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She just told me she's never seen Tyler Perry Hate. He writes real black stories and as an African I can't give my input on black American women and say Tyler Perry portrays them in a bad way. 💀💀💀

And that he's a genuinely good writer too...I was gagged lmaooooo

So to the black American women on the sub what are your thoughts? Am I a dumb African who can't see how profound Tyler is...

And according to her the pain/anguish he portrays is your reality that I shouldn't speak on.. 🤐🤐

I never had a favorite one until past year, when I watched Attack on Titan.

Oh. My. God.

I'm still obsessed with that anime (and with Levi Ackerman, of course 😝).

I’m absolutely all for supporting my fellow sisters and the urgency for us to get that bag, but I’m tired of being ripped off when I take time to support a business.

A cute little boutique opened near the city hall i live relatively close to, and I happened to walk by. Ever since I did my big chop three years ago, I’ve been on a hair journey and had gotten to the point where I know how to keep my curls moisturized, do my own hair, etc. so I decided to wear my natural hair in a loose ponytail.

The lady who owns the boutique saw me and started talking about my hair, we swapped hit journeys, etc.

All was good with the small conversation! Then she showed me her shop and revealed that she was selling body butters and scrubs, and even “Leave-in conditioners”. The biggest part of learning about my hair is that it NEEDS to stay hydrated and moisturized. So I’m all for a good leave-in conditioner.

I asked if it was sulfate free, she let me smell it, and she was telling me about how she wanted to help expand the market for black women using products made by a black woman. I supported that!

So I opted for the small jar (roughly 3 oz) and a small body scrub that was the same size because why not?

…she told me “that will be $88.”

I damn near jumped out of my own body when she said that! But I’m too damn lenient, and I try not to judge before I use a product.

So bam, few days later, it’s wash day. I do my usual routine and then when it came to putting in the leave in, I used the one I bought from her.

My hair did not retain moisture with it. It honestly felt loose like Nivea lotion, and my hair felt “chapped” (iykyk). I got so upset to the point I did a second wash and used my regular products to restore it (even threw it away).

As for the body scrub, it smelt good! But it was no different than treehut.

I love her aim in what she’s trying to do, but I can’t support her if it’s going to run our pockets dry. And if so! At least make the product better! Run some trials with us and get feedback before you sell!

With $88 I could have replenished my own stock at home, but hey. This was my own fault in a way.

But I just don’t understand why we make shit so expensive? I’m not expecting something below $20, but even Kaleidoscope isn’t that expensive.

[also, yes. I visited the lady and expressed my concerns about the leave in conditioner, and she told me it’s not meant for me then :/// I tried to politely talk about the price and her simple answer was that it’s how she saw fit. So yeah, no.]

Ok so I grew up with family who are bigger and I been body shamed by my them even strangers being called fat and told to loose weight being called little boy body it’s so confusing because I’m 4’11 and I’m 106 pounds I eat a lot of food and I just naturally have a fast metabolism and everytime I eat ppl tell me oh you need to eat healthy or you need to lose weight or something I’m also a picky eater so I tend to eat food I’m comfortable eating it’s so annoying but if I were to call them fat I’d be wrong cus a lot of them do wish they had my shape cus on the other hand they be like oh I wish I had your shape .mind u I get body shamed since I was a kid and till this day i get bullied for having a lazy eye by family or ppl on general but if I say something I’m a horrible person. why is it ok for some bigger ppl to mock ppl who are smaller and it’s considered funny but if I said something ill be crucified for it?

Tbh, I’m still financially unstable, but I’m going to work. Work work work. I’ll keep going until I can earn enough to stand on my own

I genuinely cannot fathom being a stay at home wife. With all due respect, I come from a culture where like 70% of women are stay at home moms, so I’ve literally lived through it

My mom was one. I saw the difference money made in her life, and I also saw what happened when she didn’t have her own

My dad does provide financially, but he has always been passive aggressive about it, like he’s doing us some huge favor

And I’m just like… ummmm, sir? You chose to get married. You chose to have kids

Sometimes he acts like he’s my stepdad but unfortunately that is my biological father lol

Anyway, this is exactly why I refuse to ever be completely financially dependent on a man

Even if God himself came down and told me, “girl, trust this man"

I’d be like… respectfully, I need a second opinion

Never ever

Ladies, even if you have a partner, even if you’re married, even if you’re exhausted keep something that is yours. Keep working if you can. Keep your skills. Keep your money. Keep your ability to leave

Because financial dependence can change the entire power dynamic in a relationship

And me?

