when choosing love, means not choosing your people, u must find other ways to choose the beauty of your people...

i remember dating my jewish ex through college and post grad...i was crazy for that man (he better not read this and say something or i'll slap him) and then the love of my life was also a jewish man....but everytime, we walked down the street or past the basketball court, brothers would give a look, say something or say something after when i was alone....never disrespectful, mind u...

i remember one brother stopping us to say to my guy: u better be treating her right, she's has 400 years of not being treated right...u gotta make up for some of that....and in that moment, i felt so proud of him...

i felt so proud of black men....esp since that very same day, we had a conversation about race and my beau was mansplaining some racist shit that just happened at a restaurant

i felt a part of a larger community....
that brother i'd pass on the court every weekend...
​had love...and hurt in his eyes...i felt that...i felt...why couldn't she choose me...

that hurt because i love my people, truly fiercely...so i think about that shit...i think abt marrying someone white and demanding that we live amongst my people so my kids wouldn't feel alienated....about the leap between the two black and white worlds of my childhood...

how even though my dad was mixed race, he chose very strategically what i learned, where we lived, who i was surrounded by so that who i am would always be a point of honor...i needed that imagery as a little black girl...in the same way i need it now....