#breonawrite

BRAID-OUT.

I wrote this after waking up to a message from yet another persistent knucklehead. He sent it at 3:39 a.m. I know boredom and loneliness can be intense during those late night, early morning hours but I ain’t the cure!

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I personally chose to stop identifying as “black” in my late teens because I realized how dishonest it was. Every time I would call myself black, I would feel guilty and foolish for lying. My skin is brown. My brown skin represents my Africanness. With that understanding, I identify as African.

I remember being a child, patiently waiting and wishing for my skin to turn black so the label “black” would have some accuracy and actually apply to me.

As I aged, I realized that my skin would never turn black because it was already a color. BROWN. Age also gave me the awareness that European people’s racism created the “black person” just like it created the “white person.”

Have y’all noticed that the so-called “white” people ain’t even white? They’re multicolored. Pink. Orange. Red. I’ve even seen some of them with a green and yellow tint to their skin. A WHOLE RAINBOW!!! Still they have convinced themselves as well as the whole world that their skin is “white.” My eyes see the lies! 🌈👀

It’s overdue that We accurately define ourselves and “black” just ain’t it.

No more claiming and identifying with inaccurate, racist labels that European people placed on Us.

How can a person be black with brown skin? It literally doesn’t match.

If my skin was black, I wouldn’t mind identifying with black because then it’d be the truth. Don’t lie on my skin color to propel your racism then expect me to spend my whole life lying on my skin color, too.