For most, being a black woman is enough to incite unsolicited comments about a person’s body. They’ll look at a black girls hips, her thighs, her bottom, and decide that it’s something that they need to talk about– even when no one asked. While things like this are already hard to avoid, they become even harder when a black woman is in a setting that is predominately white.
White people have always seen black bodies as being “exotic”, something that doesn’t fit the norm. Black bodies are sexualized, they are dehumanized, they are compartmentalized, and they are only appreciated when possessed by anybody other than a black woman. Dealing with that stress can be extremely hard on a person’s body image. You want to have a body that fits into one of those categories, even if that’s not a possible goal for you to reach.
If black bodies aren’t accepted as is, they are expected to be something that they aren’t.
The typical body that a black woman can posses and be accepted in a white community is the hourglass figure. If she has large hips, a small waist, and a large bust then she’s more likely to fit the ideal shape of a black woman however, she isn’t granted any immunity from having someone make unwanted comments on her body. Some might say she’s too fat, some might say her weight and body type are unhealthy– the comments don’t stop. The same goes for black women with thin body types amongst a sea of thin white bodies. That black woman might hear that she is too thin to be black or some might question why her backside isn’t thicker because ‘all black women have big butts’ and while in white communities it is acknowledged that unwanted comments are harmful to white girls– no one seems to care how they affect black women.
Unsolicited comments on someone else’s body, no matter their race, are harmful but when you add the fact that their race and bodies’ are naturally seen as the ‘other’ it only ups the chances of a negative body image. Larger black women have trouble accepting their curves and thinner black women have problems accepting their thinness as who they are. And many struggle with their blackness whether it be feeling like they aren’t black enough or feeling like they are too black to fit into a society where no one looks like them.
Contrary to popular belief (and demand) black women come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. We don’t need anyone to tell us that our thighs spreading when we sit is unhealthy or that the food we eat is the reason our hips are so wide. We don’t need anyone telling us that they think our bodies are the ‘sexiest’ and that they wished they were shaped like a black girl because sometimes we wish that we weren’t shaped like black girls.
No amount of underhanded compliments or slightly condescending praise can make a black girl love her body anymore, so stop dishing it out. Just because you want a bigger butt or a curvier shape does not give you the right to push stereotypes about our bodies onto us and then not be prepared to deal with the aftermath. We are strong but we are also human and our bodies mean just as much as any white woman’s.
