As a kid, I was able to escape being teased as for as my dark skin was concerned, until I made it to Jr High, but my height enabled them to have a few laughs. I was called “Jolly Green Giant & Bean Pole”, which has me wondering what did vegetables have to do with teasing me for being tall?? It didn’t help that back then we had to line up by height, me being the tallest of the boys and the girls had me at the back of the line until the end of 6th grade.
My 1st crush, well he crushed on me as well was in the 6th grade, but we could not go “steady”, because I was too tall. I was 5’7, but it meant more than enough to me that he thought I was cute. What I didn’t like was being outed for being to tall for him during lunch.
Later on my height didn’t matter, it was something others desired and I found I could use it to my advantage. My girlfriends envied my height, because of the modeling hype. I was able to attract high school boys, because my height. Being tall equaled older for some reason. It enable me to get a part time summer job at Shoney’s. My days of being the Jolly Green Giant finally over, but it made way for the girls to attempt to start to tease me for being dark-skinned. As I told my girls, ” ya can’t win with people.”
A few years ago my foster daughters and I were having girl talk about issues they were having at school. It seemed that the “popular pretty girls” saw the need to make my girls aware of all that they were not. I was pretty taken aback that all 3 girls were having the same issues at the same time and did not attend the same school nor in the same grades. My heart hurt for them, because I remember the feeling. They sat their with heart-broken teary eyes, looking at me as if I could wave a magical wand to make it better or load them up in the car to drive to the Mean Girl’s homes to either punch them in he mouth or tell their parents to send them off to boarding school. All I could offer is my undivided attention and share my story of overcoming judgement would help them get through theirs.
It took a toil on their self-esteem, to the point they couldn’t see the beauty in each other, they believed the hype.. I can hear them fussing with each other as if I recorded our conversation. They were actually inflicting the same pain upon each other that the girls at school did. I noticed that they were behaving as if they were mad at their reflection, as well as something that they envied of the other.
I never would have guessed that in Skin Color would be an issue now and especially up in the northern states having a high population of biracial families. In New Orleans what I knew to be was light-skinned was Creole. You knew there was a white gene somewhere in the family line, but he wasn’t coming to Sunday Family Dinner. I was also, surprised to find out that biracial kids were being teased for the color of their skin and texture of their hair by both black and white people. As I said we just can’t win with people.
As a foster parent my home was open to all kids, even the so-called “bad and the scary disabled kids”, my heart was opened to all children, I saw no labels. I love and took care of them all.
In 2013 I had a house full of preteen-teen girls, all were going through puberty and battling with their own self-esteem issues. The girls at school didn’t make it any better, actually these bullies made their lives as well as mines worse at this sensitive time . I journaled on October 10, 2013, “I’m having light-skinned/dark skinned black girl issues over here, well they are having problems at school. In our home we range from biracial, dark skinned, light-skinned and everything in between skin, wavy hair, kinky hair, short hair, weave hair, no hair, hazel eyes, brown eyes, short to tall and thin to plus size, but what they had in common was they all are very beautiful girls.
I try my best to let them know that All Girls Rock and are Beautiful, but it doesn’t seem I have the magic to show them that their friends thoughts of them are not valid. One would think they wouldn’t be treating each other like this after being teased themselves. It actually is worse than what was reported to me at school, calling the other one ugly is one thing, but they fighting. I wanted to run away from these crazy teens, but I choose to stay and help them work this mess out.” I think I should have run away. lol
I sat at my desk looking out at little hill that my princesses and I have been blessed to live on top of. We all had a bad beginning, but God brought us together and sat us on top off this hill for a reason, if only to have a little breather from our past and hopefully enough time to prepare for a better future.
My girls were in rare form and for the 1st time I wasn’t sure if I could help them. It was bad, I thought to myself, while holding 6 inches of hair that was cut from one of their heads. I still can’t believe she cut her sister’s hair off to this day and to do it while she was sleep… Her reasoning was “she thought she was better than me, because she has longer hair than me” she said this with a sly cunning grin. All I could offer back was, “how do you feel now that you cut her hair?” I guess it was no feeling at all, because she just stood there.
