by
Rinny
We’ve had much dialogue over the issues of colorism within the black community. Some of the experiences have left lasting impressions on how we see ourselves, leaving very little opportunity for acceptance or any type of positive acknowledgment. There have been online social movements such as #BlackOutDay and #InMySkinIWin to help destroy the oppressing conversation of colorism in this year alone. Now, we have another to add to the bunch which celebrates the rich shades of dark skin: #IWillNotApologizeForBeingDarkSkin
The hashtag was created by twitter user Alicia Daniella @keepupwithle who is also the creator of BeautyFromWithin a few days ago. Shortly after its inception, timelines were overflowing with melanin. Take a look at some of our favorite posts from the tag below:
https://twitter.com/nochillcammm/status/662426743291158528
https://twitter.com/CinaMina_/status/662306779699798017
https://twitter.com/gotseventeen/status/662110784336609280
https://twitter.com/TheBlackLayers/status/662070434205143041
https://twitter.com/TiinaBiina/status/661731692340752384
https://twitter.com/Yeahmorgs/status/661735285403684864
https://twitter.com/alittle_TABoo/status/662075519610015744
https://twitter.com/zurireed/status/662308156522037249
https://twitter.com/yovngmami/status/662324130566553600
https://twitter.com/jojotaughtyou/status/662103552681078784
https://twitter.com/heardxya/status/662081663351025664
https://twitter.com/MizMirl/status/662109349377089536
https://twitter.com/shanicenyamekye/status/661735403825840128
https://twitter.com/xochiquetzal__/status/662078975427104769
https://twitter.com/ambitiousme123/status/662106508059156482
https://twitter.com/areycc/status/662057095546707968
This tweet probably sums up how we all feel about the trending hashtag
https://twitter.com/ally_lewinsky/status/661736206934401024
Did you participate? Share your selfies below!
32 Responses
black don’t crack
black is beautiful!
Why black women want copy white women? When they want to whish what we have for nature? They aspire to have “MELANIN!”. You black women are beautiful when you hit 30,40,50 and 60 years,why you don’t embrace your blackness?
I always admired our many hues in our race. I have family members ranging from passing white to blue black. We are all sooooo.beauty…NEVER FORGET THAT!
My motto is LOVE yourself. If your skin is the color of black, love it and love yourself. If your skin is the color of white, love it and love yourself. If your skin is the color of brown, love it and love yourself. SELF LOVE is the 1 thing everyone needs. Love is greater than hate. I love my brown skin and my melanin because I love myself.
“By the way everyone originally came from Africa from black people”
A meaningless fact. A fact supported by genetics and anthropology, yes, but people are too short-lived to care beyond their immediate needs and to think beyond their ideologies.
Apes with nuclear technology. A terrible mix.
I don’t understand this hashtag. Who said u had to apologize for being dark skinned? If Joe blow doesn’t find u attractive, so what. Joe Keen just may. I may be wrong here but it sounds like this hashtag is showing the insecurity of some dark skinned women.
Insecure? No, no my empathetic internet user. They are being ungrateful. “You’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl” is a compliment.
“You’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl” is NOT a compliment.
I think that was sarcasm. Non-dark skinned people will struggle to understand this hashtag. We(the poor over-melanined) are expected to be grateful for being thrown the bone ‘pretty for a dark skinned girl’. The very essence of this ‘compliment’ is an underlying belief that my melanin makes me automatically unattractive and somehow I have broken the mold by not being ugly beyond belief. It assumes that there is an apology to be had in being dark skinned. And it’s not people just being sensitive, its a real thing that has been happening for centuries.
Well.. nerd in me has to point out that he sun wasn’t bigger. it was just where you’re ancestors were living at the time (mine lived in the fucking snow [idiots] so I’m pretty pasty 🙁 but I digress)
But you’re right, don’t ever apologize for being the awesome amazing person you are.. Fuck those bigots and idiots who can’t see past their own inbreeding and skin color. It sickens me that this is still an issue today.
MINE TOO. What kind of idiot sees a barren icey wasteland (6-7 months a year, anyway) and goes “YES THIS SEEMS LIKE A NICE PLACE TO LIVE.”
Yep… ppl want to ignore the evidence that we all started in the same spot. I swear. this sounds stupid, but we need to discover life outside this planet to finally unite us. Once we find aliens, we can finally unite and start hating on something else rather than each other. (sorry.. just watched Independence Day >_< )
“but we need to discover life outside this planet to finally unite us”
Do not underestimate the stupidity of humans.
so loving this post. I have always loved my milk chocolate tone and hope everyone loves the skin they’re in regardless of the hue 🙂 this hash tag is FABULOUS!
I like reading and being occupied by so much positivity on here.
Lord when black people love their dark skin …why would you want the skin tone of a piglet? Sows have pink and white texture and tone…black skin doesnt age , we dont need toxic cream on our skin to keep from burning but yet blacks covet white skin and hair…
on top of that it does say GOD has hair white like wool it dont say straight hair silk like satin and it says his feet are like bronze the most strongest man in the bible it says he was kissed by the sun which is Solomon, even Moses married a black women but yet blacks covet white skin.
And whites covet super tans, curly hairs straighten their hair and straight hairs curl it >__<
“black skin doesnt age”
Right. Senescence is not real. It is all an imagination, and to prove it, you should respond with the same vitriol that dark-skinned women are respond to.
