Photo by Clarke Sanders on Unsplash
The black woman is the least respected, appreciated, recognized and loved being in many places around the world. Instead of being the most resilient, beautiful, godly, compassionate and nurturing. It is very ironic how black women are perceived and treated. Although black women have all the qualities of God, the one thing a lot of them lack is self-love.
But how can one love themselves when from a small child all they are taught sub-consciously and consciously is how to hate themselves in all forms possible? Black women are told “your hair needs to be softer/straighter “, so they perm our hair, not even knowing what damage that can cause to our mental and physical health later on or they burn our roots with 400-degree heat that strips our crowns from our heads, leaving us with emotional and physical scars.
“You can’t wear those shorts!”, so we grow to hate our thick thighs, wide hips, and round bottoms. We constantly get chastised and call all sorts of degrading names for our shapes, the ones that we are rightfully born with. “You need to get married, have kids, take care of your family, do what “real” women do.” So we dedicate our lives looking for the “perfect” husband, trying to fill the shoes of the “perfect” women, deteriorating our souls along the way.
Equally to other race, The black woman is beautiful, smart and capable…
Black women are told they are too loud. They have too much attitude, too aggressive, too much. Then, they have the nerve to question “Why are you so angry?”, even though you have violated her intelligence, her peace and serenity. “Why can’t you be more submissive?”, even though you have told her that she is nothing but lost hope and dreams and that it is the man’s way or no way. For black women, it is a constant battle of proving to others and most importantly, to ourselves that we ARE great. We ARE beautiful, we ARE smart, we ARE capable, and we are NEVER too much, but enough.
They ask, what is the biggest struggle a black woman faces with loving herself? It is her loving herself. That is the struggle. She struggles to love herself because she cannot do what she does not know. I truly believe that we are the products of our environment. We are flowers, if we do not get water, get sunlight and food, we eventually die but give us all that we need and we grow, strong and beautiful. Black women struggle to love herself because we struggle to love the black women. The reason for that now is a whole other blog.
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