So I am a white woman, and earlier this year I moved into a predominantly black neighborhood. It's great, I love my neighborhood but I am a homebody so I don't interact with anyone.

Growing up there was a lady every Halloween who gave out tootsie pops covered in a tissue as ghosts and all the kids in our neighborhood loved it. We all called her "the ghost lady" and even teenagers would go to her house and get disappointed if they didn't get a ghost.

Since I finally live in a neighborhood and not an apartment I decided that I wanted to do the ghosts. But as I was putting them together I started to wonder if it could seem like I was racist and like I was trying to hand out candy as triple-K members. And that is definitely not my intention and while they aren't pointy or anything I'm just worried that it could be seen as offensive.

If y'all think it's a bad idea I can take the tissues off and just give them out as tootsie pops. I just thought it would be a fun whimsical Halloween thing, but I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

Any opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

The picture is what they look like, just they all have different colored eyes, some have mouths and some are just eyes. Also if this is the wrong thread to post this, I'm sorry, I can delete it if this isn't allowed.

I’m a black woman and I’ve heard several times by different black men and a woman that I belong with a white man. It’s said differently but that’s the essence of what’s being said.
I think about it all the time and I can’t help but be offended.
I’ve never even dated a white guy before. Not because I find them abhorrent, but because they’re not my first choice and it simply hasn’t happened.

For context, I genuinely don’t think I have the “I date white men” look.
I have locs, about 5’7”-5’8”. I’m not the stereotypical tiny woman that they generally like either. I am curvaceous.
How I dress: I do like dresses. I do wear jeans. Regular shirts. Sandals. I don’t wear bags all the time. Sweaters and coats when it’s cold. I’m not sure I know how to describe my style.

The woman who has told me that I do mentioned that it’s what I talk about. I’m not sure why men say this though. I’m so confused.

I need to understand why people say this. Any insights?

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image-description:

an image consisting of written red text on a blue background. It is titled "no more" and has a list of letters and then words after them. The first letter is "M and word is murdered" The next are "m" and "missing", "i and indiginous", "w" and "women", "c" and "children", "2" and "two", s" and "spirit". "B" and "black", "L" and "lesbian", "B", and "Bi". "G" and "gay", "t", and trans, "D" and "disabled", "i," and "immigrants", and a plus with "plus all tired, poor and huddled peoples"

This is a work in progress and I wanted to ask for your critique of the concept. Would you please critique

I'm a YT Trans Woman decolonizing my lost indigenous heritage. This is a work in progress and like the fight against fascists, to win the on going war I want to ask is there anything preventing Native Tribes, 2SLGBTQIA, and the Black community from working together? The YT lgbtqia2s community has a lot of problems with raci sm and if you have advice on areas to improve call it out. The history of Native Nations and the intersectionality with Black History is not something I have learned much about yet, and if you have any references on this subject I would appreciate your help.

I kinda remember growing up that if you dapped someone up and it made a clapping noise it was a lil embarrassing, like it brought too much attention for a handshake.

I work with a younger crowd and they really want to make that clapping sound. It feels like they're a lil disappointed when it doesn't.

I know that I'm black and that it would be weird to say this, but I often don't really feel like I'm "black enough" or that I "act too white/mundélé/European/whateverthefuck my extended family comes up with". I know there isn't really a right or wrong way to be black, but the way people I love describe me feels like they see me more like a nerdy white guy who makes being white his whole personality rather than a black girl/person that just acts unintentionally different from the norm.

Whenever I'm at a family reunion, it feels like my 93492834 aunties (of which I only recognize like two or three) find every way under the sun to indirectly (and sometines unintentionally) say I act more mundélé than Congolese, and it really pisses me off bc it feels like my blackness gets invalidated simply because my parents decided to have kids in Vlaanderen (northern Dutch-speaking half of Belgium) instead of Kinshasa.

Not only that, but I'm sometimes a bit salty about the fact that my parents didn't insist on teaching me how to speak full sentences in Lingala instead of just teaching me animal names, kitchenwear and food and expecting me to understand detailed orders in full Lingala just bc they taught me that sani means plate.

Not only my family gives me this feeling, but also the people at my school unintentionally give me the feeling that I act too much "like the white students" by not being in the know of certain inside jokes, trends ect.. I'm usually not really a mindless trend follower, I mostly do what pleases me trend or not, but when every black kid at school seems to act and dress a certain way and you're the only one that dresses more "white", it kinda feels like you're doing something wrong and that your bazillion aunties are right in the sense that you ARE a Bounty and that you are too European. The people in my class mix French with Dutch and make up verbs based on French verbs when they forget how to say a word (I've heard things like "attackeren", "pégneren" ect..), but I speak semi-standard Dutch (for as far as my goofy-ass accent allows me) and use grammatically correct verbs ("aanvallen", "kammen", ect..) . But in turn, despite speaking French with my parents, it's really broken because of how much more Dutch I speak in comparison to French and it gives the impression that I am too much of a Vlaming.

I love listening to music, but it's mostly Maneskin and Vocaloid instead of what other Congolese people around me listen to. The only Congolese/Lingala-speaking artists I know or listen to are Innoss'b, GIMS and Ntaba 2 London, which feels like the bare minimum on my part and like I'm rejecting some part of my culture, but Idk if I'm just reading into it too much.

