I have never considered myself beautiful. Accepting compliments from other people was quite difficult, as they were mostly backhanded compliments like "you're pretty for a dark-skinned girl." I have always been fully aware that, due to my dark complexion, there were rules to follow, the most important thing, and obviously my favorite, is not red lipstick. This was the hardest of these social rules to follow, especially being an eight-year-old with curiosity crawling over me like weeds at the edge of the yard. Playing with my mother's makeup, and soon learning to despise the red lipstick in her makeup bag. The thought of rubbing it against my lips was thrown to the back of my mind. Summers came and went and I always thought about the scorching sun and what it had done to me, how it added a new layer of black to my skin like a new paint job. The thought of becoming darker flooded my thoughts so much that it became all I thought about. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In high school, in eighth grade, I was given the uninvited nickname of Hutu, after our class saw the devastating movie Rwanda. I mean, who else to give this nickname to other than the Dark Skinned Girl? They joked constantly, but I didn't find humor in their words, only annoyance. I contemplated, what was behind this obsession with my skin? What was so wrong about being dark? Boys at school joked that they would never have children with dark-skinned girls. Self-consciousness crept in as if I needed something more to diminish my teenage confidence. It didn't help that there were beliefs echoed in the media that marginalized me. Having a super big smile with a gap between my teeth, a rather large nose, and my darker skin, I wasn't seen as a beauty queen. I noticed that in popular movies and TV shows the “token black” character was almost never my shadow, but lighter on the “spectrum of darkness.” For a long time I aspired to reach white beauty standards. There were no dark-skinned black women that I could look at and say: yes, she is beautiful of her own accord. This idea was nonexistent until I started seeing actresses like Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o, Emmy Award winner Viola Davis, and supermodel Nyakim Gatwech feted. Gorgeous dark skinned black women rocking their beauty with flawlessness. I started seeing more of myself everywhere I turned, like in cosmetics ads where dark-skinned women wore the red lipstick that was so forbidden, on catwalks where their skin glowed under the dim lights, and in commercials where their white teeth glittered against their teeth. chocolate skin. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Overall, my black is beautiful. I accepted my dark melanin. I am a dark skinned goddess, I have allowed their words of hate to roll off my back like a marble on wood. I am no longer “pretty for a dark-skinned girl”, I become beautiful, I will not fade into the background of society's beauty standards.