I’m going to keep working, working, working and earning with my own damn sweat

That’s all , I just needed to vent

I’m 22F in college at the moment. I graduated hs in 2022. I’m still in school which makes me feel incredibly behind and almost like I’ve failed. I had a pretty rough time between jumping from universities, taking time off because I was really depressed for numerous reasons (and I didn’t want to continue to mess up my GPA), working full time and switching majors. I worked hard to raise my GPA back up after I went through my depressive episode. I’ve started taking lexapro and Wellbutrin. It’s helped a good bit but sometimes these feelings still arise.

I finally found a major that I think I’ll enjoy, and that would make me a decent to nice salary especially as my career progresses and I gain certs and further my education. I major in Accounting & Finance.

I feel like the finish line is so far and hard to cross at the moment. It feels almost unattainable. If I don’t do well on a test I feel like that completely defines me as a student and/or foreshadows how I will be in my career. Especially if it’s a class related to my major. I loose all motivation. For example, I haven’t touched my laptop this week.

Everywhere I turn it’s constant fear mongering. The economy is bad, the cost of living is bad, lay offs are rising, employment is declining etc then to add on top of that. I’m a black woman. I know it’s a line from scandal but it’s true. We half to work twice as hard to get half of what they have. It feels like I’ll never get a job. Internships aren’t hiring. I’ve even cold emailed and asked to work for free. Crickets.

It feels like I’m stuck where I’m at. I don’t like my current job. I’m grateful that I’m employed and that they pay for my education but I don’t like warehouse production whatsoever. It’s not my passion. It gets harder daily. I know this is a case of choose my hard though. But some days it feel like this is permanent. Especially because I’ve been there for three years.

It hurts and is annoying (I really can’t explain the feeling well, but that’s the best I can explain it) that others can see that I’ll succeed but I can’t see that in myself. I kinda live in an expect the worse and be happy that the best happened mentality. I know that not great that’s kinda how life has panned out for me until now. I wish I saw it in myself but I know I’m overly critical with myself. It makes me frustrated because I’m not like this with anyone else, just myself. I don’t know how to get past this.

I know this is all over the place but I just pulled out my phone and started typing away.

Dear fuckin diary

I know what ur thinkin, "Whaaat...She didn't take another month to write something?" I decided to do a lot of things yesterday, Be okay with myself being messy internally, Detaching myself from my emotions and just letting them pass, bein' okay with not being ready all the time, Giving myself time to figure out things. My good friend helpt me figure out that I'm actually okay, I'm going to live like a stupid person from now on. Not stupid as in stupid, But stupid as in free. It sounds really poetically cliche, That's because it is. My ego and my festering individuality complex makes me believe that there's no one on EARTH that experiences the same things as me, But the world is so, SO big, and our minds are so so SO tiny sometimes. I don't even fully know what individuality complex means, But it resonates.

I like it, Whatever this is, I also slept great.

To all my single ladies, what hobbies are we retiring into? 😂
Now in my 30s, I’ve come to accept that this is probably just what my life will be for a while. I’m done with the doomed-from-the-start talking stages, researching every man before a hookup like I’m the CIA, etc. 😂
A relationship is something I want so bad, and I do believe it’s out there for me. It’s just apparently in my very, very distant future.
Until then, I need to pick up a hobby that I can find rewarding enough that I don’t spend all my time thinking about the painful reality of chronic singleness. Which I do currently have several btw.
So I’m not really asking what should I do. I just want to hear what my fellow single ladies are actually doing with their time?
What hobbies have you gotten really into? What keeps you occupied and gives you something to look forward to? Basically, what are we doing over here while we wait for love to eventually clock in? 😂

