Growing up, I think it’s safe to say we can all remember when we began thinking the opposite gender was no longer “gross”. I remember the boys that would pick at girls they liked because they didn’t know how to talk them or the guy that would get his friends to tell a girl he liked her because he feared rejection. I also remember overhearing guys (of all races) talking and boldly claiming that they, "Just don’t find black girls attractive.” Their friends would eagerly agree with this statement and I would think to myself, what does that even mean? Are you are saying that because my skin is darker I am less attractive? Or is my personality somehow altered because of my ethnicity? Is black skin not beautiful too?

“You would be SO much hotter if you were white”, and my response would be, “Oh! I’m sorry. I guess I should be thankful for my potential, right?” Yes, this has been stated to me and I honestly think it was meant as a compliment. Somehow you can have the potential to be attractive but the wrong skin tone can quickly take that away based on this assumption.

Our skin color is not something we can take off like an ugly shirt, we can’t make any alterations. “She’s pretty, for a black girl” I suppose that was meant to be a compliment too because I guess very few of us are actually pretty compared to other races, right? I imagine we excel when being compared to women of our own race. I’m just baffled how one glance at women’s skin color, can automatically deem her as unattractive. It’s a difference to just not be attracted ‘’to” a person because there are “attractive” and “unattractive” people of all races but who on earth would say a whole race of females are unattractive because of their skin color? That is a pretty bold and ignorant statement. Maybe I am biased because I am a black female and frankly, I believe we are no different than women of other races.

We wake up and get dressed just like any other girl but instead of meeting a guy and worrying about how our hair looks or if we have food in our teeth, instead, we must wonder if our skin color is unappealing. There are all sorts of women out there, and to use skin color as that major factor that makes us unattractive, I’d hope that in 2017, we’ve evolved out of that. Of course, we all know that whomever you choose is your own choice but let’s make it less about the skin and more about what’s within. If you spend more time focusing on the things that attract you to a woman, you’d spend less time noting my race of women being unattractive. The way I see it is that there is beauty is in all races and skin tones. Beauty should be more than skin deep, it should be for eternity.