Yes, BGLH Is Coming Back… But I’m Done Writing About Racial Aggressions Against Black Women

Hey. So I know I did a little ‘Michelle Phan’ there, aka disappearing completely from my online platform. The reason is that I was just burnt out and exhausted. And a lot of that had to do with the direction BGLH was going in content wise.

I’ve been doing BGLH since April 2008. In March 2015 I decided to include more culture coverage into the platform. And at first things were fine. But over time I came to feel that “culture coverage” was becoming “a meticulous catalogue of racial aggressions against black women including but not limited to erasure by beauty brands, cultural appropriation and racist marketing.” I felt that I was just waiting for the next big scandal to drop, so I could then write about it. And it was eroding my soul.

And it wasn’t just eroding me, it was eroding my reader base. The scandalous stories are the ones that get the clicks, but many longtime fans were telling me that they could no longer log onto BGLH for fear of what they’d find. My platform — that for years had been a safe and comfortable beauty space — was becoming just another trigger in a culture that methodically preys on black women’s self-esteem.

I didn’t plan on taking a break from BGLH. In my 9 years of doing this I haven’t missed more than a couple weeks at a time, and even then that was with advanced notice. But I hit a breaking point and I just couldn’t take it.

Shortly after I stopped writing in April, the whole ‘Shea Moisture having white girls talk about hair hate’ thing broke out. And I was honestly so relieved that I wasn’t blogging regularly, because I wouldn’t have to write about it.

When I initially envisioned BGLH it was supposed to be a site that celebrated the beauty and dopeness of natural hair. This gradually segued into a site that celebrated all things ‘black girl beautiful.’ Somewhere along the way it became a discussion of all things ‘black girl traumatized.’

So I’m done. I’m closing that chapter and moving forward.

After discussing with my writing team (the lovely Portia, Elle and Chinwe), I’ve decided that July 1 will be our ‘reset and refresh’ date (if I’m thirsty, and I kinda am, I might sneak in some posts before that.) I’ll go back to updating regularly, although the posting rate will drop a bit. I’m going to start out with just 4 articles a week as I get back into the swing. And we’ll continue our journey from there.

Thanks for being patient with me. Thanks to those of you who emailed me or called to make sure I was okay. I’m excited to be back.

Much love,

Leila