve to embrace
my sexuality and my freedom to do with my body parts as I see fit.
We have so internalized the self-hatred and the demands of assimilation that we ourselves don’t know how to feel about what naturally grows out of our head.
We have ascribed certain characteristics to people who rock a natural look versus weaves and wigs. If you choose to have natural hair, or even to promote the idea of natural hair, you are somehow a better black person than someone with a weave or someone who straightens their hair.
Your hair is not going to determine or even influence what kind of person you are.
My feeling about him was ‘I’m happy, and as long as you don’t disrupt that, I don’t care what you do.’”
“Me, too.” She doesn’t have to tell me what she means. I nod. I have been doing rape advocacy and sharing my own story since the beginning of my career. We don’t hug. We don’t cry. She nods back at me. Just two women in a moment of mutual respect, acknowledging the truth and consequences of our experience. Feeling, in that moment, less alone on our respective islands.
“You know, you are really pretty for a dark-skinned girl.”
You can love what you see in the mirror, but you can’t self-esteem your way out of the way the world treats you.
She’s not. She is not imagining this shit, and she is not alone.
We talked about the disconnect between the adoration so many black men shower on their mothers
and grandmothers and their refusal to spend the rest of their lives with a woman who resembles their hue.
In my junior year of high school, I knew I was cute because I began pulling people that dark-skinned black girls were not supposed to pull. That was the barometer of my beauty:
“You’re making a choice. And when you make that choice of putting yourself in a position to fall in love with a very specific person who looks nothing like yourself, that does actually say something about your choices.”
“The other thing to remember is this: you are always going to be able to find people who don’t want to watch you fail.”
To be a black person is to understand what it is to be automatically infantilized and have it be assumed that you don’t have the talent or the skill set required to do your job.
“You’re gonna have to be bigger, badder, better, just to be considered equal. You’re gonna have to do twice as much work and you’re not going to get any credit.”
SOMEONE ELSE’S BODY It’s always beneficial in a breakup to have somebody else lined up. I really like to move right in and have a Plan B, C, D, and E in place
many women, know what the hell is wrong with me. Whether we choose to do something about it remains to be seen.
A Malbec is that slightly bitter pal who rallies to say, “There, there, we’ll get through this.” A Cabernet is a model of efficiency, drinkable with a high alcohol content. With all of its varied flavors, Pinot is the one who’ll encourage you to keep a sense of mystery. But if you want to skip all that and just get to the point where you fuck one of his friends? You go tequila all the way. I prescribe straight, no chaser.
She gave me the homework of writing down ten things that made me happy.
There is an epidemic now of people “being real” when they’re being anything but.
But so many people really love the attention they get by trolling. It’s a temporary cure for their invisibility.
“An empress does not concern herself with the antics of fools.” She smiled, so I smiled. That kindness, one empress to another, one woman to another, released me from the bullshit.
How are we supposed to give them all the knowledge, all the power, and all the pride that we can, and then ask them to be subservient when it comes to dealing with the police? “This is how you have to act in order to come home alive.”
The guys were in groups, separated by city and car.
In 2008 they sent me to Kumasi, Ghana, to help dedicate the country’s first breast health facility, one of the only ones in West Africa.
people to prioritize themselves and their health and not to be afraid of going to the doctor.
And so, you, my sweet, patient, understanding reader: Sookie made me promise to tell you not to act out of fear. I can only add that you can be scared to death, as I’ve been while sharing these stories with you, and do the thing you need to do anyway. Take care of yourself.
