HOW I FEEL ABOUT BEYONCE'S BROWNSKIN GIRL

I don't usually get in my feeling about weekly internet outrage but this conservatives misplaced and misguided tweet missed the mark. Michelle Malkin is her name. I'll just leave that there. To summarize, she wongly insinuated that the brownskingirlchallenge hashtag influenced Beyonce's song "Brownskin Girl" was some call to skintone superiority and anti American sentiment. Well as the kids would say, she's reaching and I'll add, she completely obtuse.Yes at some point every woman's self esteem isn't running at an optimum level. As humans were fragile and imperfect and that's okay. Beyonce's song was meant as a love letter and words of affirmation to brown skinned black girls who grew up feeling invalidated and devalued.

In fact they were handed down messages within their OWN communities that they're not beautiful and unremarkable. So, the song wasn't meant as a slight against any other ethnicity. Instead, the song was created to correct the detrimental messaging and mentality about having dark skin was a negative thing. It something that has been accepted and is pervasive among people within the Diaspora. It's not the outside world, the fashion industry or the media's responsibility to instill self esteem, it begins at home.

I shared some anecdotal life scenarios further on to illustrate the gross mentality about darkskin. After reading those cringe worthy comments and situations I hope anyone who felt salty can try understanding and have compassion for others. Also, I hope there can be enough maturity to understand that, "the celebration or validation of another womans beauty isn't the absence of your own."

This isn't every brown skinned girls experience but I can tell you it is very common. It's bewildering at times and just plain frustrating. I've often been meet with the statement, "it what white people did to us." That mess of a copout doesn't fly well with me. You can't guard your young ones from all the hurt out there in the real world. But you can arm them with a better mindset that would be a better shield to help the navigate the world.

Also as my professor once said, "we are the gatekeepers of our own oppression." We may not be responsible for the ideas that certain skintone are better than others. But is our responsibility to call out and shutdown the wildly ignorant and negative comments we hear among ourselves. That means checking your kin folk. Reminding that relative who's checking the new baby's nail beds and ears to she how dark he or she will be. But instead to check for baby's health and vitality instead.

Imagine hearing things like oh she's just a regular black girl, meaning an ambiguously black girl. Read this as black on both sides, not very interesting.

Imagine going to a get together for girls and boys and then hearing, "where are all the light skinned girls, as you and another chocolate hued girl are standing there.

Imagine hearing among friends, "the best thing about light skinned black people is that they're black with white people features." No one in the group is white.

Imagine listening to a genre of music you love and hearing, "beautiful black woman" that b*tch look better red. Had this lyric come from Eminem there would be fire and brimstone outrage.

Imagine hearing from friends and acquaintances that their relatives said they should marry someone light skinned so that they could have pretty babies.

Imagine being out with a group of your friends and watching some guy greet and shake all of your friends hands and avoid yours. It's a group of five not a crowd. You're skin is the darkest of the group.

Imagine having a discussion with your boyfriend and hearing him say that his parents would never characterize a dark skinned as beautiful but rather as "pleasant". This was not a complement. 

Imagine going to family gathering with the same boyfriend and hearing is uncle chastise Naomi Campbell. Yes, catwalk queen Naomi. You listen to him drone on about how she's unattractive and that he'd rather have a Halle Berry or Beyonce. The only difference is that Naomi has darker skin.You naively are puzzled about this because these three women are beautiful and successful in their respective industries. The only difference of the three is that Naomi has darker skin.

It's not the responsibility of society at large or marketers to build up our children. But the truth is the pervasive messages of who is beautiful, important and worthy of admiration can chip away at sense of self. If a solid foundation of hasn't been established it can have a negative influence. Let's do the work so a song like Brownskin girl would simply just be the soundtrack that complements their reality and not a rare nod.