To The Chocolate Girl Struggling to Love Her Skin

As a kid, I believed that you could not be homeless if you had a body. It is the most permanent of your temporary houses. I don't think the average person ponders desperately about the color of their home. I have rarely ever heard anyone say that they hate the color of a house, and that they refuse to step foot into it. When we think about it, the color of a home is so trivial, but it's structure is not. A home shelters you from the cold, it houses memories of babies aging and bonds growing, family nights and the endings of date nights. A home, even the word, is emotionally comforting and nostalgic. What it feels like to live in a healthy home is what it feels like to love your skin.

The first time that somebody called me dark, it stung. It literally felt like a dirty long needle had pierced through my entire body. I was upset and now, reflecting on it, I think righteously so. "Dark" was not being used as a positive description. It was clearly being used against me, in the same way that somebody would say that they found a fly in their soup or that they were dirty. I have rarely heard a Bahamian use the word "dark" without scorn.

"It was very clear at an early age that being dark was not something that you wanted to be. In the land of the "Mango skins", those with a yellow tint to their light-skin, is what a lot of women hope they AND their children could be."

It was very clear at an early age that being dark was not something that

you wanted to be. In the land of the "Mango skins", those with a yellow tint to their light-skin, is what a lot of women hope they AND their children could be. It is not surprising in the African diaspora for light skin to be cherished or prized. Skin bleaching is common and self-hatred in it's multi-colored coat is nearby lurking...

"But to love my skin, to be enamored by my complexion and those darker than me, I had to recondition my mind."

I had no one to teach me how to love my dark skin. My mother is a light-skin woman and many of the dark-skin women in my life did not seem to love their own skin. I think that I always knew that dark-skin was beautiful, more accurately, it is stunning. But to love my skin, to be enamored by my complexion and those darker than me, I had to recondition my mind. Many of the representation of beauty in the media (where I got most of my ideas of beauty from) were of white women or light-skin women. I always noticed that beautiful black women usually had the tendency of being light-skin and darker skin women were usually portrayed as overweight, no fashion sense, sloppy, angry -- just mostly negatively. They were never the love interest. They were usually the mothers, aunts, or the antagonist to the love interest. I had to start showing myself images of beautiful black women. Reinforcing to myself that black is beautiful, reinforcing to others that black is beautiful and that colorism is not joke or something that I will participate in.

So to my beautiful sisters, please love yourself.

You are beautiful.

Your skin is glorious and evidence of the divine Creator.

You are paradise, land of milk and honey.

Love your skin because it is marvelous and most of all, it is yours!

Please, settle into your home.

#colorism #womenofcolor #skin #lightskin #media #images #representation #beautiful