Loud Mouth Brown Girl

When I was being abused, 99.9% of my abusers were white men. There were a few women, and some people of color, a few Black men, but not many.

Most of the Black men in my life tried to move Heaven and Earth to protect me as a child. But my mom, not knowing what was happening, moved me away from our protective center to get away from her abusive ex. Fine, fair, but she didn’t know that it would be worse in British Columbia, that literally nowhere would be safe for her Black, Biracial daughter who was only seen as “The right kind of Brown,” because they “thought” she looked like 2Pac or Halle Berry. (Spoiler, I fucking do not.)

Coming here was fucking awful, mainly because most of the abusers followed, and those that weren’t from Alberta were deeply entrenched in what was being done to me, not only because they were merely complicit, but because they were actively involved.

When we talk about changing our behaviour after trauma, it’s often because after we’ve been traumatized, we realize certain triggers set off our emotions. Anxiety, depression, fear, or even our fight-or-flight system. We can’t control it at first, mostly because we don’t know it’s happening until after we explode or implode…but once we do, they say it’s our responsibility to fix it.

I resent that, I agree with it, but I resent it. I resent that I have to relearn how to behave in a socially acceptable way, given all the evil shit I had to go through to get here.

First off, before I even get into why I won’t date white men, let me say this: I am a wild creature, born of flame and brimstone, not destined to bend or bow to men who think they are better than me because they pale as fuck.

I am destined to do whatever the fuck “I” want in this life, not because I earned it, but because I was born to be a person who leads others, and the craziest thing is I didn’t used to know what that meant. I used to think that meant that I had to be a warrior with my full chest to be a leader, because that’s what I was doing. I was constantly fighting.

The fight’s not over, but the battles are done. I no longer have gross, disgusting, nasty ass men touching me, I no longer have them dragging me into an alley, or abusing me in other horrible awful ways I don’t want, in ways that disgust me and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

I don’t want to date white men because I don’t fucking trust ya’ll. If you don’t know a rapist, you are a rapist. If you’re not a rapist, you’re capable of it. Too many of you have had your body parts inside of me, against my consent, without me saying yes, on purpose, because YOU decided it was what I wanted.

Too many of you have shown you’re willing to rape and abuse the most marginalized, innocent, and young among us, just for a tiny semblance of power. I understand why you did it. It was a bonding exercise, y’all had to do something super evil to get into your sick pedophile club, and you needed something you could all blackmail each other with. Oh, I fucking get it, but I also get that my life is exactly why rape culture has to go.

All of the white men I have dated have had one of two reactions to me being Black, and most of the time, it’s about my race. “Oh, you’re so pretty for a Black girl,” my personal favourite, “I love your big Black…x, y, z.”

I fully understand that white people think my beauty is tied to my race, but the thing is that I don’t see myself as beautiful, so when white men tell me I am, it makes me cringe. I was raised around some really stunningly looking people, but they were all white. I was taught to prioritize Eurocentric beauty standards and see my beauty as less important, worthy, and exciting than the white girls I was surrounded with.

I know that I am actually quite beautiful. I know I could have been a model, an actress, or anything else in my heart.

But I also know that abuse stole the light inside of me that made me curious enough to want to explore things like acting, singing, and dancing.

By the time I started attending Saint John’s Fine Art School in Calgary, I was in grade five and had already been raped by half a dozen people – at that age, all of my abusers were white men. Grown white men. Or white boys. Because white men only teach abuse.

I was already tired, and I didn’t have it in me to do anything but mask all the pain by being the weird kid, it didn’t feel good going home at the end of the day not being sure what was going to happen, and so I tried my best to think about it.

I told my mom years ago I probably wasn’t going to give her grandchildren, and it’s not that I don’t want to have my happily ever, it’s that I am too afraid it doesn’t exist. There are plenty of abusers left who prey on those who have been abused in the past, and everywhere I look, all I see is a sea of white men, who are just as capable of abusing me or someone else as anyone who ever touched me.

I have valid reasons for not wanting to date white men anymore, and all of them revolve around them not understanding, respecting, or caring about my racial identity and boundaries, as well as my desire to stay safe.

However, most people will chalk it up to me being “Reverse racist,” as if that’s a fucking thing. I mean, Black people are murdered and dismembered because of the colour of their skin. This never, ever, ever happens to white people. The white people in the world don’t have to worry about family members abusing their kids, SPECIFICALLY because “Black kids don’t remember.” Yeah, we fucking do, you evil cunt.

White people don’t have to worry about their children being hunted, dismembered, beaten, raped, branded, and fucking lynched, because those kids are white. Yes, white kids experience child abuse, and yes, white people experience murder and rape, but not at the rates of the Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities and often yes, our abusers are in fact…white people.

Racism doesn’t just destroy lives, it breaks people in ways that can never be repaired, so if I date a person and they happen to be a man, (So very unlikely,) and in the seriously miraculous chance that they also happen to be a white man, he’s going to have to shit gold bricks or something for me to be even remotely interested.

I’m tired. I no longer want to educate white people around racism, I no longer want to contribute to a conversation that is being deeply ignored because it makes white people uncomfortable.

As I write this, Palestine is burning, but you go off about how me doing one small thing to protect myself makes me a fucking racist.

Sending all my love…to Black men,

Devon J Hall the Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl