The “Particular” Black Girl
I’m not mad. I don’t have an attitude. Yes, I do smile. I’m not aggressive. I don’t have an attitude. I’m not rude. I’m not mean. I don’t have an attitude.
When I was in 9th grade, I asked a question because I was genuinely confused. After my question was asked, I was sent out of class and later had a “check in” with my teacher after school. I was accused of having a tone and being aggressive when just asking a question. I didn’t have an attitude, I wasn’t mad, I was confused. After this encounter with my teacher, I was hurt. I went home and told my mom, and she responded with “sometimes you have to be mindful of how you say things, because to certain people, especially people who aren’t the same race as you, it will come off rude, and they will take it negatively.” I didn’t feel like anything she said was fair, because why should I have to “watch my tone,” and I’m simply asking a question.
It’s not just me it happens to. It's a universal thing. It’s both black girls and women who go through the same things everyday, walking on the street and someone saying: “smile,” or sitting down and your mom telling you to “fix your face.”
And that’s where the problem begins–not with who I am–but who people assume me to be. Their assumptions hang on to me louder than my truth, which forces me to navigate a version of myself that isn’t me. For example, I walked into my Chemistry class at 9am, and sat down. A classmate then walks in the classroom after me, but as they are walking to their seat, they are staring at me. The first thing he says–no good morning, hello, nothing–but a “why are you always mad?” I was confused, because all I did was sit down. I started to overthink my facial expressions, asking myself: was I sideyeing, was my lip tuned up, how did I look? This is an all day, every day thing. It's annoying, seriously. I already know what someone is going to say to me before they say it.
What begins as a comment about my facial expressions or tone in school, it doesn’t end there, it follows other black girls like myself into adulthood, the workplace, and into how society treats us. What starts as being told to “fix your face,” turns into a “punishment” where black girls aren’t disciplined for their actions, but how their presence is interpreted by others. As we transition into adulthood, we see that black women are labeled as “unprofessional” for their tone, and have to learn to “code switch” to fit into the job standards. We have also seen many cases where black women were overlooked for higher positions in their workplace because they are seen as “too aggressive.”
These assumptions don’t appear out of thin air, but rather, they are taught, repeated, and reinforced by the media and society before people even meet us. Sometimes, when looking on social media, there are numerous videos of black women being themselves or talking in a normal tone, but being labeled as “loud” or “ghetto.” Specifically, we see this in the media when a celebrity of color is defending their name or speaking out about an opinion and they are labeled as “difficult.” This difficult label, then leads to needing to be “media trained” and having to dim your light for others to feel comfortable. Despite silencing ourselves, we can’t win. Our silence is seen as hostility and we still receive a negative perception. We can’t win. Why?
In tenth grade, I was sent out of class for another petty reason. I vividly remember having a normal day, just sitting in class trying to learn the material. I was then asked to step out of the classroom. Apparently, I had a “face.” What was the face? The teacher couldn’t even tell me. The face just “wasn’t appropriate in a school setting.” When I tried to tell the teacher that it was possibly just a resting face that was being misinterpreted, I was labeled as “defensive” and “disrespectful.” Why couldn’t they just listen.
I’m not mad. I don’t have an attitude. Yes, I do smile. I’m not aggressive. I don’t have an attitude. I’m not rude. I’m not mean. I don’t have an attitude. I’m not making a face. I don’t have a “look.” Sometimes, I am just simply not comfortable in the place I am in. I have a resting face. I am actually one of the sweetest people, and enjoy smiling. I enjoy laughing. I’m actually quite the opposite of who people expect me to be.
This wasn’t all my teachers or staff, just some. Some can see through the “attitude” and “sassiness,” the “smart, intelligent, and charismatic” person that I am. While some judged me based on stereotypical assumptions, some took the time to learn who I am as a person, like Ms.McNair. When asked how she sees me, she stated that I am a “developing young black girl, who needs to learn to interact with people who may see my charm as anything but, and how to draw them in.”
Situations like these affected me, whether I let people see it or not. I had to force myself to change in different spaces, making myself uncomfortable in a way to make others feel comfortable. I had to smile more and “code switch” while talking to people in spaces who don’t quite care to understand or learn who I am. Despite a change that I had to make, I feel that I shouldn’t have had to make adjustments to myself, even when I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The most damaging part of it all, isn’t just the comments, it’s the constant exhaustion that comes from editing myself just to peacefully exist.
No one sees these fine-tunings that I had to make and the burden they put on my shoulders; the constant switching just to make others happy, but where does that leave me?
I am currently a senior at Comp Sci High, located in the South Bronx, learning how to navigate myself. Throughout my personal and shared experiences of black girls and women, I realized that no matter what you do and who you are around, your skin color and gender will always define you. These experiences don’t just end when you leave school, they carry further into life and outside into the real world. I’ve seen firsthand how black women are limited and bashed for simple speaking up. There was an older black woman on a crowded train who was near a white man with a dog. She calmly asked him to move over because the dog was affecting her allergies and he had the space to move. Instead of him moving, he started recording and provoking the woman, playing the victim when she asked him nicely. The video went viral and people were saying her responses were “black fatigue,” and “it's always them,” in a situation that was never even serious. She was just trying to set a boundary and instead of being respected, she was stripped of the autonomy to set boundaries. This made me think that regardless of age or where we are, that could be me.