Comments on: Love The Skin You’re In

By: candiew

candiew — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:47:43 +0000

For those obsessed with lightening their skin and wondering what you’ll look like:

Two words:

Michael Jackson

One word:

Ridiculous

Need I say more?

By: Crys

Crys — Sun, 08 May 2011 12:05:06 +0000

This is truly sad! There are people of other ethnicities who are trying to darken their skin like ours. God said everything/everyone he made is good. Rock the skin you are in. It has been blessed and sun-kissed by God! We are gorgeous and phenomenal!

By: shannon

shannon — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:01:54 +0000

My parents are from the south, and I remember my aunt and mom having a conversation about a young light skinned girl who was in their opinion unattractive. The phrase they used to describe her was “wasted yellow”. Even as a young child, and hearing this I was hurt and offended, because I knew that they meant that “light skin” was valued above brown, or darker skin. When I questioned my mom later, on this she just kinda shrugged it off… How sad that those ugly things white people embedded deep within our people is still present today…

By: zindzhi

zindzhi — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:50:11 +0000

I live in Haiti and this message of dark ugly skin is drilled in our head ! just the other day my Grandma told me that most people told her not to marry my grandpa because he was too dark. jokes on them cause we are a nice looking bunch ( not tooting my own horn) black people are beautiful in all shades.. but light skin is right
even in Asian communities . Some South Asian women working in Haiti spoke so derisively of dark skin that i stop speaking to them for them it was akin to being a ugly monkey.

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 19:59:42 +0000

Hi Afrobella! First of all, I want to say I’ve been following your blog since 2006 now. I’ve finished college, I’m moved from NYC to California, things have really changed… and you’re still here! It’s just awesome. Please, continue doing what you do! I am a lifelong fan, now

I usually do not comment, but seeing as though this is a topic that hits close to home, I felt motivated to do so. I think colorism is a particularly big issue within the Latino community. Many Latinos refuse to believe how racist and prejudice we really are to our own people in the community. It is not a coincidence that in Colombia, where my parents are from, the urban centers of the cities are all very poor, Afro-Colombians. Yet, for example, Brazil, want to promote the image of racial harmony amongst such a variety of people and skin colors and races.

I hope that soon we can really start being honest with ourselves, free ourselves from the trappings of self-hatred that come along with colonized mentalities.

By: Cmoni

Cmoni — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:04:31 +0000

This is very sad, I will never endanger my well-being for the price of being accepted or deemed beautiful by society. My grandmother always told me “the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice.”

I am multiracial with a caramel skin color and my own mother ( God Bless her) out of ignorance told me I was getting too black or that I was a black a** mexican because as a kid I was always outside and I played soccer. At the ripe age of 9 I told her thats what I am! She said nothing after that.

We all have to do our part by instilling a sense of pride for ourselves whether we are brown, black, red, yellow or whatever.

By: Denise

Denise — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:51:26 +0000

Lil’ Kim…Sammy Sosa….I’m sure there are others…sad beyond words that we still HATE being Black and allow others to tell us that we should HATE dark skin….It makes me want to cry.

By: Monica

Monica — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 06:57:18 +0000

Just as we condemn skin bleaching for the vile practice it is, we also have to acknowledge the pain of rejection most young black women with chocolate brown skin experience before they learn to embrace and celebrate the color of their skin. In a landscape where multi-racial exotics with tawny skin are lauded, chocolate sisters are rarely put on a pedestal. Rejections like the one depicted in the Mr. Vegas video are real. Yes, black women with light skin are still prized by some men. We all know that their are plenty of men in the world, but it takes time to realize that the one fawning over light-chick might not be the one for you. It takes time to realize that’s about him.

Women of color with dark skin who bleach their skin are not insane. They are reacting in an ineffective manner to the world as they see it. If this was merely an aesthetic choice, I don’t think bleaching would be so pervasive. Bleaching taps into the search for a better life.

Banning bleaches will not stop women from wanting that.

By: Mishara

Mishara — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:10:09 +0000

Although this is disheartening, I hope we continue to challenge our people when they make comments about the preference of light skin and ways to achieve it. As an extremely light black women (most people don’t even believe I’m black) with hazel eyes, I have often been offended by how black men make dispariging remarks about darker skinned sisters. My closest friends have always been much darker than me. More than once I have heard a man say, “Your friend is beautiful for a dark skinned woman…” I told him about himself. It’s self-hatred. But sadly in 2011. I still hear black men make comments about darker skinned sisters assuming as a light skinned woman I will feel more secure or superior in my position. It is sickening. It’s also paradoxical since the light skinned women in my family have always sought darker skin and tried to “marry into color” with the hopes of achieving at least caramel colored children. Colorism is still alive and well.

By: maggiep

maggiep — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:37:36 +0000

Dark-skinned people really need to accept their skin b/c bleaching makes people look alien. It looks awful and unnatural. However, I do feel sorry. I am medium tone but I see and hear too many black people celebrate light skin. And the biggest applause is when black poeple mix with other races, hence the high incidence of black men with white women. I can’t tell you how many times a black person assumed I was into white men b/c I am in medical school. The comment I get over and over “but you and a white man will have beautiful mixed children.” And all these black men with non-black or light-skin women in their videos? And the ‘sexy’ woman in a sitcom or movie is not dark. Black boys show preference for light and bright from a young age. It goes on and on and has been going on for a long time. yes, it started from slavery. And I am clueless as to how black people express such surprise at examples like bleaching. It is comical that some black people are so clueless to the numerous mental ramifications of slavery.