Brown Skin

Brown Skin

Took me a long time to love and appreciate my “Brown skin”.  Growing up in the projects and finding myself in a predominately “white” high school was not shocking to me or my system.  You see I didn’t know I didn’t like my “Brown skin”.  As a child I had a “Barbie Doll”, she was thin had long blond hair and pretty little pink lips.  Hell I thought that “beautiful”.   Needing my hair to be bone straight I wouldn’t use grease because I wanted it to “move” like my “white” cohort members.  I vividly and painfully remember coming out of the shower one day singing, “I can’t get off my horse…” with the towel wrapped around my wet hair.  I was swinging my head around as if the towel was my hair when all of a sudden to my horror, my brother had snatched that towel off my head and replied to my melody with, “you shouldn’t have never got up there.”  He was so “Black” and down with “Pubic Enemy”.  He understood what it meant to not have any of his mentors on “postage stamp”. 

It was imperative that when engaged in speech I sounded “proper” and used the correct word, tense devoid of anything that would identify me as “Brown”.  I prided myself on the feedback I received from “Brown” skinned people who found it so amazing that I sounded, “white”.   I even took great joy in watching the reaction of “white” folk that I had the intense pleasure of meeting after talking with the person over the phone.  You see I wasn’t as “Black” as my brother and what I though was cute -- had some grave undertones that I was not aware of as young “Brown” teenager. 

1.       I suspect it’s okay to teach your child to lie to get ahead;

a.       Sure NAACP may have some volunteer roles – I’m willing to bet my “Blackness” that they don’t come void of “perks”- like a direct path to a great job.

2.       I heard a man who wanted to be a woman say the following words. “Don’t let me come out of this dress and whoop your ass.”

a.       In as much as he proved to me right then and there that he could never really be a woman; a white woman can NEVER be Black;

3.       Is it me or should the NAACP have performed due diligence in their background checks.

a.       The NAACP's principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice. The NAACP seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through the democratic processes.

4.       Suspect behavior – when any “white” person would want to “Black” to this extreme and disrespectful manner, it should be almost a criminal with criminal charges.

a.       Impersonating a “Black” person in the most egregious manner.

In as much as she claims with all that crap about “behaving” Black one cannot be “Black” because of their hair or the Black boyfriend or a big booty.  Blackness is a beautiful thing and you know why?  My mother and her mother and her mother had to fight all the way.  My father and his father and his father had to fight all the way.  Sure I had my own struggles, but I can now feel and appreciate their struggle.  I am concerned about folks with cancer, but I can’t shave my head and say I can identify with the pain of a cancer patient.  You see our Blackness was stripped, ripped, torn, tattered, spit on, chased by dogs, locked up, hung like wet clothes in the hot sun and in the heat of the night, it was raped, and cheated, our Blackness was laughed at, banned and cursed, our Blackness was baked at 100 degrees for over 400 years. 

God has shown us great mercy and grace and yet we continue to neglect Him in our treatment towards each other….

Aside from all that - Baby girl you’ll never be Beautifully Black….

MsConcerned