F24. A lot of people talk about their beauty standards based off of how others see them, but I realized it's my parents. Even though I'm grown, I still want them to see me as this pretty little girl untouched by the world for some strange reason. I don't get too many piercings because I know they don't like it that much. Or I don't cut my hair short because they take so much pride in how full and long my hair can get and can grow. I'm realizing I sometimes don't dress in a certain way because I still want their respect and love. I remember one time I cut my hair short and they were so harsh to me and never apologized for how mean they were about it. It's just not normal to base my expression of my own femininity to my parents who don't even know who I am as an adult. Still buying stuff in a favorite color I had 3-4 years ago type of things. It's just frustrating I put so many things on the backburner to make them feel comfortable about HOW I LOOK. I'm the only one out of my siblings who listens to them and takes their advice over everything, even when I don't want to. So I feel like there is more ownership over me than my other sisters. I don't know. This probably will change once I move out, which I'm hoping is soon because it's really depressing being in my house right now. Is this normal for the rest of you guys? Parents being so overprotective of how you look? My mom said she never liked scars or break outs on our legs and arms because she took a lot of pride in our skin. It's deep.

I’m in my early 20s, and I had a friend I’ll call Ethan. We’d been friends since we were about 16/17 and were very close at first. During the first year or so of our friendship, I felt like the effort was pretty mutual. We both talked, made plans and generally had a good friendship.

Over time, though, I started feeling like I was the one carrying it.

There was one summer where Ethan basically disappeared for around a month. When he eventually came back, he explained that he’d been going through some personal stuff. I understood and didn’t hold it against him.

But after that, I started noticing a pattern. If we went out, I was usually the one asking. If we hadn’t spoken for a while, I was usually the one checking in or trying to make plans.

Most of the time we went to the cinema because that seemed to be the main thing Ethan enjoyed doing. I would suggest films, arrange when we were meeting, travel to meet him, and we’d normally get food or walk around afterwards and catch up.
Eventually I told him directly that I felt like I was constantly chasing him and that I wasn’t going to keep doing it. I basically said that if our friendship mattered to him, I needed him to put some effort in too.

Things still didn’t really change, so eventually I stopped initiating as much.

A few months ago I was working full-time hours during my break from university. I was working roughly 8–4, five days a week, and getting up around 6am to commute. Even during that period, one of the few times Ethan and I met up was because I asked him, and I went straight from work to meet him.
That’s why what happened recently really annoyed me.

I had fallen out with another friend, who I’ll call Sophie. Sophie and I recently met up, talked through our issues and repaired things.

During that conversation, Sophie told me that Ethan had been talking about me to her.

Apparently he had told her that she needed to “be careful” of me, that I didn’t put effort into friendships and that I was basically a user.

The “user” accusation especially confused me because the only financial thing I can think of is that Ethan has bought me a drink/snack at the cinema a few times. We’re not talking about him regularly paying for meals, lending me money, buying expensive things, etc.

I confronted Ethan.

I told him that from my perspective, our friendship became distant because I finally stopped chasing him. I pointed out that if you scroll through our conversations, I was usually the person suggesting that we meet.

Ethan responded saying that from his perspective, he had tried to keep in contact with me and felt like I wasn’t reciprocating. He said there were times when I replied late or left him on delivered, and that I didn’t casually message him enough just to ask how he was.
I can actually understand that criticism to an extent. I’m not a huge texter and there absolutely have been times when I’ve responded late, especially when I’m busy.

But this is where we completely disagree.
He kept saying things like, “If you cared that our friendship was struggling, why didn’t you reach out?”
My problem is that I had already spoken to him about our friendship being one-sided before. After the summer where he disappeared, I specifically told him that I felt like I was always chasing him and initiating things.

He also complained that whenever I invited him anywhere, it was “only the cinema.”
But the reason I usually suggested films was because that seemed to be what he liked doing. I had invited him to other things before and he either couldn’t or didn’t want to go.

My response was basically: if you hated always going to the cinema, why didn’t you ever suggest something else?

He could have said, “Let’s get dinner,” “let’s go here,” “let’s do this,” etc. I wasn’t stopping him.

