She

She was young then. Back when everything that seemed to be known was definite and the world offered no permanent plague as it did now. How different it had been when the only thing that concerned her was the decision of the toy to bring to her next play date. No, it was different now. She had grown taller, smarter……beautiful. 

She was not prepared of the inevitable backlash to keep her in what was deemed her place.  Who was she to gain knowledge, to dare to not fall victim to their stereotypes, criticism, and statistics? They did not embrace her, this woman who dared to upstage them. Instead, they sought to degrade her, to make her feel inadequate, to destroy her. 

They didn’t use the old methods. No, those old tricks were banned long ago. They didn’t make their hatred obvious with signs and dry slogans, that would undermine their cause. Instead, they took to the airways, her image devoured on televisions shows, movies, and songs.  She was no longer beautiful and intelligent in this new world; she was ignorant, promiscuous, unlovable.

She turned to her own hoping to be consoled, but they too wanted to demolish her.  Her curls lacked the softness, the shape that her own desired.  They mocked its inability to impeccably fall down her back. Her skin contained too much melanin. They endorsed the very movie that portrayed her as loud and intolerant. They turned up the radio and blasted the music that demeaned and dismissed her as merely a creature to satisfy sexual desires.

She was at a crossroads.  She could find no solace in others, not from the world, and not from her own people. This new conscious of the world could have easily dispirited her, but something began to stir within her bosom.

She could not counteract the world with their disparaging antics. No, she knew that her true identity was not on TV screens and radio stations, it was in her actions. She knew that the definite way to halt this new conflict was to succeed. To be beautiful, open minded and intelligent was the only weapon she contained. She was the origin of everything that surrounded her; she was the beautiful black woman.