Black Beauty

There’s something about blackness. It’s beauty majestic and humble— Sirius shining among the stars. I know why it took me so long to see the beauty in me. I also see what it takes for others. I didn’t grow up thinking I was beautiful. I was constantly being made fun of for being dark-skinned, sometimes having a happy disposition, anything really. Once people have decide you’re ugly, especially as a woman, they are vile to you. They treat you like vermin and they project every awful thing about themselves to you. I can’t imagine how many times I’ve been referred to as scary or crazy. I’m very passionate and bursting with energy. I’m not apologizing for being an Aries. Get it together, Y’all ain’t doing enough.

Yes, sometimes I cackle. I honest can’t explain my laugh. It’s a cacophony of something— perhaps Magic cubes, ah!

(Omg, I love Megan!) 



I didn’t know I was beautiful for a very long time. At some point I lost the sight of myself. I never knew what I looked like. Sometimes when my face was too close to the mirror, I would scare myself. I was blinded when I looked at myself in the mirror. Anti-Narcissus. I looked at my own reflection in the oasis and saw everyone else, but myself. I couldn’t take looking at myself in the mirror everyday. I’ve come along way in my journey. I can look in the mirror and  see my full self. I’m no longer blinded. I’m in love with what I look like. I love the way other Black people look too.

I don’t have all the words to describe Black beauty. There’s something enchanting about blackness. A night sky with a yellowed moon and a reflective river in between. I love our style, humor. My God our humor. We really need to be stopped lolol, but that’s another conversation. There’s a way we embody and carry ourselves. I call it adobo, Maggi, curry, shawarma seasoning, berbère, jerk seasoning. Something about us is delectable to my taste buds. Something about Black folks—aways. Something about us so beautiful so bright. Tender as the morning breeze when the sun is still in somber behind the clouds. 

Black beauty feels like the first breath you take…after…

Too often we try to manipulate it or change due to European standards of beauty. I understand how we got here. I understand why we’re still trapped, shackled, pretzel folded, and bamboozled into European beauty standards. However, every time I look at Black people, I can’t help, but laugh at European beauty standards. It’s actually very deranged and unhinged. 

Through a desire for power and conquest, a group of people needed to believe they were supreme. They used this lie to justify all the violence they’ve done and to avoid accountability. One of the ways they touted supremacy was through their physical appearance. They decided they were ”superior,” as they lacked melanin to a certain degree, ”had smaller noses”, ”straighter hair” and ”prettier bodies’ (Now Chile we know this a damn lie…the biggest lie of all time). This of course is all according to them. But somehow through colonization, slavery, and unimaginable catastrophic violence— the majority of us in some way or some form, think there is something wrong of us if we don’t look like them. At some point I had to stop believing there was something wrong with the way I looked. I looked in the mirror and had to love myself. Anti-Blackness is a huge price to pay. I had to fall in love with my skin to survive and it fell in love with me too. Instead of shame, I found the beauty in darkness.

I hate how everything awful is associated with Black. We’ve even decided something as weightless as a color can be bad. I think of how we internalize that as a people everyday. Some of us are so uncomfortable of our Blackness. We fold our bodies into ourselves. We make ourselves smaller and we’re invited in a world needing us to believe we’re just as small as they make us feel. We change our tone, language, physical appearance, for what we’re hoping for is a reprieve from violence.

There’s something about a group who have musicality in them. There’s so much joy in who we are and how we express ourselves. I started this blog because I want to see more Black beauty. A single group of people cannot be the most beautiful, interesting, clever, etc. Ask a painter how many ways there are to paint Black skin? There are hues of deep blues, reds, yellows, purples.

It dawned on me one day, the absurdity of spending the rest of my life chasing standards with no tangible meaning. Yes, there are many benefits to having a smaller nose, pale, skin, blond hair. However, at this point in my life, it’s just not interesting. I don’t find European whites as the most beautiful group of people. In fact, they are very uninspiring. There genuinely is a lack of seasoning. I see Black beauty represented in so many ways just walking down the street. The European standards have become obsolete to me. It doesn’t spark my imagination in any way shape or form. I’m not inspired to create art. It’s stale and empty of feeling. All I imagine is an animal attacking ones throat and the fangs are cold as ice. It’s not inviting at all. It’s strict and must be adhered to by any means. However, I’m okay with the consequences of rendering these standards obsolete. It’s brought me more joy in ways unimaginable. Everyday I want to wrap myself in a work of art. The way I do my hair, to the way I dress myself, to the way I cook. The experience of Black beauty, is simply a part of life. 



I want to see more Black people glowing as bright as Sirius. I want to see more Black folks in media. I want different representations. Everyday I see so much Black beauty and the media put out doesn’t feel enough. Why am I still starving to see Black people on TV, in books, Plays, etc. I want to see Black beauty outside of a white supremacist framework. I want to see my homegirls, neighbors, the entire block–represented. I want to see Blackness unpolished and unfiltered. It doesn’t need to be polished. We can take up space without being polished as river stones. I want to see more of us take space like stars, who already know their place among the heavens. I want us to never forget our beauty because it’s a sight to beholden. I need way more representations of Black folk than we see everyday.