November 27, 2012

Making Brown Girls Blush

Explanation: My mother is a woman that sees the beauty in everything. Fortunately, this ability passed on to me. She would never look at a woman and say she’s too dark or too light. But I understand that in America there is a taboo in society that deems light skin women to be prettier. The traits of light skin women are seen more in general representations of women. These discrepancies cause a false identity of beauty in my opinion. When entertaining a brown woman I acknowledge her beauty. And I challenge myself to make her blush.

Compliments based on common sense

Makes blood rush to her cheeks
The red undertone stains her skin like bleach
As she tries to keep her emotions underneath
She smiles n thinks I’m sweet

She giggles as my flattery tickles
My mastery drops than trickles
I ask her “do I make u feel good”
She says “a little”

Fine tuning a woman and her quirks
I say “if it’s only a little, why can I hear you smirk”

Her angered sigh confirms my third eye

Her I can’t stand you’s and I hate you’s
Lets me kno that I’ve been stapled
As someone that got her attention
And she’s exposed yet grateful
Disrobed yet graceful

My sweet words are her maple
She’s threatened yet intrigued
The untamed Horse in her stable
Her prior experience versus what I present
make her unstable

In a world that condemns brown girls at the front of it
I’m the first one to tell her she’s beautiful because of it

They’ll glorify a brown coffee bean from Starbucks
Yet light skin women make the media starstruck
Subconscious constructs
Using paper bags, freckles, and Ms. Monroe
To tell dark girls their beauty will never show

“Your pretty”
Misconstrues her configuration
Cause her skin tone
And “pretty” never had affiliation

Skin tone like a brownstone
Can I move in?
Can I make her perception shift
Like movement

I’m touching her soul
like its never been touched
Im making her whole
making brown girls blush

*I purposely used Dark Girls in comparison with Marilyn Monroe to show the full spectrum of what is “pretty” in traditional America and how far these women are from that perception. The contrast also eludes to the challenge present in making a brown girl blush. Traditionally, how she naturally looks, was never empowered. Thus making her feel pretty enough to blush is a conquest that hurdles over the stigma that herself, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and great great grandmother, had to endure. Making a brown girl blush, is cute, but even more so, it’s…..triumphant.

Here is the prettiest girl that I’ve ever seen:

My Daughter. And she just so happens to be brown.

Daddy loves you Anniyah.