So I’m standing here, in a charcoal face mask thinking about how messed up it is that I can’t even do an entire skin regimen without being reminded of my violent cultural history. I mean, it should just be funny or weird or neutral to have all this black gunk on my face… but it’s hard to look in the mirror like this because of how coded it is.

And, while wearing a simple face mask isn’t inherently antiblack, today, people still think blackface is just okay to do, for Halloween or anything else. They do it without reservation and laugh, running around in afro wigs or tanks and chains, ignorant of the history of minstrelsy and how it was used to justify the many atrocities against black people, to make us HATE ourselves, while I, an actual black person who has and will likely endure racism for the entirety of my life, can’t even deep cleanse my face without feeling some sort of pain.

Fucked up, innit?