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back at home [08 Jul 2005|01:42am] [ mood | complacent ] [ music | Beyonce - Speechless ] my skin is so much darker than normal. not that many people would notice. my vacation was wonderful, and i'm semi happy to be back in the states. semi sad. oddly enough, i felt so much at home, despite the fact i've never been there. the only thing i found odd, was that in the mornings, the voices of the birds there were so strange and foreign to me. and the smell of the sea took some getting used to. it initially made me sick. not to mention the sand, which seemed to be everywhere. in my shoes, in my bed, in my hair. everywhere. i miss it though, sipping ginger beer and eating plaintain with my mother and cousins. the heat there was different as well. the warmth of the east coast is so stifling and absolute. i suppose it's all that damn concrete that makes new york and jersey so fucking damn hot in the summer. but the heat there is more of a simmering warmth, natural. it enriches the skin, not scorch it. the locals fawned over me, and entwined my hair with pretty flowers. the women were so beautiful. their accents twisting the words i was so accustomed to hearing into a delightful song of culture. i can't wait to return, when i'm older. perhaps bring my children one day. show them their beginnings. on my way back, walking through the swarm of jet lagged travelers making their way across lands and seas, producing my passport and dropping my mango and sugared strawberries. i yearned to be a barefoot little girl evading her chores to wade in the beaches, like my mother was. it's back to reality for the prodigal child. 6 comments|post comment

[02 May 2005|12:07am] FRIENDS ONLY refer below to the kind of entries i write. i'm really not that interesting, but if you'd like to share my world. i'm cool with that. leave a comment, add me, and i'll add you back. this journal is fairly new, before here i was at lyricalcocaine. anyhow. that's about it. 17 comments|post comment

BLACK SKINNED [27 Apr 2005|03:06am] BLACKSKINNED the social revolution of darker skin in the african american community " Wow. You're so pretty for a dark girl. " Words marked incessantly in my past. Color issues never really appeared in my psyche until I was in middleschool, although for some of us, it's something we've been subconsciously aware of since birth. We continuously counter our blatant awareness of the differences in skin tone with a woeful obliviousness. Most of us think it, but we don't say it. Those with cinnamon colored skin appreciate the color God was gracious enough to bless them with, whilst chocolate toned sisters are continuously faced with issues of subtle self hatred and shame for their own flesh. Our men appraise our women carefully. It's obvious that in the general Black male mind, light skin is ( in general, of course ) more so attractive than dark. Why is it that Halle Berry, whom is 50 percent Caucasian, such a staple of beauty for Black brothers and sisters? Granted, Ms. Berry's features are undoubtedly exquisite, yet it does nothing for the self esteem of young dark skinned girls. As most know, revolutions tend to ebb and flow, they fade and resurface. Due to the influx of darker skinned models/actors/actreses, it's plain to see that Black is indeed beautiful. However, the core root of this phenomenon still stands. Where did we develop these tendencies, and how do they affect us? It's apparent that these basics develop in our minds at an early age. Females develop and awareness of their looks at an earlier age that males do. We learn often what's considered attractive and what isn't from our home life, and social settings. We look at what people cringe at and call ugly, and we reevaluate those images with ourselves. Usually a girl may begin feeling the differences between her and her peers in grade school. By the time middle school and highschool rolls around, a lot of females are susceptible to altering their appearance to appease the opinion of society. Some girls try to lose weight, others start caking on the make up, and some wish desperately that they were anything than what they are. We see models, actresses and musicians and try our best to emulate them. As for dark skin girls who suffer from feelings of incompetence, there's no relief. We are stuck with the ski that God gave us, and if people don't believe that to be beautiful then unfortunately we're out of luck. My own experience with difference in skin tinctures started at an early age, and travels with me even today. Growing up as the daughter of a Jamaican mother, and an African father, I was synonymous with the word " dark. " It stuck to me like an invisible, yet very significant tab that bore revelations to my identity. Key words like blackey, coal, tarbaby, african booty scratcher ,blackass, and midnight all ring a familiar tone in my ears, for I have heard them all at least once in my life. Although no one was ever bold enough to state " you're ugly because you're dark " it was obvious in social settings such as school, and even church, that my natural beauty suffered greatly due to that one inadmissible fact. I was dark skinned. I remember distinctly admiring and envying my lighter skinned, wavy haired counter parts. the boys always wanted to sit by them. When grown ups came about, they'd comment specifically on how pretty they looked. My feelings of inadequacy weren't understood by my juvenile mind. I dismissed this behavior as normal. They were pretty, I was not. Luckily I grew out of my mentality, though it still upsets me that there are young girls all around the world who don't feel beautiful only because of the color of their skin. I hold no animosity, hatred or jealousy towards my sisters of a lighter skin. I never choose to consider myself as beneath anyone, and I never short change myself into believing that I'm less beautiful because I'm different from what some may consider appealing. I've grown to completely disregard skin tone as a definition of what beauty is, considering a person's facial features is what I inspect to categorize their appearance. However, in the world that we live in today, it's obvious that peoples opinion on skin will always influence on what they consider to be beautiful. I can't change the world, and I don't intend to. I just felt it was necessary to explore this interesting thought scheme. 5 comments|post comment

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