On Being Black and Beautiful…
17 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
This post comes with much provocation. I am ashamed, appalled, and apologetic. Not because of something that I have personally done, but because of racism that I have witnessed and ignored (or not spoken up about). Today I speak up.
A late entry to my summer reading list was Beverly Parhurst Moss’s Dark Exodus: The Lost Girls of Sudan. I’d never heard of the book before running across the title during my weekly browse on Half Price’s clearance row. It was a dollar—only a dollar and of the seven other treasures I stumbled upon that day, this was the best find.
Moss pushes her “God loves America and the rest of the world should too, especially the poor black folks,” message quite heavily in each section, but the interviews with the sixteen women—sixteen survivors of the ongoing civil war in Sudan (which is in no way without Western influence) are breathtaking. Almost all of the women, whose photos accompany their stories, trekked through the desert without clothes, food, and water. All of the women had lost family, seen others attacked by lions, hyenas, and Janjaweed demons. Some talk about surviving by drinking their urine or the urine of refugees willing to share, running on blistered feet, and eating bark from trees or grass. None of them could quite understand or explain how or why they survived, and all found refugee in my home state—Texas.
With all the things these sisters suffered, they all mentioned the persecution they felt and heard under the gaze of African-Americans. Some said they had never been ashamed of their skin tones until they came here. Those who came over and attended high school recalled taunting by blacks because of their dark skin tones. When did the American reject become so high and mighty? When did the rejected become rejecter?
I’ll tell you when. When we became wrapped up and entangled in American patriarchy and ideals of beauty. When we hated ourselves with the same hate slave holders and Jim Crow hated us with. When we bought that dark is dumb and ugly. It makes me sad that we don’t understand how deep our history is—how rich it is—how Yah it is. I can’t blame us…completely. The hiding of the truth is deep, but I see the piling of customs on top of other ugly customs. We should really embrace the authentic us, and We don’t get more authentic than Africa. When we learn to connect our African-ness to our American-ness, and be proud of whom we are and where we came from, then shall we know true beauty.
The question of beauty has gone unanswered in a worldly sense. However, western ideals of beauty have inspired some to create their own definitions. See my post Who You Calling Ugly? The Bible speaks of beauty. See Psalms 139:14 (the image of Yah, which is his works, ways, and knowing and keeping them), Samuel 16:7 (Yah looks at the heart; not the nose or the skin), and Timothy 4:8 (spiritual exercise).
Perhaps, black beauty has been decided by the unblack, and because blacks have been influenced more by the deciders of beauty, We (black Americans) are not even viewing ourselves through the eyes of blacks. It is important that we realize that bleaching creams and expensive hair weaves aren’t necessarily true beauty. If Yah measures beauty from the hearts of men, smiles instead of snickers at those sisters that had come a long way from a long mess would have been the most beautiful thing in the world. There’s still pain all over the world. It’s not too late to be beautiful.
Note: Though the author clearly has an agenda, which was to spin white America as the angelic savior, I recommend this book as a way to gain insight to the struggle in Sudan.
LSW
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