Dear African Woman…..'You Are Not Good Enough'

Model, Aamito Lagum
Image: Chano8

"Dear African Woman,

Why must we have this conversation over and over again? Why can’t you just accept our facts about you? Facts about how unimportant you are to the general scheme of things? Facts about how your physical attributes are repulsive and unappealing? Facts that show the world that YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH?!

Do you want us to go through this drill again? Do you want us to lay all the facts on the table? Didn’t you beg us to stop…to have mercy…to leave you alone? Well, now we are pissed. Maybe you need a reminder that you are unattractive, ugly, and dirty and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Look at your hair. Oh that ugliness! Look at THAT nappy, unruly, unkempt, dull, kinky and coarse hair. We have told you times without number to straighten that hair. We have told you again and again that we will not let you into our companies, our schools, our parties or our magazines with that hair! Why don’t you listen?! Straighten that hair! Wear a weave! Stop following Viola Davis or Blue Ivy or that nonsense you call the #NaturalHairMovement. If you want us to accept you, then you MUST ensure that your hair looks like ours; long, silky, glossy, shiny and best of all, straight!

And what is it with that nose?! Do you want to drag people’s souls in?! That flare is just too wide! Dr. Paul Nassif is a renowned rhinoplasty surgeon and he can fix that for you; if you can cough up the money. Gosh, you are just sucking up ALL the oxygen in here! Gosh, is it your plan to asphyxiate us all? Goddamn it!

You would think that is the only thing wrong with you until eyes fall on those thick lips. If we were to take pictures of only your lips and rotate them either to the right or left, it would look like cellulite buttocks and you know that is UNAPPEALING! We see your lips and cannot help but think of thick slices of steak. You want to be treated like Aamito Lagum? Trust me, we can make it happen! You know what? We are tempted to finish this conversation with our backs turned to you but we are willing to make this huge sacrifice for humanity by continuing to sear this horrible image to our brain.

Your breasts we can deal with but your buttocks?! Why does it have to be so thick?! So FAT?! So...primitive! Don’t you know that small and perky is the ONLY way a woman’s buttocks should be? Again, I can make contacts with Dr. Terry Dubrow and maybe – just maybe – he can turn this wide girth into something palatable. Yes, liposuction is hard but it must be easier than living with all these flaws.

And the worst of them all is your skin ‘hue’; if we can call it that with a straight face. In fact, let us say it as it is; YOU ARE BLACK! Your skin color is just wrong! It looks dirty and we conclude that it is dirty! Gosh! We have given you so many options; you can use creams, injections, drugs and even laser treatments to get that dirty skin off but you wouldn’t! We have sent some of your sisters – Dencia, many Nollywood actresses, Nigerian and African celebrities – with perfect examples of what you could look like and yet, you somehow resist. We are tired of you! Do you love our ridicule?! Do you bask in our derision?! Why are you so stubborn?!

Though I said your skin color is the worst, your weight comes a close second. Miss big-boned, fat slob! Lose some weight! Be like us! We are slim, we are sexy and we are glamorous! You on the other hand, blah! We want to puke!

We can tolerate your sisters who are celebrities – Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Amber Rose, Blac China – because their skin color is as close to ours as is possible. We can forgive anything but a black skin.

This is the last time we will tell you this. As long as you continue to be stubborn, we will not feature you in our movies, our TV shows, in our magazines, our charts, our award shows and the glamorous red carpets, our billboard ads and in our stories of success. We will exclude you from all our well carved happy stories, our human projections and our standards for beauty. We will ensure that you are not brand ambassadors to anything and if you persist, we will only push harder…and harder….and harder, until you break, until you give up, until you accept that BLACK IS NOT BEAUTIFUL!

This is the last time we will bring this up.

With Venom,

World Racist Confederation."

 

Amara la Negra
Image: EGL

Dear World Racist Confederation,

We have received your venom over and over and like you, we like to say it as it is: FUCK YOU RIGHT BACK!

