Beauty in the Dark
by Kevin Gyasi-Frempah
The famous civil rights activist, W.E.B. Dubois, came up with the idea of “double consciousness” over 100 years ago. Initially, this dealt with how black folks must internally operate in an externally white-dominated world and illustrated the inward gymnastics that the oppressed, enveloped by oppression, must perform to survive. At its core, double consciousness is where black Americans not only have to be aware of how we see ourselves but of how the world sees us.
I have always known myself as a dark milk chocolate skin-toned boy but darkness never was a big talking point in my house. My parents and my sister grew up in Africa where darkness was the norm. Their lives were etched with dark men and women living their best life without hassle over their rich, ebony dermis. In their eyes, there was no big deal about my shade nor was there any talk about what it meant in this country. The closest thing we ever had to a discussion was when my sister and I looked in the bathroom mirror and she said: “You’re darker than me. You get it from Mom’s side.” Similar to how one’s sibling would have blue eyes and the other would have green eyes. It was just something that was there.
However, that was at home. In school, my darkness was derided and mocked by those of the lighter shades of both black and white kids. Teachers would turn off the lights to play a movie and kids would tell me “Hey, I can’t see you,” or how when I wore black clothes, I was told I was naked. It wasn’t just kids. One of my high school teachers was painting her house, so she had paint swatches in her purse. The white kids wanted to see what shade of pink they were. I, regrettably, joined in the supposed fun. The teacher, with a smug smile plastered on her pale face, placed the swatch on my mocha skin and switched the swatch to black. Not brown. Not chocolate. But black. The black you find on bad luck cat. The black you find on Death’s cloak. The black where evilness occurs. Later on, in the same classroom, a girl was talking about how tan she was in a picture and I jumped on the fun and I joked how “tan” I was and the Paint-Swatch teacher said: “You’re not tan. You’re burnt.” Burnt as in an undesirable piece of toast, or ashes of the dead. I had to laugh it off because expressing anything other then approval at their jokes was an insult to them. I felt that I was the wrong shade. In addition to feeling a failure caused by my birth defect, I took on the role as the butt of the jokes at the expense of lighter shades whose lightness was revered. Darkies like me were seen as dregs and undesirable. Speaking of undesirable...
My crushes would hang around the black boys of all shades, from caramel to dark chocolate. I thought “Ok, Good news for me. Their favorite flavor was chocolate.” I was with a friend of mine, who I was crushing on at the time, at a church event and I noticed she was talking to a white boy. I didn’t think much of it because, in my head, I sang: “She’s got jungle fever,” for reassurance. Later on, she told me that she used to date him, but I never heard her say she dated any of the black boys we knew. When I heard that, I was reminded of the times I heard “I don’t date black guys” from white girls. And I was also reminded of the times that I saw the girls who do partake in the ebony. They were with caramel-colored negros who could pass the brown paper bag test without studying. I start to think, do people, not like dark chocolate? Would I have had a better chance at love if I wasn’t the dark ape that I was, but some Steph Curry-looking brother?
Remember how my aim was on white girls and not on my dark-skinned sisters. I saw that the world saw my darkness made me a beast, so I foolishly saw the beast in dark-skinned girls. I did not see them as desirable nor as pretty as white girls. I was told there was ugliness in me, so I thought there was ugliness in my sisters who suffered the same affliction. I had to go to the light side to be happy. I shamefully, admit that on numerous occasions said, “I don’t like black girls.” Hmm.. that sounds familiar.
The ironic part about my skin insecurity was that I loved and accepted being black. I preached the gospel of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, quoted James Baldwin as if I was in Paris with him, and daydreamed about being a leather-clad Panther in ‘69. I was proud of coming from the dark continent but felt shame for having dark skin. It wasn’t until the Notorious B.I.G. smacked me out of that nonsense, that I saw the beauty hiding in the dark.
B.I.G. had a song, “One More Chance,” and in the lyrics, he rapped “Heartthrob never, Black and ugly as ever” The line gave me confidence about my skin tone. I know that it seems odd that I gained confidence from that line, but B.I.G. didn’t say this in submission to the white standard of beauty; he said it in defiance of it. B.I.G. was like me: A dark-skinned brother, but he was saying “Yeah, I am black and ugly, so what?” with confidence. That security in B.I.G. gave me security in myself and my color. Because I gained security in my own shade, I corrected the way I viewed my dark-skinned sisters. They are more beautiful than society had made them out to be. For that, I apologize to my sisters for even entertaining the notion that you weren’t beautiful. We are dark and lovely and it doesn’t hurt that we save a lot of money on sunscreen. Our darkness is beauty— an enviable beauty. Remember the Paint-Swatch teacher, even she said that my skin is beautiful and I have had other white people compliment me on my skin. However, I don’t need their validation. Du Bois was on point when he talked about double consciousness; however, it’s more important that we not only are aware of how the world sees us but care more about how we see ourselves. Just like my dark-skinned sister Rapsody said: “12 years of age, thinkin' my shade too dark I love myself, I no longer need Cupid.”