I have a special place in my heart for beautiful black women.
- Being told you weren’t good enough.
- Never seeing a barbie that looked like you growing up.
- Buying crayons and seeing flesh (therefore human) represented as a peachtone. Our skin usually represents dirt or grime.
- Growing up with you hair pressed or braided, so you hardly even knew what the texture of it was.
- Oh you’re pretty for a black being the best thing you will ever hear about your looks.
- Having your mom tell you to avoid the sun, so you don’t get dark, therefore saying you can’t afford to get any worse.
Black Beauty. Black Womanhood. Black Femininity. Hell, just BLACK. It’s a certain type of resilience that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
So if I overload yall with pictures of beautiful black women, don’t mind me. But the beauty is more than just aesthetics. There’s a story and a fight and a struggle behind it.
Ask any black woman whether she’s ever questioned her beauty and worthiness, and I guarantee most, if not all will give you a reluctant yes. A yes that has been reinforced time after time by television, movies, billboards, dating, magazines, family, friends, schoolmates. A yes that has been passed down from generation to generation and is a calculated, systematic ideal. It’s more than just “I don’t feel pretty today”. It’s more like “everyone and everything for the past several centuries has made it clear to me that I am the least desirable of anyone on Earth”.
To overcome that says a lot, to say “no, actually fuck you, I’ll be black and fabulous with or without your consent” is a testament .. and I am more than honored that on my blog.
