Your Blue Eyes Ain’t Like Mine

I need to talk to white people for a minute.  I’m here to say that you have been fooled into a false sense of superiority.  Black people have been trying to emulate your looks since we were enslaved on the plantation.  We spend countless hours, dollars, and tears trying to alter ourselves, changing the way we are supposed to look in order to look more like you.   You think that we should think, act, and look like you in order to be considered attractive.  It seems you have established yourself as the standard of beauty and everyone else is supposed to bend, meld, and conform to what you look like in order to be considered attractive.  I’m here to tell you that I’m not a slave.  I’m free from the mental chains that tell me that your features, traits, and aesthetics are better than mine.  I’m not obsessed, intrigued, or captivated by the beauty standards of white people. 

I don’t covet or crave your flowing, straight hair; I simply don’t think it’s more attractive than my own.  I love my nappy, wooly, African hair.  I don’t have to have bouncy, shiny curls in order to feel beautiful and you can rest assured that  I have less than zero need to sew someone else’s hair in my head to try to emulate what grows out of your head.  I adore the hair that God has graced me with and I don’t think it’s bad, unmanageable, or ugly.   Long hair is more attractive on women, or so you say.  I say I can rock my hair short and feel confident, beautiful, and unapologetically Black.  No, my hair is not the color of the sun, it’s the color of the dark night sky, the color of the vast and infinite universe.  I think my hair is beautiful in its natural state that is nothing like yours.  It defies gravity.  Your hair can’t do that.  I don’t need to dye, lighten, or change my hair color to feel more attractive.  My black hair, my BLACK hair is gorgeous, just the way it is. 

I don’t have to alter my appearance to try to look like you because I’m comfortable in the skin I’m in.  Your light eyes are nice, for you, but I much prefer my own deep, dark soulful eyes.   I will never buy colored contacts because I think that your blue or green eyes are more attractive.   I don’t want or need to have children who are beige, I don’t want to see their hazel eyes reflected in mine because I honor and love the Black Africans who came before me, whose blood courses through my veins, not the slave masters who raped my ancestors.  If you know nothing else in life, if there is one thing you can be assured of when you take your last breath on this earth, you can know without question that I will never try to lighten my skin to look more like you.  My melanated, brown skin is perfection in my eyes.  My full lips and wide nose may be ugly to you, you may be repulsed by my thick facial features.  That’s okay with me.  I don’t think your thin lips and pointy noses are attractive.  If I pick up a magazine or turn on the TV, the media would have me believe that I’m obese if I’m over a size 6.  That’s fine . . . for you.  For me . . . not so much.  I’m blessed with a big, round ass and thick thighs and I that fits me just fine. 

You see, there shouldn’t be just one standard of beauty in this diverse, colorful world.  So while most Black people are trying to look like you, while they feel that they are more attractive the less African they look, I’m not burdened with that unhealthy and debilitating belief.  I can celebrate myself, my features, and my own inherent African beauty and be confident and secure.  I can hold my shoulders back and my head high.  I LOVE the skin I’m in. 

Copyright 2015 AfroerotiK