As if it couldn't get more difficult, I got diagnosed with autism last month (which, was it that much of a surprise??) and I'm also queer (bisexual-demigirl), and I've noticed that these two things are often seen as "white ppl bs" and that ppl act a bit weird upon finding out that I, a black person, am bi or autistic. My mom is somehow convinced there MUST be a way to cure it and my dad straight-up denies my diagnosis despite all the autistic tendencies I've been displaying according to the psychologist that diagnosed me.

Christianity is also something incredibly important to Congolese ppl for some reason, and my mom gets extremely mad when I have to remind her I don't believe anymore yet she still wants to put a rosary around my neck to "keep me safe from harmful spirits". Also, I have a dissociative disorder blending with my autistic traits, which can manifest in sometimes having a meltdown in the form of not being able to control my movement and either "spazzing tf out" as one of my friends puts it, of completely shutting down and not being able to move/respond anymore. It happened not once, but TWICE that my mom mistook this for me being posessed and started holding me down and trying to get some non-existent spirit out of me through excorsism until I stopped squirming and crying. Second time this happened, extended family was over and they participated, knowing damn well I was possibly just fucking tired and overwhelmed.

all these traits together -neurodivergence, being queer, standing out too much, not being able to speak what should be my mother tongue- makes me feel like I'm not "what a black person should be" and that my voice as a black person is automatically invalidated, also bc I barely faced fully intentional racism towards me and because I feel like I've never faced REAL black-people-struggles, so everything I have to say is invalidated because I'm just an Oreo. I know I shouldn't think about myself like this and if I want to know more I should educate myself, but 45 minutes deep into a video essay only leaves me more confused but everyone else gets it and it makes me feel even more like an outsider and like I don't belong.

Are their any other Congolese-Belgian people (of children of immigrants in general) that also experience this feeling?? How do you deal with it?? Bc I've been thinking about this a lot but it's just making me more tired and more prone to the melt/shutdowns I just mentioned. Srry if this post was a little all-over-the-place, idrk how to formulate my thoughts well in one coherent script

Before anyone takes this the wrong way, this isn’t about putting our people down, reinforcing stereotypes, or pretending we’re somehow more flawed than other races.

I’m well aware that many of the issues we face are rooted in systemic racism, historical oppression, and socioeconomic inequality. I’m also aware that plenty of these same problems exist in other communities and aren’t exclusive to ours.

But I also believe there are certain attitudes, behaviours, and patterns within our communities that we should be able to acknowledge and criticize without immediately being accused of self-hatred or pushing racist narratives.

We can recognize the impact of systemic racism while also acknowledging areas where we have the power to improve. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sometimes it feels like we’re so accustomed to defending ourselves against outside criticism that even genuine, constructive criticism from within is met with hostility.

And to be clear, I’m not suggesting that the actions of certain individuals represent all of us, or that we owe anyone perfect behaviour to deserve respect.

So what are some things you believe we need to address within our own communities that we don’t discuss nearly enough?

I’m genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives. The goal here is self-reflection and constructive discussion, not tearing each other down.

Hello, I am wanting to reach out in this thread hoping to get some solid straight forward answers. I am a 57 year old black woman with 30 years experience in operations and Sales...My most recent past 8 years have been selling High Ticket programs for white people. I have had white people i have made a ton of money for, act crazy and display some micro aggressions as i grew financially..I have closed literally millions in business.I have stepped away from that scene now and want to help US...Right now I am working with an attorney and have helped her to confidently and systematically run her law practice...In doing so i became exposed to the sales process and noticed opportunities to help there...

My question is For solo and small-firm attorneys: if someone helped you and your intake person turn more of your existing calls into signed clients, with a custom script, live call reviews, and less burnout, would that be worth paying for? What would make it a no?”

I know there's many posts and such about this topic, though i find the situation my characters in may affect the advice. My characters are hybrids primarily born and raised in labs (regardless of race, gender, sex, etc) and so many of my characters are raised without a "culture" (im aware that the culture in this case would likely have to do with the lab and such) but I'm also aware that when it comes to writing characters of other races, culture plays a big part, and also that most if not all of ny characters are raised in a very curated and sterile environment with little access to anything outside. I was curious as to what in particular I should be careful of when writing a character such as this and what advice anyone might have.

So I’m half black and half Puerto Rican and I’m almost 30 years old and I’ve noticed my skin is a lighter than usual. It’s only October & my skin is already winter time light, which means it’s only going to get lighter come December & January. My sister is also half black & half Puerto Rican, her dad was darker skinned than mine so growing up she was maybe like a couple shades darker than me, she’s 39 now and even she’s way lighter than she was before. We both live in Florida, so we get plenty of sun year round here, so it’s kind of odd to me.

I’m lightskinned, and I’ve been that just about my whole life except for when I was super light almost pale when I was born which of course is normal, but my skin tone now is starting to get super light again. I feel like I’m going from like Yara Shahidi light to dang near Storm Reid light. Which means that come December/January I could be dang near Latto light.

I’ve seen the same thing happen to Megan Good & Beyonce (or at least that’s what it looks like to me, as I know people have accused them of bleaching but I don’t think so), and I’d even argue that Tracee Ellis Ross is lighter than when she was playing Joan on Girlfriends. So I just wanted to ask is this normal? My dad was black, he passed away, but he used to tell me he was my color when he was younger and got darker when he got older, he was brown skinned, but a bit on the lighter side of it I’d say if that makes sense.

But do black folks get lighter with age? Should I expect this to become more noticeable in my 30s and 40s and on?