Hey guys! Happy new year seeing as this is my first blog post of 2015! I hope you all had a great weekend! I know I did!
Social media can be cool. Social media can be great and sometimes social media can be your worst enemy.
Hey guys! Happy new year seeing as this is my first blog post of 2015! I hope you all had a great weekend! I know I did!
Social media can be cool. Social media can be great and sometimes social media can be your worst enemy. How and what exactly do I mean? Ok, so I’m sure many of us have something in our childhood that we’d much rather forget right? Well, if you don’t I certainly do lool. This weekend I came across a few things that took me down memory lane online. I’ve tweeted about it a while ago but coming across the same issue being discussed again made me realise that I’m not totally over it.I debated internally whether I should blog about this. It’s something personal to me but I think that writing brings a form of freedom and it could be quite therapeutic so here goes…
Once upon a time there was a girl. She went to primary school (as you do) then progressed unto secondary school. Of course she was excited about entering ‘big school’ but had she known some of what it may have entailed, perhaps she wouldn’t have been so keen. All of a sudden she realised her identity- the wrong one. Year 7 was the year of realisation; she was dark. Too dark at that. Comments such as ‘blick’ were commonplace in the playground and all too often directed at her. Thing is, you couldn’t even call it racism. Not really. How could you when 97% of those who said things were black. Like her. But just not ‘as black’ as her.
That little girl was me.
It used to get to me. Really get to me back then. I’m ashamed to say that one time when someone said to me “You’re actually not that dark” , I responded “Thank you”.
Can you imagine?
I cringe every time I think of my response. As if being dark is a bad thing.
For a long time I’ve been lackadaisical about racism and many things pertaining to it. It’s hard to be ‘down for the cause’ when your own are the ones causing the problems (at times). I’m happy to say that I’m over it all. I’m not that girl anymore and I’m certainly not ashamed of my skin tone.
I guess we all have that thing that caused us grief in the past. It’s down to us if we want to let the words of others define us. It’s really weird but just talking about my experience has made me feel like a burden has been lifted. Writing this was the last piece in the puzzle to recovery.
I guess writing can be beneficial.