Anomaly

"Your so pretty- you know, for a black girl."

"Your so articulate and astute-considering."

"I mean, I don't really consider you black."

"I'm just saying you're not the "typical" black girl!"

Really? How do you expect me to respond to that?

Do you really anticipate a thank you?

I mean, You say these words like you're paying me a compliment; like I'm supposed to be grateful that I don't fit a stereotype that society has spoon-fed you about black women.

Am I supposed to be flattered amidst your back handed admiration?

Am I supposed to feel gracious that despite my blackness you've found something in me worth your attention?

Well, let me tell you that I am not, and I don't.

Your compliments say more about your lack of appreciation for the array of complexities that is the black woman than your regard for my beauty or intelligence.

You comment on my full lips, my high cheekbones, how "good I look for my age", how naturally I possess these attributes that others pay money for, or use make up tricks to achieve.

"Must be luck, or at least good genes."

Look around you, "black don't crack",

Despite the weight of the world we carry on my backs.

My attractiveness, my intellect , my charisma, my magic is not in spite of my blackness; I assure you that it is because of it.

Being a black child in America meant studying extra hours learning "American history", as well as our own.

Cause Lord knows there were gaps and I wasn't going to find the answers in the district approved textbooks.

It meant learning your literary canon on school time, and on mine discovering that for every Hawthorne there is a Wheatley, for every Hemingway and Whitman there is a Hurston and a Hughes.

Being a black woman in America means working harder than our peers because our intellectual competence just may be second-guessed.

It means being comfortable and confident in your own skin despite mainstream society pointing out all the reasons that you shouldn't.

It means teaching our daughters to do all of these things whilst not dropping their crowns.

I stand next to millions just like me, black women world wide

We dispel your stereotypes

proving that the beautiful, intelligent, articulate, educated black women in not a myth.

I am not some anomaly.

I stand here and tell you that we are reality.