First blog post

Being Black In America

*Disclaimer this is not for all white people of America just the ignorant ones*

Being a black person in American has been the hardest thing since White men captured are ancestors in Africa. From living in free land and not having a care in the world to being captured and forced onto a packed ship with famine, disease, and death is not the idea of the “American” dream. Being forced to come to this country by strange white men was not our ancestor’s idea. Our ancestors were tortured and beaten to learn somewhat of this “American” culture, not being able to learn too much in case we know more than the white man. Having our religion stripped from us, are names striped from us and even worse are families stripped from us is what these people did . This is the country we live in, a country that makes another race inferior by suppressing them with slavery and after slavery comes racism and being oppressed.

Growing up black in America is probably one of the hardest thing in this country. People look at you and think you’re a threat to society or that we don’t belong. My question to the entire racist population is why take us from our beautiful continent of Africa and force us to come to America for you all to be scared of us? As a group you all brought us to this country and still have an issue with us.

Being able to find work as a black man or woman is like having to be double qualified. People see one thing wrong with us and we don’t get the job. Being black we have to be smarter, faster on our feet and become somewhat lenient to get the positions we deserve. Most of the time we are more qualified than anyone and we still don’t end up getting the position because of something like our names or the color of our skin. Republicans say that we as a race ask for welfare and won’t seek jobs or opportunities but how are we suppose to do this when “White America” is spitting in our faces and turning us away?

For all the white people who will read this and feel offended at the words that I’m saying you are the issue. The fact of the matter is that this country is treating the race issue like it’s not an issue. People are saying that we should just get over the issues that we are faced with today is like telling you all to get over the Holocaust, 9/11, and the confederate flags you all lost and or trying to keep a hold of. Telling us to get over Segregation and slavery because it was so long ago is one of the most hateful things that could come out of your mouth. So I feel as though when white people say they feel oppressed about certain topics, try living in our shoes for a good month. Get over it White America.

Light Skin VS. Dark Skin

African Americans have created a great divide of skin color called Light skinned vs., Dark skinned which has torn families friends and a whole community upside down. A whole community separating race to say which one is prettier and has the best qualities is what has been the case for the past few decades.

“Growing up people would say I was too dark skinned to hang out with them, they wanted all their friends to be light skinned with long flowing hair and pretty smiles,” Said Jasmine Times.

The light skinned vs. dark skinned enigma has been present since the slave days. The lighter prettier slaves would work in the house as servants and sex objects while the darker slaves worked in the field picking cotton and taking care of the animals.

“All of my families are dark skinned and they’ve been going through this issue for years,” said Times. “I embrace who I am now but when you’re a 12 year old in middle school you don’t know how to feel.”

There has been several research and focus groups that have proved certain facts about light skins and dark skinned men and women. “A 2006 University of Georgia study showed that employers prefer light-skinned black men to dark-skinned men, regardless of their qualifications. We found that a light-skinned black male can have only a Bachelor’s degree and typical work experience and still be preferred over a dark-skinned black male with an MBA and past managerial positions,” said Matthew S. Harrison in 2006, then a doctoral student in applied industrial organizational psychology at Georgia.” There was also a study showing that lighter skinned black women get shorter sentencing than darker black women.

“My mother is light complexioned with curly hair and light brown eyes while my father is dark skinned with dark features and kinky hair,” tells student Keke Brown. People would always ask me if that was my father cause I resemble my mother with my light complextion and colored eyes.”

Children who endure the stigma of the light skinned vs. dark skinned comments usually don’t know where they belong. Some children feel as though they are a separate race than what they are.  Research says people who have gone through these types of experiences usually have lower self esteem issue and are very insecure in who they are.

“I’ve learned to love myself as I’ve grown older,” said Keke Brown. “Growing up the lightest in my family other than my mother and in school was hard and I would get bullied but I’ve definitely grown thick skin and now that I attend a HBCU threes so many different shades of us so threes no judging. “

 

 

Shea Moisture Fiasco

Today the black community is furious with Shea moister and their “All hair matters” campaign and product commercial.

Customers respond to Shea Moister’s commercial with outrage stating that Shea moister is black owned company is now catering and switching their demographics to a whiter audience.

“SheaMoisture is CANCELLED,” said twitter user Nana Jibril.

The 2017 ad ended with the slogan saying “Everybody Gets Love,” resembling the “All Hair Matters” hash-tag referencing the people who dismiss the black lives matter movement by stating “All lives Matter.”

“SheaMoisture said fuck you to Black women that have been supporting them just to appeal to Beckys. They gon learn the value of Black buying power,” said twitter user Nana Jibril.

People took to social media expressing their opinions and criticism of the ad and Shea moisture replied with a post saying that the brand should “know better”.

“Wow, okay – so guys, listen, we really f-ed this one up. Please know that our intention was not – and would never be – to disrespect our community, and as such, we are pulling this piece immediately because it does not represent what we intended to communicate. You guys know that we have always stood for inclusion in beauty and have always fought for our community and given them credit for not just building our business but for shifting the beauty landscape. So, the feedback we are seeing here brings to light a very important point. While this campaign included several different videos showing different ethnicities and hair types to demonstrate the breadth and depth of each individual’s hair journey, we must absolutely ensure moving forward that our community is well-represented in each one so that the women who have led this movement never feel that their hair journey is minimized in any way. We are keenly aware of the journey that WOC face – and our work will continue to serve as the inspiration for work like the Perception Institute’s Good Hair Study/Implicit Association Test that suggests that a majority of people, regardless of race and gender, hold some bias towards women of color based on their textured or natural hair. So, you’re right. We are different – and we should know better,” Shea Moisture.

Shea Moisture explained that their intentions weren’t to take a product used by the Black Community and include white people in it like every other product.

Many people in the black community have said to stop using the product and or will stop continuing to use the product after their bottles are empty.