You're On My Yams Brotha

September - Earth, Wind and Fire (1978)

I remember being teased relentlessly throughout my childhood and my teenage life where people would say that because of my skin I’ll never be beautiful enough, they would even recommend skin bleaching products. So as a child I quickly realised that as a dark skinned girl I was not considered beautiful enough… At that time I didn’t know that it was the negativity from the people around me that was causing me to hate my skin and myself for that matter. I remember a time during school photos where a girl shouted “she’s too dark! You won’t see anything on her ID but her teeth!”, of course everyone laughed it out… And so did I…. Because I didn’t want to make it seem like I was offended… Their feelings felt more important than mine… After all growing up I was always reminded of how unlikely I was of ever being beautiful or finding someone that found my darkness beautiful….. As a 19 year old today I sit here and say “I never gave in to skin bleaching”, “I was constantly reminded of how ugly I was but that only made me love myself even more….. I began considering myself as someone different, someone beautiful and out of the ordinary.” Your skin no matter how dark it is that when you smile you can only see the glow of your teeth is worthy of love, your skin is that of a goddess and you should never feel anything about your skin but self love. I write this to all of the people that have gone through similar and worse, you don’t need to learn to Love your skin, the love is already there… You just gotta unleash it.

Me: