Sometimes I can’t deal with the blogs and the topics. I want to participate, but I’m not sure if my presence is welcomed. Especially when it comes to complexion and color.
I think one reason us light skinned-ed people opt to remain in our own little corner is because we fear we say something to offend the darker skinned-ed people and who wants that?
It almost seems like discussing my light/bi-racial….brings out an apology that goes something like “I’m not black only because I’m not (technically) black, but not that I’m not black because I don’t want to be black because I think I’m better than you. I’m not black because someone fucked around and made me not black when I got here, my bad” sort of way.
I feel a certain guilt for the way people treat people of my complexion as superior to other shades.
I feel a certain hurt because I know that dark women hate my complexion (and then hate me) because my mere presence reminds them of their ‘less than’ status. Did I say that right..? I don’t want to offend anyone.
And yes, I understand the trickle down of race in this country and yes, I understand that I have an implied upper hand due to my complexion. Yes, but did you realize that I woke up like this?
My mother is alive and in a nursing home. When childhood friends ask about the health of my mother, I tell them that she is old now and still hanging around. Their faces search for more information, but I have none to offer, I don’t have communication with my mother.
I gave up attempting to have a relationship of ‘love’ with the ‘mother’ whom all great feelings of relevance and undeniably dedication fall. She dislikes me for who knows what reason (my skin….?) and won’t speak to me. She’s lied on me and to me throughout my entire existence. I guess there’s isn’t much to miss in the form of a mother since she has always behaved this way towards me.
I had none of that. What I did have was a daily reminder of her life versus my future life and all the good and easy things that would simply fall my way because I had what it took to make it out in the world…..I was ‘light skinned’ with ‘good hair’.
My mother is a coal colored woman with a wide gap in her front teeth. She was a stunning young women, from what I recall in the pictures she stashed away of her during the time she met, dated and married the man whom I would call my father. She wore her hair in a close buzz cut, white hand gloves, suits and seamed stockings. She always dressed her ass off, and I credit her with my sense of style.
“You yellow women always like to run around with everyone else’s man” was her reaction after I found out my new boyfriend was someone else’s current boyfriend. I cried my broken heart out to her. She laughed at me and pretty much told me I should expect to be a side chick.
She said no man wants a wife that’s too pretty, so they marry dark women instead. Her complexion makes her safe, and as much as I hate to admit that, I kinda see what she means. Men were always extra worried and obsessively possessive over me, as if I’m some sort of precious doll. Even to this day I do wonder why she stays with him when she sees that he falls over himself trying to keep track of me and we’ve not been together in years.
“You yellow women are dirty and lazy, you don’t have to keep a house because men will let you lay up for free” is how she implied men would require less of me as a mate because I am light skinned. She was right, though I keep a clean house and I am very nurturing and domestic. I wasn’t going to allow her to be correct about me. She kept an amazing house, I’m guess that’s something only dark women did to keep a husband way back when, they provide a service and benefit to the husband. She did’t teach me housework because she said I wouldn’t need to know.
“You’re lucky. You can marry a White man, you won’t have to be stuck with a no account N*gga. You’re light skinned and pretty with good hair. A White man will take you.” Is it a good or a bad thing that she taught me that my complexion made me racially ambiguous? I pay the race of others no mind, but in my head I am as dark as my mother, yet I look in the mirror and know I’m not black.
It’s all very confusing.
Thank you for sharing your story.
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