Being a Black girl has been a dynamic experience that I hope other Black girls can relate to. I've seen TikTok's referencing being a "weird Black girl" and I suppose I fit into that category. Race wasn't something I realized impacted so much of my life into I got later into it. It wasn't something I really thought about, because it's all I've known. I do realize now that when I was younger, I would gravitate toward a race that wasn't my own. I'd pick the fair skin girl in the game with pin straight hair. I would write characters in stories who didn't look like me. A Black barbie wasn't even on my mind. I don't blame myself, or even the elders around me for this mindset. It's what is hammered into young Black girls from the beginning, so that before we know it, we already have this idea that we are the second pick. I will say that these ideas have greatly changed since I was a kid, but at the time it was still increasingly common. Not a lot of girls in the media who made me feel like my look was a complete one. That I had many options for what my personality was to be like. Not in a "I'm so quirky" way, but genuinely. I have always felt the need to overcompensate and do a bit more to fit in since about elementary. Everyone else was already cliqued up before school, and the vibe I brought just wasn't very appealing to others I suppose. I did befriend two Asian girls, who I still know to this day. Besides my family, they were the first people I met who made me feel like I was welcome. There were other Black girls who would occasionally speak to me, but they often didn't associate for too long. It wasn't until middle school when things started to change for me. This was the time when people started finding me attractive. I'm not sure why, I don't know where it came from, but suddenly I got a lot of attention. I finally felt like I belonged to an extent, but it was it the expense of my identity. I began acting how I thought was cool at the time. I dropped my Minecraft Lets plays and comics and began looking into the media everyone else around me was into. Magically, once I knew more rap songs or had the newest sneakers, I became more likable to those who once ridiculed me. Once I started playing into male attention and trying to grow up faster, I started gaining more friends. Once I lost weight due to a sickness I had for a couple of months, more people started to text me. At the time I didn't realize I was sacrificing who I wanted to be for what I thought would help me be more popular. Soon, my friends from elementary went to a different school, and I fully embraced this version of myself I didn't realize I created. While I put on a facade, deep down I wasn't satisfied. I wasn't that interested in the things I pretended to be and instead tried enjoying these things in private. I didn't realize how much my race played into my social interactions and livelihood until high school. That is where I began to realize how people didn't see me for who I was. Nobody saw my academics, my social skills, my personality, they saw my race and that's all I boiled down to. Some may use the argument I used before. It's hammered into your head from the beginning that that's what you should think. I think that ignorance after a certain time is a choice. I think these people chose to overlook me on account of my race. I think these people see me as less and will continue to unless they feel the need the look at themselves and their mindset to make a change. I realized that to a lot of people, Black women are a joke. They make slick comments about my hair being fake. They don't consider me as competition for things regarding intelligence. They assume the type of music I like, the type of hobbies I do, the way I talk, what I want to do when I grow up. They try to shrink me into the idea of Black women they've formed based off of ignorance and hypocrisy. In relationships and attraction especially, I've seen it have a huge impact. So much so to where I've felt at fault. I've felt as though it made sense for people to act this way when it's not true. No matter how good of a person I am, how good my background check comes back, the way I speak, the things I like, it doesn't matter. None of it matters because at the end of the day, there are parents who don't want you to bring home a Black girl. It boils down simply to that. I stopped internalizing it, it took a lot, but I do realize that it isn't me. However, it would be a lie to say it doesn't hurt to see such illogical bases for something so straightforward. I know that there have been instances where I've been overlooked because of my race, and I've decided that if that is how things are at your home, then I don't want to be a part of it anyway. I used to think "if they'd just give me a chance, I could show them their assumptions are wrong," "I am a good person, a great girlfriend," but to think like that is a setback. If someone doesn't want to see you in their future over your race, the last thing you should want them to do is give YOU the chance. I never want to marry into a family I'm not welcome into, I never want to feel like an exception to my people to fit into somewhere else. These past few years, despite attempts to dwindle my self-worth, I do feel proud to be Black. Due to what I've gone through it's taken a bit for me to get here, but I am truly happy I am who I am. I love my people, I love what we have created, I love where we are going as a community, and that is the truth. I will never have thoughts surrounding the idea of me not being able to be who I hope to be because of my race. My race is the ONLY reason I can be who I want to be. It's why I can express myself and feel supported by others who are like me. I no longer feel the need to like what I love, to feel like there's an idea of me I'm supposed to fit into. I know my people are dynamic, I know I'm blessed to be living atop a history paved for me by those before me. I know that being Black is who I am, and it is nothing to ever let anyone make me doubt. If someone doesn't love the fact that I am who I am, then I doubt they had anything good to bring into my life anyway.
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