During the summer of 2009, my brother and I rode our bikes with a couple of friends to the community pool a few miles away from our house. We left early in the morning and didn’t get home until sometime in the evening. It was a pretty good day, until after I had gotten out of the shower, my mom looked at me, and asked, “Did you put sunscreen on?”
“Why?” I asked.
She replied, “You’ve gotten darker.”
And when I looked in the mirror, I realized that I had. Until that moment in my life, I never realized how much power the shade of my skin had on the way I viewed myself and my self-worth.
After that day, I tried not to sit directly in the sun. I stayed in the shade. If there was no shade, I probably wouldn't go outside for long. The mentality of trying to preserve the lightness of my skin stuck with me for years. Only in the last few have I started to truly become comfortable and love the color of my skin.
Depending on your proximity to the black community, my story may not be a surprise to you. If you’ve never experienced the desire to be lighter or stay light, I recommend you type in “dark skin memes,” on Google and spend a couple minutes looking at what pops up. Dark skin is seen by a lot of people as not attractive. Even in the black community, I’ve seen distaste and prejudice toward people due to the darkness of their skin. I’ve seen beautiful women struggle with their appearance because of their skin tone. A common phrase I've heard directed toward women in my community and hate myself is, “Your cute — for a dark skin.” It's hard to feel attractive when it’s inferred the color of your skin is the opposite.
For a long time, I felt that my struggle with skin tone was unique, but many people faced and face similar problems. I don’t want to talk about the cause of the sense of self-hatred bred into minorities that can make us feel less than and worthless. I want to start a discussion to make America aware of what's going on to try to make my experience incomprehensible to generations that follow.
