Thursday, May 21, 2009

i like a long haired thick red bone...

I love Black people, I really do. I embrace this race because it's my family. We go through bull TOGETHER, and we are working on overcoming TOGETHER. But this crazy kin can piss me off, because many of our Black people suffer self-hate. And though, its not all, its a vast majority that is spreading across our community and even infecting our Black children, like the Swine Flu. 

Maybe because I've struggled with self-hate for many years, it hurts me more than the average. My self-hate was stemmed from many things: I'm always the darkest in any crowd, no matter where, and until recently, I thought dark skin was the ugliest thing on Earth. Can you believe it? I hated my skin and I honestly thought God was punishing me by making me such a deep brown color. My self-hate stemmed from not understanding how to take care of my curly halo of kinks, so I hated my hair, and thought God was punishing me by not giving me "good hair." 'If I was lighter.... and if I had good hair, I'd love myself then' I told myself, but I'd only love myself because I wouldn't be myself. 

I really hated myself.

And as a people, I think we really hate ourselves. Striving to look like video hoochies-- I'm sorry "MODELS", packing on pounds of makeup, colored contacts and weaves to look like something we're not. 

Truthfully, I don't think there are anything wrong with extensions, admitedly, they can be fun, cute, and easy, but when we're inching closer and closer to a more Eurocentric beauty, and hating our OWN beauty, I feel we have a problem. We have a problem when we put unnatural blond tracks in our hair, and claiming on youtube: "Don't insult me, I'm not Black"; this screams that we collectively have some work to do on what we perceived as beautiful. Now, I'm not telling everyone to stop getting relaxers, no, but I do want to ask my fellow beautiful black women to not think of your "new growth" as an accident that needs to be fixed. Its beautiful, and though you might not transistion to natural, love the BEAUTIFUL curly, full, wavy, textured "new growth" that grows from you naturally. 
And though, I'm not throwing salt on any lighter women, because my family color wheel features beauties the color of Kim Kardashian, to Beyonce's caramel, Gabrielle Union's golden brown, India's mahogany, to Alek's dark and amazing skin. But I want my men to LOVE all of your black women, no matter what her color is. 

But it may be to much to ask, because when I hear someone say, "Your hair looks good on you, but I could never rock it," I silently plead 'why'? Why can't you wear your naturally beautiful hair, God gave it specifically to you so you could rock it, and look stunning. But I go unheard. 
And when I hear "I like a long haired thick red bone" in a song, I silently plead 'why'? Why can't you like a sexy browned skinned diva, and her light skinned friend too? But that doesn't match the context of the song... or maybe the context of the world we live in. 


I'll write a Part 2 soon... 

4 comments:

  1. NAIMA!!!! I LOVE THISSS!!! and i love YOU more!!!! I totally agree with EVERYTHING you have written in this blog!!! I too suffered from self-hate when i was growing up...i can remember soooo many days wishing that I was light skin with "good hair"...*sigh* but thankfully i have realized that I am beautiful in the skin that I'm in!!!! (still working on the hair though...) LOL...but OMG, i cannot tell you how much it makes me CRINGE when i hear that line: "long-haired thick red bone" in that damn Drake song...it really makes me want to punch lil wayne in the face...but anyways...this is a long comment so i will end it here. but i cannot wait for part two!! i hope it's really really soon!!! c:

    ReplyDelete
  2. NAIMA! i cannot agree with you more. you really hit the nail on the head.
    i'm going through this transition myself, embracing the real me and loving the way God created me to be. yeahhh that line in ''every girl'' makes me ... -_- i can't wait for the part two and definitely bookmarking this post.

    ashanti (from FU and VLG)

    ReplyDelete
  3. KILAH!!! Ooooh, girl you arrrrre beautiful, FIERCE, bomb.com, ALL OF THE ABOVE, and its okay about the hair, its a long journey! Just as long as the hair is beautiful, lmao, and I know that whooole song by heart, and I sing every line EXCEPT for that line lmao. You should write one too!!! We should tag team, let everyone know how we really feel! Lol! <3


    ASHANTIIIII! HEY BOO! Loving yourself is probably the BEST feeling a girl can feel, its phenomenal to look in the mirror SMILING, cause God made a beautiful thing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. ahh, that was beautiful, sweets. you sure know how to go deep..

    ReplyDelete