Anytime I’ve gotten knotless braids they bend at the root and become so ugly looking. I’ve tried to wear a scarf only on top and put a bonnet on to avoid this but literally nothing works but I’ve seen people who have older knotless and it’s straight how can I avoid the bent root look?

To my fellow dark skin women, how do you deal with colorist comments or remarks, and how do you get yourself over them and not internalize it? I usually can avoid it but i have some light skin friends and i find it impossible to escape when im in their presence, not bc of anything they are doing but other people. Just the other day someone (another dark skin woman) said my friend had a nice face and i have a mean face. Like its just unnecessary and makes no sense. It had to be rooted in colorism bc we are both friendly individuals.

Sometimes ppl will just stop my friend on the street and praise her for her beauty/skin tone and say nothing to me, and it does make me feel as if i’m in her shadow or invisible. Mind you we are both attractive young woman. I do find myself pretty and i feel like i have a good level of confidence, I also do get approached when I go out alone at times. So it is rather jarring when i’m out with her and get ignored or witness the way people pump her up and give her special treatment for her skin tone. I also find it unfair how people just tell dark skin women to just “build up their self esteem and love themselves more” Bc humans naturally want validation and reassurance. And no matter how much confidence we build up, seeing the stark difference in how lighter women are treated is going to always give us a negative feeling.

I guess i just don’t know how to go about these situations. It’s sad bc i love my friend but it does make me not want to go out as much with her. It’s not her at all it’s the fact that colorism really follows her and i feel the effects of it.

Tried posting in r/blackhair as well but was seeking advice, I'm looking to dye my virgin 4c 1b hair to match this braiding hair, color #33. It's hard to tell but it is a very chocolate brown color.

I've never dyed my hair and was looking to use no bleaching semipermanent products to do so (honestly hoping to try give the hello bubble dye a try for funsies) open to any and all suggestions!

I’m trying to do my hair… but I’m 50/50 with bleaching my wig. Is it something I have to do? Am I able to avoid bleaching n only do lace tent? I made a list and lmk if this is stuff I do and don’t need please 😭

hey all!

I'm forcing myself out of self imposed isolation, and one of the ways I really want to get back into making friends again is to find community with people who align with my beliefs and goals. Something I'm very passionate about is engaging in dialogue about current and historical issues and actually working to solve them, especially through a Black feminist lens. There's a LOT of issues right now including job instability, inflation, reproductive rights, etc. that I know people are feeling the effects of but it seems like no one around me is doing anything to really fix it, including myself. As a public policy grad that just doesn't vibe with me. Plus, I know that these communities exist, I'm just not around them.

I say all of this to say, where are the radical Black communities online? LGBTQ+, black and brown led action/community/inclusive oriented communities that are working to educate others and do their part to create real tangible change. I know they exist, but I'm not sure how to find what I'm looking for. If you have any suggestions (reddit, forums, organizations, twitter accounts, youtube channels, patreons, etc.) I'd love to hear from you!

Does anyone else feel like they've had so many sexual experiences where their needs are not catered to or prioritized to the point where you dont even wanna have s*x with anybody for the rest of your life? I get shitted on by men a lot because cl!t stimulation is where i get pleasure the most. I've been shamed for guiding them on how to do it. I feel like i cant even voice my opinion and ask that pleasure be reciprocal without feeling like im asking for too much... im tired. I dont think i want to get physically intimate with anybody for the rest of my life. And i know some people are going to say find somebody who have the same values as me, someone who respects women. Thing is, a lot of men would claim themselves to be feminists, people would know them as such but then in private with their romantic partners all of that goes out the window you start seeing certain behaviors, the fragile masculinity bubbling up.to the surface when you tell them hey you re not very good at this thing, let me show you how to do it properly...

I'm having a big greek mythology theme for my birthday party. I have Haitian family members who don't get the theme so I simplified it to have everyone wear white with gold accessories. But I showed my mom the shoes that I wanna wear and she doesn't get it🤣🤣

My bf does this regularly. His hair is a pain in the ass to handle, so he just applies oil, leaves it however and wears a bonnet.

I hated it, but now I love seeing it on him.

When he first started doing it, he told me to "fix my internalized racism if I think wearing bonnets out is weird but head warmers are normal". Harsh but yeah that happened 🥲

Thoughts??

(I'm not/wasn't mad at him for saying that)

just curious what other black women are experiencing out in the wild. i usually get approached by 50-70 year old black and white men in person, and VERY few matches on ~the apps~.

but I also live in la, which is notorious for our dating scene if you can even call it that haha

sexuality is confusing 🥲as of recently when i see a beautiful women or a pretty girl sometimes I wonder what it would be like to date them, but I’ve never had feelings for another woman, since I’ve only had crushes on guys, but at the same time I’m demisexual so I don’t think I could just casually date people.

