Tales From The Mecca: Coming To Terms With My Dark Skin - The Hilltop - News

Tales From The Mecca: Coming To Terms With My Dark Skin - The Hilltop - News

The club flashed red and blue lights on the dance floor at Club Next, one of the hottest clubs in DC. We were among hundreds partying and sweating to the DJ's mixes. The host for the night started to hype the crowd, calling out neighborhoods.

"Is Acres Home in the building? What about Cypress?" he asked. "I know 5th Ward is live. We scream when he called out North side of Houston. This night was just too fun. "There are some beautiful ladies in here tonight," he said. The crowd screamed again with excitement. We just know he is talking to us.

"Yea, that's right, I'm talking to the light skinned girls! Team light-skin lets go!"
All my friends, except for the lightest one Brittney, were silent. We waited for our shout out, "dark-skinned girls in the house?" None came.

My friends and I prayed for team dark skinned. None, at least not for this evening.
Unlike Brittney, I come from a family where mostly everyone is greater than or equal to my dark complexion. Lil Wayne would not find a "long-haired thick redbone" anywhere at my family reunion. I'm sure my family and millions of darker skinned women, could imagine my shock and slight hurt at the club that night. I wondered how they did it for decades when I could barely handle less than 20 years.

Up until 9, I had a caramel complexion. I got it from my grandmother. My mother used to say, "I prayed you wouldn't come out so black." Now I didn't think much of it until I went to Disney World and stayed in the sun without sunscreen too long. My mother nearly keeled over at the sight of her overly chocolate child.

Ever since that fateful trip I have forever been dark. I was already a nerd at school. My white classmates would joke on how they could only see my teeth and the whites of my eyes at night. My favorite had to be when we colored pictures. They would pick the blackest of black markers to draw me. By 5th grade, I had enough of the ridicule. I had to fix it.

Every night I would scrub my face till my skin was raw and sore. Then I'd take of my mother's skin bleaching cream and rub it all over my arms, face, and legs. It burned because of the scrubbing. After all, pain is beauty.

I was determined never to hear the words "you're cute for a dark skinned girl" again. In the morning I'd apply two types of sunscreen. They had two different SPF levels. One had SPF 30 and the other SPF 50. I figured SPF 80 applied twice a day would block any chance of the sun making me darker.

At first I was excited to go back to my lighter hue. Finally, I was going to be accepted. I would just have to be extremely greasy for a couple of months to get to where I wanted. I would leave for school shining like a freshly basted turkey.

I eventually grew tired of sneaking using my mother's night cream and applying all these products on every day. It wasn't even working anyway. They lie on the boxes and the bottles. Truthfully, once you go black you never go back.

Days in the summer would drag on. I refused to go outside in the daytime. I was starting to get bored with myself. I decided to accompany my aunt on a trip to her dermatologist. I put on a wide brim sun hat, SPF 70 sunscreen, and sunglasses to walk to the car with tinted windows parked two feet away in my driveway.

I was growing out of hand with this skin pigment thing. No one stopped me. So I kept on with my ridiculous antics. Once at the dermatologist, I began to read their handouts on bleaching your skin. I started thinking about how that would make such a fantastic Christmas gift. Most kids my age would ask for a dirt bike or a CD. I was going to ask for a chemical peel.

Looking at magazines in the waiting room just proved how America favored light skinned individuals over darker ones. Every celebrity, whether it was Gabrielle Union, Beyonce, or even Oprah, looked lighter than they did on TV. That was the only way they could get sales up and be accepted. I just knew I had to do the same.

Maybe I was asking a little too much for a chemical peel. Let's face it I had no insurance and a chemical peel would cost most of my year's allowance. I put that dream aside and continued my sun avoidance techniques.

Until sophomore year in college I bought every new "even toning" cream and or wash. Still none of them really worked. My bathroom cabinet was absolutely ridiculous. I was what they called a product junkie. Bleaching cream, toners, and even tone masks polluted my space. It looked like part of the beauty section of Target with dozens of bottles and jars. White, brown, green, red, blue containers all with the same promise of lighter even skin just sat there taking up space.

I thought to myself, "does it really matter how dark or light I am?"
As a college student in undergrad, I have been surrounded by the more mature and educated crowd in terms of beauty. I had not heard "cute for a dark skinned girl" and it felt amazing. I threw out my miniature beauty store.

I looked in the mirror and realized I have to love myself and be happy with how I look no matter how dark I am. I don't think I would even change my skin tone if I had the chance.
Black is beautiful no matter the shade.

Willow Smith is Killing the Game for a Little Girl

A 16 year old FAMU freshman has earned his spot

FAMU freshman, Ralph Jones Jr., a 16 year old from Atlanta, Ga. turned down offers to Howard, Fort Valley State, Morehouse, Stanford, and Harvard to attend FAMU. With an SAT score of 2,120 out of 2,400, it is understandable how he was admitted to the top institutions in the United States.

Jones is a National Achievement Finalist recipient of FAMU's Life-Gets-Better Scholarship. Jones was awarded $120,000 in scholarships, which includes a stipend, tuition and fees, room and board, books and a laptop.

Being a member of a family who has a three-generation history of attending Fort Valley State University and parents who are educators, Jones feels that his childhood played a huge role in his development.

“My background growing up is a little different,” said Jones. “My parents are both educators. My mother is a first grade teacher and my dad was a college professor for some time. Needless to say, a large focus was on education in my house.”

By the time Jones was four-years old, he was adding, subtracting, dividing, reading at the ninth grade level and doing basic algebra.

As impressive as Jones’ ability to learn at a young age may seem, he continued to excel by setting a record of having the highest SAT scores in the past five years at his high school.

Jones’ former SAT math prep teacher and FAMU alumnae Kemberlee Pugh Bingham challenged her students by promising them an “A” in her class if they scored high on the SAT test. As a junior in high school, Jones scored a 1,910. The following year, he increased his SAT scores by more than 200 points.

When Jones shared his score with Bingham, she immediately inquired what college he planned to attend.

“When I first told her, she was excited,” said Jones, a mechanical engineering student. “One thing I can say about FAMU alumni is that they will lobby for their school. Before I knew it, she had gone over to her FAMU billboard and gave me a brochure on the Life-Gets-Better Scholarship, which was the first time I heard of the scholarship. She was like ‘Baby did you know you can go to FAMU for free for four years with a full scholarship and a computer?’ and I was like ‘no ma’am.’”

The following year, Jones attended the recruitment fair that FAMU hosted in Atlanta, Ga., where he felt the energy in the room as President James H. Ammons began to articulate the Rattler Charge.

“When Dr. Ammons got up, he began to say ‘When the dark clouds gather over the horizon’ there was this atmosphere of tension and I knew something was going to happen,” said Jones. “I did not know exactly what; it was very exciting. Then suddenly you heard hissing from all over the room and you saw people with fingers in the air and that is when you start to feel it. I was like wow! This is something bigger than what I could have expected.”

During the award ceremony, Ammons awarded Jones with a $120,000 scholarship for four years along with a list of other incentives. It was Jones first scholarship before he learned about being selected as a National Achievement Scholar.

“Everything that I have worked for has helped me earn my place here,” said Jones. “I am going to earn my right to stay here and when I graduate, I am going to have earned my degree.”

Man finishes up surgery to look like a woman!

This is crazy. He looks better than most females.The world is going to hell I tell you!

Happy founders day FAMU! 1887

Florida A&M University is the home of the school that made me a woman! This school is the best school to attend as an African American. You learn so much about your ancestors history, and develop yourself into a well-educated individual in society who can overcome adversary and succeed in your career goals.