Black on Black Crime
IG @malannasymoneOriginally published in Kairos, edited by Gabriella Graceffo, 2017
Who taught you that value is measured in shade?
When did you decide to favor and submit to the mental captivity of eurocentrism?
...the same system that hung you by your throat and mutilated black body after black body.
They critically depend on you and your culture for profit
While you depend on their supremacy for validation, for worth.
Leaving you broke in spirit, and them well, richer than you at least.
With complexion that glazes like honey
Drips like caramel
Crystalizes like brown sugar
Infuses like hot cocoa
And melts like dark chocolate
Sure they’re all sweet but have you ever wondered why dark chocolate is bitter?
Why it crumbles
...why it’s firm, sometimes hard.
Because you’ve created teams.
You strip light skin of its racial identity all the while denying dark skin beauty.
You drive global economics
You exist under immense, extracting pressure
Easily flammable,
Thick skinned, thick hair
Viscous like your grandmother’s gravy
That’s why they call you black gold
Melanin chose you
That’s why your skin glows in the sun
Because you are and will always be a reflection of your Sol
You don’t have to have light skin
Because you are the truth
And the truth always comes to the light
Sincerely,
“Pretty for a Black Girl”