I have an online friend I am getting to just know and I saw a picture of her and I just thought she was really pretty and thought of I wonder what it would be like to date her

Has anyone felt this way ? If so how did you deal with it

Okay. Before we start I just wanna let you know that this may sound a little messy but please don’t judge me.

I have been in a relationship for 4-5 years. We had always talked about being non-monogomous and opening our relationship but we never really explored it until a few months ago. Well in February I met this guy and he is so exciting to me. A lot of fun, and whenever we get together we always have a great time. He knows I’m open and is down with it all so before we started a more intimate relationship with each other, we created “rules” or boundaries that we’d live by to make this enjoyable for us both. The rules included using protects all times, living in the moment, respecting each other’s boundaries, and a few other things. I really wanted to explore this because sexually, I am a bit unsatisfied in my relationship.. my partner is vanilla, and I’m learning through interactions with this guy that I have more of an inclination towards pleasure with kinks. As I said earlier, he is a lot of fun. My partner and I still have sex occasionally but not as much as we used to.

Here’s where the story begins. My long term partner and I had unprotected sex in the begging of March. He for sure nutted in me as we thought we were in the lower chance days of getting pregnant. We usually do this and it works so we had no worries (and he doesn’t finish in me all the time). I had sex with my fwb the next day. I was drunk. It was protected but for some reason (this is where it sounds bad), I don’t know if he pulled the condom off or not cause when he pulled out, I remember feeling something drip on my leg. His dick is big. I hate to say it but his dick is bigger than my partners, almost twice as big and my partner has a nice size too, but when the fwb & I would fucked other times, I’d notice that each time he pulled out (with the condom still on), liquid would fall out of me and that has never happened before (TMI) & no I didn’t squirt. So I’m thinking that just happens because of how big he is? Idk… any way my period is late and it’s pretty regular. I’ve been having unusual cravings so I decided to take a test to ease my mind and I am in fact very pregnant.

My fwb and I have a weekend planned together and I have decided on not keeping the baby because of the situation it was created in but I’m debating on if I should even tell him that I’m currently pregnant. I know and think that I should, I’m just afraid it will ruin our chances of enjoying our weekend. But then I don’t feel like I have to tell him because I’m not keeping it anyway… idk I never imagined myself in a situation like this but here I am.

My long term partner knows I’m pregnant but he doesn’t know that I’ve been seeing someone else because when we opened up, he said he didn’t want to know or find out. He is supportive of whatever decision I decide to make.

And just so we’re clear, even if I decide to not keep the pregnancy, I wouldn’t be out here drinking and smoking over the weekend either.

I apologise for the long post.

I had been friends with this girl for 3 years and considered her as one of my closest friends, I shared everything with her. I loved and valued our friendship so much, but we had our issues.

We’d have little arguments on little matters she’d take out of context and would not talk to be for weeks or hear me out, this happened like every couple weeks. She’d also joke about deep things that I told her in confidence even though I told her I don’t like it being used as banter.

I even apologised for not prioritising her as I was busy with my family problems. She didn’t speak to me for 2 months, so I wrote another paragraph apologising for it.

Another situation happened where sbe made her self the victim after saying making a mean comment about me. She flipped the script and stormed off after I explained why I didn’t like what she said. She ignored me when I was trying to explain my self to make her better. And did not take any accountability at all

So I said I didn’t want to be friends with her anymore, it was so draining that she always made her self the victim in the situation. Even though I love her it was too much for me.

Should I have just apologised again and just moved on ??? The good times we had outweighed the bad. I miss her a lot and start to regret it

I’m very embarrassed and I no longer have a crush. I don’t think I’ll ever like white guys again. He is 17m and he was nice to me, I was quiet and kept to myself he made an effort to take to me. I attend a predominately white private school. He complimented my hair. I have a long curly hair I’m not confident of so I once straightened it. He told me he liked my hair more when it’s curly and how I look pretty. He listens to me even if I don’t say a lot so I ended up liking him. We even hung out at lunch sometimes I walked into him and his friends talking about neo Nazi stuff about how black people are ruining the us and Europe and about how Jews are inferior. He even said the n word. I was embarrassed I hated myself for liking him. I confronted him about what I heard he just stared laughing and admitted how he just wanted to try a black girl and how I’m delusional if I actually thought he would like me. Well I just cried tbh I’m never going to even like a white guy again. How do I deal with this. Does this happen to people

I learned about what happened to her maybe yesterday or two days ago, and I just cannot stop thinking about how young she was, and how she had so much ahead of her. I can’t stop thinking about how that 33 year old man did that to her. I just feel so bad for her and her family. I’ve seen posts of her pictures and her laughing with friends when she was in school. It’s just so sad.

