Danielle C. Belton, writing at Clutch magazine, details her own emotional history in a fresh and revealing piece about, well, crying. She argues that it's not just for white girls or something that black women do out of anger.
Black women deal with a lot of “expectations” about our behavior and what we should or should not do. And as a teenager I can remember my peers utter disdain for how it seemed certain white girls could start crying at any given moment over any particular thing and about how weak and pathetic and needy that was. And as my peers would go on and on about the apparent weakness of fragile-hearted white women, I would say nothing because I had a not-so-secret secret.
I wasn’t like my black girlfriends who only started crying if they were about to fight someone because they were so full of rage, or maybe shed a tear over a crappy boyfriend or two. I was like those white girls.
I cried over every dang thing.
Always had and still do, to the befuddlement of my parents and friends and pretty much every black person in my life. But I truly can’t help it. I feel feelings. I feel all the feelings and sometimes that means bawling your eyes out because of “hormones” or “memories” or dreaded “hurt feelings.”
Yes. My name is Danielle Belton. I’m a black woman. And I cry. A lot.
Read Danielle C. Belton’s entire blog entry at Clutch magazine.
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