By: Kayla Pasacreta

Tasha from HBO's Insecure is the girl we all love to hate: the girl who stole Issa's man. 

Tasha has good intentions and her head is on right. Her body is poppin’, she talks like your ordinary homegirl, has a play uncle (that dude your mom has been friends with for years - what black girl can’t relate?), sits posted up with her man in a head wrap while venting about her day, is trying to get promoted from bank-teller to manager, and just wants to be loved. Even after she finds out Lawrence went back and had a quickie with Issa, she cooks for him, lets him be in her space, and takes him to the family cookout. Is she naive? Yes. Falling for a man who has nothing to give her? Yes. However, she's loving and simply hoping she will get it in return: what gal can't relate? 

She also reads Lawrence to pure filth on the most recent episode when she tells him,

I saw that quote posted a thousand times down my Twitter TL – so I know it was relatable.

But the truth remains: people don't fuck with her. She's even gotten hate mail from people who hate her character and don't seem to know the difference between playing a character on TV and who you are in real life (come on, people).  They see her as a homewrecker, ratchet, and not good enough for Lawrence. On the final episode of season 1 of Insecure, the scene closes out with Lawrence hitting Tasha from the behind as she is butt-ass-naked. Issa is never fully naked in any scene - her most bare form features her donning underwear and an oversized tee. However, Tasha's curvy body is shown naked in nearly every sex scene she's in. It affects how you view her - right away, her nakedness makes her lesser-than Issa. 

Her dialect pails into comparison to Issa's (who is a teacher) or Molly's (who is a lawyer). Compared to the other women on the show, she simply can't size up.

None of the characters on Insecure have it all figured out. Molly is still navigating being a black woman in a very white-dominated workspace, Issa is trying to figure out how to get her man back after regretfully cheating on him, and Tasha is stuck between accepting a situation-ship and hoping what she has with Lawrence may materialize into something real. Insecure giving light to the versatility of blackness, whether it be in relationships, the workforce, or friendships, is what makes it so unique and special. As a young 20-something black woman, I see myself in all of the characters. When I found myself hating on Tasha, I had to check myself. Whether you realize or not, internalized ideas of class, the superiority found in being "bougie", and the stereotypes surrounding the different types of  black women directly feed into how we view characters like Tasha. 

Sure, Tasha isn't like the rest of the women we're used to on Insecure. But, don't sit and front like you don't have that one home girl (or you are that one homegirl) who still holds a glimmer of hope that the dude she's feeling will eventually make himself emotionally available for her.  Tasha deserves more, but she's still hoping she can change a man who ultimately cannot be changed (again: don't pretend you can't relate). I know this will be rough: but give Tasha a chance.