When it comes to growing up Black in the UK, we all have a story that’s unique to us. Now, with the prevalence of numerous, and popular, hashtags celebrating dark skin, we often gloss over the reality that for some of us, it can be a long road to getting to that place where we love our dark skin.
While we all have our own stories of coming to love our skin, it’s great to hear about how our fellow queens come to that realisation too and their journey to get to that point.
Changing Perspective Productions, a production company based in the UK, has created a short documentary to celebrate dark-skinned women. The doc joins the important discussion around how we help to empower and inspire black women to be proud of their skin colour.
The doc is extremely timely. A recent The Guardian feature headlined: “Why dark-skinned Black girls like me aren’t getting married”. A sobering read and clearly the authors’ view.
A few years ago, Hollywood actress, Tika Sumpter, wrote a great piece in the Daily Beast, sharing her thoughts on being a dark-skinned women. As she said: “Who hasn’t heard the obligatory, ‘You’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl’? Or my personal favourite, ‘I don’t usually date dark-skinned women, but you’re so beautiful.’… Still, I always knew there were far too many other people who saw my beauty and embraced every part of me with open arms to think twice about what was said.”
We couldn’t agree more. Acknowledge the journey and the prejudices but focus on the people who truly love you. And that’s what the four beautiful women featured in this video do. The women, Hayley Thomas, Lánre Njoku, Melissa Madden and Patrice Rowland, talk about a range of topics around their journey of coming to love who they are, including their reality of some Black men preferring lighter skin and colourism.
Some comments from the doc:
“I am powerful, I am strong, I am beautiful.”
“No one would really want you, want to be with you, not even your own men. That’s kind of scarring”.
“I love being a dark skinned-woman. I would never want to change. I just hope that every dark-skinned girl can feel the same way.”
So yes, the road to self-love is not always a straight road. Maybe it shouldn’t be. But take it from us. Black Girl? You’re magic!
Watch the short documentary: In My Dark Skin
The documentary was directed and edited by ShaToya Rose, founder of Changing Perspective Productions.
