MadameNoire Featured Video

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I’m walking through a busy train station and a man stops me to tell me that he thinks I’m beautiful. Now, I’m not one of those women who doesn’t know how to take a compliment, so I smiled and said “Thank you.” But before I can continue walking he asks me, “what are you?” I’m a bit confused by this question so I look at him as if to say what do you mean? He responds, “are you mixed with something?” Tired of these types of questions, I said, as I always do, “I’m just Black.”

If I had a buck for every time a man asked me “What are you?,” as if I’m some foreign creature, after giving me a compliment, I’d probably be able to pay off my student loans –and believe me, that’s a lot of money. But every single time a man — mainly a Black man pays me a compliment on my hair, my skin, my eyes, or my figure — it’s immediately followed by “what are you?” My response is always “I’m just Black.” They never believe me for some reason so they start throwing out nationalities as if my answer of being “just Black” is going to change. “You Jamaican?” “No.” “You Haitian?” “No.” “You African?” “No…I’m just Black.” It’s as if I have to be something other than just Black in order for their compliments to be validated. Why can’t all the things that make me beautiful be okay on a just Black woman? What does “just Black” look like anyway for it to be unbelievable that I am? It’s bad enough that Black women have to put up with European beauty standards as is, but why do I get a disappointed “oh” when men finally accept that, like I said, I’m just Black.

Perplexed by this constant line of questioning, I finally brought up the topic with a male friend who was just as confused as I was — at least at first — about these questions because his idea of “just Black” is the same as mine. I’m not mixed with anything, nor am I a first generation of any other cultural background; therefore, I identify as “Black.” But when I shared the multiple scenarios of being asked “what are you,” my guy friend eventually had an “ah ha” moment of sorts. He realized what I meant by being “just Black” was based on race and physical features whereas the men posing these questions were likely asking about my cultural background for an entirely different reason.

According to him, as a West Indian man, there is a stereotype or a stigma attached to women who are just Black. For whatever reason, he claimed that most men of other cultural backgrounds usually prefer to date within their culture because there is a negative view when it comes to the upbringing and mannerisms of “just Black” women. He painted the picture of a “just Black” woman as an LL Cool J type of ghetto ’round the way girl: loud, unappealing, and difficult. I was a bit bewildered, but I can’t say I was quite surprised. African American women have been at the bottom of the totem pole for as long as we’ve existed, despite all of our accomplishments. Instead of the questions of my background stemming from exoticism, my friend suggested the real reason I get this inquiry so often is simply because I look approachable (unlike most Black women).

This brought me to my next question: What does I look “approachable unlike most Black women” mean? What do most Black women look like and how do you make a clear distinction of someone’s nationality just by looking at them? I wondered, how am I supposed to look?

Though I didn’t come to any conclusion regarding any of those questions, I did decide as a unit, as people of color, as the essence of Blackness, we have to do better. We have to do better in-house and change the way we view each other across the diaspora. There’s no one way to be “just Black” and it’s a problem when someone is assumed to be “other than” simply because their behavior doesn’t fit the expectations of what that Blackness is, be it rooted in American, African, or Caribbean tradition. 

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