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5 Things Black Women Wish You’d Stop Doing
- Stop assuming we’re always upset about something
It doesn’t sit right with me that Black women so often have to seem happy, jovial, and humming some tune about Pharaoh letting the Israelites go. It perpetuates a lie and racist social expectation that Black women have got two acceptable modes: making you laugh and being wrongly upset about something. Let Black women be blank faced!
Let us be shy, silent, anxious, timid, or just have nothing to say. If you find that you can’t read the Black women in your life, that’s a sign you probably don’t know them well enough.
2. Please stop trying so hard to be colloquial with us
I had someone go out of their way to tell me I “slayed it” when they could’ve just said I did a good job. Or that I “murdered that” instead of just saying they were proud of my willingness and initiative. Listen, I promise, no one is going to say you’re anti-Black if you stop forcing yourself to use awkwardly placed AAVE. And it’s more of insult when your vocabulary shifts based on who you’re talking about.
4. Stop assuming we aren’t evolving and growing just like you
