BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS

I was in standard five, 10 years old and I remember being called blacki, kiwi or anything that resembles oblique blackness. I went to a  primary school that had most Kenyan ethnic communities represented. That is when I realised I was blazingly different in my environment. No, I am not an albino, nor a with any physical defect and not that there is anything wrong with that. It was because I am very dark skinned.

Actually most of the places I go to, I usually stick out because of being very dark skinned, but not so in Dakar. I love the Senegalese people. Their beauty is so amazing. The women and men well groomed and of good form. The very dark women know how to put on make up and look so chic. Searching for foundation does not become an issue or knowing which colour of lipstick to use. I don’t get to stick out like an odd ball but blend into the crowd, often being spoken to in Wolof when approached by any merchant on the street.

I remember once being in a local famous beauty store in Nairobi and asking the beauty attendant to give me lipstick suited for my skin tone. The lady shouted, “Akinyi, kuna hiyo lipstick ya mtu mweusi saaana hapa..” I just felt all eyes fixed on me. It was rather embarrassing.

Then when I attended high school, a teenager forming my world view, one of the dorm prefects would taunt me most nights after evening classes for being very dark skinned. She would say I would never get a man to marry me because of my skin colour. Talk of shallow stupid utterances. Those statements almost defined me. I remember when the school term closed, running to my dads arms and hugging him in deep sobs. When I narrated the story to him, he told me I was the prettiest beauty he knew. Thank God for fathers.

“You are dark BUT beautiful” is what I would here people say. “Sio hiyo uweusi mbaya” . Okay , really what is that supposed to mean?

You see being in a society that loves differences, you and I have to accept it. I wait to hear the time when a fellow African says, you are “dark AND beautiful”. Let us not be so brain washed by shallow Eurocentrism to think there is a class difference in colour. Let’s see it as diversity and embrace the differences.

Question: What is your dark and is it beautiful? you can leave a comment below or via twitter.