I Am an African Black Woman

If I tell who I am, it would be answer that’ll take about thirty seconds to answer: I’m an African American girl, eighteen, going to Long Beach who’s simply trying to survive the heat. But what does it mean to be an African American woman? When people see me (no matter what race) they ask, “are you some sort of African” or “what part of Africa are you from?” All my life, people have made assumptions about who I am based on what I wear, what I say, how I act, I believe what it all comes down to is my appearance. People can’t help but stereotype, it’s only human nature.
Often times though you can’t help but notice when other races start a whole personality change on you. It’s like they went from saying “hello how are you?” to there non black friend and go on and say “yo, yo what’s good?!” to people like, well, me. And then they move there arm in some sort of position and make a ridiculous “check me out” kind of face as a sign of respect. It’s kind of funny to see how people think they know how someone else wants to be treated. Sometimes we do and say things based on those social interactions we’ve had with each other. So I guess my only explanation why people behave in such manners sometimes is because they think it’s okay. And who am I to say otherwise? We’re viewed that way in the entertainment world and even in real life. It’s already hard enough to be an African American but it’s even harder to be to go from girl to womanhood.
 
Being a woman in this male dominated world is as one could imagine difficult. Men think they have so much more authority, my Father is an example of the typical male ego. He believes that he has women all figure out, specifically African American women. He thinks that we’re all high maintenance and that we are a bunch loud divas who like to take control of everything. He would often express this if he felt my mom, my sister and I didn’t agree with something he was stating. It’s a defensive move that a lot of men do when women who...