For decades, black women were not cast in the "beautiful" bunch. The perception of beautiful was only centered towards white women for a long time. Even now, if you were to go to Google and type in "beautiful women," a whole bunch of white women would appear. Black women have not ever been seen as beautiful and have been stereotyped as something other than what we were. "I don't want to date a black girl because she's too loud" or "I don't want to date a black woman because she's ratchet." Like, I don't understand. How hurtful is that?
On September 20, of this year, Viola Davis was the first black woman to receive the outstanding lead role in a television show ever. After 67 years of white women getting this particular award, a black woman has finally got it. This year for black women has been very iconic. They have stolen the September covers of many magazines such as Self, Vogue, Shape, Dazed, etc. The beauty of black women is being exerted all over magazine stands, billboards and posters.
For a long time, growing up, I never was for sure in my beauty. Being a black woman, I was only seen as “one of those” and it hurt, a lot. I was never comfortable going to a school that is a majority of white people instead of POC (people of color). It was hard even trying to fit into their standards and be the person that they wanted to mold me into being. It was hard. It was hard fitting into a place where it didn’t seem like I belonged.
For my freshman year of college, I actually had to write a paper about what beauty is and how it’s defined. A lot of it was along the lines of how society sees beauty. Society deems beauty as someone with a large a** and some big boobs. Cosmetics and surgery have a lot to do with the definition of beauty now, but we won’t go into that. Mainly what I’m saying is that when the definition of beauty comes up, black women are never considered, which is totally f*cked up.
Now, I’m not bashing white women because they are beautiful and have their own definition of what beauty is. Being a black woman is harder in this society, which is why I want to continue to stress that we are beautiful and we are not a stereotype, which is what everyone sees of us. Black women should be seen as the queens we are and we should be seen as beautiful, which we will forever be.
So the next time I google “beautiful,” there should be pictures of not only white women, but Women of Color as well.
Thank you.
