Something 'bout girls, skin color and other stuff

As I scrolled down my Instagram discovery page, I felt some sort of hate towards myself. I felt horrible and ugly, felt like something was wrong with me. The more I saw 'perfect' girls and their amazing pictures, the more I found faults with myself and kept digging myself into a deep hole. I questioned myself too much, thoughts swirling in my head..it made me wonder if I was the only one that did that.

I've always been very conscious of those around me, what they did and what they thought of me. I guess for some reason it mattered to me how other people looked at me. My priority had always been to make other people happy, to satisfy them and sometimes I was so focused at doing that, that I would redirect from what I really wanted and just focus on making people happy. Like it was a law written down somewhere. I've repeated some stuff there, read on.

A clear picture of little black children playing in the street flashes through my mind as I lay quietly on the sofa and allow myself to reflect on some of the things that have been consuming my thoughts. Suddenly I want to know why left, right and center all I see is how the black person is portrayed. Never have I been this conscious about being an African before and I realised that when I moved abroad.

Now more than ever I am battling with who I am and what I'm becoming but that's not even the scary part. What scares me is that during this path of trying to find myself, trying to find answers to all the sick questions that I've been having..that I'll lose myself and completely get off track. I don't even know what I'm trying to write about here, honestly.

Look, I dream about a time when black girls will look at each other and realise that they are all beautiful, no matter their color shade. I dream of a time when black and white girl stereotypes will long be forgotten and all that will be, will be us. When we can look at each other and see no shade, see no faults but love and togetherness.

This post is a really confusing one and as I am typing right now, I'm also trying to figure out what it is I really want to say...

I don't want to vouch for any skin color and neither do I want to hate on another. That's clear. The truth however is that everybody wants to be light-skinned these days, everybody wants to be a 'yellow bone' and if you not one then for some reason you are less attractive. I wonder if light-skinned girls feel pretty all the time?

Let me confuse you some more.

Being African. Why is that only cool when you living in the U.S and you light-skinned? Why do some people ask/tell about someone that they know or worked with who lives in Africa once they hear that you're from Africa? As a black girl, how often do you find yourself staring at another girl's picture and wish that your skin was lighter? Your nose a bit bigger or smaller? Your hair a bit longer?

The point is, coming up here has made me love my black skin a few hundred times more than I did before and it has also taught me that we are not different at all, especially if we choose to disregard the skin color factor. Attending a school as the only black kid actually taught me how to love my skin. Everyday I learned how special it was but nobody treated me differently because of that. I guess I was a bit scared because of how things are back home, the relationship between black and white people, its nothing like it is up here. I was scared because I had never been in a situation like this before, but that's the beauty of life right? To live, love and learn.

My heart will always be grateful to the folks as Pasvik FHS that took me in as one of their own and never made me feel like a stranger. It makes me smile when I can't think of a moment when somebody tried to be mean to me because of my skin color or where I came from. That folk high school, is the best in the whole wide world, I can vouch for that.

After each workout, some trainers always say that each body is unique and that only you can realise your worth and start loving yourself. That's rather easier said than done but we are getting there, we are embracing who we are whether we are ten shades lighter than the next girl, ten shades darker, tall, skinny, fat, short, clumsy, a bit old-fashioned or always keeping up with the trends. We are loving us and we are coming together, that's what makes the future exciting and I hope you know that!

I guess this time around not even words could express what I really wanted to say, I'll make another post under the same topic:)

hearts, Queen

#namibian #africa #norway #blackgirls #feminism #ilovelife #blogging #confused