It's high time I tackled the most touchy subject in the entire universe to me: being "black".
You are born black. Your skin is... shades of brown, but in layman's terms, BLACK. This perpetual stereotype of blackness being fried chicken, Afro puffs, big booties and grills in your mouth has got to stop. I'm wearing thin as I traipse down the hallway with my boyfriend, being jeered at and put down as a sellout and all else. It's tiring. It's juvenile. And it stings bitterly.
I don't understand why I have to do these things to be proud of what I am. I don't get why people can't leave me alone because I would sometimes rather listen to Daft Punk instead of someone like Young Jeezy. I wish I could go places with my boo and not be made to feel like some kind of freak since he's ten shades lighter. And the pressure has permeated my psyche until I come home and cry in uncontrollable fits of rage and frustration.
Maybe it seems like a desperate wail for attention. I needed to express my distress to someone. I made the mistake of bottling my feelings, and now I feel like a total mess. The funny thing is, I was reading a blog by a Swedish guy named Andreas Johannes. He happens to like sistas. At first I thought he was being cynical and superficial. But then I just realized that he's just a down-to-earth guy who has a genuine love and interest for black women. That's so rare here, or anywhere, that I was overwhelmed. I should've been happy. Instead I became depressed.
I suppose after seeing me and other friends be nothing but conquests for any male, the sincerity was too much to handle. It just isn't the same in America. Here we're...
Back-up dancers and booty-shakers. Socially pressured to do things to our hair so that we look more European. Teased because of our natural hair and the way it isn't silky or long. Pursued because of sexual idolization instead of real love, like we deserve and desire. Good enough for singing and performing, but cast aside when it comes to modeling, because we aren't perceived as the ideal standard of beautiful. Am I making you uncomfortable?
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