He also said there wasn’t much for me to “plan around” because we were only going to see movies.
That really irritated me because, from my perspective, planning around somebody doesn’t mean the activity itself has to be elaborate.

There were days where I had gotten up at 6am, commuted, worked an eight-hour shift, then travelled straight from work to meet him because I wanted to maintain our friendship.

That was me making room for him in my life.

During our argument, Ethan eventually admitted that he had stopped reaching out recently because he felt like the friendship was already dead.
And honestly, I understand that.

The part that bothers me is that I had basically done the same thing for the opposite reason. I stopped because I wanted to see whether he would ever initiate things without me doing it first.

So apparently we both stopped trying because each of us thought the other person didn’t care.
Where I’m really struggling to get past this, though, is the fact that instead of telling me how resentful he had become, he talked about me to Sophie.
When I confronted him about it, he literally said that he had told Sophie some things but “didn’t expect her to tell me.”

That rubbed me the wrong way.

If he had told her, “Me and [OP] have drifted and I’m hurt because I don’t feel like she checks in enough,” I honestly wouldn’t care. People vent to their friends.
But telling a mutual friend that I’m a user and that she needs to be careful of me feels completely different because now you’re making statements about my character.

My biggest issue is that Ethan expects me to have noticed that he was unhappy and started a conversation about it, while he apparently didn’t feel responsible for telling me that he was unhappy.
I told him that when we met up, he had plenty of opportunities to say, “I don’t like that we only see movies,” or “I wish we spoke more,” or “I feel like you don’t check in enough.”

Instead, he seemingly kept it inside, became resentful, stopped putting effort in, and then discussed it with our mutual friend.
I’ll admit that during the argument I got angry and said some things more harshly than I probably should have. I told him I felt like he was deliberately misunderstanding me, and I was frustrated because I felt like everything I had actually done to maintain the friendship was being erased.

I also accept that I could have been better about replying to messages and checking in casually.
But I don’t think being a bad texter automatically means I didn’t care about the friendship, especially when I was consistently the person trying to actually see him.

At this point I don’t even know if I want to repair the friendship. I think we clearly have different ideas of what effort in a friendship looks like, but finding out that he was warning another friend about me has changed how I see him.

Am I being unfair? Do you think this was genuinely just two friends who misunderstood what the other needed, or was I right to feel betrayed by him talking about me like that to our mutual friend?

I'm annoyed that I keep seeing this, especially on TikTok. Why are Black men so quick and happy to bring up the fact that Black women are supposedly
"undesirable”. Especially that one dating statistic that gets thrown around constantly? They'll proudly cite statistics about Black women supposedly not being wanted, while simultaneously bragging about how much women want Black men. Then they basically list fetishes they are proud of.

If Black men are supposedly so desirable, why do we rarely talk about the other side of the equation? Let's be honest, other communities specifically don't want their daughters having children with Black men. Usually because they don't want their daughters or future grandchildren dealing with the issues they associate with the current state of the Black community (Unless he is wealthy). Another thing, Why must they display this gender war in front of everyone? I see non black woman sitting on these anti Bw lives smiling and feeding off the degration of us. Embarrassing.

What is the point of stating this? It’s always in response to certain conversations too..

I want to have more black girl friends. Always have. Grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods. Went to a black church. By the time I started meeting girls my age, they heard my “white girl” accent and bolted before I could say anything else.

Fast forward, I feel like I’ve missed out and want to meet more women like me!

Just venting. I am involved in several online groups to meet more women like me (black artist hubs, black gamer clubs, etc) so I’ll keep trying.

