Written by Ariah Hills
I was in the fourth grade the first time I started worrying about my appearance. The people I became friends with at that time were extremely self conscious. Jackets were worn everyday to hide our bellies that had not yet lost baby fat. Listening to them everyday talk about how they hoped middle school or high school would bring them the bodies they deserved was discouraging. I soon began hating myself. It first started with my body, I was a curvy girl. But everyone around me seemed to be thin. Not only were they thin but they had light skin and hair that fell on their shoulders rather than this poof of hair that went in every direction. I soon began resenting myself. Why was it that everyone around me had similar features. Even on TV, there weren’t many people who looked like me.
This realization lead me on a journey of self hatred. Every night I would wish to look like the girls around me. I was sick of my dark skin and hair that refused to go flat. My hair was always done and I refused to go to school in braids. My jaw was too wide to be seen as feminine. I hated everything about myself. I stopped going outside because I knew it would only take a matter of seconds before I my skin would get darker and all these small freckles would start popping up everywhere. I would silently pray in my bed, begging to be someone else. Anyone else that wasn’t me. My life was soon stuck in this loop of eating disorders, self harm and anxiety. I blamed this loop on my blackness. To me, being black was the worse thing that could have ever happened to me. But those feelings soon turned to sadness over the fact that I was denouncing my blackness. There was no way out of this and I just accepted that I would never be happy in my own skin.
That was until I read an article on gurl.com. It was titled “Why Does Being Weird And Black Make Me White?”. It was my sophomore year of high school when I first saw this. After I read this article I slowly started embracing my “flaws”. I began looking for role models in my life who were black. I realized they were all over and they weren’t being silenced anymore. Today we have a black first lady who is unapologetically black. More women are wearing their hair natural and refuse to bleach their skin all because they were taught a lighter woman is seen as beautiful. I am an awkward black girl with kinky hair and freckled skin. I may not sound or act like the typical black person but that is okay. And it’s okay for you to embrace your differences. Don’t sit there hating yourself because it will only lead you on a terrible path. Learn to love you, this wonderful person who is perfectly imperfect.