from a black woman to another

[BobbiPinsOn]

what advice would you give a 23 year old black woman who is about to go out in the world?

lets keep this clean and neat, pretty please?

can we also steer away from discussing racism as part of advice?

@NurseButtercup

I don't talk about what goes on in my sexual activities with my partner specifically, but I do talk about sex and my experiences more generally with my friends.

Can I ask more about the advice you gave to not discuss this with friends?

I am someone who is open friends along my life course, I know lots of people kind of shut up shop to new friendships, I don't typically. BUT with people I haven't known, tried and tested for many many decades, I seldom talk about my relationship at all. Not because of this, but I have had the experience of a female friend act rather strangely around my partner (as in a little coy, a bit playful, a bit TOO MUCH), I always thought she was one of these flirty women who had a very high opinion of her attractiveness (and she was a very good looking woman), but at some point I thought her attentions were too firmly focussed in my partner's direction and I dropped that friendship like a bad habit, qu-ick, t-ime I remember thinking then that I was very happy I hadn't told her more about my personal / sex life. She was a nursery mum friend, and our friendship lasted just a few years. I'm good.

I only meant to be encouraging

You have the whole of the rest of MN on which to exercise encouragement. Can you really, truly not understand how unpleasantly colonialist your repeated interventions are here?

You have already explained to us, under your former name, how this thread requires the comments of non-black people to explain to us how to behave in order to be popular with the white majority race.

It’s enough now. Truly.

[quote Jamdown123]@NurseButtercup

I don't talk about what goes on in my sexual activities with my partner specifically, but I do talk about sex and my experiences more generally with my friends.

Can I ask more about the advice you gave to not discuss this with friends?

I am someone who is open friends along my life course, I know lots of people kind of shut up shop to new friendships, I don't typically. BUT with people I haven't known, tried and tested for many many decades, I seldom talk about my relationship at all. Not because of this, but I have had the experience of a female friend act rather strangely around my partner (as in a little coy, a bit playful, a bit TOO MUCH), I always thought she was one of these flirty women who had a very high opinion of her attractiveness (and she was a very good looking woman), but at some point I thought her attentions were too firmly focussed in my partner's direction and I dropped that friendship like a bad habit, qu-ick, t-ime I remember thinking then that I was very happy I hadn't told her more about my personal / sex life. She was a nursery mum friend, and our friendship lasted just a few years. I'm good.[/quote]
Based upon your reply it sounds like you're already doing what I advised "Don't discuss or seek approval of your sex life with your friends."

This advice was more towards the don't seek approval from friends.

What happens between you & your boyfriend/sex partner/husband/girlfriend is what the two have you agreed & consented.

Some friends will judge you for indulging in sexual behaviour/acts that they are either too scared/traumatised or didn't enjoy themselves.

The fact you keep coming back to comment @UrbanRambler2 is astounding!

A piece of advice that I would give is to not feel forced to code switch at work. I get that sometimes thats the only way to get ahead, but try to be as confident as you can be in not only your ability but your culture/heritage etc. I work in HE and its taken me a while to just think fuck it! This is me, either you like it or go away. Im not coming to the pub for after work drinks because I prefer to eat! I'm not talking about my relationships or things like that, because this is work and we don't all have cabin fever or want to be in each other's business. I say this now I'm in my 30s though and in a middle mgt role, when I was younger I did kinda feel I needed to do certain things to fit in with the majority white staff

@UrbanRambler2 Why are you so obsessed with us?

Again, you’ve had yet another comment deleted. However, this nonsense remains “Both women were essentially in the same boat, they were unhappy with their natural hair so regularly had their hair chemically treated to change it.”

Was your mother treated like a circus freak in public? Did random people attempt to touch her hair? Was it impossible, until fairly recently, for your mother to find hairdressers able and willing to care for her hair in its natural state? Was your mother subjected to unrelenting images in the mainstream media that told her her hair in its natural state was unattractive and substandard? Was there ever any risk of your mother being denied employment if she kept her hair in its natural state?

If the answer to these questions is ‘no’, then both women were not ‘essentially in the same boat’. It’s an incredibly tone deaf comment.

Also, I repeat, we didn’t ask you for your opinion. Please go away.

Oooh, I have another bit of advice that I missed out. There is no one way to be Black. We are not monolithic. Please don’t let anyone - mainstream culture, white people, Black men, other Black women - tell you how to ‘perform Blackness’.

You can wear what you want, listen to the music you like, read what you like, eat what you like, hang out with and date who you choose. None of these things will make you any more or less ‘authentic’ and anyone who tries to put you in a box or dictate your identity to you isn’t worth your time.

Oooo i love that advice @Buggritbuggrit

Well, that was disappointing to come back to the thread, and see another intervention.

But God loves a trier, and my teachers always said that: I was very trying. Ho hum.

Which reminds me of the advice that:

"Some people don't listen to understand. They listen to reply."

@Buggritbuggrit

Oooh, I have another bit of advice that I missed out. There is no one way to be Black. We are not monolithic. Please don’t let anyone - mainstream culture, white people, Black men, other Black women - tell you how to ‘perform Blackness’.

You can wear what you want, listen to the music you like, read what you like, eat what you like, hang out with and date who you choose. None of these things will make you any more or less ‘authentic’ and anyone who tries to put you in a box or dictate your identity to you isn’t worth your time.

