Darkies, Stand Up!: Towards a Practicing Love of Dark, Black Females

“Despite the raised consciousness of black people around the question of internalized racism, most black magazines still favor images of black women with long straight hair. Often, in advertisements the light-skinned woman with straight hair will be depicted as the female who has a partner or who is more sexually appealing.

Without a doubt, dark-skinned black females suffer the most abuse when black people internalize white-supremacist notions of beauty.

For it really does not matter how many positive images of blackness we surround ourselves with, if deep down we continue to feel bad about dark skin and kinky hair.

I think most black folks know the kind of changes that must take place if we are to collectively unlearn racist body self-hatred, yet we often do not practice what we know. This is the challenge facing us. How many black females seize the opportunity daily to say or do something in relation to another black female or male that aims to affirm blackness and subvert the usual racist ways of seeing the black body? If internalized racism enters the souls of black folks through the years of socialization then we are not going to be rid of it by simply giving shallow expressions to the notion that black is beautiful. We must live in our bodies in such a way that we daily indicate that black is beautiful. We must talk about blackness differently. And we cannot do any of this constructive action without first loving blackness.

To love ourselves, our blackness, we must be constantly vigilant, working to resist white-supremacist thinking and internalized racism. For some of us, this means cutting down the number of hours we watch television so that we are not subjected to forms of subliminal socialization shaping how we see the world. It means searching for decolonized black individuals who by the way they live and work demonstrate their love of blackness, their care of the self. Our love of blackness is strengthened by their presence. It means cultivating non-black allies who have worked to unlearn their racism. Black women’s body esteem is strengthened by good nutrition, exercise, and positive thoughts affirming that we deserve to be well – that our bodies are precious.”

bell hooks, “Dreaming Ourselves Dark and Deep: Black Beauty”, Sisters of the Yam: black women and self-recovery

Due to the war against Black education, the enforcement of white supremacy through law and practice and the global mind washing media images which highlight Black people as dumb, Blacks in higher education continue to serve as an anomaly. At my college, we had about 15 Black people in my entering class, half of whom were “mixed” or “bi-racial”, three-quarters who were light skinned. My class was a typical entering class at my white college. While the small number wasn’t as shocking to me, (I’d been in majority white classes since I was “promoted” to a higher level in 6th grade), the percentage of “Black” students who chose to ignore other Black folk and completely identify with the white students was a bit harder to swallow. A historical issue within the Black community, those who “hang” and those who don’t, surfaced for me in a more visceral way. It hit home that, although light skinned, my love of Blackness would be a deterrent with not only my white friends but my Black ones as well. I wasn’t discouraged, bring it on!, but I was disappointed in my kin.

This is a critique of my light-skinned, mixed and bi-racial Black sisters. Too often I see these Black women, misrepresenting. Too often, they are quick to claim their Blackness even as they hate, literally, on our dark-skinned side. Especially alarming to me is how many light-skinned and mixed sisters have never befriended a dark-skinned sister because the light girl has felt, “intimidated” or worse, “hated on cuz I’m cute”. The only hate I see is the hate against our dark sisters who hold down and represent for our race everyday. They fight to exist within a world that highlights whitening cream, blemish/dark spot removers, while selling brown colored tanning products. The desire to blacken up a white woman, to mix that Black women’s sexuality and fire with that white women’s aesthetic and purity is a secret to no one. Therefore, it’s clear why being light is considered sexy, exotic or more appealing for Black women. With Black men clearly embracing their patriarchal power and aiming for that number one, white man’s spot, the overwhelming hate against a woman who has dark skin, nappy hair, big nose and wide hips in almost suffocating. Light girls want to rep the sexualized aspects of blackness, the big butt, the “thickness”, even as they wear a size 8 or weigh in at 120lbs. Black men love to shout out their mixed-Black and Asian-Black and Latino-Black and ANYTHING BUT BLACK-Black sisters to show that they love their Black women. And throughout it all, the hate piles up against women who are truly Black, dark, thick and beautiful.

The issue of color/features/blood is not a new one, but, for me, has always been fascinating. As the light part of a dark/light twin pair, I’ve always known that I could have come out the dark one (which I used to long for). While my sister has the dark skin, I carry many of the Black features: big nose, thick lips, wide hips, big breasts. I used to long for my sisters slightly narrower face, perfect feet and ability to stay a size 7. Yet my sister knew that my light skin would afford me access to places she’d be vehemently denied. I knew it, too. Teachers fawned over my intelligence; she was a problem child who should get testing. Family members marveled at our different natures, I was the shy, cry-baby; she was the rebellious accident prone one. To this day, while married with two children, my sister wonders if our family is disappointed in her lack of a college degree as she envies my lifestyle of single freedom. Color has played a big role in our lives and we talk about it openly and honestly.

Yet I notice, particularly with the light skinned sisters in my life, an unwillingness to embrace the darkies among us while reifying white European aesthetics. How many light skinned sisters do you know with dark skinned friends and of those, how many are affirming their friend’s beauty? I have to say I’ve found this more prevalent among mixed and biracial than light skinned sisters. Light skinned Black girls who are not mixed many times have grown up in colorful families and like myself, practice a love of blackness because it’s their mom, their sister, their cousin, their neighbor. Mixed and biracial girls, however, particularly those raised by white moms and with predominately white features, stick together like glue- when they aren’t with their non-Black (white, asian, latino) best friend. I wonder how many of my mixed and biracial friends even have dark skinned girlfriends. I know of a few who do, who are actively loving blackness everyday. Yet, the huge disconnect between mixed and biracial girls and a dark skinned Black girl is disheartening.

What are the ways that conscious mixed and biracial girls are practicing their love of blackness when they continue to enforce their privileged European aesthetics? I’m always disgusted to find that the loudest, “conscious” mixed and biracial sisters (particularly those who I went to school with) who profess a love for blackness, critique representations of blackness and attempt to engage likeminded “down” brothers are often the same ones who buy into notions of white beauty, straight/mixed hair, narrow nose, “exotic” features, and so forth. I urge my consciousness sisters to really practice what they preach in regards to loving blackness. It’s important that we actively critique our own contributions to a destructive system of hate towards black women. Only love conquers hate, and only through love of our sisters will we begin to heal the wounds of racism and white supremacy.

So how to we begin to answer dr. hook’s question and “subvert the usual racist ways of seeing the black body”? Maybe it means actually acknowledging your privilege in much the same way we encourage our brothers and white people to acknowledge theirs. For a moment, spend time hanging out with your Black friend, talking about life, love, beauty and self-actualization, a way of moving beyond shallow ways of loving Black people. For the biracial and mixed Black girls, it just might mean leaving your comfort zone of exoticism and embracing a dark Black community where you learn to really appreciate the black of blackness, where BLACK is the root of the beauty.