YoLO

britanysbites:

You’re pretty for a dark skin girl…

What does that even mean? Does it mean the majority of dark skinned women are unappealing but I am the exception? If so, you can keep your backwards compliment and keep it moving. Growing up I had insecurities being a dark skin female. In the “western society” that we live in we have a very homogeneous concept of what is beautiful. Whiter, lighter and brighter is considered to be better. When you turn on the tv there is  far more diversity now in comparison to when our grand parents were our age, but the “it girl” is slim, fair skinned with Caucasian features. Many of the popular ethnic celebrities undergo facial reconstruction surgery to slim down that broad “nigger nose” to look more “western”. Skin bleaching is very popular not only in the Caribbean, In Asia alone the skin bleaching industry is worth 18 billion dollars. Growing up as a child I never turned on the television and saw “popular girls” that resembled me. I can go on for days about this topic but I will specifically touch on skin tone.

I used to think that it was only the black community that had this light skin versus dark skin debate. After talking to my friend I realized this is an issue in the Asian community as well. People who still hold on to this way of thinking are modern day slaves in my opinion (but what do I know). If you look back into history darker slaves were the ones who did the physical labour out doors and the lighter slaves were doing work indoors and were called “house niggers”. We were all treated like shit but they had preferential treatment because of there skin tone and many of them were raped by their white masters resulting in “mulatto babies”. This way of thinking carries on today. A dark skin black man on my Twitter tweeted the other day “Even ugly light skin girls are better looking than most of these dark skin girls #justsaying”. Which really made me wonder are you judging a female by the complexion of her skin or her facial features and body shape. If the same pretty light skin female had dark skin would she still be pretty? If that dark skin female you would never talk to had light skin would she be pretty? At the end of the day it is racism against your own race. You are segregating a race based on skin tone. There is nothing wrong with having a preference because I too have a preference for dark skin males but I do not discriminate. Especially withthin my own race. When I look at a man I look at his smile, his teeth, his eyes, broad shoulders and strong hands. Not the “shade of black” he is. If you are the type of person to write off someone because they are too light or too dark I think you need to reflect on a deeper issue inside yourself.

At the end of the day I am a dark skinned woman and I am proud. When I have my children whether they be dark or light I will teach them to accept and embrace the different shades of black and the unique features that come along with their ethnicity. I love the diversity of my people. If you find my beauty to be rare because of my skin complexion keep it to yourself because I’m not interested in modern slaves. 

(via livelaughdreamyolo)