Zelah Booker, 13

Zelah Booker, 13

Being black in America people automatically assume that I had experiences with like drugs and gang members. Also being a black woman I experience a lot of hate for my hair because people always assume that I had a weave or that my hair was fake which might not seem like a big deal but it is. People also assumed that I was ghetto and that I lived in the hood which I do but not all Black people live in the hood.

But not only these stereotypes coming from white people but also people think that because I’m light skin it means that I don’t have struggles or I don’t go through the same things that Black people do and I just don’t understand. But I do and colorism is an evident thing that nobody likes to talk about but it is real. I’ve had experiences where people would ask me if I’m black and then continue and asked me for racist things like the N-word pass because they thought it was cooler OK not even knowing the whole history and years of discrimination behind that one word. They thought it was cool but it’s never cool to be racist.