Yes, Black Girls Are Allowed To Be Soft
“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman.
The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman.
The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
— Malcolm X
From Lana Del Rey’s insistence that Black women are incapable of emulating her brand of “delicate femininity”, to the stereotype of Black women as aggressors, Black women are continuously stripped of the opportunity to be soft. Even responding to decades of oppression with (rightfully deserved) rage plays into a stereotype. “See?” People say, after a Black woman dares to feel anger after experiencing the one-thousandth micro-aggression of the day. “She’s so aggressive.” To the racist world, the Black woman is not soft.
A word that has come to mean an aesthetic blend of feminity, pastel colors, and heavy pink blush, to be “soft” is also the act of portraying (and signaling) innocence. Though not intrinsically linked, the soft aesthetic often carries an association with vulnerability. To be soft is to be innocent, a state that can be easily exploited and, therefore, makes the soft person vulnerable.
There are two major functions of vulnerability. The first, ironically, is violence. There is no better example than white women using tears to manipulate and even to…
