'Just keep being you': Angel Reese's words ring true for Black women who have heard all the criticisms before
"I don't fit the narrative; I don't fit in the box y'all want me to be in. I'm too hood, I'm too ghetto — y'all told me that all year. So this is for the girls that look like me, that's going to speak up on what you believe in. It's unapologetically you, and that's what I did it for tonight."
— Angel Reese
Her edges almost certainly still firmly laid under her new "CHAMPS" hat, her wavy weave falling over her shoulders like a shawl, her crown on the table in front of her, in just a few sentences Sunday night, LSU's Angel Reese spoke for so many of us.
So many Black women knew exactly what she meant after she and the Tigers won their school's first women's — or men's — basketball national championship about the box we're expected to inhabit — not too loud, not too proud, not too accomplished. Lessons some of the aunties among us had to learn as adults trying to navigate life, through years in office environments, press boxes or hospitals, but ones Reese has figured out at just 20 years old.
It was on display just 48 hours earlier, when South Carolina coach Dawn Staley spoke of the dog whistles and not-so-thinly veiled racial insults used in description of her team. Staley's words were so measured, I half-expected her to pull out a ruler: she knew intrinsically that she had to make her point carefully, not too angrily or in a way that would be labeled as mean or bullying toward some of the media members she wanted to get her message.
The microaggressions and double standards are always there. This is a country where we were never meant to be free, let alone confident enough to dictate our own happiness and feel joy. As social media has reinforced yet again since the closing minutes of LSU's win over Iowa, there is still a not small number of loudmouths to whom we will never be good enough and can never be right.
If we respond to taunting with taunting, it's not the right kind of taunting. If we note to the world that there's a shiny ring in our future, it's too showy. If we protect a sister on another team, it's questioned why we care.
It's no different than how Black people are spoken of outside of basketball: If we fail, it's because Black people are inherently inferior; if we succeed, it's because of the myth of affirmative action, and you didn't actually "earn" anything.
Trying to appease those people isn't just futile — it's exhausting.
Reese isn't even trying, smart enough to see the game for exactly what it is and insistent that she'll play by her rules, thank you very much.
She is right.
Every Black girl, every Black woman, every Black femme: We should celebrate exactly who we are as individuals and together, as loudly as we please.
Those of us who happily swing a 30-inch weave like Reese. Those of us who rock a tightly faded frohawk. The waist-length locs. The patterned cornrows. The colorful braids. The bald baddies. The switch-it-up-when-I-please freedom of wig-wearing mamas, keeping unknowing coworkers questioning how you changed your hair so quickly.
Our skin in all of its shades. The way we look in the color yellow. Our beautiful lips, so often ready to speak the truth, damn who it makes uncomfortable.
Our history, our present and our future.
No, our nails are not too long, and yes, we can still type and get things done with them. Because we always get things done. We have raised babies — often not our own — and communities. We influence elections and culture, our words and phrases and dances gleefully learned even by those who would deny us our humanity.
We can be loud and unyielding. We can be soft and tender.
"Just keep being you," Reese said Monday. "Never let anybody tell you no or that you can't do this, you can't do that. I've always stood in my skin and proud of who I am. I'm very, very confident in who I am, and I think people who support me, they understand who I am. I love who I am."
Amen, little sis.
We are all beautiful.
We are never too much and always enough.
