You are so right! I love your beautiful outlook on life and on our race! Black really is beautiful. <3 I like being black, I love our heritage, and our culture, and it is so important for a black person to understand where they come from. Since I moved to Africa from the UK, however, I've been dealing with what I can best call an identity crisis, because I was born in the UK, and unaware of so much of our culture. European culture was all I knew. I relaxed my hair because i felt I wanted it easier to manage like European hair is, and I just imbibed the European culture so much, because that's where I was and that's what I knew. But there is racism there. The degree of it depends on where exactly you live. I lived in areas with many diverse cultures so I never really experienced severe racism, and not like my parents did. Parts of me feel that with the naivete of a child I was blind to colour of skin and issues of race. Coming here, though, to Africa. I realised that I hardly know anything about the way of the people. In school I've been told I 'act white'? I was left feeling within myself that I was very marginalized. I came to an understanding within me that anywhere that isn't Africa, I will be seen as a black person, someone that lives in the other country, but isn't from it. And then in Africa, I'm seen as someone who appears to be among but isn't really. I have the English accent, I have the English ways. So, in order to stop feeling this way I've actually changed some things in my life. I am more susceptible to really learning what it means not to be black, but to be African. The customs, the traditions, the rites. I also recently cut off my relaxed hair and am growing it natural. I know you don't know me, but I don't know why, I just felt compelled to share this with you. Like I said before, I just feel you are a beautiful person, with beautiful ideals with what it means to be black and from African heritage.
Thanks so much for reading this!
God bless xx