AVERAGE BLACK GIRL Ernestine Johnson

Ernestine Johnson - Poet & Average Black Girl

They say I’m not the average black girl because I’m so well spoken

Poised, full of etiquette, a white man’s token

You know I remember my ex’s mother telling me,
“I didn’t know how I was gonna react
when he brought a black girl,
but I like you because you talk so white.”
But when did me talking right
equate to me talking white?

They say I’m not the average black girl
No! No! Not the average black girl
because the pigment of my skin
is just a shade lighter than
that black girl over there
You know, the black girl over there
The black girl with the nappy hair
The black girls
whose elbows can’t skip a day without lotion
Whose hearts and heads
are filled up with self-hate and bottled up emotion
The cocoa brown girls
who have to face society every day and be tough
Because no matter how good
they straighten their hair,
their good is still not good enough

Oh, but see. Luckily for me, see
I don’t fall in that category, see

They say I’m not the average black girl
because I speak with so much class and
I don’t have too much but just enough ass
and not too much but just enough pizzazz
You know, just a little bit of attitude
Cos you don’t wanna come off as one of those average black girls and come off as rude
You know, popping their gum and shaking their neck
Yeah, cos those black girls get like no respect

But see luckily for me, see I get pass
Cos the melanin in my skin
matches that brown paper bag
And my father, brother and men that I date pants don’t sag
And when I speak,
my tongue pronounces every syllable
And the combed part down the middle of hair
is naturally visible
Oh! Oh!
It must be a weave or she must be mixed
Cos we all know the average black girl
ain’t got that good *#@!%
Or when I walk in a room full of white men,
they all stare
It must be the long lengths
of my un-average black girl hair

See! See, they say I’m not the average black girl
because I corrected the professor when he used the word conversate
Converse! The word is converse
And in case you didn’t get the memo,
there are now eight not nine planets in the universe
And when you’re watching the numbers
on your stocks move up and down
Remember Oklahoma, in a small town
One of the first Wall Streets
was a Black Wall Street
that got mysteriously burned down

Oh, they say I’m not the average black girl
Well let’s flip this script and rewind this *#@!%
Repaint the lines and have them blurred over time
Because the average black girl that I know…
See, the average black girl that I know
made 19 trips through the Underground Railroad to free the slaves
Sat on segregated buses,
refused to get up and paved new ways
See, the average black that I know…
were Egyptian queens like Hatshepsut and Nitocris
who were ruling dynasties
and whole armies of men
Excuse me, why I set fire to this poem
on my pen cos I am tired!
Tired of the stereotypes black girls have fallen
into because of American mentality
Oh!
But not half as tired as
Ella Baker,
Diane Nash,
Septima Poinsette Clark
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired
Miss Fannie Lou Hamer,
Daisy Bates,
Anna Arnold Hedgeman and
Dorothy Height
are far more tired than I am

But do you think the ones who say
I’m not the average black even give a damn?
No!
So pardon me if I can’t openly accept your compliments
Pardon me if I can’t openly accept your compliment
It’s just the average black girl that I know…
The average black girl that I know
had courage that surpassed her every fear
And fought for justice and equality
year after year
So as I construct these words,
pardon me as I shed a tear
Because I’m not half the black girl she was!
I am not half the black girl she was!

See, there’s a minor clause

She was out there fighting, breaking and changing laws

So I bow down to my black queen standing
in the merit of her work

And as America society continuously throws
these supercilious words onto me

I say, “No!”

I am not the average black girl,

I can only aspire to be.