GET TO KNOW ME TAG

Hey guys! 

I just uploaded the "Get to Know Me tag" on my youtube channel so check it out below! I was really nervous to do this video, because I don't have much practice when it comes to talking face to face with the camera (which you can definitely tell in the video)-- but I wanted to start interacting with my subscribers more, and like they say "practice makes perfect", so I'm hoping the more videos I make the better I'll get over time. 

Thanks for watching!

GRADUATING FROM COLLEGE!!!

On May 1, 2014 I graduated from the University of Central Florida with my Bachelor's of Arts in History and a minor in Political Science. I was able to finish the program in three years instead of four (it still felt just as long some of the time -____-). UCF wasn't my first choice, and my first two years there were sometimes really difficult. I dealt with homesickness, roommate drama, and everything in between. I'm probably going to make separate posts/youtube videos about my college experience, so I won't spoil it here. But here's a quick unintentional vlog I made on graduation day. My camera simultaneously took a video and pictures at the same time somehow and gave me this awesome video below. Check it out!

Intro and Re-vamping this Blog

Last year I was nineteen, sad and busy. This year I'm twenty, tired, and officially a college graduate. To quote my mom, I'm "getting my life together." I want to document my twenties on the internet (like any other good millennial) and comment on anything ranging from Real Housewives of Atlanta, to the effect of colonialism on West Africa. My interests are varied, and so am I. I want this blog to act as a time capsule, something I can look back on and see all the ways in which I've grown, and of course, stayed the same. I fear the future and the unknown.

This is a place to keep me grounded, but not stagnant.

This is a record.

Acting White

This is for every black girl that has ever been told: “you act like a white girl”, each world a knife through the back, skewering you into a box and leaving you there shamed and marginalized. Nobody puts Baby in a corner, but you aren’t Baby and your back is against the wall, kept there by preconceived notions from family members and friends who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the way you act and talk. They tell you that you’re trying to be some you’re not: white.

            Online, this topic has been beaten like a proverbial dead horse, and it’s probably cliché to make this the first posting of my blog, but I want to address this in my own words, from my own insecurities and experiences.

            I think the first time I ever heard somebody say I was acting white I was seven years old. I overheard my mom and stepdad discussing me. He ended their conversation with “somebody will get two for the price one: a black girl on the outside, and a white girl on the inside.” They laughed uproariously. I sat on the living room floor confused and hurt. Whatever asinine cartoon I had been watching lost its appeal. Why would they say I was a “white girl” on the inside? Was there a white girl living in me? That couldn’t be right. Were they making fun of me? I wondered. For the next twelve years I would hear more the same in varying degrees from both whites and blacks alike. I couldn’t escape people’s opinions of me no matter how hard I tried to fit in.

            I felt alienated from the other black girls around me. They teased me and called me ‘oreo’. I was told on more than one occasion that I was ‘too dark to be acting the way I was’, whatever that meant. I would come home angry and hurt, not understanding why people didn’t like me for who I was. What was so wrong with how I talked and dressed?

            With sixth grade came my interest in rock music (thank you Green Day and Fall Out Boy!), something I vehemently hid from my black girl friends. On the bus rides home I rapped the lyrics to Ying Yang Twins’ ‘Whisper Song’ and Usher’s ‘Yeah” like everybody else, but secretly once I got home I ran to the TV to watch TRL and hear ‘Hollaback Girl’ and ‘Sugar We’re Going Down’ (still classics in my book).

            I was caught one day, my love of System of a Down too great to be kept inside once I heard a friend (white) playing Violent Pornography in class. I sang along to the chorus absentmindedly. Another friend (black) said in annoyance, “You would know that white song”. The small feeling of just being wrong was back with a vengeance.

            It wouldn’t be until eighth grade that I would fully embrace my otherness and meet other black girls who jammed out to Panic at the Disco and S.O.A.D.; who thought Pete Wentz was way cuter than Plies, and that Baby Phat looked tacky as hell. I started hanging out with a more diverse group of people, racially, musically, etc. where I felt more comfortable being myself. I only had to deal with negative comments on my bus ride home from girls who referred to me as ‘uppity’. In loud voices they talked about me, their voices filled with vitriol. I sat there quietly, refusing to acknowledge their words and give them power over me. I endured the talks about my hair (“she’s too dark for all that to be hers”, or conversely “she thinks she’s better than us cause she got long hair, she ain’t shit”), and my skin color. I reverted back to the seven-year-old girl who was confused about what was wrong with her. They make fun of me for being dark, and then make fun of me for acting white. Who do they want me to be? By age 13 I knew I couldn’t win, so I said fuck it and did what made me happy.

            That’s my advice to anyone reading this. Do what makes you happy. You have to live for you, not everybody else. Life’s too short to be something you’re not. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, why should it matter how you dress or talk, or especially what music you listen to? I wish I could go back to the petrified 11 year old girl who was ashamed of who she was and tell her to shout her love of anime and alternative music to the mountain tops. You have nothing to be ashamed of.