As a child, I was never taught that one’s skin tone determines who they are, but as I grew up, American society changed and twisted that mindset and over a short period of time, led me to feel that my dark skin tone made me less of a person then someone with a lighter complexion.

This change of belief came from harsh events such as being  insulted with nasty comments about how dark I was by my peers to never being able to  find a pretty doll baby that looked like me. I became so disgusted with my skin tone to the point that I started thinking about using a lightening skin cream and wished someday I would wake up with a beautiful honey brown complexion.

My arrival to high school coincided with a social media push to celebrate beautiful dark skinned women, but even this was not enough to get larger society to fully embrace them. We were simply just another trend, loved by folks on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, but continued to go  unnoticed in real life. People went back to fantasizing about mixed babies and girls with soft curly hair rather than women and children with a deep brown skin tone, and frowned upon type 4c hair, calling it “Nappy”. This Preconception towards dark skin members of the Black/ African American community is best defined as colorism.

While I know that this has been said many times and it seems almost a platitude at this point, but  our beauty should not be defined by our skin color. There are too many beautiful dark skinned girls and boys out there that fail to see the aesthetic in their shade of brown because society relegates their idea of beauty at such a young age that they are never, especially in their formative years, able to see the true beauty in themselves. It begins with the simplest of items – the toys they play with, the characters they admire on television – and continues into adulthood. It is time to embrace the belief that  all skin colors – from pale to pitch black – has its own beauty and should get equal admiration.

Skin and hair are huge industries, but they should not be huge issues for people. All skin tones are beautiful and equal, and all  hair types are beautiful and special. We need to acknowledge the beauty in every individual and encourage self-confidence, love and worth.