I was thinking about highschool and I remembered that I endured some serious racism and sexism. I went to a very diverse boarding school in Zambia and I was an athlete.
At the time I couldn’t understand why as girls we were discouraged and ridiculed when we played sport. I also remember being called lesbian (which is considered an insult in Zambia) for playing sport but when the light skinned and white girls played suddenly sporty girls were sexy.
I remember the boys football coach telling us to play more netball than football so he could see up our skirts. I remember being so upset about it and being told by my guy friend to get over it because it was a joke. I was genuinely hurt and it still stings thinking about it now.
I remember people laughing at the fact that my group of friends would buy the same braiding hair, I remember colored (biracial) girls jokingly threatening to let the savage african side of them out if anyone crossed them. One time a Pakistani student called a black football player a monkey after learning that he was dating a Pakistani girl. The casual use of the N word by non black people.
White students never getting punished for their behaviour while black students have their lives ruined over small things. Our rugby teams being separated by race. Racist teachers, self hating teachers.
Racist white students from South Africa suddenly flooding our school. I remember one time a white girl lost her phone and had the entire girls block locked down because she thought “one of the black girls” stole her cheap ass, dumb ass LG Chocolate.
I remember one of my colored (biracial) friends crying to her other friends because she thought it was unfair that she was lightskinned but she had “african hair” and her friends were lightskinned with “nice hair”.
I remember that people used to call the bench that we would sit on at lunch times the nigger bench.
I remember aspiring rappers, who were usually black guys, in our school rapping about how they don’t want to shop at the “black market” (they don’t want to date black girls). I remember one of my black guy friends talking about how he thought black women doing everyday things look disgusting while women that were not black looked “classy and sophisticated”. I remember my friend sadly replying “that’s just how it is.”
I remember my friend CRYING EYES OUT because the guy she absolutely adored wouldn’t date her because she was black. I remember he would mess around with her but would only be seen in public with his white girlfriend. I remember that this was all too common with black guys
I remember how TERRIBLY we were treated when we tried to challenge what was happening in our school.
Honestly there was so much shit we went through as african girls growing up it makes me want to cry sometimes and I’m shocked that I’m even somewhat sane with even the slightest bit of self worth still remaining. I wish people would understand just how much of a thrashing our self esteem takes as Black women. The only thing that kept me going was my group of black female friends. My experiences are the reason why I hold on to my black girl friendships so tightly, I will always love and support black women with my entire soul no matter their circumstances because they got me through some of my worst times and without them I honestly think I would have killed myself in highschool.