Hello Sorors and SF's,
This is one HOT topic. I can remember being younger and wishing that I could be darker. I'm not a "light-skinned" sister, but I fall somewhere in between. Anyway, I always wanted to be darker and can remember using the sunless tanning lotion so that I could get that way. I guess it don't work for those of us who are naturally pigmented. I got the idea of wanting to be darker from seeing how beautiful sisters like Charnelle Brown (Kim from A Different World) and Patra (Reggae artist) were. Over the years I grew to be comfortable with who I am with the complexion that I have.
I went to school with girls who really thought that they were the hot stuff because they were light skinned. It was as if being light makes you more beautiful. Well I personally feel that if you can't look at a light skinned person and imagine them being beautiful with darker skin then they aren't really all that beautiful. And the same applies to those individuals with darker skin. When it comes down to it, living in "White" America we are all BLACK. It doesn't matter if we are as bright as the sun or as dark as night we will all still have to deal with the same issues of racism and discrimination. I just don't understand how in the world we can fight the battle of discrimination on the outside when we are fighting the same battle within our race. There are two books out by Binilde Little entitled Good Hair and The Itch that deals with the light skin/dark skin issue. If any of you haven't read them they make very interesting reading.
On another note. When it comes to AKA I must admit that while in high school I met a young lady through a family member who had just crossed into AKAland. She was a very dark skinned beautiful sister. She told me how everyone had told her that she was too dark to be an AKA and that very stereotype alone was what made her determined to become an AKA. She felt it was her duty to let other women know that being dark will not hender them from being an AKA. I just thought that was something interesting to throw out there.
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