Black is beautiful. When I say these words now it is hard for me not to mean it. Saying it as a young girl, was more of me trying to convince myself, not really a proclamation of my sincere feelings. However after seventeen years of trying to convince myself something in me finally clicked. With my African-esque features, I may not be considered the standard of mainstream "beauty". I always thought it was my job to explain the size of my lips and the darkness of my skin to whomever it may offend. I grew up on an island with a population that is majority black and it is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I used to get teased daily for my obviously black features. I would look at pictures of myself and just think "Well maybe if my nose was smaller..". I hated myself because of the way I looked. I hated even more, the fact that something so minute (such as the darkness of my skin in relation to other blacks) could cause me to try to conform to something I was not and could never be: White.
Reading Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority opened my eyes to something a lot of blacks try to hide from. We are currently in a race with ourselves. We are in a race between loosing and keeping our black men, between being respected black women and sex objects, and most importantly between loosing and keeping our true selves. What we need to pull us up from this downfall is to realize that anything and everything we do is watched. Not only by the rest of America, but by the upcoming generation.
We seem to have been desensitized to the maltreatment of other blacks. We are subconsciously committing our own genocide. If we continue to sweep these matters under the rug our entire existence will be extinct in just a matter of time, and then the campaign to brainwash African Americans would prove to have been successful. As we move on to become successful black leaders in America, we must open our brothers' and sisters' eyes in order for us to move along as a productive entity. We must not remain as the inferior race any longer if we are to exist and thrive successfully in America.
