It’s Gonna Take More Than a Tumblr Post for Me to Love Myself

By:Saada Revan

Odds are that if you have any type of social media, in the past 6 months, even the past week you’ve probably seen the word ‘melanin’ on one of your timelines. You’ve probably also seen posts with the phrases “Protect Black Girls” or “I love Black Women”. Right now we are in a resurgence of Black Power, Black Love, and loving our blackness.

Millions of pictures and pages dedicated to black art, poems, and articles flood social media. I couldn’t be happier to be a young black girl in a time such as this, where black features such as dark skin and natural hair are being celebrated. Even the largest hair brands are starting “curly hair” lines and perms sales are continually decreasing.

Although all of this is welcomed it doesn’t do much to help fight the ingrained mentalities we’ve been brought up with that still make it hard for me to love what I see in the mirror. When dark skin girls are praised and seen as beautiful on social media, they always seem to be very specific prototypes that are deemed worthy.

It seems like a dark skin girl worthy of praise must have sharp cheek bones, oiled and shined up skin with a stunning body. She may have an afro that’s usually not 4c hair, a small nose, or some other Eurocentric features. I am tired of this. Though the people who usually post and promote dark skin women on social media  have good intentions, collages of gorgeous, dark skin women with silky skin posted on social media don’t help me love myself when I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

When I hear even the slightest dark skin jokes, whether they’re directed at me or not, or whether they are meant maliciously or not, I wince on the inside. They make me feel horrible and cause me to retreat to thoughts of my conditioned mind. “What if my curls were a little bit looser… that would make me cute”, “What if I was just half a shade lighter”. After these thoughts my usually turn to better thoughts like, “But you love your fro” and “Why would you think something like that.”

I’m Constantly trying to fight the little voice in my head and fighting other negative thoughts  like, “Maybe if my nose were just a little bit skinnier” or “What if I had cheekbones like Lupita N’yongo’s”. I find myself Consistently trying to find little explanations as to why no one wants me,as to why I feel less than. Trying to understand why I allow another girls beauty and confidence to take away from my own.  I often find myself walking through my school hallways picking away at myself, until it’s time to go home and I’ve destroyed all the self-confidence I have left.

One thing I’ve learned about self-love is that it’s a never ending process. There’s are always going to be ups and downs, but as time goes on you cross big hurdles and take steps towards bettering yourself. Over spring break, I decided to fight for myself. Repeating in my head to “fight for Saada”, to fight for all the love I deserve from myself. I can only speak for myself, when I say that one of the things hindering my progress is the need or validation from others.

I know that when I wear a good outfit, I want/expect compliments and if I don’t get them I feel like it was a waste. I often feel the need to be showered in compliments and heart eyes under pictures and when I don’t get them I start to wonder if maybe I’m not good enough. I know that Needing someone to find me attractive, or be interested in me and wanting something to validate my beauty is not healthy so I’ve decided to take the sentiment, “Nobody’s going to love you if you don’t love yourself” to heart and have begun working towards the goal of only needing validation from myself, because that’s all that matters.

Writing this piece is one big step in this process of me working towards the girl I want to be. Allowing myself to open up and be vulnerable. Putting my insecurities and struggles to print and making them real, so that I can begin to work on them. I will admit that it is mildly painful to write this, knowing that since this is the first time I will be published, I’ll want to share it with friends and family and classmates.

I’m Terrified at the fact that they will read this and know all these things about me and my thoughts that I would never tell anyone. That they will know what’s going on inside of me despite how I portray myself and now look down on me. For a long time, I believed opening up and letting people know that I had insecurities and weaknesses made me look weak and pitiful. But I’ve learned that they make me human and allowing people I know and strangers to read this is a big risk and challenge I’ve decided to embrace.

Now, I have my good days when I look in the mirror and see how gorgeous my skin is. When I recognize how amazing my lips look, plump, full, and beautifully shaped. The days where my afro looks just right and my outfit makes me feel powerful. I feel beautiful and I feel secure in my worth. But the goal of this journey is to have more of those good days. To just simply feel beautiful without my shoes or the shape of my hair that day to validate that and letting nothing take my worth and confidence away from me.

As I take my stand, there are also many black girls taking a stand against this and using their voices to do so. I want to thank all the “angry black feminists”, on social media who are often times viewed negatively . Their “group” coming with various names such as “shea butter twitter” and “twitter feminists” or as I like to call it “carefree black girl twitter”, I would like to thank you. During the second half of my sophomore year I came across section of twitter of beautiful, strong, opinionated, young black girls and women. I thought I’d let you know that many of your threads and rants have not gone in vain.

Even the most seemingly meaningless of tweets have sparked a change in at least one black girl. You sparked a change in me showed me how to begin to love my blackness, you showed me that I have a voice, and that I can be strong. You have also reminded me that black girls deserve and should expect more of this world.

In addition to the “angry black feminists”, I would also like to thank all of the Instagram and Tumblr pages dedicated to uplifting black girls. These pages have provided me with validating in showing me that I am important and that there is a plethora of beauty in my dark skin, in my hair that looks like a cloud, and in my lips that take such a beautiful shape that others envy them.

Today I am still fighting through the self-hate, the dark thoughts that enter my mind, and the shame and guilt for acknowledging that I am struggling. All I can do is fight for Saada and find the girl inside me who is so deserving of love and ready to give it. So I thought I’d shared my thoughts that maybe someone might relate to.

I want you to know that you shouldn’t feel bad if you still struggle to love and accept yourself. Just because Tumblr and twitter tell you to doesn’t mean it’s that easy. The things we learned to be the standards of beauty and the way we internalized them will not be easy to unlearn.

I am still at the beginning of my journey to love myself and although each day is a struggle I know that I will eventually be where I want to be. All our journeys will come at a different time and a different pace, just be patient with yourself throughout your journey and make sure you are taking steps each day to become the person you want to be.