In this world, being a black woman might as well be the same as being the gum underneath a desk. Unnoticed. I don’t say that to make anyone feel down, but that is the truth for many of us. We are underrepresented in the media (mostly dark skin women. Hello Netflix, yes dark skin women exist). We are pretty much disrespected daily on social media, and it feels like we can’t do anything about it. It is hard being a black woman when you are pushing for others, and no one else is pushing for you. It is hard when there is already a pay gap in gender but a bigger one when it comes to being a black woman. It is hard when someone else steals your light doing the exact same thing you have been doing all your life. It is hard being a black woman when it seems like the only compliment there is the “you’re a strong black woman’ as if we are supposed to take on pain head-on and survive it. We are not cinder blocks; we can be soft, sweet, feminine, and vulnerable, just any other woman.
Why is it hard to be a black woman? I wish I knew the answer to that question, and there is a chance that we will never get the answer, but I know that although it is hard to be a black woman, we are also powerful beings. We can achieve even when told that we can’t. We can do us better than anyone else can try to be. Our bodies are the temples and models that we see as everyone wants. Our hair is as beautiful and amazing as the trees that stand long and proud with stories in every lock, kink, curl, and coil. We are as vibrant as the rainbow after a long storm. And we are unique, loving, vulnerable, beautiful, and magical beings that have been put on this earth to show the world who we are and that we will never be put into a box or be told that we can not do something.
“When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when We come to it.” – Maya Angelou (A Brave and Startling Truth)