Not Okay
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It’s okay to say “you’re pretty for a black girl”.
But it’s not okay for me to ask, “when?”
“When will it be okay to let my hair run wild?
Without worrying someone will think I’m no good,
I’m unclean, I’m too loud?”
It’s okay that you clutch your purse tighter,
that you hold your children closer,
and double check that your car is locked when my brother walks down the street.
But it’s not okay for him to wear pajamas walking home from the corner store.
And it’s fine that the Ku Klux Klan can assemble to discuss the many ways they plan on unraveling the progress my people have made.
Freedom of speech right?
It’s fine to so blindly grab the twenty-first century by the horns and drag it back into the dark days of slavery.
But it’s not fine to express sorrow that my grandparents could not vote until they were in their twenties.
You say that’s “a thing of the past”.
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It’s okay to use a heinous slur if you don’t “hard ‘r’ it”.
But you won’t accept that there is prejudice left in your brain.
And I have to hear that I am “the whitest black person” you know.
Because when I do things that you like, it means I am part of your race.
When I have ambition to learn, create, and keep my head held high, I am part of your race.
It’s okay to listen to black musicians, sport box-braids, and tattoo the Jamaican flag on your arm.
But we can’t be proud of our own heritage?
I will tell you what is not okay.
It is not okay to grab your gun.
It is not okay to touch my hair.
It is not okay to ask if I am the first in my family to go to college.
It is not okay to pretend everything is sunshine and roses because Martin Luther King lived and died.
Do you think you can learn from the words I say,
When I tell you what is and what isn’t okay?
- C. Beatrice Baker
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