Dark Girls - Part 2

I love reading comments and emails from readers. It gives me an opportunity to read other opinions on matters that are different than my own. After I received a few comments/emails on my last post; I felt the need to say one more thing ... ok, maybe more than one more thing on this matter. The only problem is that this response might not earn me any new friends. But I'm at a point in my life that I really don't need new friends.

First, let me begin by saying that the last thing I wanted to do on this post was to be condescending. Maybe I could have tried to have a not so condescending tone on this issue but it is hard to have sympathy when growing up I was bullied for these beliefs.

It is hard for me to write with sympathy when I can remember like it was yesterday the day a grown woman told me that I would be pretty if I was light skinned. I remember how I felt. I remember that I cried. If I can remember how I felt, how can I do that to someone else? How can I tell a little girl that she would be pretty if ... I can’t. I won’t. I refuse. I will not be the person to make a person feel less than because of how they look.

These are unacceptable beliefs that keep getting passed on and on from generation to generation. And I don't think that me feeling the way I do is naive. What is naive to me is instilling in your children that they are not beautiful because of their skin tone. What is naive is believing that, that is the truth. What is naive is allowing this damage to continue for years and years! When are we going to stand up and not be victims?

Yes, I was lucky that I didn’t get these beliefs instilled in me at home but I was not protected from hearing them at school and by classmates. Not only am I dark but I am African. Admitting in school proudly that I was African was like asking to be made fun of. You wouldn't even believe the "jokes" if I told you. And although, I was one of those that did not accept what others told me I knew/know other African girls who did accept it. They grew up in the same type of home as I did but they chose to bleach their skin. Not because their parents did not tell them their skin color was beautiful (they had) but because their environment told them it wasn't.

Oh and if you think this didn't affect adult women born in Africa who moved to America then you are wrong. They got the same message and they did what they could to fit in. If it meant ruining their skin to appear lighter it was a risk they were willing to take. Have you ever met a person who purposely bleached their skin? I have. It isn't pretty. It looks awful. You wonder, why would any person do that to themselves? The worst part is that because it looks so unnatural you know right away. Individiuals would rather appear sickly than walk proudly in their own skins. If you don't think that's a problem, you might as well stop reading now.

That means that although I can make it my duty to try to protect my future children from these ill beliefs of what beauty is, and instill in them all that I knew growing up, it can still be skewed by their classmates, by their friends, by ADULTS.

And it won’t be their friend’s faults ... it’s their parents; it’s their grandparents; it's their great grandparents, etc. But one day it will be their friend's fault because they will teach their kids.

It’s a cycle. What I am saying and tried to say in my first post is that the cycle needs to end. We have to make it our duties to instill in our children as ADULTS that these beliefs are LIES. That they hold no truth. Why? That way they can teach not only their children but their children can relay the message to their friends. It can't only be my message, or your message, it has to be society's message.

Yes, our parents have a huge impact on how we are raised but I also know that friends and our environment have a huge impact as well.

So I want to be sympathetic but I can’t. I refuse to sit back and say; well it’s all they know. That’s like me saying that racists should get a pass because it is what they know. It is how they were raised, what they were taught to believe. I’m sorry. I think that when we become adults our minds should also grow up. We have to question why we believe the things we do. We can’t wallow in self-doubt and self-hate because it is all we know, because it is what we’ve been told.

To stop being harrassed/teased at school, I could have lighten my skin a long time ago regardless of what my mom told me. Because from elementary to high school "friends" and classmates, and adults told me that my skin was ugly. And time and time again, in the media I see what the world has decided is beauty. And it isn’t me. And many times it isn't you either.

I'm not going to tell the media that it is OK because it is all they know. I'm not going to tell you that it is OK because it is all you know. It isn't what I know, it isn't what I believe, so I'm not going to share that message. I'm going to share the message that YOU are beautiful regardless of what anyone says. YOU are. YOU ARE!

So if you read the post and maybe felt a little angry (with me) that is the reaction you should have felt. It is the reaction I had as a child and now as an adult. It is dead wrong and I’m not sugar-coating it.

So spread the word, I'm beautiful, can't nobody tell me nothing. Or you can say it simply, I am beautiful and no one can tell me I'm wrong. No one.