"You're Pretty for a Dark-Skinned Girl"

"You're pretty for a dark-skinned girl!" All my life I've heard this compliment, but as I grow the less of a compliment it sounds to me. I would love to know what a lot of people mean by this? I can't even pretend, I do know! I know exactly what it means! You mean that I'm pretty but if my skin was lighter I would be prettier. You mean that normally dark-skinned girls aren't very pretty but I make an exception. If I'm wrong correct me please, enlighten me and tell me what do you mean?

I love when I see the hashtags #blackgirlmagic #blackisbeautiful, but I also hate them! I hate them because they were created to make black girls feel better after being made to feel less of themselves for so long. And that should've never happened. You may feel like I'm exaggerating, but ask that skin bleaching cream beauticians sell, if I'm really exaggerating!

Imagine you were trapped in a room, and then when you were finally able to open the door, there was another door locked. That's how I feel, I feel like after dealing with racism, we still have to deal with colourism. And this doesn't just come from white people, I find it that it comes mostly from black people, my family, my friends and some boys that try to chat me up!

For those that think that's an acceptable compliment, imagine someone told you "You're pretty, even though you're from that family!" I don't think anybody would take that as a compliment, as that's obviously degrading somebody's family, therefore, I don't see why it's acceptable for people to think that "you're pretty for a dark-skinned girl" is a nice compliment, when you're clearly downgrading my skin colour. If you think that's an acceptable compliment, you're ignorant! Thankfully we can all cure our ignorance with education. But ask yourself what you honestly mean when you say that!

The features of a dark-skinned girl are typically very strong, with most of us having big eyes, big round nose, big lips, big butt (which I don't carry lmao), and these are the same features that for a long time have lead to us being called "monkeys" and ugly. However, these are the same features a lot of white and light-skinned women are having surgery in order to enhance their beauty. How ironic is it that our natural features are only considered beautiful on lighter skin tones? How ironic? NO! How stupid! It makes no sense and its a complexity that society created.

The hate for a darker skin complexion has progressed for years and goes way back to slavery, because even back then, although all blacks were slaves, they were still classified according to their skin complexion. Consequently, we began to hate our skin, we believed we were/are inferior, we believed we do resemble monkeys (poor monkeys, they're too cute to be involved in this racial mess), and all that whilst our natural looks were being embraced by other races as beautiful. They taught us hate to fuel their love!

ONLY a dark-skinned girl can tell you how hard it was to become a model (although we're are now SLAYING run ways and magazine covers), she can tell you what's it like to doubt if I boy will like you or not due to your skin complexion, how long it took cosmetic lines to include our skin colour, what's like not to be allowed to enter a night club because "you're too dark" by men that are the same colour as you and only a dark-skinned girl knows why she hated herself so much to the point of bleaching her skin. Only a dark-skinned girl can tell you what it took her, to love herself and skin colour despite all the jokes and negative comments. We've came very far for you to set us back!

I'm now 22, and I can tell you that until I was roughly 17 or so I felt like if was lighter I would be better looking and I would have more opportunities. What made me change my mind? My mirror! If you feel the same way I felt, unfortunately no matter how much we use #blackisbeautiful #blackgirlmagic that cannot teach you to love your skin colour or make others love our skin colour. This is a process of growth only you can go through, the process of self-love, the process of acceptance, the process of coming out of mental slave chains. We cant fight social issues without fighting these skin complexities we've created. Continue to educate yourself on self-love.

Despite everything, WE'VE CAME A LONG WAY, a way we should've never entered but you know, for some reason, humans are the only creatures smart enough to create an iPhone but still dumb enough to believe in superiority.

In a world of beautiful colours, sometimes I wish we were all blind! As the blind cant see but are still capable of love...