Things I needed to hear growing up as a black girl

by Shalom Obisie-Orlu.

I had a lot going on when I was younger. (Spoiler alert: I still do.) I switched high schools as quickly as the weather changes, and struggled through almost every year. Like most kids in the 2000s, I turned to TV and the internet for comfort. I searched long and hard for black girls who were hurting the same way I was, but I couldn’t relate to anything I found.

The world fed me one narrative: that I was a young black woman, and that I was to be a “strong black woman.”
The “strong black woman” stereotype is dangerous. While black women are incredibly strong, I grew up in a world that told me that I couldn’t be anything else. 

This can lead to several physical and emotional health problems going unnoticed, or dismissed as something else entirely.

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