Imagine a world where everyone is treated equally. Imagine a world where everyone is treated with respect and dignity despite a person’s race, sex, economic status, or sexual orientation. This sounds like a world where everyone is happy and treated with complete fairness and respect.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a world like this. We live in a world where people get killed by the police simply because of the color of their skin. It is hard enough being a black person in this world, but being a black woman is two strikes against you.
“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most Unprotected person in America is the Black Woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black Woman.” The famous religious leader and political Activist, Malcom X, said this many years ago and this is still true to this day.
Being a black woman in America is like being the last kid picked to play on the dodgeball team in high school. We are constantly overlooked, put down, and sometimes dehumanized.
All these are proven true within a lot of events going on in the world today. For instance, the recent ruling of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was a cop who swore to always protect and uphold the citizens of this country. This country did not do the same for her and we not only let her down as a nation but as a people.
Breonna Taylor was shot in her own home with her boyfriend lying next to her. Only one officer was charged in the grand jury and he was not charged of homicide but charged of endangering the neighbors because of the bullets that went through the wall.
Isn’t it ironic when something happens to a man, everything must stop? Tables are reversed and something happens to a Black woman, we are questioned, and any sort of change is delayed or not even considered.
The case of Breonna Taylor is just a glimpse into what it is like to be a Black Woman in this world. Black Women find struggle in all industries and in a lot of other aspects of life.
Popular rap artist, Meghan Thee Stallion, was allegedly shot by another well-known rapper/singer Tory Lanez and she received a lot of backlash and accusation of lying after Lanez released a song claiming he had not shot her.
Stallion opened on social media on how it is to be a Black Woman in this world. Stallion showed her emotion by crying and showing her frustration with how much hate she received for speaking out on something that personally happened to her.
“We need to protect our Black women and love our Black women. At the end of the day, we need our Black Women,” Stallion opened her performance on hit Tv Show, Saturday night Live, with a declaration of love and peace for Black Women.
Even though many Black women may not have experienced gun violence firsthand, many of them have either felt their voices were not being heard or grew up having to minimize themselves as a woman.
“My mentors told me to dim my light within a workplace,” Journalist Maura Cheeks reflects on her experience in an article about being in a top industry surrounded by men. “Sometimes as a Black woman, we are told to limit ourselves as a person to make everyone else around us more comfortable.”
Black women grow up hearing negative connotations majority of our lives. I can count on many occasions when I have received backhanded compliments about the way I speak, the way I look, or simply just for being me.
We are often treated as the last of the bunch or almost like a rotten apple. Recently, A black couple won a popular dating show, Love Island, where they made history as the first black couple to win the show ever within the franchise. Unfortunately, Justine who is one half of the winning couple found it hard in the beginning because a lot of men did not want her in the start of the show. She began to have many insecurities of being a Black Woman but also being a dark-skinned woman.
“I love the skin I’m in and I love the skin God made for me, but it was hard because I faced a lot of those insecurities early on,” said Justine who answered a question in an interview how it was being a Black Woman on a show with a predominately white audience. “A lot of Black women on the previous seasons had not had good experiences so coming in, I was already kind of preparing myself for some of those insecurities.”
It was great for a Black couple to make history in a large white platform, but it was sad to see a black woman’s insecurities so early on within a show that is supposed to bring happiness and light to an audience. I saw myself within Justine because unfortunately we live in a world where that is a lot of Black women’s realities.
I do not know if things will change anytime soon. I do not know if someday Black women will be able to voice their opinions without the fear of having to be silenced.
I do know that when I have a daughter of my own, she will not only love herself as a woman but value and uphold herself as a Black Woman.
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