That’s a very strong title, isn’t it? As much as I believe in spreading positivity and always looking at the bright side, I can’t seem to forget what I felt after watching the interview.
The fact that there were questions on what Archie would look like got me thinking of how I was when I was younger.
Now, this reflection wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it depends on how you see it.
When I was younger, and I would hold my baby cousin when she was a newborn, I would pray a silent prayer that they remained the way they looked. Light-skinned, big bright eyes, and curly hair. I would then look at my aunt and frown. I would notice how dark-skinned she was, I would notice her thick 4C kinky/coily hair and the dark circles below her eyes. I would repeat my prayer 100 times more.
YOU SEE THE PROBLEM? The problem is the fact that I looked just like my aunt.
I was an 8-year-old dark-skinned girl with a baby fro, hoping my cousin would look nothing like me or have any of my features. Why? Did I dislike myself that much that I wished no one would look like me?
The thing is I didn’t actually hate myself – that’s why I called it unconscious because honestly, it was. Maybe I had heard too many times that I was getting too dark, or that I had constantly been advised to relax (perm) my hair, or maybe it was the fact that sometimes when I had my fro out, I was told I looked unkempt. Maybe, just maybe, these were the reasons why I didn’t want my cousin looking like me – I didn’t want her to hear these things and try to change herself. I didn’t want the endless cycle of hoping the new additions to the family didn’t look like us.
“Omg Fayo, I can’t wait ’till you get married and give birth to beautiful mixed, curly-headed babies!!” A statement I’ve heard before, and a statement that I found a bit weird. It started to sound like I was placed on Earth as a baby maker for mixed babies. How come no one wanted my baby to look like me? How come I never heard, “I can’t wait to see your dark-skinned 4c fro baby!!”? How come the excitement and enthusiasm were lost when describing a child that looked just like me?
How come when I was younger, I would dream of getting married to a non-Black guy so I could play with my child’s hair and stare into her blue/green/hazel/light brown eyes? (The eye description is an exact extract from my journal, written in 2010. I know, it’s a very unique description).
Why didn’t I want to give birth to my look-alike?
If I had 10 wishes, one of them would be for me to go back in time and whack some sense into my brain (I said 10 wishes because I’m still trying to see Giveon live, and Daniel Ceasar live, and Oscar in real life, and travel the world and six other things. HAHA did you think I’d hope for only one wish? Back to my article). I would tell myself that it was okay to doubt myself sometimes, but IT WAS NOT OKAY to let that define who I was or what I thought of myself. I would tell myself that bad days were part of me being human, but I could always work towards making my days better. I would tell myself my fro was the most annoying person ever, but she was a part of me I had to learn to tolerate. I would tell myself there was nothing wrong with how I looked, and I would teach little me how to treat myself better.
I don’t know how many people had the same thought process as me when I was little, but Meg said it best:
“Once you really know yourself, can’t nobody tell you nothing about you.” – Megan Thee Stallion
NB: Did you see what I did there? Meghan Markle…….Meg Thee Stallion. Tnx u :)
I hope you all had a great Easter weekend :)
#STOPASIANHATE #StopAAPIHate #IFYOURERACISTTOWARDSASIANSIHOPEYOURPILLOWISHOTONBOTHSIDES