It was just horrible how so many people victim blamed her, too, saying that she deserved it because she went out with the man because he was white. Like, she died by this man’s hands, and people are blaming her for it????????

Her GoFundMe for her memorial was already met. I don’t know if there’s anything else out there (as far as other memorials, protests, vigils for her).

If anyone has any ideas of how to celebrate her life, or just positive thoughts about her? I’m just seeing so many people talk about her death as a lesson, and not celebrating her for who she was. I read that her birthday is on May 10th.

RIP Sade Robinson 💕💕💕

I made a server for 18+ black queer women!

We are super friendly, welcoming and we want to grow our community and find more black queer women

If you want more black queer friends as a black queer women/nb person, or trans you are welcome :))

Want to join? Pls dm and I will send you the link :)

Need to be 18+

Someone asked me recently if I knew what a certain medication was, and I didn’t recognize and they were all like “aren’t you Haitian? Dang how you not know about this!” Mind you, if I had asked any family member or friend who’s Caribbean they would absolutely not recognize it either and I noticed that many people try to ascert their “blackness” or how Caribbean they are and penalize those who don’t relate when in reality that’s not what makes you who you are…

I went to a Haitian gala 🇭🇹 at my school recently because I was on the Eboard and constantly involved with the black clubs there and when I tell you! I speak creole because I was raised that way, I recognized every dish and meal the catering hall provided and loved dancing to the konpa dance team! To me- this is my culture! Not recognizing one pill out of thousands😆😭

I've noticed that non-black people, especially Europeans are obsessed with dismissing black people who spread awareness about racism as just being ‘sensitive Americans’. It all links to how they love to silence black people in their own countries when they talk about racist experiences. they’ll swear up and down that racism is non-existent in the European continent whilst never experiencing racism themselves.

These are also the same Europeans that reject being called white despite being no different from white Americans.

I’m a black girl. I don’t wanna say where I work but let’s say it’s a big building with a lot of people, and like 50% of the workers there are also black.

I’m young and for the most part I have moved on from my high school/college friends, and I want to make more black friends, but I’ve noticed that most of the black women are just kinda mean…

I try to smile and say hi and they usually either give me a dirty look or don’t say anything at all. They are just not friendly so it makes me feel bad. Yet whenever I pass a white woman in the hallways, or we are in close proximity, they always smile or say hi back, or start a conversation.. But I want more black friends. Why is it so hard?

Idk how to do it. It’s as if they just automatically don’t like me. I don’t have an rbf. I know that what I’m mentioning are stereotypes about black women, that they are more mean, but it’s all I see and it brings me down. I’ve started to give up and I just don’t even look them in the eyes anymore when I pass them, to save my feelings. Then I feel bad when one is actually nice, because now my default expression is kinda avoidant and to myself.

I can hold a nice conversation, I purposely keep a pleasant look on my face just in case I look unapproachable, I face no issues with white men, black men, or white women. Just black women. Why?

Tbh, idk how to start this. I really don’t. I truly and from the depths of my soul don’t know where to start.

But in all my 29 years of existing, I’ve only had two black women into me. One is my best friend of 14 years. Which is not gonna happen.

And the other is an ex friend that’s long gone. We were just at different points in our lives and decided to call it quit. That was my first love though for sure. But unfortunately it just didn’t work.

But I just don’t get it. I try to go out on dates with other black women and can barely get them. I’m not self hating at all. I love my skin, my people, my family, our people, our culture and so much more.

I love supporting black businesses, black women and so much more. I have a degree in mental health and LOVE talking to black families that come in and how mental health treatment has been different for us and easing their families pain when it comes to treatment of their child. Because I get it 10000%.

Anyways, I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’ll go out on a date with another black woman and won’t get a call back after, try to get to know them, they don’t think it’s gonna work, etc.

But other ethnicities? Totally fine. Get call backs, get text backs, other dates, wanting to hang out more, etc.

I’ve never been fetished. It’s always been genuine relationships that I’ve had. Long term, we go do stuff, travel, have a great time, etc.

I’ve been told I’m… god I hate using this stereotype because one size does not fit us all.

But I’ve been told I’m too “white washed” by other black women sometimes, but again, it’s not like I don’t acknowledge our accomplishments, struggles, culture, support, etc.

