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| BLACK is beautiful. |
Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.
African American women have a unique struggle when it comes to our skintone. It is a struggle difficult to understand and even more difficult to overcome. There are terms like "good hair" and "bad hair" and "light skin" or "dark skin" that add fire to the blazing flame. This is particularly disturbing because these terms are NOT objective. In fact, there are many black women (like myself) who do not fit into either category. Still, there are others who may be put into a different category depending on where they live. A dark skinned person in N'awlins might be considered brown skinned or even light skinned if she moves to DC or Atlanta. Did that just make your head spin?
"She's pretty...for a dark skinned girl"
I can't recall how many times I have heard the above phrase uttered about my sistas but I can say it makes me cringe every time I hear it. It implies so many negative things about women with darker skin tones. As if, a pretty dark skinned girl is the exception. I am a black woman and personally I NEVER knew dark skinned women struggled like this. I am resisting the urge to delve into "shadeism" issues until a later post. My heart goes out to all women who do not wake up feeling beautiful. I cannot imagine how they must feel if their mother or the women in their family made them feel "less than" beautiful from a very early age solely because of their skin color. It is clear the women featured in the interviews have issues with their self-esteem but what bothers me the most is the terrible treatment they experienced from our own people. Teasing someone about something they had no control over is EVIL. I am not sure what it will take for my people to unite and become more supportive of each other but it needs to happen, like yesterday.
Black is beautiful in ALL shades.
Will you be supporting? I'm listening...
2 comments:
Its so sad that black people do so much to keep each other down. Who cares if she is dark skinned? A pretty girl is a pretty girl! How about just stopping at "she is pretty" and leaving the "for a dark skinned girl" out of it? Thats so disgusting! I do recall Tyra Banks doing a show exposing the light skinned vs dark skinned thing and showing that it is NOT just an African American thing. Apparently, ALL ethnic cultures struggle with this. I just watched the video on YouTube and got angry all over again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3B5lhL0f_0&feature=related
@Anonymous
I agree. I think the labels we use is part of the problem. I'm one of the black women who falls in the middle and since I have more curl than coil people often refer to the texture of my tresses as "good hair" and that bothers me to my core. My biggest concern is the impact on the children like the little girl in the clip you posted. Children should be able to live the type of childhood they look back on as adults and appreciate it for being care free. Things have to change.
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