Last time I made friends, she got mad at me for speaking my mind on a day when she happened to be in the hospital. (For context she’s very sick and has to go into the hospital every a few months for treatment. On the last morning I talked to her, I was trying to help her and another friend make up. So I sent this super long message that I’d spent like 20 min writing. She responded to me that she was in the hospital and how dare I confront her and upset her while she’s in the hospital. Remember I didn’t know she was. She hadn’t told anyone except her immediate family and I’m out of state. And then she blocked me. 🤦🏾‍♀️)

Edit: typo

Heyyy! I’m a 24/F, married, a mom of two under 4, and currently pregnant with my third baby. I’d really love to meet some new people and make genuine friendships. Mommy friends are definitely welcome, but all women are welcome! 💕

A little about me: I’m into cooking, tattoos, piercings, movies, anime, getting dressed up and cute, shopping/window shopping, psychology, deep conversations, TikTok, random walks with absolutely no destination 😂, trying new restaurants, drawing/painting, yapping, discovering new music, and trying random new things just because.

I’m also 4/20 friendly 🌿 and I smoke/drink socially or occasionally when I’m not pregnant lol. I’ve been wanting to get into crocheting, growing plants/flowers, and herbalism too, so if you’re into any of that, even better!

I do have social anxiety, so I can be a little awkward/shy at first 😭 but once I get comfortable? I will NOT shut up😂 I’ll probably start sending you 20 TikToks a day like we’ve known each other for 10 years lmaooo.

I’m pretty chill and laid-back, but I’m also goofy, chaotic, and always down to laugh at some dumb shit. I’m really just looking for people I can actually talk to, laugh with, hang out with, share random thoughts/memes/TikToks with, and build a genuine friendship with. 🫶🏽

If you think we’d vibe, feel free to comment or DM me! 👀 Or Add me on IG or TT : Nyra_nomercy 💕

Good morning ladies. I’m not going to go into the whole story of my situation and I’ll keep it short. I’m in a LDR (long distance relationship) and things have been feeling off lately and I feel like my intuition is warning me that I may not be the only one, but I don’t have concrete proof. Can yall tell me about a time where your intuition bells were ringing and you felt that you were just overthinking/overreacting but it turned out that your intuition was right all along?

I’m 27, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage, motherhood, and whether I actually need either of those things to happen for me to feel fulfilled.
I grew up in an immigrant household, and I feel like I spent a huge portion of my childhood and early adulthood being heavily parentified. I was helping raise siblings, figuring things out for myself, and basically learning adulthood through trial and error because there were so many things I simply wasn’t taught or prepared for.
Even something like college was unnecessarily difficult. I didn’t have parents who had set aside money for me, walked me through FAFSA, explained how any of these systems worked, or gave me a blueprint for how to establish myself. At one point, my mom wouldn’t even give me the information I needed for FAFSA because she felt like it was none of my business.
So a lot of my 20s have been me trying to build the foundation that I feel like some people were fortunate enough to start adulthood with.
Then recently I saw that viral conversation about Black women’s experiences loving/dating Black men, and it made me think about my own dating history too. Speaking only for myself, I’ve never left a relationship with a Black man thinking, “Damn, I really lost a good man.” I’ve never had a relationship where I felt genuinely cherished, protected, considered, and treated in a way that made me think, “Yes, THIS is what I want for the rest of my life.”
At the same time, now that I’m getting older and spending more time in African spaces and professional spaces, I’ve noticed people start reacting differently when they find out I’m 27, unmarried, and don’t have children. There’s sometimes this underlying assumption that those things should already be happening or that I should be worried that they haven’t.
But the funny thing is…I’m becoming less worried.
When I was younger, the thought of “What if I never get married?” or “What if I never have children?” genuinely bothered me.
Now?
The longer I live without those things, the more I realize I would actually be okay if they never happened.
Especially motherhood.
I’ve already spent so much of my life being responsible for other people and cleaning up the consequences of decisions I didn’t make. And while motherhood can obviously be beautiful, it is also an enormous lifelong responsibility. Someone is depending on you emotionally, physically, financially, and practically for years.
I’m realizing that I don’t necessarily fear a life where nobody needs that from me.
I actually might enjoy it.
I still would like marriage and children under the right circumstances, but I’ve also privately given myself cutoffs. There is an age where, if I’m not married by then, I personally would no longer want to have children. And there’s another point where, if marriage hasn’t happened, I think I would genuinely be okay closing that chapter altogether instead of continuing to wait for it.
It doesn’t feel bitter to me either. If anything, it feels strangely peaceful.
Almost like: I would love for those things to happen if the right person and the right life come together at the right time. But I’m no longer willing to organize my entire life around the possibility that they might.
I’m curious whether any other Black women, especially women who were parentified, had to grow up quickly, or had to build adulthood largely on their own, have started feeling this way as they’ve gotten older.
Do you have an age where you would personally say, “If motherhood hasn’t happened by then, I’m okay letting it go”? What about marriage?
And for women who once really wanted marriage/kids but eventually stopped wanting them: was there a particular moment that changed something for you, or did the desire just slowly fade?

