“As a child, my mother made sure that I knew I was beautiful. I can remember her singing songs like Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder to me every night as a child. But there are always more influences than just your mother in this world. I remember once in elementary school a substitute teacher looked at me and said, ‘Wow, you’re really pretty, but you have some dark features.’ She was referring to my nose. I was born with my mother’s light complexion and daddy’s broad nose. It left me to ponder, what are ‘dark’ features? It was then I realized there was a dysfunction in the perception of beauty. Her small comment left me wondering what ‘light’ or ‘dark’ features were and if one equates to beauty over the other. I am just so grateful to have a family full of proud Black women of all shades and sizes. James Baldwin once said, ‘Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.’ It was from imitating them that I learned there was beauty in every feature of every Black woman. It was through imitating them I learned my pride, my strength, my figure, my faith, and even my ‘dark’ features were all a part of my beauty. I strive to be a beautiful Black woman every day so that maybe one little brown baby with ‘dark’ features can have something they can be proud to imitate.”
