Pretty for a Black Girl

"You're pretty...For a black girl."

For as long as she can remember, Keyani has been haunted by these words, this insult everyone thinks is a compliment.

And for the longest time, she believed it. She thought she would be prettier if she was a light skin or even better, a white girl. She used to hate the rich brown of her skin, her natural hair everyone called nappy and "ghetto".

She barely survived her first two years of highschool, the bullying was so intense. She dropped out at the beginning of her junior year and spent the rest of the year in Los Angeles, California, being homeschooled and getting to know her grandmother.

She stayed the summer and found confidence in her looks, in the
melanin of her skin, her soft, tightly wound black girls that made up her afro.

She's back home in Seattle for her senior year at West Side Tech and nobody's ready for how much she changed.

⚠ Warning: Racism, colorism, some homophobia and mentions of bullying. ⚠