Team Light Skin vs. Team Dark Skin? Your Beauty and Relationships

Welcome to Love School. Class is in session! Abiola?s Love School is a weekly empowered Love Lesson, inspirational class and juicy conversation about love, relationships, dating, sex, commitment and self worth. Each assignment will include homework, resources and actionable steps. Let?s move beyond the surface to experience the true love and intimacy we deserve. Are you in??

?To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don?t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.? ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Lesson: #TeamBeauty, Self-Love and Why It Matters

When OWN broadcast the heartfelt documentary ?Dark Girls,? it didn?t reveal anything new. That was not the objective, however. The film was extremely valuable in bringing a conversation to the forefront that most people still view as ?dirty laundry.? In addition, it gives voice to deep shame that many people thought was long gone.

Just as any individual is only as sick as her secrets, the same can be said for any group of people. Bill Duke and his team created a naked and honest examination of colorism and the beauty myth in the African American community, the legacy of mass historical ?trauma.

Dark Child.

Whenever I give talks as a coach about being bullied, people assume that I am discussing experiences at the predominantly wealthy, white prep school I attended. They?re shocked when I reveal that while in school I was a curiosity and often felt excluded for class-based reasons, it was in my own neighborhood that I was taunted by people who looked exactly like me. My Queens block was populated by mostly light-skinned descendants of the South. Nicknames like ?Blackie? rolled easily off of their tongues.

Being a dark brown girl whose parents are from another country I was bullied terribly in my black New York City neighborhood. Many children are teased but my I was actually bullied by the children AND adults that I grew up with. Parents of my ?friends? routinely said things like, you need to get back on the boat to Africa as their kids called me ?African Booty Scratcher.? I remember even at a young age feeling sorry for the people who bullied me and verbally harassed my family because my parents had steeped me with a strong sense of history.

Although this a a love column, this is a critical conversation to have on a parenting blog. My father named me ?Abiola? in tribute to his love and respect of African culture. I read his worn copy of ?The Autobiography of Malcolm X? at age 8 and saw a dashiki as the wardrobe of strength. I had a dress called my ?Afro Dress? that I remember wearing when my Aunt Wendy visited from Tuskegee. My natural hair was a source of pride although I remember people questioning my mom (as several ignorant stylists have done now) about why my soft coily wavy kinks didn?t ?match? my complexion. They made the same comments when my brother?s hair grew from the scalp red and my sister burned easily in the sun.

Because my parents had given me a strong foundation in this area, it took a long time for me to feel the effects. My family is a rainbow and all skin tones are praised. I knew that ?redbone? and ?ebony? skin were equally beautiful. In fact, the aunt in my family regarded as most beautiful was the darkest. I remember not being able to even process the bullies? ideas that I might be inherently inferior as a blacker berry. It was as foreign, funny and ridiculous at first; as if someone said, ?You?re a green Martian.?

Sure I wore hideous glasses until I got contacts at age 12, I was a shy, super geek who loved to sit in the front row and raise her hand, but ugly? Me? The idea (until adolescence) was laughable because I had been pre-programmed first with other messages.

Dark Woman.

The ?Dark Girls? movie and experiences of my brown-skinned friends unveil a coterie of male opinions and the flat out rejection of black beauty. Much is made of black women?s self hatred but a critical conversation to have is the rampant self-loathing of African American men. One only need listen to almost any rap song or visit a barber shop wall in Anyhood, USA to get the same message.

• Consider this is a self-love assignment for all of us, regardless of skin color or ethnicity. Black, white, yellow, red or brown, feeling ?beauty-full? is a part of your birthright as a fully expressed and self-loving human being.

When I hosted my own show at BET and viewers complained about the dim lighting of the program, my producer said, ?Maybe the problem is the black ass host.? He laughed and I stupidly laughed along, not feeling the same confidence I had as a kid to stand up and say, ?You?re an idiot and that?s ignorant.? After all, now I was an adult with a job and needed to pay pills and make career moves. I died a little inside for not having the courage to defend myself when these kinds of comments were made frequently.

Whenever I tried to discuss these things my lighter-skinned black friends said, ?but I was called ?high yella?? and my white friends lamented not having blonde hair and blue eyes. I wanted to explain that the difference was those equally idiotic comments were bouncing against a greater opinion of society that you are beautiful.

• However, the most unhealthy conversations are competitions for suffering of the ?I had it worse? variety. Everyone?s pain deserves a voice.

What?s Beauty Got to Do With It?

Beauty matters. Beauty is different from vanity. True beauty is inherent. We all know that a woman?s only worth is not in the way she looks. Our battles with body acceptance, hair appreciation and skin color may seem like surface issues but they aren?t. Being able to look into a mirror and loving the reflection is a critical key of self-worth. Self-acceptance is everything. In addition, beauty is currency in our society.

The psychological effects of black women being rejected by black men cannot be underestimated. Just as women are taught to hate themselves and each other, so are people of African descent.

It was a light skinned sister who leaned in conspiratorially during my starter marriage to an Ivy League brother to say, ?Look around. You?re the only one.? We were in the Hamptons for a weekend wedding of one of my ex?s frat brothers. She was pointing out what I had failed to notice: I was the only chocolate woman there. All of my husband?s Ivy League brothers and corporate buddies had wives and girlfriends who were light skinned with long hair. It was certainly an interesting observation, to say the least.

