Brown Skin Is Beautiful Skin
Wed, 06/6/2007 by Karen | Posted in: Product Reviews
Two weeks ago I watched an Oprah episode titled “Children Ashamed of the Way They Look,” which also launched a new campaign to promote self-esteem for younger girls, O Girl, O Beautiful.
Oprah’s guests — celebs and a few regular people – talked about their experiences with beauty and self-esteem within their various cultures.
The story of two of the guests, Tangela and her son Najee, resonated with me, and here’s a copy from the Oprah Website:
As a child, Tangela says she was teased and tormented by other African-Americans because of her dark complexion. Then, when she was 19 years old, Tangela found out she was pregnant with her first child. While most expectant mothers just hope for a healthy child, Tangela prayed for something more.
“I would just say to God, ‘Please don’t make my son dark. Please don’t make my child dark,’” she says. “I didn’t want him to experience what I experienced … being called names, being talked about.”
When Tangela’s son, Najee, was born with dark skin, she says her heart ached for his future. “I saw people looking at him as if something was wrong with him,” she says. “That’s the pain that I really felt, more so than my own darkness.”
When Najee was 5 years old, children started teasing him about his complexion. In kindergarten, he says a female classmate, who was also African-American, made a hurtful remark that he remembers to this day. “The negative comment was, ‘Oh, you’re so black,” he says.
As Najee grew older, the insults continued. “I’ve been called names like darkie, dark chocolate, blackie,” he says. “Most of my negative comments do come from other blacks, and it’s extremely painful.”
Najee says he tries to hide his deep-seated insecurities from his friends and family by pretending to be happy. But deep down, a lifetime of low self-esteem is starting to take a toll on him. “Sometimes I have felt that I didn’t even want to be on this earth,” he says. “Sometimes I wish that God didn’t make me this way.”
His mother says her biggest regret is not understanding how much pain Najee has been feeling over the years. Tangela says she tried asking Najee if anyone teased him, but he never wanted to discuss it.
“I tried to give him books and encouragement and let him know he was beautiful. He had beautiful teeth,” she says. “It almost didn’t matter how much I told him because I didn’t know what was going on.”
Tangela and Najee’s story made me think of how skin color is treated within my culture. I’m Filipino, and my experience with dark skin color sounds a little like theirs. Most Filipinos consider lighter brown skin more attractive. If you’re a young Filipino girl running around outside you usually have an aunt, grandmother or an older family friend yelling at you to get inside “before you get too dark.” And if you do tan somebody is going to make a comment about it; note: it’s never positive.
My regular skin color is on the darker side, but since I love the sun and being outdoors, I’m apt to get even darker with a tan. Several of my close Filipino friends and family constantly comment on the state of my browness: “Karen’s too dark,” “Karen, your skin is sooooooo dark,” and “It’s too bad you’re dark like me.” I can’t lie — it bothered me for a really long time. I would usually just shrug and try to say something to play it off like, “Oh, well, what can ya do?”
Last year a close Filipino friend of 20 years made a comment a few days before my wedding. I don’t know if it my was pre-wedding insanity, but I just snapped. I told her very matter of factly that, yes, I was pretty damn brown, but that’s just how I was and that I LOVED MY SKIN COLOR and that BEING DARK WAS THE SHIZZ.
I’ve decided to celebrate my tan fabulousness but still get a touch angry when a friend or loved one makes one of those comments. Instead of shrugging it off I’ve decided to try to engage them (the ones who deserve the time) in discussion: Why do you think its okay to make that comment? Have you noticed that I never frown and say “You’re so pale”? Did you ever think that repeatedly saying something like “You’re too brown” to another Filipino might be hurtful?
I know that talking about it with my friends and family won’t revolutionize negative cultural stereotypes anytime soon, but it feels like the right thing to do.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
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1. kia said, on June 11th, 2007:
karen thanks for sharing! i didn’t get to see that episode of oprah, but it still hurts to hear. it’s also insightful to hear that this happens in other cultures too since a lot of times african americans/blacks are always viewed as the worst of the worst…..
2. Toya said, on June 12th, 2007:
Good for you, Karen! I definitely understand how you feel. I think most of people of color have had a similar experience.
3. Karen said, on June 12th, 2007:
Hi Kia and Toya. Thank for your comments. I’ve always admired Oprah and her fearlessness in bringing up sensitive topics of culture/color on her show. I was almost afraid to post this entry because it was so personal (even more personal than me going on and on about my endless war against body hair and zits). But I really hope it gets a few readers to reflect and think about the words they say and what their culture deems as beautiful.
4. Valerie said, on June 22nd, 2007:
Right on Karen! You were brave to stand up to your family. I am African American and have gone through the same thing my whole life. It can be so painful when the people who claim to love you show such distain. Talking about it helps, questioning it helps and doing something different helps.
