please do not take my experience & think that I mean every marginalized person should react or handle situations the way I do b/c we all have the right to be as angry & react the way you feel the most comfortable

When I was about 18 and I finally somehow made it into college (community college; but it was in a really rich yt neighborhood so it operated like a 4 year) I was the queen of the coons. I was like ben carson/ stacey dash super saiyan

I only dated yt men, I was obsessed w/ yt acceptance & b/c of where & how I grew up I was done w/ the blacks. I was also like the amazing atheist in the sense where I left the christian religion b/c of what I'd learned in my World Civilizations class in high school the previous year so I was all types of fucking LOST lmao

So imagine little self hating me who hated being black/african trying to find myself in this all white safe haven (that's what I though lol) shit was brazy out here.

HOW I got to that point was due to growing up in the hood... legit my ass was living where bullets fly & nggas was dying left & right until I was about 13 I moved to a pretty suburban area but it bordered my old neighborhood so I had this constant battle w/ trying to fit in w/ the subirds & my friends in the old neighborhood.

ANYWAYS that's how I got to the rich yt college b/c I was running away from myself... I wanted yts to like me & I didn't want to be 'failure' esp being kenyan... my family would keep trying to tell me not to be like ~those blacks~

I used to let my yt friends say ngga around me... I used to let them comment on my hair... I used to let them treat me like a fucking black dictionary teach them all the new lingo & urban slang all types of fucked up shit. I even changed the way I spoke (y'all know code switching in order to be somewhat respected lol) and I learned to maneuver myself in yt spaces UNTIL...

I met my Women's Study's professor. She was an Afro-
Indonesian feminist who was my literal reason for not dropping out of college. I was so depressed b/c of avoiding who I was... but her class changed me.

She clocked all the yts in my class. She mentioned every thing I was going through... the internalized racism, internalized misogyny girl I was looking like https://mastodon.social/media/Hl8kLxznRbbPxSDk60I

And when we learned about gender/ sexuality - non binary people, intersex people, trans people girl a women's studies 101 class taught me the basics & a bitch was changed. Even after the class ended I would continue to meet w/ my professor & we got to know each other really well...

I started surrounding myself with the VERY few poc I did see on campus. We were kinda like a gang lmao & we would exchange experiences & talk about the way we grew up and at age 19 I had become a self identifying feminist. And my yt friends were NOT having it. When I would start to clock them on saying the n word they would ignore me call me sensitive one even called me racist lmao

Meanwhile I had a tumblr too so I would talk to other feminists online to help better myself about social justice but mainly my professor & my friends irl were my source of understanding even doing all the research myself & writing my English paper thesis on internalized racism.

soooo by the time I was about 20 or so I was sort of liberal and I was very KUMBAYAHish and believed if we all held hands & listened to one another & showed love w/ one another we would be able to coexist blah blah blah & soon I had a very RUDE awakening to how that was not true

On campus when I would see my friends try to explain to yts why certain things were racist, even in the nicest sweetest way possible they would still be extremely hostile. When I myself would explain to yts even in a way they would understand it still wasn't working. One day - cause I used to work in my campus library- a yt girl approached me & asked about my hair (it was in twists)

I smiled and said 'oh these are twists...' & she just stared at me & made this really smug smile and said, 'you mean dreads?' and I took a moment, looked at her & responded like 'no i mean twists'

@blushbabe how is SHE gonna tell you what's on ur head