I’m a black woman.

I will begin by noting that I really don’t think most people, regardless of racial background, are “attractive.” I think that most people are average, slightly below it, or slightly above it - most men and women. I absolutely do not think that any one race of women looks better than another race of women. When I was very young (maybe between 8-11 or 8-12) I do think I believed, due to dissatisfaction with my own features and a lack of exposure to a lot of other black people, that white and lighter women were more attractive. At some point in high school, it hit me that most people are very average looking.

I will admit that even as an adult, I don’t think I tend to regard the appearances of other dark skinned black women fairly, even though I think I’ve gotten a bit better about it. I think that internalized racism, and the fact that all of my family members are colorists, are factors although I know it is no excuse. Lupita Nyong’o is often held up as a particularly attractive black woman, and I do think that she is above average/pretty, but I know when I see pictures of her and when I see her in film that I still don’t “see it” for her as much as I do for other female celebrities (though I do really think she looks especially lovely when she has braids, and am not suggesting she’s not above average, she is.) It’s odd because I know she’s v pretty, she looks like a doll sometimes, it’s just partly that it’s not what I’ve grown up seeing the media push as attractive.

I will admit that I am afraid to have children who are fully black in part because I know that if my daughter is dark skinned, she will be treated differently by people (a darker skinned son will as well, but darker skinned black women deal with racism misogyny.) In the past, I had considered aiming to have a child with a white man so that my child could have a better chance of being light. I’m actually not so sure nowadays that I’ll have a child in general. I also believe that if any woman who is eighteen or older is at a healthy weight, it makes her average if she is slightly below average facially and I try to maintain this in regards to women who are darker as well. If I had a daughter, I would honestly probably want her to have lighter skin as it would mean she’d be treated better by society than she may otherwise, although I don’t actually think I’d “assess” my child’s appearance if that makes sense (moreso about not wanting her to be bullied and ostracized than caring a whole lot about how she looks.)

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