True Beauty

I am now 23 years old and ever since I can remember, my skin and eye color have been the topic of conversation from my friends to adults alike. now I know we've all heard the arguments over and over about the light skin dark skin controversy in the Black community. But throughout the years I have only been able to find people on two sides of this issue. They either recognize the problem and try to do things to change it, or are apart of the problem. I am a West Indian American woman, I am very fair skinned and have green/gray/sometimes blue eyes, depending on the weather or what I wear. There it is. I am Black. I love being black, I am African, and I am not ashamed to say it. So why is it that people are constantly trying to put me in categories and boxes about who i am and the way I should think? It is one thing if you want to assume that I am mixed...fine...but then when I tell that I am not, why of why do you think it is ok to argue with me? i do believe I am the best judge as to who I am. The complexion of a persons skin we all know is heavily pounced upon at the birth a child in our community. As a result from the moment that child is born there treatment is affected and sometimes decided by the child's complexion. Growing up with this look and my mindset has taught a lot about who we are as human beings and who black people are as a race. After a while I began to despise my skin color and my eyes. Children assumed I was conceited. Girls didn't want to be friends with me. Teachers and adults treated me different. I was just "such a pretty little girl." There was nothing that I could do. Besides reject everything that they loved. I was an avid reader as a child and as a teen I began to learn more about my heritage, about my inner Africa that got lost in the mumbo jumbo that is America. And when I found her I never let her go. We need to love our children right. Teach them self love. If I was so affected by so called positive energy, imagine how the negative energy my peers received affected them? Embrace who you are . TRUE BEAUTY. I heavily embrace my africaness and on top of that I have chosen to live an off the cusp life style that tends to make people uncomfortable. I can't help it I am an off the cusp kind of person. People seem to think this is a product of my so called "mixed" look. Being interested in yoga, eating healthy, and a holistic lifestyle? I think it qualifies as a hippy at best. And I'm fine with that. I wear my hair natural. Apparently as black women we should feel shame when our hair is worn in its natural state. Even as a young girl I was always awed and amazed at how negatively people viewed something that was so inherently natural. For all these believers in God, they fight so hard to go against what god has created. I wore my hair relaxed from the ages of 12 to 19. I wanted to stop perming my hair at the age of 15 but pressure from my mother and other family members prevented me from doing so. People would say things like "You can't do it, you're gonna start perming it again in a few months" or "Why you want your hair like that?" "How do you comb it?" The last one is my favorite. How did we ever allow ourselves to get so out of touch with the people that we are. The people that we were born to be. The concept of beauty has plagued the black woman since she left the shores of Africa, and the brainwashing has not stopped. It is a legacy passed down through generations. Women teaching there daughters to love themselves, but only like this...To me this seems like another form of hate. The chains no longer about our feet and hands but now about our minds. My light skin doesn't make me any less black, and more beautiful, or any more ugly. I am. That is all. I am.