Not All Skin Folk Are Kin Folk: You Don't Like Black Women and We Don't Care

By Dominique J. Smiley

Letting anyone talk into a mic or publish their thoughts on a popular platform is a dangerous game. Gone are the days when people and their ‘brands’ are vetted for relevancy, timeliness or overall appeal by a committee of industry experts. Certainly, there’s an indisputable beauty in this new freedom of expression. The scary part is that the toxic waste that sludges its way onto our computer or phone screens can have just as wide of an angsty and charged up audience as a platform that speaks life, positivity and productivity into the ears of those listening.

That’s not to say that the platforms that promote harmful rhetoric are all bad. On the contrary, I think that balance is necessary. After all, how else would you be able to make informed decisions on who to continue to support and who to stop shuffling your money to? How else would you receive the wake-up call that all that glitters is not gold and that not everyone you admire is worth all the praise?

This leads me to my real point here, which is that Black women are still being force-fed the lesson that not all skin folk are kin folk through podcasts, YouTube videos and TikToks. For some reason, a slew of people – Black men in particular – decided it was time to crap on Black women’s existence. Where this trend came from and why it keeps randomly happening is extremely odd, but I can tell you one thing:

Black women do not care.

People might think they do because of the wholehearted, passionate and many times funny and harsh responses Black women (and allies) have to those ridiculous declarations for attention. Here’s the skinny: Black women don’t care that you like a Becky. Black women don’t even care that you have a preference for Beckys. You like who you like. What we do care about is when they are used as a scapegoat to either hide trauma and/or misogynoir or – dare I say it – self-hate. It takes a special kind of ignorance and delusion to believe that all people in a race or subset culture are the same, which only adds to the irony of this odd trend.

Any perceived proximity to whiteness will never guarantee an automatic seat at their table. At what cost are people willing to sell out their literal brothers and sisters to justify an attraction to blue eyes and rosy cheeks? Is it that deep? Really though? It’s possible to love something without downplaying something else to justify that love. The point becomes moot when two things are being compared when they shouldn’t be.

All women occupy their own lanes. Each lane has its own exit, and each lane requires some road work. When it’s all said and done, each lane can get you to where you want to be, and it really doesn’t matter which one you take. 

Will people learn to keep Black women out of their mouths? Probably not. Black women shield themselves from the darts coming from every direction, but the will of a Black woman will not let her succumb to the temporary pain of hurtful rhetoric and shaming campaigns. If Black women only exist in your mind as a stereotype or a fantasy/fetish, then I feel sorry for you.

I’m sorry that you’ll never get to experience the beautiful souls of Black women because all you see is dark skin, a ‘ghetto’ name, an ‘attitude’ and whatever other cop out you choose to use. As if the rest of the world doesn’t judge Black women for things they cannot help as it is, it’s extremely rich coming from people who look like them and are also met with immense injustice.

The thing is, Black women don’t need you to ‘prefer’ them. We need you to respect us and fight for us. Stop pitting us against other women. Let’s face it: no matter how you see it, we are unmatched. We sit pretty in our lane, regardless of your validation, and we take those who want an adventure and are worthy of one to paradise.