#UnfairAndLovely

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be pretty. What “pretty” meant was a mystery to me. In some ways it still remains a mystery to me. In the eyes of many African and Asian girls, “pretty” entails Eurocentric features: lighter pigmentation, lighter eye colour, a narrow nose—everything that has […]

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Morena

“You’d be pretty if only you had pale skin.” “Aach. You’re so dark.” ”We’ll probably lose you in the dark.” I heard those comments frequently enough from a lot of people that I started to get used to them before I even reached my teenage years. My parents and siblings called me negra or Kirara, based on a character with dark skin and curly hair from a Philippine TV show that was apparently aired before I was even born. Growing up, I felt like everyone and everything treated my color as something to be frowned upon instead of something natural for me to embrace. I watched advertisements and TV shows where “ugly,” dark-skinned girls were transformed into whiter girls, therefore being relabeled as beautiful. In elementary school I was teased for my dark skin tone while I watched those with lighter skin be fawned upon and practically worshipped. My color has been one of my greatest insecurities. It had always damaged my view of myself, and somehow I never […]

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