Magazine World

So I was appalled and shocked when I saw a link on Facebook that Latina Magazine was having an Afro Latina week in fashion.

At first it is misleading because you think, ok well they are finally showing us some love although it is just a week... something is something! But then come to find out it was what the week was a tribute for. It was to some celebrity Afro Latinas and how they find the right clothes or makeup shade in fashions for themselves. So for example the right red lipsticks being that the 80's fad of red lipstick is coming back. And I thought ok this could be a good thing to finally recognize Black Latinas in the industry because there has been many of us that have not gotten the shine we deserve.

But then I got extremely angry like really Latina Magazine... One Week! One week.... Really?! Now I know I should be happy and grateful it is an accomplishment but still... We deserve more then a week. So I thought how would they integrate the Black Latina world into Latina magazine because clearly they know we are a sub group within the Latina community as a whole. But how would they go about doing this in a unifying way without making it seem as though we are a separated group of people. Doing it in a positive way and not in a negative way as if we are segregated, which we know to a degree we are but we are trying to move past that.

I ask because many feel by me creating the Black Latina Movement I have sparked a huge division amongst my people so now I ask you. How do you bring light to a sub-group within a larger group without causing further division?

I'm just another black girl

When I look in the mirror, I just see a little black girl.
Not to take away from the beauty and  essence of what a black woman is, but what is underneath, all people see on the outside and judge, I am what I am.
I am just another black girl.
This is what I feel about myself, at the end of the day when the make up comes off and the doobie goes up, I am my mothers daughter.
This feeling comes from a multitude of memories.
From being the only "half black" black girl which really means your "all black" in a school full of latinos, to being the only one in my family beside my sister with the fuller lips, curly hair and tanned skin.
I have experienced racism in its purest form, through the eyes of a child.
Even as a woman I get those stares when I walk into a bodega and its assumed I don't speak a lick of "their" language.
Its when I walk down a street with my South American father and I stand 5'8" tall, its assumed there could never be a relation, not to mention the other crazy scenarios going on in peoples minds.
But at the end of the day I say this....I am a black woman.
Yes times have changed but if we went by the one drop rule like back in the day, I would still be a black woman, but by the rules of society and how its decided to choose who is who and what color is right,
I am a black woman.