Souls of Black Folk♥

I realize that there are so many complex things in our world, but one of the most interesting issues to me is race. Does it exist? Is it some aspect of the social world that we place on ourselves and each other? Is one superior to another? These are things that we’ve all wondered or faced at some point(s) in our lives, but honestly watching things that display African-Americans hating themselves and each other is kind of heartbreaking to me. I think part of my human instinct is to want to blame someone, but more importantly, how do we fix this? Will we ever be able to? The roots of this self hatred phenomenon seems so deep that there may be no point in trying to fix it. It’s flowing so rapidly through our people that there just may be no hope of ever fully getting all of our people to love themselves. It’s sad….like really sad, on a deep, deep level. At least to me.
I’ll honestly say that I don’t love everything about Black people, or the things that stereotypically describe us, but I have never wished I was of another race. I don’t feel inferior to any other race. I don’t think people are born hating themselves. We don’t just pop out of the womb hating who we are. I believe hatred is a learned behavior, whether we’re learning it from our families and those around us, or the media, or from our interactions with people around us. There’s so much to be said on the issue of self-hatred that I don’t even know where to begin…I just realize that as I become older and more educated, I see life as a bigger picture. That picture just isn’t as pretty as I’d like it to be…I just find it sad that, in a world where we could be doing so much, people get hung up on miniscule things like skin shade, hair texture, nose shape, and other superficial things that, if changed, still will not erase who we are, or the beautiful image that we were all made in. These things do not define us, and if they do, it’s because we let them. When I hear people talking about wanting to bleach their skin, or get nose jobs, or all that other foolishness, I always wonder what happened to them in their life that made them want to do it…who told you that you were “less than” and made you believe it so wholeheartedly that you’d go to such extremes to change? Changing our outsides can be so indicative of what’s going on inside… and even aesthetic changes are only a temporary fix. Because a person who genuinely hates who they are is not going to be satisfied with changing one thing. If you’re a Black woman who hates being Black, getting a nose job isn’t going to change that sense of hatred. You’re going to keep finding more and more things to change, but at the end of every day when your head hits that pillow, you’re going to still be a Black woman. Why not go the other route and embrace this? I wonder, where would we be if we lived in a world that didn't try to glorify certain standards of beauty and acceptance...If I could change one thing about the world, this would be it. I find some consolation in knowing that when I bring in a new generation (in a few years), I'll try my hardest to let my children know that they are wonderfully created in the image of something so beautiful, both internally and externally.
There are some things I just don’t think I’ll ever fully understand, but I wish that self-hating people could see what someone like me sees when I look at my people. We could be so much more, but self-hatred has bred hatred towards each other, and I have no idea when a change will come…How can we improve and love ourselves as a whole when we don’t even love ourselves enough as links in the chain?
x0x0♥