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Growing up throughout my school years I’ve seen many different things and been through many different situations however there was always one thing that stuck out for me due to how much it has followed me throughout my life. Growing up I never really had a problem with how I sounded to others until I started to hear the same thing over and over again. “You talk like a white girl” or I “talked white”. I heard it so often, especially in my middle school years that I started thinking the way I spoke was a problem and I started to second guess myself every time I spoke. It has me wondering if I switched up how I talked if it would make me fit in better with certain crowds. 

      For a very long time I didn’t fully understand just how much that subtle type of judgement could very well take a big toll on a black girl’s mental health especially at a young age. When people mock or question the way someone speaks or acts, not only is that judgement but it also sends a message to people who go through it that if they don’t speak a certain way then their blackness is being betrayed. The pressure that people like me go through with stuff like this, as we’re always trying to prove that we are “black enough” can damage people’s confidence in themselves.  It can cause people to not want to act like themselves more if it just leads to being judged and it makes it hard to be at peace in our minds as well. 

      I recall back in ninth grade when I was in the afterschool program at my school we had been playing a game of Uno. I was getting out of my shell and talking to the kids around me trying my hardest to sound confident in myself. At one point after I had finished talking to someone a girl on the side had spoken up and said “Why do you talk like that…you sound like a white girl.” It wasn’t my first time hearing this in school in general but at the moment I just didn’t know how to respond. I laughed it off and tried to pretend like it didn’t bother me but it really did. After that moment I started to second guess myself every time I spoke. I tried to change how I spoke around certain people even if it felt unnatural to me. It was always exhausting to put up a front just to feel accepted by people of my own community. That’s what really bothered me the most, if it was outsiders it wouldn’t be so bad but hearing it come from my own community just didn’t feel good. 

     As I get older and continue to grow as a person I am realizing that I don’t need to change or alter the way I speak just to please other people. Who I am as a person will always be who I am and I won’t keep trying to change myself to fit in because then I won’t feel true to myself. I also began to realize that there isn’t a way to “sound black”. Everybody has a different voice that fits them and who they are and a way someone sounds doesn’t prove what race they are. It took a lot of time but I have learned to embrace my voice and the way I speak without worrying about what others think or have to say about it. I surround myself with people who accept me for who I am and I’m not letting what people have said in the past or even if it comes up in the future again to have power over me. How I speak doesn’t make me less than what I am, all it does is make me me. Realizing this has really helped me to build confidence in myself and to stop trying to fit in with others who will always have something negative to say.

       These experiences in my life have really taught me a lot even if they were negative. These experiences have shown me just how much words can affect someone’s mental health especially when it comes from people in your community. However it has also taught me how important it is to be confident in myself and accept who I am no matter what. My voice shows who I am, my story, my culture and I won’t let anyone else make me question or feel ashamed of myself again.