I Wish I was

Yesterday my church celebrated a 10 year anniversary of worship in a community park under a tent that drew over 1,000 adults and children. As I sat there loving the flow of congregant p & w, my eyes caught the face of a pretty little African American girl around 8 or 9 sitting 2 rows in front of me. Behind her sat 2 girls (one around 8 or 9 and her little sister of maybe between 4 & 6) of Dominican decent playing with another little girl around 4 or 5 a light skinned African American. The girl in front of them intently watched them as they played with their toys laughing and enjoying the atmosphere. I studied her eyes as she studied them. Not only was she interested in their little hand bag toys, colorful kid size super star gloves and a toy purple microphone, she stared at their features. She had a beautiful smooth brown face, full lips and big bright eyes enveloped with a thick head of hair neatly corn-rowed with barrettes. The Dominican girls had very long silky wavy hair braided in a single plait flowing down their backs with fine features. The pretty brown baby stared at them for the better part of the service and I was intrigued as to why. Then it hit me…most little brown girls feel as if they are missing something by not looking like someone else and it clearly showed on her face. I watched her eyes hover over their plaits and glaze upon their olive skin. She seemed too pre-occupied with their looks more than what they were doing. I could almost but read her mind with fierce accuracy. It’s the same look that we’ve all experienced at some point of our lives: wishing we looked like someone else. Wishing our hair could flow down our backs instead of bridging out into a course un-permed fro. We see others and think that something must have gone wrong when God created us with super strong course hair instead of finely straight hair. Nothing could have been so different and so nerving wracking at the same time. What is this? Is it a curse? Is it an un-funny joke played at our expense?

Our blackness is still not viewed as beautiful to ourselves. Even though we have years of careful advertising and well placed pro-black ads, movies, etc. to boost our self esteem, it’s still a problem. What happened to ‘black is beautiful’ and ‘I’m black and I’m proud’? Why do super stars re-arrange their God-given features to appeal to people who will still look at them no differently? Many of our young black girls are still caught up in what they feel they should look like and are destroying a proud culture. Fine hair and light skin does not make for a bonafide beauty. It’s brain washing slavery all over again. “Your name is Toby not Kunta Kinte”. Basically what the Roots character was saying is ‘ I’m gonna change the way you think and feel about yourself ‘cause you ain’t shit. What you were is no way good enough’. Are we making this our legacy? And the light skinned vs. black skinned drama is still causing traumatic situations. I STILL get the rolled eyes and teeth sucking smirks just because I’m pale as hell. I’m sorry did we stand in the color choice line and choose whom we wanted to be? If so, you should have chose something that was going to make you happy. People please!!

But, I’ve learned throughout my sumthin’-sumthin’ odd years on this earth to appreciate what I’ve got because 1. I genetically can’t do a damn thing about it and 2. Being different is not so bad after all. But that’s my adult view of it. What about the little princesses who still wish they looked like someone else? How do they conquer this at an early age so that they won’t grow into a self-hating love depraved adult? I wanted to catch the eye of the little brown baby just to give her a reassuring smile. When she finally did look over at me, I gave her a quick wink which produced a beautiful smile from her. She’s a gorgeous little lady and all I can pray is that she knows it. How dreadfully boring this world would be if we wished ourselves to look like others. Love yourselves little brown people because no one can love you better.

Jewelz 2010