After being in mostly white spaces for the past 10 years of my life, I am starting to realize how I have hidden and neglected my blackness in an attempt to blend in with white society. I have failed to fully embrace and appreciate my blackness and all that comes along with it. I have missed out on the opportunity to really get to know my heritage and culture because I’ve constantly been fed messages about whiteness and white supremacy. I have internalized so many negative messages about myself and what it means for me to be a black woman. So often I have equated my failure to fit it, my inability to find romantic love and so many other outcomes, to my blackness. I have told myself that to be black in mostly white spaces is to never fully belong. In some strange and unfortunate way, I have told myself that to be black is to not be good enough; to be black is to fail in some sense. And what a shame, what a dishonor to my ancestors and my God, that I would disvalue my beauty and worth because of my blackness. What a shame that I would try to hide some of my blackness to blend in with the norm. There is a magic and a power that comes with my blackness. There is a strength and resilience that comes with my blackness. And how often I have forgotten who I am and where I come from because I have lost myself within white spaces. In white spaces, my blackness is not celebrated but it is silenced. In white spaces, my blackness is not acknowledged, it is ignored. I am tired of shrinking back to accommodate to white society. I am tired of covering up in an attempt to go unnoticed. My blackness is what makes me unique, it is the thing that makes me stand out in a white crowd. And I will not be ashamed of it any longer. I will hold it proudly and boldly. I will declare the brilliance and beauty and strength that is attached to my blackness. I will not shrink back; I will stand up.
1 Comment
Sophia Strachan
7/3/2019 10:14:32 am
Love that you started to write about these things!
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AuthorRecent Brock Graduate and First Year Teacher! I love to talk about life, justice and faith. Archives
March 2023
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