#allymeans

(PG13, language)

Here’s the thing about being a writer it’s the research. First let me preface, sadly as a black woman I don’t know how to describe my black beauty, or the beauty of my characters as well as I do a white person. It’s just not in our lexicon of knowledge to think of black is beautiful, which is why there are so many people saying we are beautiful, because we have been told in literature, and in our lives that we are ugly for centuries. It’s not likely to fade anytime soon either, since racism has gotten a fifth wind.

In my research to find words that describe black skin, I first came across the usual boring words like tawny, which is more a yellowish color, the standard ebony, and of course the N-word, because that’s a skin color for black folks. Thanks Urban Dictionary, I guess they thought, if we didn’t do it someone else would. Merriam-Webster didn’t, just saying.

Anyway, I’m mostly writing this because I’m procrastinating and I have no ideas for my stories at the moment, but this, searching for better terms to describe folks like me, was very eye opening and reminded me again how far we have not come since the Civil War ended. I mean shit, black people still can’t vote half the time, cause the klan inside the government is “legally” stealing our votes. When I say legally I mean they have slowly and steadily fucked all our states and made it practically impossible for anyone but their red votes count.