The Brown Girl Problem
Updated: Apr 8
Brown skin, melanin touched
Like dirt and soil and life
The colors of your family
and ancestors forgotten within history;
You called it a curse.
Under societal conditioning
You never realized until now that
It is a tightly wound cord
That connects you to your heritage.
Your people had been taught to hate it
By those who stole from them
And you fell prey to the same pain.
All brown girls know the feeling
Of hating our own skin.
We try to escape from it,
Bleach it and scrub it
Until we are clean and bright
Because that is what we are told it means
To be beautiful.
We must be fair and lovely,
Light and pristine
To be seen as beautiful.