My Skin is Brown...

(Wednesday, January 12, 2011)

  "Four Women" Nina Simone Tribute. Kelly Price, Marsha Ambrosius, Jill Scott, Ledisi.

I know Black Girls Rock aired months ago, but I had to post this performance for the purposes of this entry.  Every time I watch this tribute, I literally get chills.  The black female is by far one of God's most special creations and probably the most complicated.  I normally have something to tell you as to what inspired my blog entry, but today, it was merely looking into the mirror.  While taking my hair down this morning, dazed, staring into my vanity, I thought to myself "wow, I am truly a beautiful woman."  In no way am I trying to be conceited or cocky, but sometimes you need to really look into a mirror and make that realization... especially us black women.  We deal with and have dealt with so much in society, yet are ridiculed and made fun of so often... by sadly... one another and our black male counterparts.  Twitter jumps when topics like "hood hoes" are trending.  Music videos are full of boricuas and red bones.  Society places the "home wrecker" label quickly onto budding black women in entertainment. Ridiculous.

In a discussion I had with a few women my age a while back, the consensus was that black women are the hardest on one another.  We bicker, we fight, we hate.  To an extent I agree.  As females, we definitely need to do better with our respect for one another.  But personally, I feel that black men are the hardest on black women.  Here it is 2011, and I still hear black men making comments implying that dark skin women aren't beautiful.  So I guess the rest of her has nothing to do with it??? Just her skin color??? Really though???  A man will date a woman, but through the process tell her how he wants her to wear her hair, how he wants her to dress, what food he wants her to eat, what amount of make-up she should wear.  He'll belittle what she finds entertaining, constantly benefit from her kindness yet quickly call her a nag or bitch when she finally stands up for herself.  Sometimes when I see all of this happening, I just want to yell STOP!

My black men, women in general are already insecure in so many facets.  The most confident, most beautiful woman has insecurities.  Black women compete because the black man puts them against one another with out even realizing he's doing so.  A man will constantly make comments to his woman about how attractive a celebrity is, and never think that maybe it's getting to her head.  Sad to say, females react.  It's in our genetic make-up.  God gave us all of these emotions, so we could be excellent mothers and nurturers... so we could be loving with our children, supportive to our husbands, and empathetic to society.

Black women are indeed strong, but we endure a lot that I don't think anyone but a black woman can comprehend completely.  I am a young, black, female Head Coach in a man's world.  If only you knew some of things that I have had to go through in order to gain respect.  We are two times the minority.  Our sexuality always has to be guarded when things like rape and "hoe" labels exist.  Our womanhood has to be easily recognizable to be wanted, yet our backbone has to be present to be respected.  Then as black women, we are expected to be stronger than the average woman.  I know that black women aren't innocent in the making judgments department, but I don't think black men understand the magnitude of impact that they possess.  When you give a woman assurance that everything is okay, then she will be okay because you are her king.  I would hope that a race which has faced so much prejudice and ridicule as a whole, would see how much they need one another.  We are each others biggest and worst critics when we need to be each others biggest and best supporters.  My brown people, learn to love beautiful for what it is and not for what you think it should be.  Learn to encourage.  Black men, my kings, you have my support... but all I, your queen, ask for is yours.

"As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them." ~Maya Angelou