Originally Posted by
Boricua1
Well for myself, I am of Hispanic ethnicity, but I am of African descent.. (if you are confused right now... remember Hispanic is an ethnicity not a race..) The majority of Africans broght during the middle passage were sent to The caribbean and S. Amrica.. not N. America...
Anyways... I am a Black Puerto Rican. and have always mostly Identified with African Americans.. and I must say quite proudly... My mom is even dare I say hyper afrocentric.. and identifies with Africa far more than even Puerto Rico.. it's not in any denial it's just I am thrid generation born in the USA.. and so even my mom was born here...
Like BrownD, I was always told how pretyy my brown skin was as a child... by everyone... and I never thought about it until the end of high school.. I always went to school with Black people... so I noticed that light girls got attention.. but it was never really a big thing because everyone pretyy much had the same cutlture... I was the exception sometimes becasue I did speak another language, and could cook puerto rican food which made me very popular with the guys even more so than the light skin girls..
it wasn't until I moved to NYC and lived for a while with family memebers in a Puerto Rican community that i noticed any problem. I hung around my cousin who was fair skinned and I noticed that many times people wouldn't think we were related and would ask her in spanish why she was hanging around with a "moya".. (derrogatory term for a black girl in spanglish)... because they assumed I didn't speak spanish.... or they would invite her to parties and say "don't bring your black ugly cousin," which bugged me out because I'm far from ugly... and not even super black.. which I don't say in a bad way.. but I'm like Gabrielle Union's complexion.. and my hair is long and curly like Rachel True.. or Mel B... but anyway.. so you can imagine what this does to an adolescent...
Anyways... I was always the last asked out by any of the guys in my neighborhood... and I just started hanging out with the Black people in my neighboorhood again and basically just left out even being Puerto Rican and I did okay until I went to college.
I got a scholarship to go to Spain to study art and architecture... and Spain was the most racist country I'd have to say in the world that i've been to thus far... I actually had eggs thrown at me one day while I was walking down the street as the culprits yelled "Go back to Africa Nigger!!" not to mention being spit on, denied entry to establishments, and asked to leave a store in a mall by security because "A black girl stole from the store two days before"... but this didn't make me want to lighten.. I just wanted to leave Spain.. LOL and so I did after 16 long months...
I always thought life would have been easier if I had light skin.. but I never even fathomed that people were doing this and never imagined that I could or ever would.. the only example that I had ever heard of was Michael Jackson.. and I never wanted to look like him...
In Fact in spite of all of the hatred I still liked my skin and I felt it was a huge contradiction in society that the people who always stopped me on the street to tell me how beautiful I was were always old white ladies... who actually wanted to touch my face because it was "so smooth and clear". little did they know that in my own community I was the girl noone dated unless you had a "thing" for black girls.
It's sad becaue it seems everyone can find someone beautiful even if they are not your "preference" but there is a seemed line drawn for Black girls... many people just skip over us when even considering beauty.. in spite of the numbers of balck super models and superstars who are considred beautiful.. it's like they are removed from practical.. "real' Black people.. and just appreciated as individuals... because the same guys that will say Beyonce, or Tyra, or even naomi Campbell are beautiful would in the same breath say that they do not find Black girls pretty or atractive).... but none of this made me consider lightening.. it was actually for a practical reason much more than a beauty reason.
What made me decide to lighten was after I came back from spain and I went to the military... I got a nasty farmer's tan that was so stark a difference that it looked like I had dipped my arms in dye.. and it lasted for years even after I got out of the service... I cruised the net and researched products and decided to use Kojic acid and arbutin to lighten back to my original coulur... it was successful and so therefore I fell off the skin lightening forums and boards....
Thinking life was bliss, so long as I avoided puerto Ricans and Spaniards.. I graduated, went to a Black university in another state and I stayed out my days in my Black safe haven and remained as a happy Black girl who spoke spanish and coould cook the heck out of some rice and beans!!
So WHY AM I BACK?
Well as I guess I can't just leave well enough alone LOL.. I must be a masochist... I converted to Islam.. (Long stoory I didn't plan it).. and where I live tha majority of the Muslims here are either Arab, Desi, or Somali (Somalis and many Africans usually keep very close to their own kind even to their own tribes)....
Arabs and Desis are super racist.. (I'm not trying to insult anyone.. please forgive me but I have my reasons for saying this..) All of the Arab and Desi older "aunties" loved me and always treated me well , are quick to cook for me or give me things or be super motherly, but let it come down to if I ever wanted to marry one of their sons.. forget it,.. they do not want "dark skinned" grandchildren.. and not to mention that even if there were any "Auntie" that decided to play match maker the guys them selves are even cruelly insistent that they do not want a black girl.. even bold enough to tell me to my face or say that "they do not find black girls attractive".. (A simple "I'm not interested" would have sufficed not to mention religiously we are not supposed to think and act like that) and more bold to then ask me that since I am a convert if I could hook them up with any white girls i may know or meet who converted... even to the point that looks or weight do not matter... an arab guy I know at the mosque actually married a girl who is almost mentally retarded.. (literally she is slow I'm not just being mean or hating it's a medical fact and the community knows it.. she is not to the point of incompetence... but she is indeed impaired).... who weighed 370lbs because she had blonde hair and blue eyes...
Well the long and short of it is.... many of the Muslims I've, seen the determining factor for race is as simple as complexion... not even features or hair because many arabs have super nappy hair...and many Desi have broad features.... so I wanna lightne up to a complexion that is considered more universally "acceptable" as not to be considered ugly and unmarriable.... which again is the stark contradiction of my past reliving itself because now even more than ever people stop me on the street to say how beautiful I am and admire my glowing complexion... even whe I went to a cosmetic dermatologist for a consult to find out about skin lightening.. the entire staff commented on how nice my skin was.. and was surpirsed to find out I was there at all for any problem...
But anyway if I were a more "standard" universal tone... light a tan or light brown, then maybe there wouldn't be such hassle and insult.
