Personal Narrative: I Am A Black Girl

I am a black female. My Afro is often met with stranger’s hands and I was once told that my lips made me look clownish. For better or worse, my identity as a black girl has shaped my every experience in this world. It affects not only how the world treats me, but also how I perceive it. Many people look at me and they don’t see past my race, they see a swirl of stereotypes and assume they know me. They don’t know that I am funny, that am a college student, that I love improv, and that one day I want to be on Saturday Night Live. This isn’t there their fault; the media doesn’t show black people with dreams or talent. They show a world where I am angry, sassy and working at a DMV. People assume I am trying to be “White” because I don’t fit their mold of what it means to be black. But
I hear that it must have been awful for me to live there, that it’s so surprising that I am not ghetto, or my personal favorite, wow you are so articulate. The common misconception is that Eureka Gardens is only full of loud black people who can’t read. I know this because so people who live there have this same negative view of their selves but it’s not at all accurate. The values of this place go so much deeper than what is pushed on the news. The people in this neighborhood are smart, resourceful and strong. Until you have watched a mother of three work two jobs and put herself through school after her husband was shot in a drive-by you can’t possibly pretend to understand the beauty of Eureka Gardens. When I think of where I grew up I am often at odds, on one side, I have witnessed the ugly first hand. On the other hand, I see Eureka Garden as a beautiful place where black culture, my culture, is allowed to thrive. Every Sunday the neighborhood turned into a soul food restaurant, Hip hop was played loud and proud, and everyone is your cousin. When you live there you don’t get neighbors, you get a