You said our hair is not good enough for you, right? Well…it may shock you to know but, we are okay with it! We refuse to be bullied into thinking that our natural hair is unappealing! We love it that way; that is what makes us different from the rest of the world! In fact, all our features are so unique that we cannot help but call you out on your envy. And yes, Viola Davis showed you that our hair is awesome! It must have hurt to have a natural haired African woman on one of the top tier television shows today. We bless Beyonce for putting our black, fluffy, puffy hair on world stage! Ladies, let’s get in formation! And we are not just in your movies; we are walking your fashion runways. Go ask Maria Borges who made history by walking the Victoria Secret show with her natural hair. Hey World Racist Confederation, read up a little…or better still, follow the trends. Big ups to the #NaturalHairMovement!

And our nose irritates you? Get used to it! And trust me, if we could suck up all your oxygen, we would! No point having a group of people alive who are nothing but evil, filled with hate and so unhappy. The air is more important to people who have good hearts; and we are amongst them! So again, deal with it!

Since you are still on our lip issue, can you explain to me why it is wrong for us to have our thick kissers but Angelina Jolie is ‘sexy’ with them? Or how everyone is going gaga over Priyanka Chopra’s lips or even Scarlett Johansen’s? Or is our feature only good when they are on other races but ours?! Well, if they are good on these ladies, they are superb on us!

And the same goes for our booties! Our butts are not good enough until the Kardashians got bigger? Or until Jennifer Lopez worked those curves on red carpets? Aren’t you then full of bull crap to hold us to one standard of beauty and others to our standard of beauty?! Hypocritical group of dunces!

You said our skin color was our worst feature. Why, thank you! That is so nice! Wow! We bow in humble appreciation! At least, we don’t have to worry about skin cancer when we get in contact with the sun. By the way, did you hear of global warming? It means that when the sun rays reaching the earth finally become hotter than it is now, we African women – and our African men – might be the only survivors on this very planet of ours. I cannot say that I feel any iota of pity for you.

As for ladies who have bleached themselves (I believe that was the word you were looking for), good for them. They do not stop being our sisters. We still love them, though we know you do not treat them any better than us. In the end, we are black, we are Africans, and in your view, we are not good enough! We may get more features in your life but we are just that; African women!

When you talk about our weight, we cannot help but laugh. We, like you, have as many variations of body types. We have size 6s and also morbidly obese women; just like you! We may have Gabourey Sidibe but you have Melissa McCarthy. You have hotties and we have Genevieve Nnaji, Omotola Jalade, Adesuwa Etomi, Seyi Shay, Tiwa Savage, Vanessa Mdee, Keke Palmer, Zendaya, Tinashe, Kerry Washington, Jada Pinkett, Halle Berry to mention a few. So every hottie you think you have, we have sisters who are equally (if not more) hot! Can’t you see that your campaign is one in futility?! We have our foot in the door! And guess what, we are getting into the party!

We are already taking lead roles in your movies, topping your charts and covering your magazine; or did you forget that Lupita Nyongo was named People Magazine’s ‘MOST BEAUTIFUL’ woman 2014? Misty Copeland is a leading ballet performer and guess what? SHE IS BLACK!

And we aren’t just talking entertainment. We are becoming presidents, business moguls, entrepreneurs and powerful influencers. We can bet you that you wouldn’t be able to get an invite to a meeting where Oprah, Michele Obama, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, Folorunsho Alakija, Linda Ikeji, Tara Durotoye, Uche Pedro and many others are present. Have you seen how much power Oprah has?! She endorses a product and it sells out! She endorses a presidential candidate and President Barack Obama became the first African man to lead one of the greatest nations of the world!

So what is this nonsense you are saying about not featuring us in your ‘happy stories’? STFU! We write our own stories! We create our own influences. Some of us may be lost but we are finding our way back to our queendom and boy will we reign tall, proud and glamorous! You DO NOT determine our worth, our essence and our pride! We will keep working hard until you cannot help but appreciate the fact that we are beautiful, we are awesome, we are great and boy are we proud to be black, to be African and to be women! WE ARE GOOD ENOUGH! And even if you refuse to accept it, it doesn’t mean no never mind!

OUR BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL!

With Regards,

African Woman