When I was pregnant with Preston I use to take Trey out to dinner every Friday afternoon after work for a nice mommy son dinner. We started out at simple joints like McDonald's, Zaxby's, Chic fil-A and then moved up to nicer places like Outback, Applebee's and Longhorns. I know none of them are fancy but remember I was pregnant and carrying around a then busy 1 year old so I needed somewhere that was kid friendly and loud. But anyway this was our weekly ritual and it was really nice just spending quality time with him outside of the house. He gradually started to do much better with sitting quietly at dinner and not acting like a menace.
So a couple of days ago Preston and I got all dressed up and went out on a lunch date (which we do every week) and on this particular day an african american waitress walked over to our table and said "You are such a pretty black girl." To many of you reading this that would just seem like a nice compliment but to me it screams racism.
Most of my life I have been given the supposed compliment of "your a pretty black girl or your a pretty dark girl." People have even said you have pretty black skin and it makes your teeth look white.....what the he$$! My brothers and sisters, we have been exposed to so much racism, discrimination and labeling that we don't even realize that we are racist against our own people. This comment, to me at least, means that it is unusual to see a darker skinned black woman who is pretty. As if only light skin black woman are attractive and everyone else is just existing. I have even had a few relatives say crap like this and it really offends me. I think ALL black women are beautiful no matter what shade of black they are.
Have we gotten so caught up with the outside world of celebrity and superficial nonsense that we are teaching our children to believe that they are not born beautiful and perfect? My girlfriend Bee and I were talking the other day and she has clowns to tell her that her baby's hair is "negro hair" and another girlfriend told me her little girl who has long wavy hair literally down her back came home from school and said she wanted straight blonde hair like her white friend at school because her hair wasn't pretty.
What needs to happen to remove the negative sterotypes within our own community and our own people. Should we continue to live this life thinking that yakki hair is better than our own. Don't get me wrong people I will rock some extensions in a minute especially for a special occasion but I am comfortable in my shoes and I have no doubt that God made me beautiful.
Oh and don't worry I asked that waitress to have a seat and I schooled her on that dark skin and light skin bull crap. And she really did mean it like she said it that I was a "pretty BLACK girl."
When the rest of the world looks at us there is no light skin or dark skin, it's just BLACK! So why do we care about the degree of our own pigmentation?
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5 comments:
These differences within the race are part of the slavery heritage. White people showed black folks the differences. The lighter and mulatto slaves worked in the house while the darker slaves worked in the fields. Whites may not have believed in educating the slaves but they made sure they learned the fallacy that "white was best". In turn, the more white features we have the better we are. That's why so many people have expressed disappointment that Danae's hair didn't turn out like mine as if something is wrong with her hair as it naturally grows from her scalp. It's up to us who know better to educate our children better. We have to let our kids know they are beautiful/handsome just as they are. We have to celebrate our children's uniqueness because they too were created in God's image.
You are a pretty BLACK girl though. Just playing!
Girl, I think people are so caught up in their stereotypes they don't even realize what they are doing. I think about it like this: How would I feel if someone said I was a pretty black girl? As soon as I read it I thought "no she didn't".
To me it is just like someone saying "She's fat, but she has a pretty face." HUH? Either she's pretty or not. Why does her weight matter????
I think Bridgette is right. The "differences" came from a long time ago and it will take us to change how people think.
I'm so glad you schooled her. LOL!
Trinimerican
I first have to say that Barack Obama gave an interview in Essence magazine last year and something he said changed my life. I think about it every day, literally. He was asked (and I'm paraphrasing here) if he thought that the images of Sasha and Malia playing on the White House lawn would change the way White people thought about Blacks. And, he said that he thinks the image of two Black girls playing on the White House lawn would, more importantly, change the way Blacks looked at Blacks. It's true that since slavery days, we have been brainwashed to believe that Whiter features are better than darker, more African features. We look at our own race with such division and it's sad. We see it every day in the magazines and on tv. That's why it's of the utmost importance that we establish for our selves what the true meaning of beauty is.
As far as that comment, I've gotten the same thing said to me countless times, even the comment about the white teeth (is there a handbook somewhere?). It's most definitely offensive. What can we do about it? Continue to present our beautiful, black selves as role models and change one person's thinking at a time, realizing that the very foundation of this country was built on racism and oppression of our people and will never truly be erased. I could go on (this struck a nerve with me all over again), but I'll stop now. Tamoka
It's sad that this kind of thinking still exists.
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