There has been a dispute as to how black women are portrayed in the media. On television, shows such as Scandle, How to Get Away With Murder, Being Mary Jane, and most recently to my personal delight, Queen Sugar have grown in popularity. These shows are thriving due to the strong character roles, that is seen by some to support a cliche of “angry black sisters”. However, instead of seeing it as a disrespect, I choose to see it as empowering. As women in general, disregarding color, it is a constant battle to recieve equality in the work place, athletics, and until recently education as well.
In the year of 1999 the government enforced the ‘Equal Opportunity for Women in the Work Place Act transitioning through the year of 2014, changing its title to Work Place Gender Equality act, adding more standards to abide by.
Witnessing successful women like Wendy Williams, host of The Wendy Williams show, take full advantage of their budding equality is inspiring to young females. According to BET.com, Williams is known for her quick wit and bold opinions, that has placed her above Ellen during prime time.
Although surpassing Ellen, DeGeneres also serves as an aspiring role model for young ladies to openly be themselves and succeed while doing do. While women like Ellen will continue to influence me, being a young African American women in a world belonging to White cooperate men, seeing black women such as Gabrielle Union, Keri Washington, and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis, portray such independent and hard working characters motivates me as an individual.
Specifically speaking about Gabrielle Union and Viola Davis, I relate to the two because just like them I am two considered dark skinned. Although racism is often discussed as an issue, I have found that colorism also surfaces as an issue.
Many dark skinned women like myself have 4c kinky hair that grows into a an impressive fro, and has skin that glows and reflects. Looking at myself in the mirror today, at 20 years old, I see there is beauty in my melanin, however it wasn’t always to easy to accept my “black girl magic”. As a young kid boys always were drawn to the pretty light skin girl with light eyes and lose curls which aided in me in longing for lighter skin and hair that grew down and not out. When I moved from New Orleans, to Texas, then to Massachusetts, I found myself to be around nothing but white people who to my surprise, appreciated light skinned black people more than those boys did when I was kid.
Hearing their preference over me made me envy characters like Keri Washington, who I now appreciate due to her different pigment.
In 2011, Viola Davis appeared in the documentary titled Dark Girls, which touched on the issue of colorism. She too had this same issue while growing up, but decided to focus on her school and craft, which then helped her to accept the beauty and talent she saw in herself. When Davis goes on stage and talks about the struggle as a black female, she is powerful and illuminous. When she speaks, she is not just referring to the dark skinned women like her, but she is recognizing the beauty of the versatility in our culture. To be able to take notice to that, encourages me, and most likely many other young ladies just like me.
In these shows, confidence pertrudes from the main characters played by these beautiful black women, and their confidence is worn well. They wear it for not just for themselves, but for our entire culture. Who am I not to except my own beauty or the beauty of every light, brown, and dark skinned female , while these influential figures fight for it to be seen by those outside our culture?
Confidence, independence, and Melanin is beautiful.
