I love Prom season!

My Senior Prom was 25 years ago.

I got my dress and shoes from Dillards with my mom, and it was icy blue. My mother told me to be home by midnight.

Yes, midnight.

My boyfriend at the time was out of state. So, my virginity was still in tact—to my chagrin.

She called me at 11:58pm and my cousin knocked on my door not even 10 minutes later to make sure I was home. I got a ride there from my Mom, and rode back home with a girl I knew named, Denease— who I was supposed to ride there with after getting my hair done.

Prom was also 5 months after my father died. It was something I went to, to say that I did. If I could have had the Prom I wanted?

I would have wanted my dress made, I would have had a limo there and back, and maybe even gotten drunk! I would have wanted to bloom as that 17-year-old girl.

I deserved that.

I deserved a night to just be beautiful and special and enjoy that night with friends of mine or my boyfriend at the time! Every Black girl deserves to be and feel beautiful and special.

Yet, every year the outrage on the Internet storms from February until the end of May. There are people (normally Black women) screeching about how expensive/gaudy/loud the dresses are, how unnecessary the intros are, and just how expensive everything is!

When other cultures celebrate rites of passage, like Quincereas, or Bat Mitzvahs, it is meant to be extravagant and special! And those parents/tribes/families start putting money away years before in certain cases!

But the BLACK KIDS who are working class, having their own jobs, side hustles, make good grades, don’t have access to cotillions, or other social clubs— they can’t have something dope?!

We can argue all day about “But they can spend that money on something else! That’s irresponsible!”

That’s a matter of debate. And frankly, none of our business. Even when they choose to post their children and their dates, we can have an opinion, sure! But, that doesn’t change anything — we are watching THEM.

Black children deserve memories, to be creative, for people to go overboard once in a while over them, and to feel special! Whether they buy their dress at Dillards, or make it in a Home Ec class or from YouTube tutorials! They deserve the smoke machines, red carpets and other opulence!

Black children deserve the UNABASHED OPULENCE! The fact there are other BLACK PEOPLE actively saying “this is irresponsible,” “they are doing too much”, and “they can use that money for other things.”

Again I say, Black children deserve memories. They deserve one night where they can just show up in the world, and people clap for them.

Why is that so hard?

Let me say this as I go: the way some of y’all pocket watch people is weird. Stop that! It’s giving overseer.