The other day I was in a conversation with other women who grew up in the Caribbean and the subject of beauty (outer beauty mainly) was raised. We've had several lengthy conversations about inner beauty, but this time we focused on the face. And while we had varying opinions on a woman's facial beauty, we (the dark-skinned women in the group) all agreed that the messages we received about our looks as we were growing up were conflicting. In my house, for instance, I was told I was blessed with such and such, but as soon as I did something displeasing, those same features were soundly cursed.
It took me a while to learn to ignore the inconsistencies from others and arrive at a healthy view of my skin color and facial features. But while I and other women like me struggled to find that healthy place to view our particular beauty, I noticed something. The boys / men who looked very much like us seemed quite comfortable with their looks. I say seemed because I can't imagine they could have been completely unaffected by standards of beauty which basically said (borrowing from James's Night Women) ugly to pretty went from black to white (or fair-skinned).
See here's a little scenario that I remember: A group of dark-skinned young men sat huddled together in a classroom in one of the (then) best high schools in Guyana. The year was...we'll say safely pre-facebook. They were creating a list of the girls in their class which rated them from pretty to ugly. Guess where the dark-skinned girls ended up?
And while you're guessing correctly, here's more from Marlon James's fictitious slave narrative--The Book of Night Women--set in Jamaica:
Lilith perplex a little, 'cause the girl lips thick and dark and her nose flat till it disappear between her eye. She didn't have good hair and her skin too dark. But the girl was the prettiest woman Lilith ever did see. Lilith perplex, 'cause the arrow from ugly to pretty was from black to white.
