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Do you hate yourself? Maybe just a little. What do you consider self hatred? Is it as small as wearing colored contacts? Or is it as big as bulimia? Maybe hating yourself is as simple as trying to look like someone else. Do you straighten your curly hair? Do you cover your eyes with contacts that bear another color? Do you look at your child and wish there were certain traits you had not passed onto them? It’s complicated for many reasons. As a woman who has lived for twenty-one years, I still struggle with self-hate. We all look in the mirror and see something we want to change. I don’t think I have ever met a person who was without their insecurities. I don’t believe such a person exists. However, I think that there is a line that distinguishes when this desire to change becomes the desire to be someone else. When the desire to have straight hair becomes the desire to be blonde. When the desire to lose a few pounds for health’s sake becomes the desire to be stick-thin. As a Black woman in America, I don’t see a lot of positive images of myself. Most of the Black women on music videos are half naked, with no significance other than to be an object of sexual desire. I’ve watched these women from a very young age, and have watched these women get lighter and lighter as the years passed. I feel that the public images of beauty in my generation are generally of lighter and whiter skinned people. And don’t get me wrong. Light-skinned people are beautiful. White-skinned people are beautiful. But so are Black and Brown people. I can’t go through one day of radio without hearing about a “redbone” or “pretty light skinned models” coming from the mouths of music’s most influential people. And people are listening.
A friend of mine came over for a visit the other day, and she brought her little cousin who was about the age of nine or ten. Her skin was a rich brown, her hair in braids and showing off a pretty smile. We talked for a little while, and somehow we came across going to the pool. She said she hated it, and surprised, I asked her why. “Because I don’t want to get too dark!” was her response. I was even more taken aback by this comment, and told her that there is no such thing as “too dark”. But she vigorously shook her head, and worked her hardest to convince me of otherwise. I was amazed at how young she had learned to avoid being dark and how adamant she was about it. It made me sad, and reminded me of my own insecurities. I was reminded of how I still feel uncomfortable going natural with my own hair. And it affects us all, male and female alike. Is it enough to acknowledge that it’s problematic? I don’t know. I honestly doubt it. But I do know that no one should be made to feel like they aren’t enough. No one should be made to feel like their eyes aren’t “pretty” enough. Or that their hair isn’t smooth enough. Or that they aren’t light enough. Or that they don’t weigh enough, or that they weigh too much. Or that their arms aren’t big enough. Or they aren’t tall enough. All of that is wrong. If you are healthy and breathing, you are beautiful. Someone out there wants you and loves the way you look (you should be able to find that someone close-by, like in a mirror). I am not saying the road to loving yourself is easy. I’m still trying to navigate through it myself. What I am saying is that it is a road worth taking, and having even one foot on that road pays off immensely. Look in the mirror every goddamn morning and say, “I love you. You are beautiful and I love you.” Every time you walk past a window sneak a look at yourself and say, “Damn I look good!” And say it out loud! Everyone should know! Especially you. Our own ears need to hear it coming from our own mouths. Say it because it is true, or say it because I asked you. But either way, please learn to say it at all.