My whole life I've seen myself as darker than I actually am.
All of my friends have been lighter than
me. I’ve always been the darkest one. So, when people would say “oh you’re
pretty for a black girl” they would always be talking to me. My glorious amount
of melanin never made people question my blackness. I mistook that for
“darkness”. I never had a problem with being the “dark” one. I don't know. I kinda owned
that and embraced, now that I know I’m not that, I have to adjust my whole way
of thinking.
I know why I made sure my female friends were lighter than me, but at the same time I don’t. What I do know is that I
always had an excuse as to why guys wouldn’t date me. My friends were light
skin and I wasn’t. So, I never really had to deal with rejection because of who
I am, personality wise, but because of my skintone…I always wondered how
colorism was used against me, personally…I did it. I used it to feed my own
insecurities.
Then, there's this thing called representation. In all the movies and shows I watched, Clueless (Dionne) and The Proud Family (Dijonay), Kim Possible (Monique) , A Different World (Kim) and Martin (Pam) for example, the best friend or back up or sidekick was always the darker one, usually "ghetto" or "the strong black woman" or the one there for comedic relief. That's who I saw myself as. That was who I could relate to. That's all I thought I was good for. So, it was easy for me to step into that role. I knew it so well.
Now, it hasn't been until recently, that I realized that this is a huge problem. I shouldn't equate my skintone to a certain type of person I need to be. I am more than that. I define myself and no one and not one stereotype can take that away from me. I deserve to be treated as human not a shade of brown.
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