Shades of Brown

How can you tell what shade of brown a black child will be? Look at their cuticles or the tips of their ears when they are born. At times it's hard enough being black, but we then go on to categorize ourselves in shades. As a young girl, I always knew I was a dark-skinned black girl. I don't know if I had been told or if I read it somewhere, but I just knew. In highschool, I didn't get as much attention from the boys as my light-skinned girlfriends except for that one month every year. During black history month in February, the attention was mine, but then it would fade away quickly in March. I once had a boyfriend tell me that he did not need to do anything for black history month because he was dating a dark-skinned girl. Looking back now, I don't think that was a compliment.

"Black as tar", "dark as night", or "so black their blue", these terms are as uncomfortable and as deregotory as white people's "pale as a ghost". We have become so used to these sayings, we don't see that it does nothing in uplifting each other. The shades of our skin should have absolutely nothing to do with how smart, attentive or attractive we are. A fair coloured girl was described as being passable in terms of her looks, the person had went on to say, "if she was dark, she would be in trouble." I've had conversations with black women where they have described light-skinned women as beautiful but dark-skinned women as "exotic", (like they were some rare animal at a zoo.) Vanilla, chestnut, mohagany, ebony are just a few of the terms we use to label our skin colour. I think it's time we went beyond these surface descriptions and looked at what really matters and what we have to offer. To our families, our friends, society and ourselves.

That dark-skinned girl is now all grown-up with little black girls of her own. It would break my heart if they had to deal with the colour issue from their fellow sisters as I had to. MM

Embracing Me!

As a black girl, I grew up in an area that had very few black people. As a matter of fact, my elementary school-which went up to grade 6-had only 3 and half black kids, the half came from a bi-racial friend whose mother was white and father was black. I really did not think much of my skin colour or race then. It wasn't until I moved to a predominantly "black" neighbourhood and started highschool before I began thinking more about my skin colour and how it affected me and the life around me.

If it wasn't the hair issues, it was the shade of my skin, or the size of my lips or whether or not I spoke too white and not black enough. It was always something and it is always something. As a 33 year old woman with a husband and 3 children, I am learning to appreciate and love what I have, to work with it and to have others love or at least like it. Having 2 daughters, I owe them that. To teach and allow them to embrace themselves, no matter the texture of their hair, the shade of their skin or the size of their butts-because we are more than that.

There are those times when I still question myself and have doubts, I mean who doesn't? But I think the problem is that not only am I worried about what my white sisters would say and think, more importantly, I'm concerned about my black sisters. As black women, we have made a career of not only doubting ourselves but doubting each other and it's time we stopped.

There are many of us-in addition to Michelle Obama and Oprah -doing wonderful things out there and it's time we showcased them. Showed off what they have and what they are made off. I want this to be a forum for that. To inspire our daughters, sisters, mothers, cousins, friends and neighbours and to let the world know that it's our time. MM