Status Updates From For Brown Girls with Sharp ...

if i hear “mi mami tells me to get out of the sun, mi mami tells me to put on sunblock, mi mami tells me to not go to the beach so much” i’m gonna tweak

White women’s tears stop conversations on race, class, and gender in their tracks because white women’s feelings are considered sacred. White women become untouchable in a white supremacist society. They can be racist on camera and then deny their participation in their racist actions, and people will believe it.

I realize now that white fragility means that it is not just that white people’s feelings must constantly be considered (when our feelings never are). In order to avoid a white person’s meltdown and cries of victimization, the only solution is to accommodate their entitlement to always be centered.

We are socialized to seek admiration and approval to a fault. When does the social performance end? How many of us will follow the prescribed roles—marriage, motherhood—just to be respected, heard, or legible as adults?

We call mujeres locas, lloronas, putas, and a slew of other terms that are specifically meant to shame women for not following the rules and for speaking up for themselves.

Women tend to do a lot of work to justify the actions of the men in our lives, while our men do little to nothing to acknowledge our pain, much less try to alleviate it.

Even when speaking English, regional accents or accents that come from speaking multiple languages get toned down for the comfort of white ears—a lot of BIPOC call this their “white voice.”

We all adhere to a version of respectability politics—“we” being BIPOC. We all switch our speech, accents, behaviors, appearances into more palatable ones around normative culture, which I will rightfully refer to as white culture.

Some days, you will forget that you are smart and worthy, because you might stutter when you have to speak English in front of a room of native English speakers.

To assimilate requires erasing your ethnicity; you have to perform in a way that puts white people at ease, to the point where you earn honorary whiteness: “You’re not like the others.”

When women began to be recognized for their professional successes, impostor syndrome led them to believe what they had been socialized to believe—that any accomplishments resulted from luck, teamwork, and outside help.

When you are made to feel like you are not beautiful, and society teaches you that the worth of girls and women lies in their beauty, then you start to feel unlovable.

Because I have my papi’s Brownness but mi mami’s gender, a curse—I was born female and Brown, in a cultura that hates females and especially hates the darker ones.