If you didn’t know, yesterday was National Chocolate Day! I have such a sweet tooth and chocolate is always my go-to dessert. Today I’m going to share with you my favorite chocolate. It’s not the fluffy goodness of a 3 Musketeers or the crunchy delight of a Butterfinger. My favorite chocolate is black women.
Now before your mind starts wandering, let me clarify exactly what I mean. I am not attracted to black women, I admire black women. From the Reese’s cup mixed girls to the Godiva dark chocolate girls, I love them all. As my generation says, melanin poppin’. If you’re smart you’re nodding in agreement right now. If you don’t agree, I’ll pray for you. I’m serious! Black women do not get enough love so I’ll be the one to praise us. Somebody has to right?
Pictured are my friends and I (right) showing off our melanin in Miami this past summer.
Why the sudden appreciation post? First off, the violent assault of a seemingly harmless African-American girl at Spring Valley High School shows the fact that black women are still thought of as less than. Second, yesterday at my Black Student Union general board meeting we played a game called “Stereotype Headbandz”. Based on the game Headbanz where you have a card on your forehead and guess what your card says, our general board members shouted out stereotypical clues. The game was fun and thought provoking. It hit home when the card “Black female” flashed and people started to shout out clues like ratchet, easy, and aggressive. Finally, one boy ended the harsh stereotypes by shouting out the clue “you’re beautiful”.
Black women ARE beautiful. As I said, black women are my favorite chocolate. You can keep your Twix and Kit Kat. I want the chocolate that doesn’t break when society bends it. I want the chocolate that doesn’t melt under America’s pressure. That’s Black women. Not only are we beautiful, we’re strong. I myself have become a little Almond Joy: chocolate on the outside, white coconut on the inside that some people don’t enjoy, sweet but with a hard almond core. There are so many different shades and tints and sizes and shapes of Black women. Sadly, what we all have in common is being last on the totem pole.
I realized this fact in the tenth grade when I read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson. From that book I learned something I will never forget. In the 1937 novel, Janie’s Nanny tells her, “De n*gger woman is de mule uh de world so far as Ah can see.” Black women are the mule of the world. Not only are we Black but we’re considered the “weaker sex”. We have always come last to white men, white women, and Black men. This type of thinking and hatred of Black women subsequently became self-hatred. And some of our counterparts praising every ethnicity of woman before us hasn’t helped the problem.
The putting down of Black women will stop here, today, with me. I love my mocha color, my mom’s milk chocolate skin, my best friend’s cocoa hue, my classmate’s brown sugar complexion. You don’t have to like us, but don’t you dare say we aren’t beautiful. If you need any proof of how gorgeous my race is, check out a blog I follow called Black Girls R Pretty 2. Black women are the best chocolate for National Chocolate Day and every day!
Young, Black, and Opinionated 