Over the years I’ve had such trouble finding makeup that was the right color I decided not to use any. Then I found ‘ok’ colors but the chemicals made me break out. So, I questioned it, talked about it but I also started Valana Minerals, my own all natural cosmetics company for women of color (many shades of tan and brown).
I’ve had customers tell me that using my products was the first time they have ever found a color that fit. I’m blessed to be able to offer my beautiful sisters another option.
Keep getting the word out Karen, people will listen.
5. Karen said, on June 22nd, 2007:
Hi Valerie, Thanks for stopping by and for your comments. Good luck with your business! We need more women of color who own their own companies (cosmetics and otherwise).
6. Janice said, on May 6th, 2008:
i’m from the philippines too, and i can totally relate to you!
7. aareille said, on May 14th, 2008:
You go girl.Karen i have to say i understand you!I have brown-skin&i’m very proud of it!!!!!!!!!!
8. Karen said, on May 14th, 2008:
Hi Janice,
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Glad to hear that I’m not the only one out there…
9. Karen said, on May 14th, 2008:
Hi Aareielle,
Thanks for the words of encouragement. You’re brown and bee-yoo-tiful, girl!
10. sammie said, on May 31st, 2008:
Hey girl!
Yeah, I can totally sympathise with you- I am mixed asian and am quite brown with my NC 35 skin. People were always like “Why are you so brown?” or whatever, and let me tell you, it REALLY got me. I mean, what sort of question is that anyway? (I could have asked “why are you so stupid?!”, but politeness dictates otherwise.)
It doesn’t matter to me so much now because I’m older now (aw, man!) but as a kid…boy it is NOT what you want to hear
Thanks for sharing this, nice to know its not just me!
=)
11. Trina said, on October 6th, 2008:
Dark brown skin here, and always has been considered sorta inferior by our fellow Pinoys and Pinays for my color, especially when contrasted with our prized mestizas. Well, when I took a plane and studied abroad, the very first Spanish woman (from Madrid, not from Cebu) I ever met at university wanted to know where I got my “tan” so she could go there, too. Ironic, isn’t it.
12. Gerry said, on October 22nd, 2008:
Karen thanks for your post. I am of mixed blood, anglo indian and maltese italian (i know ethnically ambiguous right!) But I live in Australia. Growing up I was teased. I once had a girl tell me that a hispanic boy in my class had beautiful skin, like chocolate but that I was a “blackie”. I was 7 years old! And the boy had the same colour skin as I did, maybe even darker. I couldnt understand her cruelness. Especially because she was teased by other children for being overweight, but i was always nice to her. Until that day anyway. When I was 13 I was teased by mean boys in my year, they called me a terrorist. (it was 2001), the ignorance was infuriating and made me selfconcious of my appearance.
But now I am 20, and I believe things are changing. Now I take pride in my brown skin. My fair friends are always commenting how they wish they could get a tan like my year long one lol. I think its important to realise that you can be beautiful no matter what colour you are. Fair is beautiful, Black is beautiful, Asian skin is beautiful, Brown is beautiful. Beauty is defined by a person, who they are and what they do aswell how they look. Its when people discriminate that they are not beautiful.
Oh and Valerie, i have struggled to find a right match for my skin colour since I started wearing make up! Congratulations on your company. Link me up hun
)
13. Diva Style said, on November 14th, 2008:
Oh Karen, you’re a woman after my own heart! When people make disparaging comments concerning skin color or hair texture or anything of a racist or predjudice nature, I am the first to open my mouth and speak out! People need to understand that it’s NOT okay to degrade someone else because their beauty is underappreciated by society and not the “status quo” so to speak. Right now, I am actually finishing up a book entitled, “Don’t Play in the Sun” about the struggles of the Black race when it comes to colorism, which is quintessentially when some people in the same race downgrade each other due to certain physical attributes and/or think they are superior based on their skin tone, features, etc. Sad but true. We have to put a stop to this! It is killing the self-esteem of some children and adults.
Diva Style´s last blog post..Makeup Mondays~
14. sunmom said, on February 7th, 2009:
hi karen! i’m a Filipina with brown skin too! i’m surprised it took an entry like this for me to leave a comment as i’ve been reading your blog for several days now. i’m also a beauty enthusiast but never really got that part of me into play because i had a very limiting environment. it is only now that i have my own job and family that i was able to start practicing make-up and stuff. i initially thought it would be an innate thing until my eyeshadow experiments didn’t turn out the way i wanted them to. it’s from you i got the idea of putting eyeshadow on almond/asian eyes eyes. that’s why i keep backtracking ’til i get to your very first entry just to check out your fotd’s even though they might be out of season. well, i’m off topic, but this is just to let you know how inspiring you are for someone like me. anyway, i’m a tech support rep here in the Philippines for a US company and i get a lot of discrimination when my customers find out i’m from here. it’s just too sad that people can really look at unimportant stuff to measure another person. but as long as we know we’re beautiful, unique and talented, it radiates and that’s all that matters…More power to your site!
sunmom´s last blog post..The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems