I often forget that I have a richer pigment in my skin tone than most, and likewise, I forget that others have more or don’t. Yet, often times when I went out with someone, they would say,” I’ve never been with a brown girl before.”
Now at first I thought this was an innocent comment, which in certain ways it is. Although when I got older, I started to question it. Why do you need to tell me? If I was another skin tone, would you say something else along those lines? Am I so vastly different than every girl that you know simply because of my skin tone?
I never knew how to respond to those comments because they weren't said maliciously, but they were odd. It pointed to the fact that I was being categorized by my skin tone and it was an interesting moment when I realized this. For a romantic partner, you want someone to see you for more than just what you look like. When I get these comments and others like them, I am just reduced to what I look like. I’ve come to realize that everyone innately processes each others physicality, but people are more than their appearance. However, this is an opinion not recognized by everyone, and a whole list of stereotypes are associated with your physicality.
The people who make these comments, whether they realize it or not, see me physically, and they associate me with a different 'type' of person, and the stereotypes that come with that 'type.' I have found that the most meaningful relationships that I’ve made, are ones where these comments were not made. These are the relationships where I am seen for more than my skin tone or ethnicity.
There is a part of me that realizes that these comments are innocuous, but another part of me realizes that these comments suggest that this person, on some level, holds a view of me that is overly simplistic and insensitive, and purely physical. We all have physical bodies, of which certain stereotypes have been ascribed, but we need to look beyond each other's physicality and appreciate each individual based on their personality because that is what truly what defines a person.
