I am Not a Strong Black Woman, Sorry Not Sorry

Heyy I am not a strong black woman Are you? no stereotypes are good. None of them. There is no good stereotypes. Even the ones that seem like compliments. I am not a strong black woman and let me tell you a little bit about what I mean I was at the dentist, I was getting a long procedure done it was going to take over an hour and it was kinda complex and complicated and i remember the dentist telling me going into it, "I'm gonna ask you to open as wide as you can and hold it like that for as long as you can and I remember thinking like, 'oh, are you kidding me, really' uh... I'm gonna try and do that for you He's like 'great' so we started going, we started going and like, five minutes into it and, it's like I, I can't do this any more you know, I start to twitch uh, and he notices and hes like 'hang in there' a couple minutes later and my mouth starts to slack, and he's like 'hold it tight, open 'open wide, come on' and ugh it's like 'alright' ten fifteen minutes later it just comes to a point where it's unbearable and I-- feel my mouth going slack and I close it over the tool and so he turns to the assistant and he's like, 'Alright. Go ahead and grab grab the rubber, uh, the rubber bite splint uh the rubber splint i think is what it was called and, um, I'm thinking in my head 'whats a rubber what's a rubber bite block?' and they get it out and they put this thing and they wedge it between my teeth and they prop open my jaw and open my mouth wide so that I can relax my muscles and i can rely on this little piece of rubber to hold it open and uh... as he does that, he tells me, he's like, "you are so strong" Like you're the best patient I"ve ever had, you've held out longer than anyone I ever knew "I knew I could trust you with this, I knew I could ask you to do it and you could do it, you'd make me proud" and it was just like, "Are you kidding me right now?!" you had a little piece that would have helped me immensely and you didn't use it. You didn't tell me about until i was unbearably uncomfortable and would have to close my mouth around the tool like, 'Are you being serious with me right now?!' I didn't say any of this of course and my mouth is just open and i'm thinking all this in my head and i just remembered he thought-- his words echoing in my head 'you're strong" You're a strong black woman and it's like, "No. No. Give me that bite block, I need it, put it in my mouth right now. what's next your gonna say I'm so strong I don't need anesthetics? it's like, where where do we draw the line. here's another example my mom was talking to this lady in the park who looked really sad and the lady had gone through really hard time the last couple weeks and she was telling my mom about it and my mom was you know sympathizing with her and she gave her a hug at the end of it and she was like 'I'm so sorry, she said 'that you went through that, that's really tough, I'm so sorry that that happened to you' And I guess my mom felt safe to open up a bit too trying to share a familiar story familiar uh... kind of struggle with the lady and um the lady nodded her head and just kinda interjected in there, she said "Well you know you're strong black woman" and you know she gave her hand a lil tap like that she was sincere and she didn't mean anything by it but at the same time my mom was kinda like uh...'how does that work?' like 'I just shared a story with you similar to the one that you shared and instead of having the reaction I had you kind of dismissed it and said 'Well you're, you're a strong black person so you know, I-- It Aint No Thang and it's kind of like how? Why? What do you mean? you know It's like Thanks, but no thanks. You know there comes a point where it there's an unrealistic expectation to endure or soldier through something, and here's a situation that doesn't involve race. Imagine two college students ok one student is telling his friend, 'Dude, I haven't slept in 36 hours uh, I have this exam today, I just ate at that you know burrito place, I'm thinking I have food poisoning i don't know what am I going to do?!" like and the other friend, the second friend saying, "You know what, you're a smart individual." and the first friend kinda has a moment there were, "I'm in real trouble here," like your words have no effect on me, it's like 'Thanks...?" Thanks for saying I'm smart, I guess you're trying to be helpful but it's not helpful at all it's like, you're dismissing my problems, I'm in real trouble here and I feel like that phrase "strong black woman" does that a lot to, to the people it applies to kind of dismisses their pain and gives a reason or a way to promote needless suffering or needless pain, Why?, because you're a strong black woman and so i don't like that, I don't like when it is being attributed to me I think we need to put that phrase on its head and uh, just kind of a people's minds about what it means when we say certain things uh... If I'm a strong black woman, then it's none of your business, you know, I want to be known as an individual and I want to be uh, you know, looked at as based on my merit and what I've shown you and what I've done and I don't want you to make these assumptions on me, and put these kind of burdens on me just based on the stereotype the positive stereotype that you have in your head It's not appreciated. It's not, it's not a good look, basically So. That's why I say i'm not a strong black woman you know, I am who I am.