“Sister…what cream do you use?”
“Your skin is so beautiful & white!”
I cringe at these compliments.
I go to the store & see Vaseline Whitening Lotion.
Deodorant that promises visibly fairer underarms.
White underarms?
Demand exceeds supply.
Women wanting to be whitewashed to the point of glisten, gleam, worthy.
Wanting to be rinsed of the stigma they inherited through birth, through biology.
Fade away caramel, mocha & mahogany.
Fade away the richest hues that you call black as if the night sky is less stunning than the day, as if it’s a bad thing for God to have taken time to color you beautiful & color you fit for the sun that comes down & kisses you as it assaults me reminding me I don’t belong here with my lack of melanin, & lack of understanding
Beautiful woman, don’t long to be me.
I am not even as white as can be.
Forgotten blood runs through my veins of a people that have been forgotten. The brown just hasn’t manifest itself on my skin.
I know nothing of sororities.
Or country clubs.
I know nothing of Starbucks & the 4th of July.
Or little steeples in the South.
Do you even know what you’re hoping for? You are the right kind of pretty.
Yet women wanting to be whitewashed to the point of glisten, gleam, worthy.
America is not perfect, women of the West not only pristine
May be whitewashed but so are tombs
Beautiful mausoluem, with only bones inside
Bones the same
Bones white
Yours too
Similarly
We all breath one last time & this skin we’re dressed up in like chiffon fades into the earth
And then color won’t matter
And fair won’t be synonymous with beauty
And white won’t equal better
Because we all eventually sleep
And realize that we’re all human in our inevitable fragility
White does not mean clean
The white one’s heart can be as black as coal
The white one’s mind can be as black as night
The white one’s soul can be as black as oil
Do you know that Jesus wasn’t white?
I know the people who have brought you Word of Him have been whiter than snow, even me, but did you know the renaissance depictions of Him lie?
When He walked He walked in much closer proximity to your homeland than to mine.
When He walked He walked in desert heat with skin engineered & tinted to withstand the sun.
When He walked He walked in the East.
And do you know that He loves the darkest Dalit?
Do not wish to be white
Do not burn your skin with creams & elixirs
Do not hide your skin from the light
Do not powder your face to conceal the most beautiful shade I have ever seen
Do not wish to be white
Do not wish to be rid of the way God made you
Do not wish to be rinsed of identity
Do not wish to be stripped of a beauty you can’t see yet
Do not wish to be white
Whitewashed to the point of glisten, gleam, worthy.
You are worthy.
