I love winter, but I haven't always loved it for the same reasons. During middle school and early high school, I loved it because I could cover up. It wasn't strange to be pale or wear sweaters that covered my freckled arms. I fit in with the season, and I could, for a few months, escape the judgment of summer. I could actually go days without hearing "You're so white!", as if this was the greatest revelation of the century. News flash everyone, I know I'm pale.

If you're reading this because you're pale too, then you get it. Sometimes people are funny with it, and you know they're just playing with you. Other times, they're pointing it out because they find it shocking and abnormal. As a young girl, the mass amount of comments made me feel self-conscious. I began to fear beach vacations. I felt uncomfortable in shorts. Swimming pools made me anxious. Living in Texas did not allow me to easily avoid showing skin, either. For the longest time, this was my biggest insecurity.

But I was so wrong. I missed out on so much laughter when I was worried about my skin. I deprived myself of joy when I prayed to wake up tanner. And how silly is that? I wasted all my time believing there was only one way to be beautiful.

There is no perfect skin color; that goes for both ends of the spectrum. If you want to get scientific about it, skin tone is just a genetic chemical. There's nothing deep about it, nothing profound. It's quite simple. If you're at the beach, and you have a body, you have a beach body. If you burn instead of tan, then you burn instead of tan and you can still swim in the pool. You aren't bothering anyone. Maybelline makes a foundation in your shade, I promise.

To put things into perspective, our pale skin problem is comparatively minimal. We don't fit society's beauty standard, sure. But all we ever felt was discomfort and shame; both things that only hurt until you realize that the beauty standard is unreasonable. We've never experienced hate, or segregation, or persecution because we were pale. And if years of tiny jokes made that big an impact on me, I cannot fathom the feelings of a young, black woman.

The media shoves their ideal woman down the throats of girls everywhere. The models on the billboards are edited to look tan and slender. Kylie Jenner poses in a wheelchair for a shoot, though she is not disabled. Her sister Kendall is the caucasian face of a clothing line inspired by African tribe culture. The message is clear: "It's only hot if she's doing it," and the she usually fits the same criteria. Don't get me wrong; the Jenners are beautiful, and many women do look like the billboards. Some of us train for toned thighs and washboard abs, and that's also beautiful. But here's another news flash, everyone. We don't all look like that, and we're beautiful too.

This is why representation matters. It matters for white girls, and it matters even more for black girls. It says "hey, it's hot when you do it too". It says to the small Nigerian girl "you also belong on the runway". It eliminates competition among young women, and men as well. More than that, it doesn't rip off the cultures that are the core of so many people's identity.

For me, it all comes down to this: God loves His children, and He thought we were all beautiful enough to die for.

So celebrate who you are, and celebrate who she is, too.