HELP! I am Stuck in My Body!

As a woman I have been reduced to a commodity for centuries. My worth, based on my physical exterior and its usefulness to men.  I am simply the house of the womb and a unit used for sexual pleasure.

And because of this, I have internalized these functions as my sole purpose. The sole definition of my femininity.  

I've been told…I am valuable if I am a virgin.  If not I have given myself away and have tarnished my body and soul.  No longer am I special for my future husband and a chunk of my identity has been broken away.  

And if I am not a virgin, I can find validation in my sensuality and sexuality.  I can sell myself short and use my body merely as a tool to afford male’s with physical pleasure.  Never once thinking about my own wants and desires, I can hand over my pleasure (to a man) in order to fulfill his sexual needs.  

But the thing is! 

I do not live in my body.  

Well yes my spirit is housed there. But who I am…who I truly am is not identified by the social standards and limitations projected upon me.  

I am spirit. More than my breast and hips. More than my purity or impurity. My worth is not derived from how large or small my behind is, my choice to have sex or not, my physical beauty or lack there of, or my decision to show off my body or to cover it. I can not and will not be defined by tangible ever changing standards of beauty, femininity, and/or worthiness.  

I am more than my body. I am my soul. 

When did you Realize you are Black?

Recently I was texting a close friend who, like I, is away at college.  During the conversation she abruptly asks “when did you realize that you are black?”  

My immediate answer was the first time I was called the ’N’ word by a white classmate in middle school.  But looking back I really can not say that was a turning point in my racial identity.  I only look back on that experience now and think ‘WOW’ that was deep.  But at the time it seemed kind of trivial.  

As I think further about the question I think about the journey of my racial identity.

I attended a diverse montessori school from the age of two to fourteen.  As most children in preschool to elementary school, I was color blind.  It was not until my latter elementary school years when I began spending summers with my cousins that I began to recognize color at all.  Even at that time I did not understanding my own blackness but I was beginning to realize that there were differences connected to ones skin tone and how that person is perceived.  

During those summers with my cousins I was teased…teased for being “too white”.  Apparently my vocabulary and my mastery of proper english articulation was an indiction that I was not black enough.  

In middle school I can remember some of my white peers joking about how I wasn’t a “real” black person.  I would ignorantly laugh along with them in agreement, oblivious to the implication of their lightheartedness. 

At that time in my life, and the lives of my cousins and peers, being Black was based off the oh-so popularized stereotypes of hip hop culture.  Being educated, articulate and cool headed was, and to a large degree still is, not characteristics assigned to those within the Black culture. 

It was not until high school that I “realized” that I was black and began to understand what that meant to myself and others. Going to a predominately white school full of white privilege and ingrained racism, I found that being black was all about a shared history, not about slang, gold chains, and apple bottom jeans. 

And that’s when I found the truth in my melanin.