Black Girl
Nobody prepares you for how hard it is to be a Black girl. No one tells you that you will be ridiculed for being loud and in the same breath criticized for being quiet. No one tells you that people will assume that your hair is not real, and be shocked if it is. No one tells you that teachers will expect you to have an attitude before they even learn your name. No one tells you that those same teachers will be surprised when your name is not one of those names that they’ve fabricated in their minds. This is what it is to be a Black girl.
Being a Black girl means that you are dually oppressed. You will be questioned, always. Because you are a girl, men will wonder whether or not you are letting your emotions get in the way of your job. Because you are a girl, you will be asked if those emotions are getting out of hand because you are on your period. Because you are a girl, men will grope you and grab you without your permission.
Because you are Black, teachers will question whether or not you are smart enough to be in their class. Because you are Black, friends will ask if you have both parents at home. You are expected to know all of the other Black kids in the school. You and the one other Black girl in your fourth period English class will be mixed up and called the wrong name for the entire school year, even though you look nothing alike. People will ask if you two are sisters, or maybe cousins. In the athletic trainer’s room, you will be asked repeatedly if you run the short sprints, even though you have told them every time you are in there that you run mid-distance. This is weird to them, because Black people are supposed to be good at sprinting and, well, you are Black aren’t you? What they don’t know is that Africans have dominated the mid-distance track events for decades now. You probably should not know that either, though. You’re a girl, after all. Girls don’t follow sports.
People compliment you with the phrase: “You’re the prettiest Black girl I know,” not realizing (or caring) how backhanded that is. It implies that Black girls can only rise so high in the beauty standards before they are cut off, pretty in their own category but separate from the rest.
When you start using relaxer on your hair to tame your kinky curls, you are criticized for “trying to be white.” When you tuck your hair behind your ear to keep it out of your face, you are laughed at because “that’s what white girls do.” When you finally feel confident enough to stop using relaxer and let your natural hair flow free, hands are groping your hair against your will for the entire day. The next day you tie your hair back just to keep the fingers away. When you get into your top choice college, the college you have been dreaming about, your peers will speculate that you only got in due to affirmative action. This is what it is to be a Black girl.
You must walk a fine line. You are always being watched. You always run the risk of being labeled ‘ghetto’ or ‘a troublemaker’ or ‘an oreo.’ Oreo was always one of my favorites. White on the inside, black on the outside. Oreo, along with hordes of labels, sticks to Black girls for the rest of their lives. Such labels are used to celebrate successes and to accept downfalls.
These are not made-up experiences. Every one of these things I have witnessed or experienced. I have lived twenty-five years of being one of the “good ones”: one of those “well-spoken,” pretty-for-a-Black girls who keeps herself out of trouble. Being Black in a suburban white neighborhood, that is your only option. Otherwise, you become what they expect you to be. The cautionary tale. The welfare queen. The baby mama. You must defy every stereotype. You must be exemplary. You must be the Black girl that all Black girls should want to be. Anything less is a point against you, and all those who follow. It’s freaking exhausting.
There is a flip side no one prepares you for as well. No one prepares you for the strength that these experiences form in you. No one tells you how confident you will become after years of breaking barriers, shattering stereotypes, and excelling in all of the fields that you were expected to fail in. No one tells you how your natural hair will be celebrated and your dark skin will be accepted. No one tells you that you will gain the courage to speak up and not care who hears you. You will tell your roommate that you are beautiful in your own right, categories aside. You will call out your coworker who claims you are getting emotional and offers you a tampon. You will tell your classmates to stop confusing you and the only other Black girl in the class. We look nothing alike. We sit on opposite sides of the room; please, please, stop pretending that we are the same. Stop being surprised that my name is the same name that your sister has and not whatever Saturday Night Live skit you are pulling these names from. Stop asking me if I have ever met my father. Stop assuming that you know everything about me just from one look. I am so much more.
No one tells you that you will become who you want to be, and not what others have labeled you as. No one tells you that after years of wishing that you were a different person, someday you will love who you are. This is what it is to be a Black girl.
