Don't treat me like a fetish, fad, or trend
like one minute I'm in
and the next I'm out
I'm not an extraterrestrial to be probed and prodded
The color of my skin is as commonplace as the eyes in your head.
Sure, you can praise me but don't idolize me
and treat me like an anomaly.
Black women are fetished and that really bothers me.
Maybe this is a good niche of black culture in society
to be held up to the light and worshiped like Gods...
feels more like scrutiny under a light of interrogation
Or the dissection of a cadaver on a cold morgue table.
Big lips are dead on me but drop dead gorgeous on Kim K.
Maybe I should bask in the sunlight and soak up all the praise for my gifts
my curves and dips.
I just don't understand the other side of it all.
Women can inject their whole bodies to be like natural black women and be amazing
but the faces of beauty are still caucasian.
We shouldn't have to reclaim who we are naturally.
That reclamation makes me feel like we have to justify who we are, justify it and drive it home that we are beautiful, natural, of this earth and of God.
I am a basic black girl for the red braids in my head
but she is hip, next she'll be rockin faux dreads.
I'm pushed to the wayside
but she can use my fashion to climatize.
All you new waves shun black face without realizing you don my black face every time you try to copy facets of my race and you do a poor job at trying to recreate.
How am I supposed to express myself if everything I do is wrong but when it's white it right...but when it's white really it's black but way too late to put back
By now you should know about and maybe have even experienced some of this cultural appropriation. Who am I supposed to be without my roots?- you wanted me to be Toby so you could be Kunta all along, you're way out of tune trynna sing my song
Black girls are blessed #black girl magic of course everyone is trying to steal a little of this potion for themselves. Well, here, have some pixie dust. But it'll never be enough
to make you fly. Is that what you're looking for? The means of getting you off the ground, above the rest, perhaps on my level? Oh yeah, you wanna soar.
I guess I can't blame you for trying to plagiarize from the best
in hopes that you could retain some of that galactic shine.
Nothing like a UFO after all, more like the North Star,
a guiding light to give you purpose on so harsh a night.
The more I think about it, black people are trendy always have been and always will be.
And no matter what you can never truly appropriate the essence of me.
-Joyous Herron 2017
