Photo credit: KiVonShe Photography
“I’m black and I’m proud. Say it LOUD!”
Living in the world as a black person is often met with fear and contempt from those who do not walk in our shoes. Our media portrayals show us as domineering, aggressive, angry, and dangerous. So much so that #blackboyjoy and #blackgirlmagic have become a trending topic on social platforms just to inform the ignorant that we actually experience much joy.
I will never forget an experience my cousin and I had in Croatia a few years back with the locals. We were at a bar having a bomb ass time when I noticed a group of women staring at us. When I looked they would look away. I was laughing with my cousin and just being alert because we were the odd women out. One finally approached us and asked us our names. She then said, I kid you not, “I’ve never seen black women smile before. That is why I kept looking.” My cousin and I literally cackled and I invited her and her friends to join us so they could experience black joy.
That moment will never leave me because it highlighted another aspect of racism in my life, filtered carefully through television, news media, and other areas that depict us as angry animals. It is with this post that I honor us and declare our freedom to express happiness. We experience joy and love and excitement just as any other person would. Make the images of us celebrating, dancing, and smiling the norm so that it becomes harder and harder for those to depict us as anything else. Celebrate your blackness every day. Do not conform to the docile quiet persona we were “taught” to be in order to “make it” or “fit in” in this world. Rejoice and be glad in who you are as a person as you celebrate the greatness of your people.
Thats is all the tea I have for today. Until next time,
KiVonShe