Growing up in a white-dominated world has its adverse effects. This dominance feels even more pressing when you go to a mostly white school living a mostly white town. Being a brown face in a pool of white makes one feel like an outsider. Watching televison shows such “Sister, Sister,” “That’s So Raven” and even the old classic “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” made me included in the media because I represented. When I hear of white actors portraying people of color, it makes me think, “If an actor of color loses the role of a person of color to a white actor, then what’s going on?” So much progress has been made in Hollywood, yet so much more needs to occur.
Progress also needs to be made in a smaller sense. Hollywood reflects what the world does. It is a mirror. Currently, society has been struggling with sensitivity.
After spring break, I looked around at my peers and noticed something was different. I could not quite figure it out, but many people did not appear to be the same. When my friend put his arm up to mine to compare, it hit me.
“Twinsies?” he said with a smirk on his face. He, and nearly everyone else, got a tan. I let out a sigh of exasperation and walked away.
Just about every year, the same thing happens. My usually pale-skinned friends soak up the sun or go to a tanning salon, and then they end up the same pigment or even darker than I am. Sometimes I even do the comparing myself.
We all seem to compare ourselves to one another for a variety of reasons, and the comparison of the generation is skin tone. Many people desire a sun-kissed hue, and many go to extreme lengths in order to achieve this look. I am often bewildered by the transformations that spring brings. One day someone is more of an eggshell and the next they resemble an orange. I guess this is a beauty standard I will never fully understand.
In preschool, I sought after a very intangible beauty standard. I wanted to be white. My mother was appalled by this, so she took me to the library. There, she read a children’s book to me that was all about accepting one’s blackness. Halfway through the reading, I said, “I’m not black. I don’t want to be black.” She held back her tears. A blonde woman and her son were a few feet away. That mother let her tears out.
At the time, I really had no idea what was wrong with wanting to be white because I thought that was the best thing to be. It was what I mostly saw on television and in film. When I hear my peers complain about their pale skin tones, I think back to that little boy who hated his race. I was so influenced by the media that I could not see clearly. Back then, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a false flaw. I imagine that many people see the same thing now.
Whether someone’s eye color, skin color or other biological feature bothers him or her, that person needs to accept something important. These traits will never change. Corporations have found ways for consumers to conceal their true selves, but no one and nothing can actually change it. All anyone can do is accept his or her body for what is—theirs.
What I think many people need to do now is see themselves differently. While I do not know what it’s like to be pale, I do what it’s like to so strongly yearn for the impossible. I had to learn to love my skin. It was not an overnight revelation. It actually took me over 10 years to accept myself as a black person, but I did do it. I am still doing it. Everyone feels insecure about something, and even after recognizing the problem and working to resolve that problem, the small piece of that problem remains. Anyone else can accept their skin tone with a little time and effort as well.
We also should not be afraid to call out those people in our lives causing the pain. I was once a provocateur. Whenever my friends complained about how they hate being pale, I would stick out my arm and say, “Hey, look, I’m tan. Don’t you wish you had skin like mine.” One day, I realized that I was no better than “Twinsies” dude. I realized that I was pushing a beauty standard on them that was impossible out of spite and a little bit of jealousy.
I have always been somewhat envious of my white friends. This feeling will probably never completely dissipate because I have been conditioned to believe that “white is right.” My malicious and self-deprecating thoughts will forever be a ghost in my closet. We all have a few, but we can all choose to lock them away. We all have free will to carry on.
Your skin is your skin. It’s all you’ve got, but what does it mean Hollywood and other mass media forms do not represent your race, ethnicity and/or heritage in the best way? It means that they are not who to blame. Society needs to get it together.
Tiger Writers 