UMBC has been a big rollercoaster for me. Literally freshman year was like the beginning of a roller-coaster where it’s calm and just straightforward. You’re anticipating for the fun to come and you riding in thinking “This will best ride of my life.” That was true until sophomore year. That crap was like the roller-coaster had 5 screws missing from the track. A track that was wobbly and unstable to begin with. My father got severely ill to the point of hospitalization. No one ever saw it coming, and broke me to the core. Due to my father living in another state, I had to continue going back and forth, and it really affected my mental and emotional. I literally just gave up on school. That semester I failed. I failed. ME! I failed. My mother was so disappointed , and it wasn’t even because the school didn’t give me excuses/extensions, it’s because “I let myself go, there are people out there that have it way worse than you.” Lol. So due to me “letting myself go”, I have became a super senior. Now that I’m here for another semester, paying another big ass tuition, and another semester from my dreams and hopes. Three months might not be too much for some people, but for me that’s basically half a lifetime (I know dramatic) that I could have used going to PA school. I honestly told myself that I would finish my degree in precisely 4 years, but I guess things happen for a reason.

Sorry, this a rant of the unfortunate conversation I had with a disgusting cis-white male the other day, that uttered out of his mouth “Black women have been a tyrant to this great America. That it makes sense why black women go through with what they go through.” I have never in my natural born life had to deal with so much rubbish. African American women are phenomenal human beings. They, like other women, are inconvenienced with the difficulties of being a woman in a “man’s world,” where a woman’s perspective and knowledge is not valued. AND IT BUGS MY SPIRIT! In my opinion, black women are like the earth’s resources, we forever be abused and needed, and most times out of the time never get the credit that’s due. And it disturbs me that mostly how we are viewed is derived from the stereotypes bestowed on us. Over the last couple of decades, and even the last century, black women have been characterized by society negatively with being called ghetto or ratchet, and we are continuously confined those words. But when thinking about it all this stems from the media, and it’s now being pushed by my own people (i.e., Martin Lawrence’s “Shenaynay” or Tyler Perry’s “Madea”). And don’t get me started on the idea that we all have “Angry Black Woman Syndrome”. This “syndrome” meaning that all black women “…are “sassy, ill-mannered, and tempered by nature”, a.k.a. we have been labeled as shrews. For example, not going to lie, I participate in watching trashy T.V. reality shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta and Basketball Wives. The show which follows the lives of women (mainly African American) who are married or use to be married to famous or wealthy men. Throughout the shows you see the women, who happen to be black, starting arguments and fighting over frivolous things and matters, and the grand scheme of the show is terrible. Millions are people are being entertained from black women tearing each other down and it honestly worries me.

Growing up in a Nigerian household is not for the weak at all. I remember always being one of the biggest and tallest out of all my cousins, and I was reminded of that on a daily basis. “Oh, do you think you should be eating that?” or “Nne, you are getting too fat, why don’t you start fasting?” All of this told to an eight year-old girl, who still doesn’t know her body. Or even to the point where there were days I would cry for the harsh words that use to be thrown at my face left, and right at every Nigerian function, and be told ” You know you’re too big (or fat) to be crying like this!”, and that’s usually followed by more scolding and laughter by the adults. It got to the point where I would cover my body fully, no matter if was raining and humid or 100 degree weather, I shielded by body from the world. Thing this is I thought once I get older my body will way better, and I would finally experience joy when looking at my body. But boy was I wrong.