don't call me pretty

...maybe i just have a great personality

I am strong

I am intelligent

I am beautiful 

I am what God designed.

I am heavenly

I am imagination brought to life

I am dreams fulfilled

I am the ideal woman

…This is a lie

I have lied to myself again

I have been lying to myself without end

But I say these things until they become true

Again…

I am…

don't call me pretty...maybe i just have a great personality

Picture this. It’s the summer of 2009. I just survived my first year of high school. I’ve already been bitten by approximately nine thousand mosquitos and it’s only day two of Senior High Church Camp. To be honest, I was probably wearing some ill-fitting jean skirt while waiting outside of the camp mess hall for dinner. The hope was to look good for Chapel but the heat had other plans. 

Friends and I were just chatting. We were reminiscing on the fun activities we’d done that past day. There’s an excellent chance that a scavenger hunt had been involved in the day's festivities. And somehow the conversation turned to attractiveness and dating. It’s important to note that I had (and kinda still do) very little experience in this area. At fourteen, I had yet to have my first kiss, hold someone’s hand that wasn’t a family member’s, or even tell a boy I liked him.  

So having very little to add to this portion of the conversation, I stayed mostly quiet. That was until this stupid boy - let’s just call him Brad, partly because I don’t remember his name and partly because Brad just feels right, doesn’t it? - had to open his equally as stupid mouth.

He said and I quote, “Black girls just aren’t attractive, unless they’re like Tyra Banks or something. Think about it.” Not that this was just his opinion but that this was a fact. It was undisputed that Black girls didn’t have an ounce of pretty in them. And before you ask, yes, yes he was.

It wasn’t like Brad had said this as I was passing by and I happened to just overhear it. We were fully in conversation with a whole group of people. That group of people remained mostly silent. Except for one guy. His great defense of Black girls - “Well I hooked up with a Black girl once and it was great!”

I prayed that God would let the rapture happen right there and then. I was the only Black girl in that group of people. But I wasn’t the only girl. The others were white and Hispanic and none could come to my defense. But what would they even say? Brad had spoken with such authority that it stunned everyone. Some made a couple of passing comments but nothing significant. Then we were called in for dinner. The conversation was forgotten by everyone… except me. 

What Brad said is still with me today. I hear that comment anytime I see a cute boy or even think someone is flirting with me. ‘Black girls just aren’t attractive.’ So why would they like me?

~

The thing is, statements like this have been said to me in one form or another my entire life. It’s been shown to me my whole life. Rarely, if ever, did I get to see dark-skin women portrayed as pretty or desirable. I’ve been told I’m ‘pretty for a Black girl.’ One guy, who incidentally was my first kiss, told me I wasn’t cute or ugly. I was cuddly - which still isn’t a compliment when you’re sixteen. I had many guy friends say ‘Oh, Natalia’s cool but just can’t date a Black girl.’

Needless, to say my self-image basically lives in the toilet.

Not only did I have to deal with this messaging from the external world, but it also came from my internal world. I don’t mean internally as within my mind. I mean my immediate surroundings. I lived in a very white town and went to a very white school. I had to face my undesirability every day. 

I saw the difference between myself and family members that got to grow up around other Black folks. I know they got most of the same external messaging as I did but not in their immediate setting. They got to see Black women being desired up close and personal. Whereas I, only got to see it from in front of a screen - knowing that it came from the imagination of writers. 

Imagination is all I had to ever believe that I could be attractive. 

But my imagination does have the data to back it up. A piece written by Texas Southern University professor, Brittany C. Slatton, highlights that there is a long-standing precedent of Black women being excluded as dating partners. This is not only in comparison with white men but also with men of color. While research shows that racial biases have gone down over time it doesn’t consider the nuances of implicit and explicit racism. This means, that in public it’s understood that racism is incorrect but out of sight these same white people will display racially charged behaviors and thoughts. In other words, we live in a society that prides itself on colorblindness, when we’re anything but. 

The image of Black women today is to frame them as everything white women are not. Slatton starts her paper with a quote from a middle-class white man that sums this idea up perfectly: “Just the term ‘black women’ conjures up thoughts of an overweight, dark-skinned, loud, poorly educated person with gold teeth yelling at somebody in public. I hope that doesn’t make me racist but honestly that’s the 1st thing I think of.”

Now, I didn’t ever have to read this quote to know that this is the prevailing perception of women that look like me. Surprisingly enough, some research shows that Black women in comparison with white have lower reports of body image issues. That even Black women with larger bodies are more likely to find aspects about their bodies that they like in comparison to white women. 

However, scholars have long warned against using the comparison model when it comes to studying Black women and body image. As scholars dive further into the topic, they find that Black women aren’t impervious to the messaging of Eurocentric beauty standards. Especially for African American women in college, the longer they’re exposed to European beauty images, the more concern they have about the need for thinness and internalize the dominant culture’s standard of beauty.

In other words the longer they’re exposed to whiteness, the more body and beauty image issues they face. Well, I grew up with that my whole life. The research on Black women and body image and beauty standards is limited. Studies done on the topic are often focused on middle-class white women. Scholars have only recently started to dive into the different ways body image affects Black women. They’ve found that our image issues focus more on fitting our hair to European ideals and the prevalence of colorism in our communities. More research needs to be focused just on us.

~

I think it’s easier said than done to just tell me or others that feel the same as me, that it’s only important that I love myself. That it doesn’t matter what other people think of me. But I think people forget how much work that takes. And it’s not that I don’t want or haven’t started to do the work, it’s just a grueling process. They forget that I was constantly bombarded with messages that I wasn’t enough. I was shown I wasn’t enough. I was often told to my face that I wasn’t enough. 

And it wasn’t that I never got to see Black women in my everyday life that were considered attractive by the masses. But they were the exception, not the rule. My mother is gorgeous but she has lighter skin than me and she’s thin. My sister is very tall, thin, and curvy in a way that’s acceptable. My best friend is lighter-skinned than me, slim-thick, and athletic. They too are constantly surrounded by whiteness, but more closely align to the Eurocentric standards of body image and desirability. It’s not to say they never deal with body image issues but it’s different. 

In many ways, I feel like I fit the description given by the man in Slatton’s article. Because I have never been the exception to the rule. So I strive to fade into the background because I know that’s where I belong - or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I’ve worked on being funny and having a great personality so at least since I know the guys I find attractive won’t like me back we can be friends.

I never thought I was the prettiest girl or the funniest or the smartest growing up. I was always dark-skinned and I had braces for most of middle school. I was always thicker than the other girls around me. I had curves sooner than everyone else. So I never thought (and still don’t) think of myself as attractive. On a scale of one to ten, I’m a four at best - if I’ve showered, but on a little makeup and wore the right jeans. 

I know what you’re thinking, Natalia, you’re being really harsh on yourself. And I would answer, am I? Regardless, I want to make it perfectly clear, this isn’t about having guys find me attractive or wanting a partner or anything like that. It’s about the prevailing notion that in all aspects of life Black women are seen as undesireable. It’s about the image that to be a Black woman is to be lacking. And I don’t want to feel that way because I know it’s a falsehood. 

I have yet to meet a Black woman that I don’t believe is simply an angel dropped from heaven. Who’s beauty internally and externally is beyond compare. But I see myself as an exception to that rule. 

I know that this is supposed to be a newsletter about middles, but when it comes to self-image, I am definitely at my beginning.