black girls

No black man, woman, or gender non-conforming person is safe from the terrorism of police brutality and racist white people’s actions against us, let alone our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

For the first time in March 2014, the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights (OCR) collected data regarding how early learners are disciplined during the 2011-12 school year.
That report showed that while black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment, they accounted for 48 percent of students receiving one or more suspensions.

This is no small thing. The institutional barriers to achievement faced by Black women are staggering: African American women earn only 64% of what white men earn, and they earn only 91% of what Black men earn. African American women held 8.58% of the bachelor’s degrees held by women in 2012, though they constituted 12.7% of the female population. The poverty rate for African American women is 28.6%. In comparison, the poverty rate of white, non-Hispanic women is 10.8%.

As Americans we have fallen prey to a particular "look" —namely white and thin—and suffer from an inability to shatter it. The result? A backhanded compliment of the hybrid variety: “You’re pretty . . . for a black girl.”

Lupita Nyong'o is “challenging” traditional ideas of beauty—but it's not because she's brown.