For a Black Girl Who Is
They say I am many things because I’m a black girl
You’re so pretty…for a black girl
Skin just the a shade light enough, white enough
Yeah that negro mixed with creole
Just enough whiteness into your bloodline to make your kitchen hair curl, pretty black girl.
Society is praising a past crime
of forced whiteness, a swirl that might be acceptable to master
House and field may have separated us but when he blew out his candle
finished disrespecting our ancestry, stripping our precious jewels
and done caressing our figures
to him were just some more used up niggas.
They say I’m calm and quiet for a black girl
As if we aren’t individuals.
They want me to be the strong independent black women
The kind that don’t need no man
The kind that rolls her neck
Snaps her fingers
Claps her hands.
The strong black women
A matriarch who carries her family and her past on her back
Fights oppression when it smacks her in the face
Has her femininity stripped from Her soul
As she is forced to take on both gender roles.
It is expected to be powerful.
It’s expected to be resilient.
It is expected to take it.
But it’s ok to be vulnerable too
They say I’m intelligent for a black girl.
“wow, you’re so well spoken! So smart”
“You don’t sound like that those other black girls”
Wait.
Pause.
Using Ebonics and your intelligence level are NOT mutually exclusive
You say that as if mainstream America hasn’t appreciated,I mean appropriated our language (take out a few words here)
Swag
Slay
Shade
Flexin’
Fineese
On fleek
Turnt
Trippin
Lowkey
Lit
All of that is black
It’s fine with mainstream just as long as our voices aren’t saying them
Black American culture is American culture so quit slashing out the black part.
I’m not surprised at our mental abilities
Maybe because Africa is the birthplace of mankind
And maybe the crisp opaqueness of your skin is a unending reference to the universe
Our stars and galaxies are embodied by darkness.
We are both earthly and other worldly.
Our gifts, talents, intelligence are vast.
It’s innate for us to be great.
I’m not these things because I’m a black girl. I’m not these things “for a black girl”. I am what I am because of God. I am what I have proudly become because I have been blessed to survive life long enough as a black woman.
