A close friend of mine informed me of a problem her sister had to face. A fellow classmate of hers told her that her hair looked like “slave hair”, and this was said by a black girl no less. You can see why this is a problem. To put it lightly, I literally just like couldn’t deal? For there to be so much hatred in the black community, towards the black community, it honestly baffles me.
For those of you who may or may not know, internalized racism is racism you have towards your own ethnic group. “But Kae Kae, that isn’t possible,” well reader I’m here to tell you yes it is. The black community is growing so much, but it’s things like this that make it seem as if nothing has changed. When I first began my transition into natural hair, I got so many questions, most of which were “when are you going to get a perm?” I had just started and people were already waiting for it to be over, for me to “tame” my natural hair before I even really got a chance to let it grow. My natural hair didn’t fit with society’s standards of how hair should look, therefore it wasn’t welcome. They expected me to continue to conform to eurocentric standards of beauty, all while telling me I needed to be “more black”, and that I acted “too white” for a black person.
There are black stereotypes within black stereotypes. Whether it be “light skins thirst trappin’ on the Gram,” or “dark skin camouflage being the color black,” it’s there. They have been engraved into us since birth, and we as a black community have even made them a standard. Have you or someone you know ever said “you’re too white to be black,” to a black person? Have you been told this? I have heard this throughout my life, and at once I would consider this a compliment. This is not a compliment.
Just because we don’t fit your image of what a black person should be, that doesn’t mean our race has changed.
I have been black since birth, and I will die with my blackness intact.
There’s a standard of blackness for the black community, but at the same time, it seems like we are still trying to oppress certain aspects of being black. We’re still too afraid to allow black people to just be themselves as individuals without stripping them of their race. We need to free ourselves of the labels we’ve been given just by the color of our skin. Stop making the stereotype the standard.
