The Color Complex

In which I realize that we’ve still got a long way to go.

Driving from my sister’s house, The Bee was telling me about her time hanging with her girlfriends. “Mommy! M________ got into it with a kid who called her fat. She called him fat back and (some other shenanigans ensued that I am just too effin’ lazy to type) and then the boy turned to me and said that I was Black.

My daughter is a beautiful chocolate color, her skin is smooth, flawless and perfect. She reminds me of Beverly Peele, regal, exquisite. But for some crumb snatcher to dare insult her and attempt to make the skin color she is a negative, really pisses me off. Color is such an issue. My Twitter timeline is all a twitter about the girls from videos (please God, don’t let The Bee think she needs to be one of THOSE), the women on television, the way WE are represented on television and Heck, even I mentioned something about skin color. It’s there, its a thing and I was so confident and a tad naive that it wasn’t going to be our thing.

When The Bee was a baby I remember people studying her ears to see ‘what color she would be’ and advising me to keep her out of the sun. As she got older, people would see the two of us together and would remark, ‘She must look like her dad’. (She DID and at times does but what the ham fat?). Even now when we run into people who have heard me speak about The Bee they look at her then me and remark about how she doesn’t look like me.  I’ve even had one person study us and say, oh. her dad must be dark. (‘kay?) Now I often worry about how she will be perceived. Like many families, my family represents many shades of ‘black’. Growing up I can remember it being an issue for some but I always felt that my skin color was nothing more than a palette for getting dressed.

When I speak to other parents about this issue it seems to be something that comes up often. There are stories about their kids wishing they were blonde*, had longer hair, were lighter…darker? The last courtesy of a friend who was worried about how to break the news to her daughter that her hair would never look like Tiana from Disney’s Princess and the Frog.

It is so sad that all of The Bee’s awesome qualities can be dismissed with a glance at her skin. It seems even worse that it can be at the doing by someone that looks like her. The Bee seems happy, doesn’t express to me a desire to look differently and I am hopeful she is getting good esteem but I still want to find  that little crumb cruncher and slap some sense into him. Or hug him.

For now I will continue to make sure my kid is still a good person inside and out but for now we are getting our sunscreen** and continuing to head to the outdoors.

Standing in the sun,
-r

*Barbie’s flowing mane is the envy of many
**Cause Black folks get cancer too.