Like everyone else here, I’m a nerd. I’ve known from about…11 or 12 that I’m a wee bit different from the other girls of color. They were starting to worry about boyfriends and I was wondering when the next new season of Sailor Moon coming out. They were social butterflies and I was a social caterpillar. That’s kinda how I viewed myself, ugly, hairy, and without any real pizzazz or grace. These feelings put me into a depression (though not clinically diagnosed) that has plagued me most of my life. And it still does now. So…my little blurb will be focused on self-acceptance and how I’m trying to find myself as a black girl nerd.
I see so many awesome, beautiful, proud black girl nerds. There’s Aisha Tyler, Vanessa Veasley, and all you lovely ladies out there. I have my own quirks that list me in the black girl nerd world. I love science, science fiction, anime and manga, literature, and comic books to name a few. However, I don’t feel beautiful. I don’t have any fashion sense, I can’t do makeup or my hair, and I just view myself as plain. But I know I have all this coolness in me that I’d like to just to…explode out. It doesn’t help that black girl nerds are so highly scrutinized. But that is another blurb within itself.
As I said before, I’ve wrestled with my depression and self-acceptance a while. One of the most difficult things any person will ever do in their life is learning how to love themselves. In the words of the great RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself, how they hell can you love somebody else? Can I get an amen?” Amen! It’s hard enough to love yourself but I think it becomes even more difficult when you’re not fitting in with the box society expects you to fit in. Even if I wrestle with my beauty, I’ve come to love the fact I’m a black girl nerd. Let’s face it, we’re awesome. We come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, and countries but we are own little family of sisters at the end of the day. We accept each other for the hot, odd commodities we are and support one another. This is the family and community that I’ve longed for. Black guy nerds are great for talking to about some things, and even though I have a biological sister, there’s nothing like the black girl nerd sisterhood. You all have let me know that I am accepted and I'm really not alone in this world.
So I know this may have gone a little off kilter. It’s a Friday night and the plans I had failed so I’m in a bit of a funk but thank you all for “listening”. If you have makeup/fashion tips, please share. I need them desperately. I promise my next blurb will be on a more positive, coherent note <3
