Listen to the music black girl, but don’t cry when it gets too loud 

Let the cacophonic capsules be slipped into your drink

Feel the beat, your people like soul train right?

A mixture, a Molotov cocktail of micro-aggression, just for you! 

It’s okay, black women are so strong be strong black girl, be brave–

Be quieter, your voice is like nails on a chalkboard scratching and scratching– 

Scratch that, we don’t want to see you either

Your complexion perplexes me and I’m waiting for it to make sense. I’m waiting… waiting and waiting-

Wait no, come here, let us see you!  You and-

Your chocolate skin…

It’s gorgeous.

You know what they say the darker the berry the sweeter the–

Juice! Apple is my favorite. What is yours? Strange fruit? 

Strange, you should do something with your hair. 

Are you going out like that? 

Speaking of going out, do you want to hang sometime?

Sorry was that insensitive?

Sensitive, gosh people like you are so sensitive! 

Give us a smile sweetheart, girls like you always have an attitude always so…

Angry? At me? I didn’t pick the song black girl, I just play the music. 

Now why don’t you be good and go back to dancing

Dance for us black girl! 

Dance to the stereo, the stage is set.

The post Let the music guide you, the stereo(types) won’t stop playing! appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

In 2016, I think I finally understood what true fear felt like.

The Black history museum in Washington, D.C., my mom managed to get tickets for the opening week, still we waited on the side of the street waiting for hours, Ours all around us.

I’d never seen so many reflections of myself, a crowd of culture.

When we finally stepped in the air changed, my feet rocked as we started at the bottom of our history, on a ship, a slave ship, each floor a different chapter, it was heavy, to carry, to learn, to see, and nothing could’ve prepared me for the room.

One on Emmett Till. I hadn’t known who he was until I heard his story, even though I couldn’t understand.

Until I saw his face.

In an open casket he lay, his eyes popping from his head, the face of a boy mutilated, desecrated, it was too horrific to be real, the rest of the day I reeled into my soul, shut down, at the fact that it was.

That night I cried.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face…

I wailed to my parents, slept in their bed, my head a mess in a way it had never been before, and that night when my parents started to snore, I would see him in the open doorway, it felt like I was being haunted that night. I sat alone as the weight of this newly found grief settled at the pit of my stomach.

I did not sleep.

The next day I didn’t go to school, and I didn’t feel very Cool for missing, my heart still hissing; not only sad, angry.

But I didn’t regret what I saw; it was more important than any lesson or story from school—because I finally understood what true fear felt like, and I finally understood why his mother wanted the casket open.

The post The Picture appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

I forgive other people but it’s hard to forgive yourself

The only person you will always have

Yet the person we give the least grace, empathy, love

We can ring out our souls for others but never for ourselves

Receive purple hyacinths but not once buy them to be placed in a vase on your own dining room table

I’m compassionate but am I really if I don’t show it to myself?

Pull back the curtains and make a play out of my unconditional self-love?

Maybe it’s because self-deprecation is in our nature; magnifying flaws instead of hidden talents

Today even if I can’t tomorrow, I will send myself hyacinths and will forgive my own apology.

The post I Forgive Myself… appeared first on Baltimore Beat.