Yes to this, could have done with someone telling me this decades ago!

@Buggritbuggrit great advice about feeling justified in your own interests. I had an awkward indie girl phase and the gigs and nights out were great fun. I'm much more mainstream in my tastes these days.

Something else that really helped me - more so in my teens than my 20s - was reading the greats. James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison - they helped me to understand what I felt and feel that I wasn't going mad.

Macmillan did research some years ago LookieLikie. In brief, white people are more likely to get skin cancers than black. However, skin cancer in black people is often diagnosed later. Because of this, outcomes also are often not so good by comparison.

My husband was diagnosed with melanoma some years ago. He worked outdoors, in all weathers and never would wear suncreen.
Luckily, I noticed a lesion on his ear that would not heal. He had not noticed it himself.

He is missing part of this ear now after surgery. Some people seem to think that he is some kind of villain.

He's since had basal cell carcinoma removed, squamous cell carcinoma, all on his face, so scarred, but doing ok.

I don't know of anyone else with dark skin that this has happened to. (We live in a mainly white area, but university town. so not that many black people our age to compare notes with.) Sunscreen is something that we use now.

The other issue is low Vitamin D levels, that has been my problem.

So I agree with other posters, look after your health, your skin, and I would add check your vitamin D too.

Hi, @LookieLikie. Basically what @TheBlackDarner said.

Skin cancers are less prevalent in Black people, but when they occur, they tend to be diagnosed at a later stage and, as a result, have a worse prognosis. The average five-year melanoma survival rate is only 67 percent in Black people versus 92 percent in white people.

Also, avoiding cancer isn’t the only reason to wear sunscreen, in my opinion. I consider it basic skincare, like moisturising. I have very nice skin and hope to continue to have nice skin for quite some time.

I grew up in West Africa and most of the Black women (not men, I know a few, but I wouldn’t claim it’s widespread) I know (in Nigeria, where skincare is a massive deal/big business, but also in Europe), wear sunscreen. This includes the older women in my family. I suspect they are MUCH more motivated by vanity/skincare/colourism than the health benefits. However, the upshot is the same.

BlackDarner, I’m really sorry that your husband (and you) went through that. So pleased that he’s doing okay, now.

@PompomDahlia I’m still my indie girl phase! Interesting thing about growing up in a Black country was that nobody tells you ‘xyz’ is not for you. You get to like/do all the things. Rocked up to the U.K. and had astonishment on all sides about the fact that I wasn’t rocking out to late noughties hip hop (it wasn’t even particularly good time for hip hop!!!) It was a bit discombobulating for a while.

Totally agree re the books! I’d also add Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka, Mariama Bâ, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (more recent, but I adore her), and so on. Great African authors, as well as AA ones.

I am going to save this thread! I love all this.

Really enjoying this thread.

My advice is to know that you are not always what other people say you are. I realise now I internalised a lot when the issue or the perspective was theirs and not mine to carry.

know that you are not always what other people say you are.

This is where really exercising your brain, constantly, is crucial. If you’re reading the greatest literature, attending or participating in a broad variety of theatre and music, visiting art galleries and museums as a matter of course, often - you’ll know that the world is wide and every single one of us is an individual. And that women throughout history have battled for the freedom to each be their own person.

(I have to say I hate the monolithic rhetoric and labelling I hear being attached to me - by strangers! - every other minute of the day. The mental effort of decades of trying to carve my own shape, never mind being seen as myself, is exhausting.)

@NurseButtercup

Ah I see. Judgement from them. Yes, I can see that. Noted. I have come to think that sometimes friends use what you tell them against you later down the line, sex talk or not. That was my reasoning, but I'll take on yours, too.

The one year I was really good with my suncream I became vitamin d deficient to the point I was feeling sick. I only now use a small amount on the face. Not sure about how much is needed and when.

@debbrianna you should be taking daily vitamin D supplements from now.

In fact every black woman - and the few men - on this board who is living/just staying in the UK over winter should be taking them.

I don't use sun cream any more in the UK because I was diagnosed as severely vitamin D deficient a few years back. In the UK I'm not outside long enough in the sun when we have it.

It's funny because both myself and my partner have had arguments with medical professionals over this. They shut up when I point out I was severely sufficient.

@debbrianna From my research on this, the consensus is that (for Black people in particular, but also in general in this country) its extremely difficult to receive enough vitamin D through diet and sun exposure alone. This is the case whether or not we use sun protection. So, the recommendation is that we take daily year-round supplementation of 10 micrograms. If you’re severely deficient, I imagine the recommendations will be different/higher (not claiming to be a medical professional - this is just general advice).

This does not negate the need for sun protection, as we’re still not impervious to the already discussed effects of long term unprotected sun exposure which puts all skin tones at risk of number of conditions.

So, personally, I use suncream every day. Just on my face in the colder months, all over when it’s hot and my bits are out. I also take vitamin D supplements every day.

Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin so unless you have had a blood test where it's been shown you are deficient, then had further blood tests and advice from a doctor on the dose you individually need over a period of time, you should just take the NHS recommended amount.

There have been issues where people including children have taking high doses and private labs/doctors have had to talk to them to get them to stop due to their high levels causing them the side effects which made them get the test in the first place....