MzMari3

So yesterday my friends and I got to celebrate one of my friends’s success! My friend graduated from medical school! We are so excited and happy for her. During this celebration my friends and I were able to have an open dialogue about things we learned, things we felt like were withheld from us and things we would like to change for the future.

Many of these things stemmed from cultural and religious backgrounds. One thing that we all realized was that we as black people, specifically young women do not have safe spaces in which we can talk about many things that are existing in our everyday lives. When there is not safe space, we tend to make mistakes that the older generation looks down on us because they raised us and told us “not to” do these certain things.

Here are some things gathered from a group of seven young African American women who have varying backgrounds:

• Telling us to not do something will not prevent us from not doing it. It is like telling us to not put your hand on the stove and not telling us why and then becoming upset because we burned our hand. Our solution to this was to be more open. Lead us in the right direction but explain to us why and what could happen. Become more vulnerable. Vulnerability does not mean that you are bragging about what you did and how bad it was. Vulnerability allows us to see the human side of you.
• Embrace us. Many of us has stories about body images and colorism. A lot of our experiences stemmed from our parents. There were stories such as our noses being too big and our parents wanting us to manipulate them so that they didn’t grow bigger. Many stories about weight and sizes that came from our parents. Our hair!!! One person in our group expressed that her parent thinks that straight hair is better than wearing it natural. We told stories of how transitioning back to natural was a whole thing for us in our families. Even the color of our skin was a huge topic, whether we were too dark or too light. Our solution was that we cannot place our insecurities on our children or the people we interact with. We noticed that a lot of our stories came from an insecurities of parental figures in our lives. These things really had an impact on our lives.
• We talked about how cultural and religious backgrounds inhibited our views on certain things. The most common thing that was pulled out from this conversation was that how closed off our families were to talking and expressing themselves with us. A lot of that comes from a religious, just pray about it and everything will work out and from cultural, you know I love you so I don’t have to tell you. These things have affected each member in this conversation and I know it has affected many others. When there is no safe space to release, there is a high chance of mental health issues that are being ignored. We cannot ignore mental health issues. How come we don’t take this as serious as our physical health. We all agreed that we do not see enough mental health awareness in our African American and religious communities. We like to laugh at people who are sent to mental health facilities yet ignore when our family is screaming for health. In our communities we like to say, oh no, we don’t have mental health issues, they just acting up. In our religious communities, we like to say, just pray about it, God will work it out. When does “Faith without works is dead” come to play? Our solution, create open spaces within your homes, communities and churches. If everyone has that one person or persons they know they can confide in, that would make a world of a difference.
• Marriage. No one really talks about it. They give you tips about cooking and cleaning and making sure that your man is happy. I’m over it. What do I REALLY need to look out for. I need my safe space to open up and tell me what’s up. Don’t have me out here looking stupid. Our solution, married people be real and talk to those who are dating, engaged and are recently married. Don’t do that surface talk stuff. Also, make sure you have the relationship with that person to be talking to them. Building relationships allow for that safe space.
• Let’s talk about the “S” word. lol So many of the people within this group are dating, engaged and married. The most common topic was feeling guilty about having sex after they were married. This was due to the fact that no one ever taught them about sex, even though everyone has had the “sex talk”. In our communities, it is don’t have sex because no one is going to be taking care of no babies. Or it is the religious, don’t have sex before marriage. That is it. Point blank, no explanation. Then everyone wonders why we got all these issues. For the sake of diving deeper into this topic, let’s just jump to the solution. God created sex as a good thing. Yes, as the world developed, it has become less of a good thing but a I just need to feel good thing which has led to so much foolishness. But you cannot just end a sex talk with your kid on “Do not have sex”. You have to educate kids. Not being vulgar, while at the same time being informative yet, staying in the realms of the sanctity and purpose of it. You really do not know how beneficial that would have been to our group if we had that conversation. It crazy how we all shared our stories and they were quite the same story.
• Finances!! Let’s just put it this way, share what you know with your kids. Debt is not the way to go. I know a lot of our financial history stems from history and how the system is set up but we can do better. There are many cultures who start at birth making sure that their kids are set up financial free. Also, there are parents who make sure that their children are taught financially through their knowledge or giving them the tools to learn. Let’s just do better. I cannot go too deep into this but instead buying things that depreciate in value, let’s INVEST!!! That car loses value as soon as it drives off the lot, but that house though.

At the end of our “session” we came to the conclusion that we do not blame the older generation but we want to do better for the future generation. We want to do better for our kids in the future so that they can be open and honest with what they are going through without allowing certain cultural or relgious practices hinder us. We want to be the adults that are open and to be able to create safe spaces for children to make better decisions.

-MzMari3