I came back from work. I work a part time job at a big company and have offered to help Auntie pay the bills. I'm just happy I'm making a decent amount of money at my age despite getting ready to go to university. Aunt Platinum is sitting at the table staring into space. She didn't move an inch and there's no emotion on her face.
"What's wrong Auntie?" I asked.
"She's dead. Your grandmother. She died just before lunch time." She replied. I just sighed and hung up my coat.
"I know Omolara I know. I didn't like her too but apparently she wanted to see you. Are you going to the funeral?" Aunt Platinum asked. I shook my head before doing the washing up. My hands. My dark hands. I wish this washing up liquid would wash the melanin off my skin just as I received a flash back to my childhood, one to when I confronted my brother Berko during one of his colourist rants.
"Why do you only date mixed race girls. Black girls are pretty too. Seriously stop putting down black girls!" I shouted.
"Oh shut up. Stop being jealous and bitter Omolara. Just accept that mixed race chicks look better than you." He laughed.
"So mixed race guys look better than you? That's what you're saying idiot!" I laughed back.
"Ha! Its better when guys are dark skinned. Dark skin is masculine. Light skin is feminine. It is what it is. Dark skins girls are ugly apes and light skin dudes are feminine wimps. Suck up to the reality already sis. As grandma says, learn your place." He grabbed his bags and ran down the stairs as he was going to school. I remember just standing there being speechless at his illogical thinking.
It's not just my family either. Every time I turn on my phone, there's some black male celebrity dating a light bright and shitting on the girls who look like me. Even though I work out all the time, am very feminine in how I dress and am outspoken, this crippled self esteem inside eats away at me everyday. And Aunt Platinum can't help me either, not when she's feeling the same and couldn't sort it out in her half a century on this planet. The women in my family aren't actually that pretty, me included. We are all mostly average. I am closer in the face to Adelayo Adedayo then a Lupita Nyongo or a Tika Sumpter. My body is the only thing that's outstanding about me as I have long legs and I'm skinny with modest curves but so what, even Lupita and Tika get shit on for there dark skin and they are absolutely stunning. Even the most beautiful dark skin girls get neglected and are denied opportunities. It seems we will never be good enough and the worst thing of all is, the people dishing the shit are excused and we are the ones held accountable when we reacted due to our hurt feelings. We aren't allowed to fight back, we aren't even seen as human. Everything we do is dammed and we can't please anyone. If we are natural or if we wear weave, if we bleach or accept our melanin, if we have lots of children or none at all, if we have lots of money or none at all, if we date only within the race or go IR. Everything we do is picked apart under a microscope. I'm getting to the point where I want to give up. The depression is slowly beginning to creak in and the seed of it was planted years ago. Only now do I feel the effects of it's growth.
"Omolara. I've got a night shift. I'll be back at 12 okay." Called Auntie.
"Okay." I called wiping the surfaces. The washing up is finished. Once all the chores were completed. I washed my hair and had a nice hot bath. In the bath, I checked my phone. Such and such attacks so and so over her dark skin. Such and such leaves his dark skinned baby mama for a biracial women. That's all I saw and below in the comments section. It's a mess. Black men defending them saying it's a preference. Well if light women are your preference then why the fuck do you always bully us? Can't you fuck off with your preference and shut up? We don't care if you don't prefer us. Either like us or leave us alone but they don't and then they get mad as hell when the so called dark skinned, fat, ugly nappy headed girls that are so worthless date outside there race. My family members, especially my brother Berko, who tore me apart in the past, I guarantee you £1000 or $1000 that they will go crazy if I dated a white or Asian guy. Narcissists I tell you.
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The Pseudo Biracial
General FictionOmolara is a young dark skinned black girl who is subjected to colorism from all corners of her community including her own family. One day however, she gets into a disagreement with a light skinned black women over DNA which plants a dangerous i...
