The large derrière was rediscovered in 2010; this was an excellent discovery for people of color because that means that our natural bodies are OK with society. Women that were teased for their curvy bodies and large buttocks have been allowed to embrace the great futures behind them for nearly seven years now. Kinda. It's amazing that curvy bodies are being embraced, but the hug of society has been quite color selective. Having a voluptuous figure is nothing to be ashamed of as long as you are lighter than a brown paper bag. However, a mammoth amount of women in this world are darker than a paper bag and even after seven years of body positivity the curvy dark skinned woman is still being disrespected. Their bodies are not perceived as sexy and strong, they are regarded is ghetto and slutty. As a member of the lighter than a paper bag curvy girls club the dark girl disrespect flew right over my head, in fact, I did not realize it until about five years after the NicKimBeyLo Revolution. At first, I only caught glimpses of it and I did not think much of the little blows directed at my darker skinned friends. I really started noticing it when I became very close to Rose; she's like my best friend . We'd been friends since before we could form sentences, but we did not get close until we were teenagers. I noticed the difference when we started getting male attention. I was "bad","fine", and "beautiful" and so was she... "for a dark girl". As we got older it only got worse, the discrimination reared it's ugly head everywhere. As I was constantly complimented for my feminine figure, Rose was berated for her's. It confused me, it confused me greatly because our bodies are very similar.
The most angering incident of discrimination against Rose occurred about two months ago. We were at church on Sunday (our weekly friend get together), I had put on thirty pounds, twenty-five of which were in my butt and breasts, I was thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. There were four of us, four ripe juicy pickings for the old lady vulture to pick on. Joanne was thin, Stephan had a Y chromosome, that left two of us. The beady-eyed vulture lady looked past the shelf that had attached itself to the back of my legs and my newly "D" cup breasts and with a razor blade candy sweet voice asked to speak to Rose in private. (two steps away from us). This STRANGER very loudly and far to proudly proclaimed her distaste in Rose's figure, she went on and on about how Rose is too provocative and something about her granddaughter that none of us knew. The whole ordeal was absolutely unnecessary and super humiliating for Rose. I was livid, but before I had the chance to go full on jungle cat on Little Miss Crypt Keeper, someone interrupted the impending verbal massacre and the old vulture escaped into her car
We're seven years into the NicKimBeyLo Revolution, this event happened two months ago, why is this still a thing? Why do people over sexualize and dehumanize dark skinned women just because they're dark? The only explanation I can come up with is that the shimmer of dark skin is so seductive that all people can think about is how beautiful it looks, but that doesn't explain the extreme lack of respect for dark women so I know that can't be it. So what is the explanation? I can't tell you, all I can do is bring this issue to light and make sure people are aware of it. Women can be beautiful no matter what color, shape, weight, or size they are. Color should not define what a woman is viewed as, we need to stop forming opinions based on it. Ladies need to stick together, not tear each other down based on boob to waist ratio, color, or any of that superficial nonsense. To quote an inspirational woman named Beyoncé "let's get in formation"! You know how like paintings look so much prettier with a rich and diverse color scheme that works together to create a super nice picture? Let's make some baroque level color mastery happen and work together to create a world where all women, regardless of the way they look feel strong and beautiful.
