Letters to My Younger Self is a series focused on wisdom and self-awareness. Just as you write letters to a friend to encourage and uplift them, here is the advice we would go back and tell our younger ourselves.
Dear 7-year-old me,
Christie or Teresa? Teresa or Christie?
Oh, darling Jacie. I can see the fury of internal turmoil in your furrowed eyebrows. The uncertainty increases the longer you stare at their perfectly painted faces in their pink, plastic packaging.
The decision is really already made. Mom always buys Christie. You know this. She’s the doll that best represents you. You will later learn how important representation is.
She matches the paintings that line your bedroom wall, displaying black women with their daughters and young black girls of varying shades playing together. You’ll later thank Mom for teaching you to value your blackness.
At this moment, as your eyes shift between the two Barbie dolls smiling from their shelf in Toys”R”Us, you fight yourself for wanting to pick Teresa. She’s not as light as Barbie, but she’s also not as dark as Christie and that was what some in society deemed beautiful for a black girl. That’s what you saw as beautiful for a black girl.
She’s also not as dark as Christie and that was what some in society deemed beautiful for a black girl.
The thing is, you never had a problem with loving your blackness, loving your shade of black was your internal war.
Loved ones will try to equip you with the proper armor, but you will still face colorism throughout your journey to adulthood. You’ll see your lighter-skinned colleagues received a bit more grace than you despite showing the same promise. You will settle for being the “cool friend” and watch as your crushes pass over you to shoot their shot at your “exotic-looking” black friend. You will even wonder how rich you could be if you were given a dollar for every time someone told you, “You’re pretty for a black girl.”
You will still face colorism throughout your journey to adulthood.
I wish I could tell you that you won’t internalize these biases. I mean, you’ll see some representation in mainstream media, but because of your experiences, you will also see the subtle slights and prejudices in the cinematic portrayals of lighter-skinned black women being desirable and darker-skinned black women being unfavorable (aka the Beyoncé vs. Kelly Rowland conversations). You will cry—a lot—and you will feel inferior.
Chin up, though, because I can tell you that you are beautiful, and your skin is beautiful. You know what else is beautiful? That despite the years’ long internal war you embark on, you do teach yourself to see and appreciate the beauty in other women, regardless of shade, without diminishing your own. You learn that the amount of melanin someone possesses is not inversely proportional to beauty. It will take time, but you do fall in love with yourself.
You learn that the amount of melanin someone possesses is not inversely proportional to beauty.
So yes. You are right. Teresa is very beautiful, but so is Christie. Don’t pick her because Mom wants you to or even because her painted on skin looks like you. Pick her because she’s beautiful. Just like you.
What are some stereotypes of beauty that you learned from a young age? How have you learned to break out of them?
Image via Ben Cope, Darling Issue No. 15
5 comments
This was beautifully written and touched me. Thank you Jacie!
Jacie is a powerful writer and person. We are so honored to have her as a part of the Darling family!
This was beautiful!! The last sentence really moved me. So many can relate.
Very intimate and heartfelt piece. Beauty is dark-skinned, even if our attitudes, beliefs and thoughts tells us otherwise.
I used to think that Eurocentric traits of beauty were ideal. I even imagined myself as a seductive white women, making men swift their gaze towards me, when I was a child — I internalised it all that young. I grew up seeing a lack of racial diversity; I played with white Barbie dolls, watched television shows that featured a mostly all white cast, and listened to music by white artists. Seeing this so often seeped into my brain unconsciously and white beauty is what I deemed as real beauty.
Now, I know that is not the case. That I am fearfully and wonderful made. I know that all shades of skin is created by God and is absolutely beautiful. Within blackness alone all shades are ravishing. I thank God for this change within in me!
What a great read. Thank you! You provided a testimony that we all can claim. The key here is did you learn to love yourself? If not you are living someone else’s version of you. Stop! Love yourself.