I excused her and sat a bit more staring out my window like there was an answer out there among the greenery. I gained my composure, let out a woosah, had a hairstyle in mind for my newly chopped princess, as well as a pair of scissors awaiting the unlicensed stylist who recently had a weave done and I called the princesses down. Yes, my plan was to cut off the same amount of hair off her head that she cut off her sister’s, well it wasn’t actually her hair, but it would have the same effect. I thought anyway.
“Oh no you didn’t, what is wrong with y’all? I thought yall was mad with the girls at school, but why the hell are yall taking it out on each other?” “But, she cut my hair, what you thought I was gonna let her get away with that?” She was holding her sister’s cut up clothes, broken cell phone and diary in her hand, pushing her sister off with the other one, while she was yelling ” You better not ever go to sleep, because I’m gonna cut it all off! I’m not sure if it was worth saying, but all I could get out to sound authoritative was “So, forget me, Auntie Dee, the adult, the person who brought the items you destroyed and the woman of this house, who set the rules?” I was very pissed, as mad as all get out, but they didn’t care at the time.
Mind you, I was not home when her hair was cut, but when I came in, I ask for a moment to myself to figure out plan of action and help for them, but she she goes upstairs to inflict her own revenge… I didn’t know how I was gonna fix this, I have a house full of girls who are being teased and bullied at school without even a word to the bullies, but they come home and tear each other apart. I didn’t get it, I wasn’t raised to behave like this especially, not when it comes to family. That’s it I’ll try to calm these crazed teens I crowned as princesses and tell them about my life. Over the course of knowing them I gave a piece of a story here and there or they heard someone talk of an event in my life, but I never sat down and gave them the full tea of my life.
I grew up being the “dark-skinned, nappy headed, tall girl”, but within my family/friend circle I wouldn’t have noticed it, that is until school. I was born into a family with every tone a Black person could have, but it was like they were one solidary color. There were bigger issues on the table for them, maybe they fought over the bathroom, being that there was nine of them, but color, no. The awareness of whose pigment meant better was not up for debate because, they knew the white man saw black no matter the shade of skin.
My Momo and Auntie Cookie were the lighter complected women in the family, high yellow or creole women as it was called. Typically, women of this complexion were pegged as being bougie, uppity, and anything descriptive of those words. However, the women in my family were far from that, my Momo was the most humble, sweet, compassionate, loving, beautiful woman I have ever known. I think it’s, because of her that I wasn’t affected so much by the skin color wars.
I was born in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, my Momo lived in the Desire Projects and the building she lived in was diverse. My first childhood friends were biracial, they lived upstairs from my Momo. At that time and maybe, because I was a child or maybe it was from how I was raised, but I didn’t know they were biracial until I was a teen. I did notice differences, but over the years it was never directed in the light of them being better than me, because I was darker.
I recall others outside my family and theirs referring to them as the girls with the “good hair,” but once again I just saw hair hanging down their backs that was longer than mines. I recall a time when we all were getting our hair braided, I was asked what style would I like and said I wanted mine’s braided how theirs were to be braided. My hair was braided in the same style without a word from my aunt that my hair was not the same length or texture as theirs. Yes, their braids hang down the middle of their backs, but I remember all of us saying we were triplets, because we had the same hair style. I remember feeling happy and pretty.
They never made me feel as if our differences made us not equally beautiful, we all were beautiful, it was as simple as that. I never heard any different, never heard them get praised for being pretty girls unless it was directed at all of us. It may be a Nola thing, because I have two girls whom are the same age and when a compliment is given its given to both girls, “Look at yall pretty girls,hey pretty girl and etc, that’s what I remember when I was a girl.. If anything they used to make a big deal over me, always made me feel special and part of their family, and we continued on like for years to come.
Dat NOLA Chic 