“ ‘And she was the kind of black girl who’d been told as a child that she had better be smart because her looks wouldn’t save her, and then told as a young woman that she was pretty for a dark-skinned girl …’ Those words resonated with me as I read Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I vividly remember being insecure about my short and ‘nappy’ hair, my dark complexion, and my big lips. The representation of Black beauty looked nothing like me during my most vulnerable adolescent years. Internally, I struggled to love myself, which caused outward rebellion. Luckily, as I matured, I grew to love all of me. I wish the younger me would have realized that the features I thought distanced me from beauty connected me to the most amazing people this world has to offer.”
