JANAÍNA SIZINIO SAID: "I’m tired of being exotic and “even” intelligent ".

I’m tired of being exotic and “even” intelligent, because since adolescence this is one of the things I kept hearing, and yes being black, fat, and not growing up in the “periphery” [urban outskirts, where urban black Brazilians typically live] made me experience the pain and the delight of being who I am. To have high self-esteem, to never doubt myself, and to know that I am who I am, didn’t allow me to escape racist attitudes, many of which came to me even in veiled, discreet, and stealthy ways. I couldn’t be the pretty and intelligent woman, like all the others who didn’t have my heightened melanin, it was necessary to justify my existence, it was necessary to box myself in, to find a rupture inside the racist structure. It’s like this they labeled me “exotic and even intelligent.” And tired of this, my self-esteem and the certainty of knowing who I am did not let me stay silenced.  I’m an Intelligent Black Woman to the point I’m even patient with your primitive and exotic racist instinct.