Tag: dark skin

I was talking to one of my co-workers yesterday, when she asked me have I seen the previews of “Dark girls” premiering on OWN Sunday night at 10pm.

 

I told her yes, as a matter of fact, I tweeted about it and got a retweet from OWN. She went on to tell me that when she was growing up her grandmother use to tell her how dark she was, and that it made her self-esteem low. I was really shocked by this, because she’s 44, have a live personality, and is very pretty. She told me horror stories about having dark skin and growing up. I was like WOW… and all my life I grew up being asked ” how does it feel to be light-skin”? I didn’t like that!!!

 

What I found out is, many parents are responsible for building a child up or tearing them down. Me and my sister who is under me are light skin, but my brother and baby sister are dark skin. WE didn’t grow up comparing skin color with each other. We weren’t even allowed to fight, only debate. So when we all left home and went out on our own, we were like “strangers” when it came this topic. This was foreign to us. I HATED when people always wanted to talk about skin color, in my mind we are all people. Then to make matters worse for me, I had a beautiful shape and very popular because of my friendly and outgoing personality.

 

This Sunday its going to “kill” me to watch this show. I hate to see people, friends, and family divided over their skin color. My coworker told me that no matter how pretty people tell her she is, she still feels that her being dark skin has a lot to do with her self esteem issues. That just does something to me. I kept asking her… “who told you, that dark skin is not pretty”? Its the parents telling their children this mess, then its bad enough that they go to school and are being teased by other kids.

 

Some people are so quick to blame “white” people, but its not them, its our own people pumping this “dark skin, light skin”, into our children. Stop that MESS!!! Looking back at my first weeks at my job at the school, I think the reason why we didn’t hit if off right away, is because of this issue. By me not being a person who “just go with the flow” all the time, by me being standoffish and trying to learn my job, it probably to “her” made it seems as if I’m funny acting. Wow, talking to people and getting to know them for THEM and not for “who they seem to be” is the best thing 2 people can do. I hope that by watching “Dark girls” this Sunday can really shed some light on things.