{"id":17064,"date":"2022-05-13T16:07:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T16:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/?p=17064"},"modified":"2022-05-13T16:07:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T16:07:02","slug":"racist-bullies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/racist-bullies\/","title":{"rendered":"Racist Bullies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"Preceding my first confrontation with a racist bully, when I was nine years old, I was proud to be Black. I felt that being African-American was a gift with many perks and that all shades of brown should be considered just as beautiful as pale or olive skin tones were.<\/p>\n

I was raised in a household where there was no talk of who was light-skinned or dark-skinned. There was no talk of bad or \u201cgood hair.\u201d Although dark-skinned Black women are often underrepresented, misrepresented and rejected in mainstream pop culture and the entertainment industry, I didn\u2019t subscribe to any ideology that minorities are inferior.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Minorities were the majority at my elementary school. Although my complexion is more mocha-colored than dark chocolate, I was still targeted for being Black. Pretending as though your children live in a colorblind society is damaging and delusional.<\/p>\n

This stigma has caused beautiful women to struggle with loving and accepting who they are. In 2014, Oscar winner Lupita Nyong\u2019o\u00a0shared<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\u201cI got teased and taunted about my skin. My one prayer to God was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of the mirror because I wanted to see my face first. Every day I would feel the disappointment of being just as dark as the day before.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Upon watching Nyong\u2019o\u2019s powerful speech, I wondered why she was unaware of her beauty while she was growing up.<\/p>\n

When I was a little girl, my mother had me sing the following words each morning: \u201cI am a pretty little Black girl \/ As pretty as pretty can be, be, be\u2026\u201d There are several more lyrics to her uplifting song. The message it conveys is truly invaluable.<\/p>\n

In a country where racism and colorism thrive, as a young dark-skinned Black girl I learned that my blackness doesn\u2019t subtract from my beauty. My mother\u2019s song begins by mentioning beauty first, and ethnicity second. The words make it clear that being Black\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0beautiful, and that beauty and dark skin are not mutually exclusive. The lyrics also convey that being a Black girl is inherently positive. Not only am I pretty while being Black, but I also couldn\u2019t possibly look any better than I already do, considering that I\u2019m \u201cas pretty, as pretty can be, be, be.\u201d<\/p>\n

This song laid out the foundation from which my confidence was built. My mother taught me that I\u2019m worthy and that being Black is beautiful \u2014 so beautiful that others have taken note. Years later, when I was in fourth grade, a racist bully named Hector put my confidence in a pressure cooker to destroy and extract its remnants.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBURNT TOAST! BURNT TOAST! You\u2019re so dark you look just like burnt toast! Burnt toast!\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Hector would\u00a0constantly<\/em>\u00a0tell me that each day because I was the darkest person in our class. My retort was, \u201cNo I don\u2019t! I don\u2019t look like burnt toast!\u201d At least we both had matching levels of creativity.<\/p>\n

I secretly wondered,\u00a0what\u2019s wrong with being dark?<\/em>\u00a0I was also acutely aware that everyone unanimously hates burnt toast and throws it in the trash. Being raised to be proud of who I am, along with walking outside of my classroom and seeing kids who were darker than me, confirmed that there was nothing wrong with being dark-skinned.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t a day that would go by when Hector wouldn\u2019t repeatedly call me burnt toast. I never tried to break Hector down the way he seemed laser-focused on attempting to break me. I didn\u2019t shed a single tear in front of him. I eventually told my mom, who complained to my teacher. Hector\u2019s abuse subsided, and he wasn\u2019t in any of my classes after fourth grade.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour hair looks like a dick!\u201d is how Eddie, a classmate I had in junior high, would inform me of what he thought my hair looked like in a ponytail. Being African-American, without having a large fan blowing strong gusts of wind that knock back my strands of coiled hair, my flat-ironed mane moved in slow motion.<\/p>\n

Joey was fully aware that the texture of my hair was different than his, but he didn\u2019t manage to make me want to assimilate. Instead, I\u2019d argue with him about his assessment of my hairdo. I continued wearing ponytails because I liked them. Joey eventually got bored and moved on to new victims.<\/p>\n

In high school, my ethnic features were targeted once again when I was in art class. \u201cPut your hand in your hair and it will get stuck!\u201d is what another racist bully told me. He and his younger brother, who was also a student in the same class, burst into a fit of laughter. I always had a ton of thick long hair that I hadn\u2019t spent time thinking about whether or not my fingers would \u201cget stuck\u201d in.<\/p>\n

I was embarrassed and annoyed that he insulted me so loudly that other students could hear him. Looking at the unattractive faces of him and his brother was payback enough for me. I told them they were dumb, shook my head and continued working on my assignment. The older brother made fun of my nose; he clearly overlooked my thick lips and left it at that.<\/p>\n

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I shudder at the thought of what my self-esteem may have dissolved into had it not been for the confidence that was instilled in me by my mother years prior. Throughout my time in school, and for the years thereafter, whenever someone tried to tell me that I was defective, their words did not break me. I know there\u2019s somethin very wrong with someone miserable and stupid enough to rely on stereotypes or target someone else for their ethnic differences.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

My mother\u2019s positive affirmations have empowered me, and I hope that dark-skinned Black girls and women are confident enough to pay their haters dust. Reciting positive affirmations religiously has been a transformative exercise that has enhanced my life.<\/p>\n

The confidence I gained from positive affirmations is self-care that one is never too young to learn. It has fueled my self-worth and bolstered my self-esteem before anyone attempted to make me a victim of their hatred \u2014 years and decades even after I had stopped singing that \u201cI am a pretty little Black girl\u201d lyric every day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preceding my first confrontation with a racist bully, when I was nine years old, I was proud to be Black. I felt that being African-American was a gift with many perks and that all shades of brown should be considered just as beautiful as pale or olive skin tones were. I was raised in a Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[920,1],"tags":[1405],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17064"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17068,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17064\/revisions\/17068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}