There was nothing that I hated more when growing up than to hear someone say "you're pretty for a dark skin girl" or "you have nice skin for your complexion." It was almost as if they were saying that to be dark was the equivalent of being ugly. Being in a family where our skin tones have a variety of shades with me being one of the darkest was hard. I was always fascinated with my second oldest sister's skin tone. She was the lightest of us and to me the prettiest. No matter how beautiful my relatives would tell me I was I couldn't see it.

I remember wishing that I wasn't so dark for a girl. It seemed like it was OK for a boy to be my skin tone. They were more accepted than I was and still are. The fact that they are the same color as me but had a preference for lighter girls kinda hurt. To have someone that looks just like you say that they don't prefer you is a hard thing to swallow. Then they go as far as labeling your skin tone as the problematic. "Dark skin girls have too much attitude, they're always over compensating, and they don't have good hair." This shaming of my skin tone followed me from elementary to college. I was told on the school bus by another kid in the third grade that it was not OK for a girl of my color to like a white boy, but it would be OK if a boy the same color as me liked a white girl. In middle school, I was picked on by boys in my class that wanted the same skin tone as me but somehow convinced that they were better. They would say things like "you're too dark for anyone to see you" or "I wouldn't want to have my kids coming out as dark as you." While in college, I notice that things for me wouldn't change. I had a lot of home girls that were lighter than me some only by a few shades. We would go out and guys would flock to them and look at me like who's the ugly girl. Some guys would even give me what seemed like pity hugs because they didn't want it to be too obvious that they didn't like me.

I felt so misunderstood by everyone around me. My friends couldn't understand why I didn't want to go out with them. Even after me explaining that I felt like the designated ugly girl because of my skin. I wasn't trying to be the stereotypical angry black girl, but enough was enough. My anger was my shield from hurt. I took on the "I don't care what anyone thinks about me" attitude. The truth was I did care, and I did want the approval of others; I wanted to belong. I wanted to be valued as much as the light skin girls by my own dark skin brothers. No matter how much other people would tell how beautiful I was I wanted to hear it from men that looked like me that weren't related to me. This bothered me to the point of me not feeling worthy enough to be noticed by anyone. I didn't want the pity hugs or people inviting me because most of my friends were light skin. I would rather not go out at all.

I stayed in my dorm room for most of the first and second year of college. I didn't see the point in interacting with people who didn't want me around. My friends had to literally drag me out of my room to go places. I was always good until we were approached by guys; then the skin shaming would start all over again. I had to convince myself that beauty was not in the eye of the beholder but in how I saw myself. I believed that my skin was ugly because of what my fellow brothers were saying and how they were treating me. I didn't take a minute to stop and realize that they were reflecting their own self-hate onto me and that I was taking it in and tearing myself apart. I had to see myself for who I truly was and stop waiting for the approval of others. I had to know that my family was right when they told me from the day that I was born that I am a beautiful black woman. I was going to say girl but that was the old mindset that I was stuck in. It takes a woman to realize her true natural dark skin beauty.