THEY DON'T LOOK LIKE ME (Part 1)

I write this piece grateful that I have now managed to overcome a lot of the insecurities which crippled me for so many years. As a young teenage girl, I grew up in Jamaica and all I can remember was watching Nickelodeon or the Disney channel who didn't have any programmes with young girls who looked like me. What I mean by this is; I was dark skinned, a little overweight and had scars resulting from an accident during my younger years. As a result of watching these programmes, seeing these beautiful flawless, skinny white girls on television, this played a major set back in my identity. It started out with me wanting to be skinny, then wanting to have straight hair (instead of my coils) and further started encouraging me to question how life would be different (better) if I was white. At this point I believed having the right discussions about my identity would have definitely steered me in a different direction.

Furthermore at the aged of 15 I migrated to the UK with my mother and this heightened my insecurities of my identity. There was always a common theme throughout secondary school and this was the notion that boys preferred the light skinned girls more than the dark skinned girls. However this was not strange to me as even whilst living in Jamaica there was so much emphasis on the differences between what they called "brownin" who were the lighter skinned pretty hair girl/boys. So I ask, how can we expect to bridge the gap between the division of races when we are yet to bridge the gap between the different shades of the black community. I dare say it is still very prevalent today as it was only last week I read an article about a social media influencer who was bi-racial and highlighting how she was thankful that her hair was not what you would describe as "nappy."

I write this piece today not with intentions of attacking anyone but to educate ourselves to see that the change is bigger than what the eyes behold. Diversity and Equality is not only a challenge amongst the white generations but it also exists amongst the people of colour. Imagine getting discriminated by people who look like you? It is important that as adults we set an example for our children, it is also important that the media makes true representation of all colours, size and shapes. More importantly it is important that we are no longer miseduacted about the real challenges that face our human race today.....

(To be continued....)