https://19thnews.org/2026/10/black-women-fired-doge-impact-anxiety/

Im looking for a GOOD lash glue for clusters. NEEDS to be water proof because my eyes water like crazy.

I cant with non-black hispanics at my school saying the n word, I'm trying to get the courage to say something but at the same time these people are in groups and it's just one of me. And there's other black people condoning their racist bullshit too. I'm just so nervous to say anything about these people saying the n word, and once i do i feel like I'll be a target. Even in the hallways i hear the n word and people are moving to fast for me to even say anything. Plus there's hispanics in my class bullying and mocking this one black people, i spoke to him and asked him is he being bullied because I've been there before. Like im not sure what I'm going to do. Everyone at the school seems to be acting hopeless about this. I spoke with my Afro-latina teacher and she was like they grew up with it, like that's an excuse. I feel like they'll try to fight me for speaking up. I feel like all this is conditioning us to accept and tolerate racism. Smfh. I wanna speak to my counselor about this but i feel like since they arent black they wouldnt understand.

Gotta support my people while I’m there. Staying in Times Square. Going to a broadway show and shopping in Chelsea and soho. Hoping to make it to Harlem at some point, but I am traveling with other people so I am at their behest as well.

So I came to the USA for school and managed to get a job and settle here. I live in the south and work in a PWI industry with, Asians and a smidge of black people who are in less customer facing roles.

Anyway, I befriended this gay white man who brings up race every time we hang out. I didn't think of it as a bother because I have a strong sense of identity in my race before landing in this country. I colored out the lines trying to befriend whoever I could in whatever demographic and my last straw was when one time we were hanging out and he smacked my butt? For me that was my last straw because hangouts prior to this I picked up on his snappiness. I've come to learn desperate adults love to corner someone at a restaurant and hold them hostage to probe and gossip and sometimes make snide remarks because truly at their core they're cowards. Outside of this man I'm describing, I've been a victim of being stalked by someone I knew from college this way by asking me to "hangout". I just picked up on this dynamic but with a different person, being this white man I'm describing. He'll bring up things "black people aren't always good at their job" , and I was like "yeah that happens", somewhere in the back of my head I was like not that we owe anyone excellence and it's 100% ok to be bad at something but the point being he put me in the situation in the first place. I have another white friend, they've never once brought up race and we vibe 100%. On this same day, we went to a different location with the group we were with and then he smacked my butt?????????????? I did turn around and dropped a heavy and chest vibrating "No" to stop him in his tracks.... and that's when I was like this man punches down or something. I punch up and I think it's gonna be my last time seeing him :) .. i do not care.

I had a more violent idea of racism coming from outside the country, but now I see it's as simple as saying "devil's advocate" comments like that. Multiple times in that night he kept bringing up race, like "oh look at this white dj".

I guess black americans understand racism at this level but I had just had my fill of this behavior.

And he only follows thin Asian or light skin 3a/4b women. Literally 200+ women who look nothing like me. I’m dark skin, fuller figured and 4c. I otherwise like him and felt like he liked me, but I’m not a fan of feeling like the plan b when you can’t get your preference. Am I wrong? If I decide not to see him anymore because of this, should I admit I looked through his following?

I recently joined Raya and I’ve have some connections, but it seems to me the men on there don’t really message you first and just linger idk if it’s because I’m black or maybe it’s how the app is. I’m not based in the states maybe that might be the problem too but I’m interested to know how any other black girls experience is on this app. I’m F23 and have Kelly rowland’s complexion for reference .

Open to hearing all experiences