When a girl child is twenty (20) weeks in utero or in the womb, the gender of the child is determined and the first announcement is “it’s a girl” by the doctor or midwife. S/He does not declare the race of the girl. Why? It is already common knowledge if her parents are both black, the girl is black. However, there is a marked misconception about who she will be based simply on her race. From the birth canal, she will be expected to take on the weight of her community, her family, sometimes the world and her life, if she gets to it.
Although some may not agree, Black girls/women journeys can be different from other girls/women and carry subtle nuances that many don’t understand including those who go through it. In my upcoming e-book, To: Black Girls EVERYWHERE, From: Your Aunties EVERYWHERE, the aunties, as they’re called, willingly share their moments of clarity while on this journey of womanhood as black women.
In the e-book, aunties from across the diaspora (scattered populations of black people around the world) share advice that they wished they would have received from the women in their lives. I want you to understand this is coming from a place of love and for some soul searching. As you know or will soon know as black women, our journeys are extremely complex and not monolithic (not all alike). But, what binds us together is our blackness. That, sadly, has been oftentimes synonymous (have the same or similar meaning) with constant struggle. It does not have to be the case.
Credit: Texas Juneteenth Day Celebration, 1900
(Austin History Center, Austin Public Library)
As a race, black people have gone through many historical and current traumatic experiences such as slavery, sharecropping, Reconstruction, race massacres, segregation, redlining, the Civil Rights Movement, school to prison pipeline, police brutality, among other societal issues. This is, in addition to, life just happening. If you have not heard of these events, I ask that you and your friends do a little research and ask questions to the elders in your life. Sometimes, they won’t tell you unless you ask. But when they do tell you, be prepared to listen and learn from those lessons. Even through the many obstacles, black people, collectively, have tried to maintain their dignity and worked hard to obtain the American Dream that had been denied to us for so long.
You come from those people. Never be ashamed, baby girl. Be proud of their determination to live DESPITE all of those things. I will stop right here. In the next blog, we will dig deeper into how this relates to you now. You are loved, black girl!!!