Your god approves, after all.
It’s sad that we even have to make posts like this. By the way everyone originally came from Africa from black people
LIFE started in Africa. Melanin is worth alot as well . The darker the berry the sweetier the juice.
My sisters have my full support
When God created my skin color, trees were bigger, animals were bigger, the sun was bigger and stronger. my color is gift from our creator a protection so i may walk an live with the sun. even gave me a dark color lens to protect my eyes and as my mother gets older i can see the dark color lens deteriate an she now has blue eyes. I could never ever apologize to anyone for my beautiful. It is a badge of HONOR not shame. I wear it proud knowing that I would never have to see those people we i get home!
I have always looked in the mirror even as a child and marveled about my chocolate color. as early as the age of 5. I knew there was a beautiful mystery for this. I am 45 I walk on the streets and the lights change for me. I am not crazy. I Am Blessed and Devinely Favored! I not only know who I AM but who everyone else is as well the truth.
I have learned to understand that the hatred stems from something else. in order to accomplish this hate toward my skin color. first you must be a thief, you will take/ steal/or rob me of something. second you will lie, to cover up what you have done in order to continue to be a thief. Third you will have to recruit those who lack this knowledge and convience them to aid and assist and offer a proportion of the wealth to them but only enough to keep them LOYAL. ofcourse there were others that aided but not in the full length in this shameful deceit of fraud as those DO of non dark skinned people. This is a extremely brief explaination of the events that has taken place. disbelief has no value to us today. knowing these facts has help raise me from fiction to non fiction. We are Gods’ original inheritance. when Solomon dedicated the temple that they are fighting over to this day. Solomon let the answer to redeem ourselve with God in the prayer he made when dedicating the finished temple to God. because ONLY the true chosen ones could do it. “Black” people never releazed that they are the first people. All of the words where not tampered with in the bible.
GODHAS A RIGHT TO HIS INHERATENCE. you would not let a stranger in your home these days anymore than God would in Heaven. God cannot allow any of us to ever become a part of Heaven if we are unclean. he loves unconditionally yes, but that does not get you into Heaven. Remember Who We Are. Walk in the Light of the Examples God left us. Talk To God for your self.
This is a conversation that needs to happen. Hopefully we will come out of it less ignorant and more loving to ourselves.
Melanin is one of my 3 super powers! (The others are Intelligence and Femininity 🙂 )
My mom is really chocolate and I remember her telling me when she was in college people called her “burnt chicken or blackie”. She said its one of the reasons she dropped out. Cruel people feed off negativity to uplift themselves. There’s so much animosity towards darker skinned people and its cowardly and stupid.
I had a lot of insecurities growing up but my dark skin color was not one of them…To this day I experience some form of cognitive dissonance (that’s the professional term, lol) whenever I hear someone disparaging dark skin. It boggles my mind — literally! — that this is still something we are dealing with in the 21st Century.
Exactly LBell. I’ve never had this supposed “issue” I love my brown skin! It almost seems as if we as a race of people are going backwards. My parents’ generation were all about the “Say It Loud; I’m Black and I’m Proud” What happended?
I’m of that generation — well, I was a kid back then — and as quiet as it’s kept, not everybody was on board the black love (peace and soul) train. I still got teased for my dark skin — and in a school that was integrating, my biggest bullies were other black girls — but it never sunk in to the point where I hated my dark skin. My parents get ALL the credit for that because in OUR house they really believed in “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
The brainwashing of black folks is really deep…and it’s something that I personally believe will take decades to go away.
I need one of these #iwillnotapologiseformyanturaladnappyhair
Beautiful women. How can we not love melanin? It keeps us young looking and wrinkle free, and it’s lushness makes us glow with beauty. Love yourself, don’t worry that the eurocentric world does not see our beauty, believe me they are following us out of the corner of their eyes enviously.
Sorry ladies, I have no idea how I got on this site, and this discussion. If I may put a point or two on here, I would like to add my tuppense worth. ClaudetteUK how right you are. Black people generally do not age as fast as white folks. I allways thought it was because white people stressed more. That was before I had heard of melenin, and even more before I knew what it is. Anyway, if I may, I have heard this light skin/dark skin discussion over the years, and I am AMAZED it continues now. The lady who spoke earlier about being bullied at school by other black girls was right about bullies bullying to make their own “self worth” greater, and that is so true, wherever you are in the world. The bullies feel worthless, and they bully others to make themselves feel better. Of course, you can TRY to explain that to bullied children, but it will not be understood at the time. Anyway, I promise, while skin shade is an issue in the black community, I personally have not understood it. I had a Parisian girlfriend a few years back, and her parents were West African (Mali/Niger) so she was very “dark”. The lady had the skin so clear, I felt you could ring a tuning fork on her body and get perfect pitch. Black ladies have beautiful skin, because it has colour it is enhanced and I feel you should not get stressed about what shade it may be. I still stand by my earlier opinion too. Stress will age people. Please do not stress. You’re all beautiful.
Beautiful….they need to hear that more after being told for so long that there were not or were beautiful in spite of their gorgeous complexion.
We are all beautiful, not in spite of anything, but because we are everything, every shade, every beauty.