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Can You Box Beauty

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Curves In 3D

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Thursday Nov 3, 2016... Welcome to the Curvy Studios...

The Secret Life of a Light-Skinned African-American Girl by Diamond Durant

I was always told I was black. I was black, but not quite black enough or not black black but still black to say the least. I was told that in my life, I would have certain privileges. Privileges that darker women would not be able to acquire and I should be grateful for that. I should be happy that I would be more desired for receptionist jobs and I should be overjoyed that if a white boy happened to like me, I would be eligible for a seat at family dinner because I’m not black black, remember?

I should appreciate the automatic assumptions that I am foreign, that if I have a weave it is my real hair, and that I’m way too narcissistic to give most boys the time of day. I should never ever complain about my skin because real black girls go through things every day that I will never be able to relate to.

I understand that my skin has privileged me in some ways. No, I was never bullied or called ‘burnt’, or compared to a monkey or a roach. I was never told by a boy that he didn’t like me because of my skin color. But, being told by people that I wasn’t black or I wasn’t black enough took a different toll on me.“At a time when some girls my age wanted a boyfriend or bigger breasts, I wanted dark skin” I remember going to a camp when I was younger, where I became friends with a girl who happened to be white. We had gotten close, well, as close as two 12-year-olds could be. She came to camp one day and told me that her father said we couldn’t be friends anymore. “My father told me that you’re still a nigger even though you look different. He said you’re the sneakiest kind of nigger because you never know what side you’re on.”

 

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