Like I just don’t know what to do anymore.

This isn’t me giving up by the way. I know there’s another black woman out there for me. I know.

It’s just, literally in my 29 years of existence, I haven’t had a long term relationship, a hook up, etc with one of us and it’s kinda heartbreaking.

Idk if this rant comes off as “weird” but I’d be lying if I said didn’t bother me somewhat.

I was almost afraid to post this in fear of being judged or seen as one of those black people who thought “oh, she just sees the rest of us as inferior so she’s doing it to herself”.

Theres NOOOOO self hate here at all. I love every part of us. 🥰

But I feel like there’s something wrong with me.

https://www.kmbc.com/article/timothy-haslett-jrs-attorney-files-motion-requesting-case-to-be-sealed-clay-county-missouri/46666820

The next court appearance is Monday. I haven’t heard much updates on it and I’m scared it’s going to be sealed.

It’s very sinister and I think there’s a lot more deeper shit to it. The victim who escaped said there was more victims who died but we haven’t heard any news about those who have passed in months other than the lady in the river.

Jaynie Crosdale and the other victims deserve to be remembered. This case has been long and hard and we deserve to know the full story.

I think they’re waiting for nobody to be paying attention to it anymore because the way they refuse to let the hearings be recorded for the public is so fucking odd, and now the request for it to be sealed is making me suspicious.

So this is gonna be a little vent. So I was talking to this white guy(yes this is important) for about four months and we ended things a couple weeks ago. I hadn’t really thought of him until recently because of a text message I got from his best friend. So the guy I was talking to, let’s call him S, had a friend group that was racist and I didn’t like them at all so I just avoided talking to them whenever we hung out and what not. So S’s best friend sent me a paragraph today saying that he found out that S and his friends were fetishizing me in a group chat and calling me a lot of different names. At one point they had talked about latinas and black women and told S that he had found a “holy grail” because I’m an Afro-Latina(I mainly look black) and they would talk about my body and all these other things. I’m really upset about this because S was very nice while we were talking/together for the four months but apparently this gc with his friends has been around for a while. I feel kind of disgusting too because me and him slept together after three months and on his part he only slept with me because I’m an Afro-Latina. Idk what to do now or how to feel.l

Edit: hi so I know I’ve answered some questions but I’ll put most of the answers up here so everyone can see a more detailed version. So some people have asked why I stayed with him if his friends are racist and I think it’s because he didn’t really hangout with them outside of playing basketball or school. So whenever he would ask me to go to the park with him and play basketball I would always ask him if his friends were there and if he said yes I would always stay behind or ask if his best friend was going so I could just hangout with him. His best friend had an injury at the time so he couldn’t play with the rest of the guys so we ended up getting really close. Me and his best friend ended up bonding over like mutual interests pretty fast and we ended up developing like a little sister/older brother type relationship. I ended up asking him why he was telling me everything and he said it was because he realized how fucked up S and his friends were and he thought I deserved to know about the group chat. He said he didn’t find out about the group chat until about a week after me and S ended things. He’s slowly distancing himself from them because then it’s less drama for him because he has a lot going on right now. Someone did ask if he had ulterior motives and I honestly don’t know. If he does come out and say that he likes me or something along those lines I don’t know what I would do. Thank you for all the support and kind words. Also yes he is blocked on everything now.

i apologize for my long post and it’s a rant about my own perception of myself.

i haven’t told my therapist about my thoughts as of yet so i don’t think i can assort out what i feel rationally but i wish i did not suffer from anxiety so that i can be fun (which has been manifesting a lot more and i realize that i do suffer from it). i was talking to my partner earlier today as our anniversary is a week from now yay , and he said that he wished that we can do more exciting activities than just us hanging out at his house. i do think that’s fair, i can’t yuck it. i’m just scared of the infinite possibilities of anything going wrong, hence why i just wake up go to school study sometimes tutor and repeat. even when i do anything apart from that, i feel awkward. i went to my first concert a few weeks ago with my friend which i loved but i felt so out of place compared to everyone else and it honestly makes me feel insecure. i feel like maybe there’s something wrong with me, even when i was at tutoring the last time with others, i was often left out the conversation and now i feel this dreadful feeling and i want to cry.

i used to write a lot as a hobby but now i can’t do anything

I do a lot of things alone like nails, shopping etc. However I do not know how to mingle alone 😭 I really want to go to my major city tomorrow but I’m scared to go alone. I could go to a popular town but the demographic isn’t what I’m looking for. I’m 24 and I would like the age range to be 24-35. Any advice?