One of my biggest pet peeves is to be asked a question that is proceeded with the phrase, "as a Black woman" or "how does the Black community feel about..."
The reason the "as a Black woman" questions irritate me is because it is assumed that I fall into certain "perception-altering" demographics. In 2004, there were 19,327,000 Black females in the U.S. Including relatives, I may know about 95-150 of them. Out of that figure, I share the same thoughts on various topics with about 11 of them. I think it is safe to say that the responses from several Black women may (gasp!) not resemble mine.
As to the questions that begin with "how does the Black community feel about..."
How the hell should I know? I am only one of them! I am supposed to accurately represent 37 million people? It would make more sense to ask me "how do women named 'Sheri' feel about..."
The only answers I can give are to questions that begin with "how do you feel about..."
1 comment:
You know, I've never been asked "so how do white women feel about. . ." or "what does the white community think about. . ." It really is just another stereotyping mechanism, I guess.
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