I didn?t notice because my brain isn?t tuned to that particular inferiority channel. If we don?t check ourselves we have many reasons to indulge in self-rejection or to feel ugly. Unfortunately, I was probably tuning into other reasons to feel less than worthy like my body size, age or career achievements. The words ?black is beautiful? cause a response of ?duh, obviously? in my head.

Maybe it?s for that reason that I?ve never experienced a drought of ?quality? eligible men of any complexion who seek to make me their long term mate. Perhaps that?s why I?ve been derided as ?Miss Picky,? as in how dare you have the nerve to be selective about who to love. This could be why when someone I was dating asked whether I was jealous of another woman solely for the reason that she could pass a paper bag test I laughed and asked,?You think that I would be jealous of another woman over her skin tone? Have you seen me??

Takeaways on Your Beauty & Your Love Life.

1. If no one has told you today, you?re gorgeous! Don?t just fall in and believe everything you already think. Question what has been handed down to you.
2. Your love life reflects exactly what you think of yourself. When you know that you are worthy and you love yourself, you will only accept partners who feel the same way. Don?t play the race martyr in your love life.?You deserve big, bodacious, full love.
3. If you feel rejected by the dating pool you?re swimming in then jump into a bigger pool. It?s a big world filled with all colors, races, religious backgrounds, creeds and religions. You don?t need everyone to think you?re beautiful and you don?t need every man to want you. You only need one.
4. Release diminishing tags like #TeamLightSkin and #TeamDarkSkin. Be #TeamSelfWorth instead.?You are not pretty for a dark-skinned girl or pretty for a light skinned girl. You are a beautiful and valuable expression of the Most High. -Anyone who disagrees is not worthy of your consideration. Period.

This Week?s Self Love Homework:

1. Self Love Assessment.

You can?t love anyone else if you hate yourself. How much do you really love yourself? Women are taught to care for everyone else besides themselves. When you love someone you treat them in loving ways. You give them only the very best in company, food and affection.

Questions: How do you treat yourself? Do you only accept friends and romantic partners who treat you like the jewel you are? Do you feed yourself with healthy food and positive images and entertainment? Do you affirm your own beauty?

2. The Mirror Exercise.

The most powerful thing you can do is to look into your own eyes and say ?I love you.? Maybe you won?t mean it at first and maybe you will, but here?s the assignment. Every morning when you wake up, look into your own eyes and say, ?I love you? plus your name. Do the same at night before you go to bed.

A woman who knows her own worth and beauty is magnetic and attractive to all she desires. There is no force more powerful than a woman who genuinely loves herself without comparisons to or in competition with others. If you love your own beauty there is no need to hate, reject or ridicule anyone else?s.

3. Makeup Free Mondays.

In the book ?Mirror Mirror Off the Wall,? author Kjerstin Gruys went without looking into a mirror for a year and also enacted ?Makeup-free Mondays? for herself.?Do you dare?

There is nothing on the surface wrong with makeup, weaves, wigs and other adornment. Dressing up is a fun means of self expression. However, if you can?t appear publicly and feel good in your skin without these extras, this is something to think about. Revel in your natural beauty. Make a cut and paste collage of your most beautiful moments.

4. Self Talk, Self Care.

What kind of language do you use to speak about yourself? Whether you?re talking to yourself or others this is super important to your overall well beings. Make note of any negative self talk. Use affirmations such as: I am incredibly beautiful, I love life and life loves me, It feels good to take great care of myself, I love, honor and cherish myself, I love me, I am enough.

Don?t indulge in any ignorant conversations like ?You know how black people are.? Even seemingly harmful statements like, ?that?s black parenting? are ignorant and limiting. There is no such thing as ?black parenting.? Were those of us not parented in ?expected? ways less than black? Stop feeding into stereotypes. Let dangerous and damaging cycles end with you.

5. Girlfriend, Interrupted.

Entrenched limiting beliefs can?t be affirmed and vision boarded away, although these tools help. Beliefs like ?I am ugly? and ?Men aren?t attracted to women like me? have to be dissolved on a core level. Try a thought-interrupting method such as Emotional Freedom Technique to transform and dismantle negative beliefs about yourself.

Good self care is not just manicures, pedicures and massages. It?s getting help for yourself if you have any issues to double that you are worthy, that you are enough. That?s how to be a good girlfriend to yourself.

?

Passionate Living Coach Abiola Abrams gives extraordinary women inspiring advice on healthy relationships, evolved sexuality and getting the love we deserve. You?ve seen her love interventions in magazines from Essence to JET and on shows from MTV?s ?Made? to the CW Network?s ?Bill Cunningham Show.? Find love class worksheets, advice videos, coaching, and more at ?Abiola?s Love University.? Tweet @abiolaTV or #loveclass.?

Source: http://mommynoire.com/33722/dark-girls-skin-color-self-love-relationships/

Google Docs Huell Howser Justin Bieber Smoking Weed Katherine Webb Cut for Bieber AJ McCarron Johnny Manziel