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You, yes, you, brown skin girl, need affirmation to love yourself. I did it and you can, too.
So often as young Black women, we feel the need to have to look a certain way or we are not pretty enough if we do not look a certain way. Some may think because they are no light enough they’re not pretty enough, or, if they do not have nice, straight, manageable hair, then they are not pretty enough.
Feelings of insecurities are brought on by how society makes you think you should look.
As a young girl, I remember having those same exact feelings. I remember one day playing on the porch with my favorite Barbie doll, a light-skinned, golden brown, long brownish blond hair, island barbie named Theresa.
I turned to my mom and said “Mommy if I looked more like her then would I be beautiful?”
My mother had this look of disbelief on her face said to me, “You are beautiful just how you are. You don’t have to look like her to be beautiful.”
But I wasn’t convinced. I thought she was just saying that because she was my mother, and that is just what a mother would say.
Still not believing her, she told me to ask my uncle who had been at the house fixing the porch light. So when I asked him the same question, he said to me “What makes you think you are not? So, you want to look plastic is what you are saying?” He said, “You do realize that Barbie is fake and is not real. You are real and your complexion does not define who you are.”
I grew up thinking for a long time my complexion was too dark, my natural hair was too nappy and not pretty enough, and neither was I. But I soon begin to realize that I am beautiful, my natural hair is beautiful, and I need to embrace it.
So often, I see young melanin girls with darker skin complexions being taunted because of their complexion is seen as “too dark” or them embracing their natural hair, most times a big beautiful afro, which to me is the prettiest sight ever.
If I could tell them anything, I would tell them all to shine bright like a diamond because that is what they are in their rarest form. After years of dealing with insecurities, one day I finally realized that beauty comes from within and shines on the outside.
I have grown to love and embrace the color of my skin, and so should you, brown skin girl.
I have grown to love my natural hair in every form, and so should you, brown skin girl.
I have grown to learn to love me for me, regardless of how society may think I should look, and you should, too, brown skin girl.
Your complexion, your hair, your beauty-it all tells a story and you are the author.
Photo: Shutterstock
