To be a Queen in such a turbulent world,
Being a Black woman, it ain’t no joke.
It’s a blessing and a curse.
To know everyone on Earth came from someone who looked like you.
To be a manifestation of resilience, strength and divine beauty.
Our Afro to look like the trees and a body that rolls like the seas.
Our skin resembling the Earth and the ability to hold our head up high despite the world trying to knock us down.
But we’re also at the bottom of the social totem pole.
Dealt the hands of racism, colorism and sexism.
Growing up taught there was such a thing as too dark, too big or too ghetto.
Black women can’t seem to do anything but start your trends, make your tik tok dances, be sexualized and cast aside.
As if our only meaning and purpose is to be used for someone else’s profit.
Being told don’t wear bonnets in public but have your hair straight, Afros are “unkempt and unclean” . Your curl pattern isn’t loose enough to be desirable, being judged for protective styles.
White women walking up to you calling you “sis” touching your hair or asking “is that your real hair”and assuming if you wear weave, you must be “bald-headed”.
As if wigs aren’t a protective style.
Newsflash Karen, I need protective styles to keep my hair healthy not because I’m bald.
And I’m not “using your hair” last I checked no one is getting German/ Irish/ Swiss bundles.
But that’s not even the half of it.
We have to deal with the media calling us whores for embracing a sexuality they demanded we have.
We have to question whether our men even like us or are they bashing us while seeing our white women as a token of success.
But the worst part is watching women like Sandra Bland, Michelle Cusseaux, Ma’ Kyia Bryant, Tanisha Anderson, Mya Hall, Alexis Christian, India Kager, Breonna Taylor and so many more die.
To have to scream #SayHerName against those who see this fight as a Black male issue.
To be pushed behind and be almost invisible in the fight against police brutality. Prayers for our Black men but silence for our women at times.
Watching your government only prosecute for the bullets missed and throw settlements at the families they can’t dismiss. As if money equates to a lost sister, mother, friend, wife.
How do you get up every morning as a Black woman with that weight everyday? To live in rebellion, in spite of the criteria society has? And we do it everyday facing persecution, misogyny and discrimination.
And that resilience, that unwavering strength makes me proud that I am a Black woman.
