As Black women, finding individual identity is something I
think many of us have struggled with because at home its traditional roles
aligned with African culture and at school/work it’s microaggressions that implicitly
tell us we can’t be ourselves. Being told that you’re too loud, too confident
and sometimes ‘too black’ are all things Black girls and women have been told
and all things which do a lot to the mental, more than people realise, but I
can only speak for myself.
Growing up, I often used to suppress myself to avoid inquisition
and negative attitudes in regard to who I am as an individual. The times I did express
myself in the ways that I felt I was being myself, it was often escorted with, ‘why
are you acting like that?’, ‘why are you acting black?’, but tell me what is it
to ‘act black’? What does one have to do to fit the description? Why can’t I be
myself without it being questioned? Having lived in a predominantly white space
for most of my life, my siblings and I were regularly labelled as coconuts and
or oreos because we were ‘black on the outside and white on the inside’ but again,
what does that mean? It was such a struggle to find my identity because people
didn’t want me to be myself but to some, I wasn’t really Black enough because I
didn’t behave in a way that fitted stereotypical narratives.
I know for some people, it’s hard to understand why someone
chooses to suppress their personality but there a lot of things white people do
not understand about black people and the lack of understanding often comes
with an intense amount of inquisition. Inquisition which occasionally has you questioning
yourself, questioning who you are, and you eventually learn not do certain
things in front of certain people to avoid a grilling of your identity. It’s tiring
beyond belief.
It wasn’t until I went to uni that I discovered more things
about myself and came into my identity as a young Black woman as I was becoming
increasingly more familiar with Black spaces. I had so much more in common with
my newly found Black friends and unsurprisingly, they understood me more than
my white friends and never questioned me as an individual.
It has honestly taken me such a long time to love the skin that I’m in because for the longest time, it was the one thing I didn’t want. I desperately wanted to have more in common with my white friends. I wanted to be able to share makeup with them, do each other’s hair, and talk about our similar upbringings, but looking back, it saddens me to think this was actually what I wanted at some point and this was the only way that I thought I could have things in common with my white friends; but things happen the way that they’re meant to and I think everything in life is part of character building, and for the record I don't want to be white anymore lmao.
Now that I've become more confident and now that I'm more in tune with
my Blackness, inquisition still hasn’t left the building. Now it’s ‘when did
you get so confident’, ‘OMG, you love yourself’, ‘you’re not a coconut anymore’.
Even if I do love myself, what’s wrong with that? If I look peng, you’re gonna
know about it. If I wanna chat to man, that’s none of your business. Are you losing
sleep over the fact that Lindiwe isn’t the same person she was a year ago? The
world is still going to keep spinning because you now don't like the way I carry myself.
People’s personalities and or mannerisms that you’ve created
for them in your head is really a you problem. Nobody told you I was gonna
stay the same for the rest of my life and nobody forced you to open your mouth before asking me if I care. A skill which a few people are yet to master, but anyway,
reparations can be taken via AliExpress today; lickle one two wigs that might
make me ‘too confident’. LOL, PayPal is still valid too xx.
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