I can distinctly remember all of the times I was ridiculed for my skin tone. Every time the lights went out in school and someone asked where I went, every time I heard that I was pretty for a dark-skinned girl, being told I was "black black," too black. The comments on my deep skin tone seemed neverending.

If you have to brag to the world about how great you are for loving a dark skin black woman, you aren't that brave.

I get it, it's not society's standard of beauty or anywhere near it. People love racial ambiguity, they love that "exotic" look, and I don't have that. When people see me, they think I'm mean and unintelligent. Fighting stereotypes has made me stronger and I've loved that we're speaking about colorism more. But we still have tons of work to do.

For you to want a pat on the back for loving and treating a person like anyone else, you trippin'.

It isn't brave to treat someone with respect and dignity, it is basic human decency. To say that you're somehow different and special for wanting me, you're saying, "look, I love the ugly one!" I am not a charity case.

I know my worth, I love my deep, rich skin tone, but that is not all that I am. Love me as a person, love me and respect me openly without feeling like you're doing me a favor. Love me like you're lucky to have me and like you can lose me. My presence and being in this world is not for you to feel better about yourself or to look at me and feel so lucky that you aren't me. I hold value, I am precious, treat me as such.

I'm stating this boldly and loudly because I am sick and tired of random people, especially ones that I have expressed no interest in, proclaiming to me that they are willing to date someone like me. It's not sweet, it's humiliating. People should have the capacity to love dark skin women without it being a huge deal.

In television, dark-skinned women are rarely portrayed and when they are, it's usually poorly. We're constantly seen as loud, ghetto, ratchet, dramatic. We're constantly abused, mistreated, ignored, and I am tired of it all. Normalize treating us as regular human beings, ones who deserve unconditional love without being treated like being loved is doing us a favor. No one deserves that, ever.

If you want to love someone, love them without strings, don't go shouting from the rooftops how lucky they must be to even be looked at by you. With those statements and videos, comes the idea that you must be better than who you're dating, that you know what society thinks and you will take the bullet and love a dark skin woman because no one else will. It's flat out rude.

Even if you mean well, treating someone with dignity and respect and saying you find them attractive unlike everyone else isn't radical, it solidifies the notions that we already have about being hard to love. Attraction and preferences don't need to be stated to create a controversial conversation.

My mother asked me if I thought I was beautiful. She was constantly told she was hideous and only realized when she had a dark-skinned daughter that I would go through the same thing.

I told her that I knew I was beautiful.

I was 17 years old at the time, I was at a point where I was becoming comfortable with who I am. I am lucky to know and feel beautiful despite being told otherwise every day. Let dark-skinned girls know they are beautiful without strings attached. Saying that you are special because you find them beautiful will not help us at all. Love us without needing validation or praise.