I remember at one time looking at the inner part of my wrist and saying out loud, “I really like this colour.” Granted it is among the lightest parts of my skin but I think it was good that I liked my skin in the first place. Whether it is a factor of black pride, black peace, being woke or the myriad of other terms that the human mind can derive to describe what I felt or influenced what I felt at that time, I really cannot tell.
The whole business of liking my skin was quite abrupt and took me by surprise. As though for some reason I had been taught that it was weird to do so and did you notice how I immediately explained that it is among the lightest parts of my body, to somehow justify my attraction? Perhaps subconsciously I came to learn that it was not expected for me to like my skin, to call it black, coloured, or exotic. Why would something I have lived with be exotic in the first place? A thing that is a distinct part of me, belongs to me and not far removed from my reality. And with all the description of hues of blues and reds for some reason being termed as coloured doesn’t seem to quite fit seeing as there are no indigo people I know of.
I still do look at my skin and I like the sensation it gives me. It is as though I have discovered something I had taken for granted over a long period of time. Kind of like the smooth stones you find at the beach. When you show it to someone else it is not a big deal to them but somehow that moment you stumbled upon it there was an unusual connection to it. The gentle curves and the mystic colour draws you in and enchants you in a way that you did not know was possible. As though there is a sacred bond between you and this precious item that can only be understood by the both of you.
It bothers me that I have to explain why I like my skin. However, to say that I woke up liking my skin and have not experienced certain untold battle of negative emotion towards it, is a lie. The moment my skin became a statement of political concern, cultural inquisition and moral objectivity that is when the battle to love, hate and all the emotion in between began. The sad thing about it was that I was never given the choice to find the aesthetic value of my skin without unwillingly siding with a social cause of some kind. I was not allowed to be marvelled and intrigued by my skin. To look at the colour of my veins, the complexion on my face and to intricately wonder how so many shades of colour can be on one body.
At one point I thought to myself, “What if my skin was like a suit which I could wear and remove?” I daydreamed of how I would dress up to suit the cultural norm of the day to illicit the reactions that I wanted. Perhaps if it was like an item of clothing it would lose the perceptional sway it carries because you would never be able to tell my origin by the colour of my skin. Or would being black or African mean something deeper than the skin? If I could shed of the skin would someone be forced to dig deeper into who I am on the inside? Would I be able to tell my story without it being filtered through the veil of my skin?
Does being African mean I must have a deep wretched past and therefore it is the only narrative that will be heard and accepted? Does my story have to entail of a remote civilization for it to be seen as truly African? Or would I have the chance to tell a happy story. One filled with laughter, togetherness and the very distinct nature of having a relative somewhere because for some reason if you have a relative they will find you, and by that you are never really alone. Do I get to speak of having a friend or five who are not so African without the story seeming to be somehow “upgraded” or “modernized?”
With the acceptance of my skin I find that I have to embrace many of the political discussions that come with it. This doesn’t mean I do not care about these conversations and I am not trying to be ignorant or dismiss what black people have gone through, in fact I do live in the reality of a world that I did not have a huge part in creating and I am at the impact of the conclusions drawn from these conversations. Somehow I still wonder why my skin became the centre of global discussions of Africa rising, Africa empowerment and world trade, or equity and fairness among race.
When I looked at the inner part of my wrist and liked the colour of my skin, I did not think politics, culture, gender or race. I just thought. This is really pretty to look at. And for the young growing up in this world that is resolute to give tags to what they find hard to describe grossly missing out on the essence of a thing, I hope that they too can have the freedom to look at their skin, detached from all the opinions around them and say, “This skin is really pretty.”
After all it is an injustice to describe a diamond as a colourless rock, right? A diamond is colourless and it is a rock, but those two words hardly cover the depths of how precious it is. How much more living breathing human beings?
