#respectyourselves

"Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves."

-Rollo May

I'm not a huge political person. From what I've observed, politics consist of a group of dancers moving from partner to partner while stepping on each others toes, apologizing, complimenting them and then bitching about them to their next partner. This being said I have had a few reserved feelings about what's going on all around the world. The abuse of black people. I have not voiced my opinion to my family and friends because there is so much more going on then what people are acknowledging. I get that I may offend people but I'm the kind of person that when things are going wrong I look inward and only then do I look at other outlying factors.

After adopting me, my parents taught me that people will only treat me the way I wanted to be treated. My parents were hard on me, but they only did so to give me a fighting chance. I got what is famously known as "the talk". I had to work harder then all my classmates. I wasn't allowed outside during the summer until I finished a certain amount of "homework", work that my parents assigned. I was put in sports and went through extensive speech therapy to help with my speech impediment. A speech impediment that I wasn't even aware of, but upon seeing video of me as a child I will not dispute the fact that I talked like I had a combination of cotton, peanut butter and caramel in my mouth. All of this has created the person I am today; a hard working, quick witted, confident (no matter how false), strong-willed, opinionated, smart, and rather silly young lady. I get a lot of grief for acting what people like to call "white". This blows my mind (literally, I don't know how I'm alive). I do not act like any of my white friends, or rather any white person I know. Yet, black people claim I act white. White people just find me offensive and not very "wholesome" due to the fact that I speak my mind and stand up for myself. I refuse to be treated like I don't matter and I will make myself matter even if it means I have to be a little loud and obnoxious. So as you can see I'm a little torn between two worlds for no damn reason. I am black and I am smart. Why is that so difficult to grasp. Rant over, now back to the point of this post.

We, blacks as a race, are struggling. We are demanding respect that we don't even give ourselves. We want people to treat us like we matter but we don't even treat us like we matter. You want to know why white people are so successful? It's not because they're smarter, richer or better looking. It is because they carry themselves like they're the shit. They carry themselves like they run the world and the sky is the limit. Have you ever noticed that? Their confidence gives them an easy advantage over us. Yes, they've had years of practice but that doesn't mean we can't catch up. I wasn't anything special as a kid. I was being passed around in the system. I was told I was dumb, I couldn't talk right, that I was ugly! But look at me now! I mean, I'm not getting crazy paper but I can pay my bills. My parents taught me confidence and self-respect and let me tell you, that was not easy. After being treated like shit and told that I will never amount to anything I believed it. I never tried because I didn't see the point. My parents saw it though.

So first point: Lets carry ourselves in a way that demands respect.

Second point: Babies having babies. This is nothing new, years...many years ago 12 years of age was an acceptable age to marry and start popping out babies. The downside to this is how are 12 year old parents going to teach their kids to be adults when they're not adults themselves? They don't. Then those babies grow-up and run into the same problems. We've gotta do something about this.

Third point: We need to see each other. We are always fighting each other when we should be giving each other a hand. It's not always easy but there are so many amazing people out there and we miss out on great conversations because we think we're too good to talk to people. We need to stop being so quick to fight each other over looks, color of clothing and money.