To Ari Lennox And Darker Skinned Black Women Everywhere, You Are Not A Second Choice
You heard it, I heard it, and in fact, all of social media heard it. What I’m talking about is the hurt, disgust, and disappointment in the voice of our favorite colorist activist, corrective promotion queen, and soulful innovator, Ari Lennox.
The tones and vibrations in her voice spoke to the hurt and shared experiences of Black women everywhere.
Her tone spoke to the little girls with coiled 4C textured hair, whose elementary crush denied her their affection in favor of the biracial sweetheart. It spoke to the teenager with a nose so broad, that it seems to cover her entire face. It spoke to the women with full and dark lips who are in love and valued, but feel like they had to go through hell and back to get there. And it spoke to the single women, who go out with their girlfriends every Saturday night, and perhaps feel shunned and neglected in favor of their friend with shiny ringlet curls and honey-colored skin.
There’s no denying it, Black women with darker skin complexions and phenotypical African features, struggle in the dating pool. Because of this struggle, many of us end up feeling like a second choice; an option when all the other doors have been closed several times over.
It seems like many of us have to sit in the corner, waiting our turn to be noticed, and appreciated, and desired. We look outside of the depths of our corner, at the men that many of us respect and cherish and are even simply attracted to, feeling burning stings every time they seem to pick a woman over us.
When this sting hits us, sometimes in the face, or the chest, or the back, some of us curl up inside of ourselves.
And then there are those of us, who instead of retreating into ourselves, decide to stand up and show the world that we’re not a second choice, we’re just as good.
Sometimes these women, the ones who choose to stand up, feel like to do this, to show this, to champion for this, they have to transform into the ultimate woman. And by ultimate woman, I mean that fictionalized version of what we believe her to be.
The woman with perfectly coifed hair, flawless skin, amazing assets whether those are academic or professional, and fabulous fashion. The women who step out in their heels or sneakers or ballet flats, with their shoulders rolled back to prove to the world that they are IT.
Some of these women, perhaps even a lot of these women, are aiming to prove that their patent leather heels and shiny hair are symbols of our value.
Then there are the women who rather than donning a plastic façade, become bitter shells of themselves. This bitterness does not form out of spite, but from hurt and defensiveness. These are the women who think that if they bite before they are bit, they won’t feel those stings of being left in second place.
These women are critical of men, practically black men, and then raise their nose at the idea of dating, partnerships, and or marriage. They are the women who always seem to eager to pounce on the black man who married the Hispanic woman with shiny long hair, or the black man who dotes on their biracial girlfriend with such loving devotion.
And then there are the women, the Black women, who are like Ari Lennox. They’re singing about their hurt and dark skin, and they’re on Instagram ranting and raving and practically begging for people, specifically Black men, to stop viewing Black women as lesser than options because of our skin, or hair, or facial features.
At one point, I was all of these women. I was the one who tucked into herself, the one who thought I had to prove how great of a catch I was, the one who hid behind a snappy mask of cynicism, and the one, who like Ari, sometimes begged black men to look at me and think, “wow, she’s so pretty.”
Being these women, got me nowhere but further into my hole of hurt, and bitterness, and feelings of inadequacy.
So one day, I decided that I didn’t want to keep feeling like a second choice. Now, that’s not to say that I just magically woke up and felt like the most gorgeous woman in the world. But it is to say, that I made steps to feel better, to realize that I am better than how some people, some men, view and viewed me.
Instead of making my love interests men who wanted a lighter and curlier haired version of myself, I made it a point to meet men, the man, who appreciated my features and my hair, and my skin. A man who chose me, and didn’t settle for me.
I surrounded myself with not only darker-skinned women who had successful relationships with men who valued and praised them, but darker-skinned women that I valued and praised because of their feminine graces, or style, or sex appeal, or intelligence and talent (i.e.,Teyana Taylor, Serena Williams, Gabriel Union, Viola Davis, Ryan Destiny, Normani, Keesha Sharp, Jennifer Hudson, Jill Marie Jones, etc.)
I did and do the things that made me feel desirable and pretty and confident. And I read books where Black women, sometimes darker-skinned women, were the quirky, sexy, badass, successful love interest of the doctor, or politician, or lawyer.
All of these things played a significant role in my personal development and self esteem as a black woman. I’m still growing, and changing, and even stumbling on my journey of not feeling like a shunned second choice, but I believe that I’m finally at the point where I can say this:
Black women, I know first-hand how hard it is to remove yourself from the cycle of feeling like you’re in a race where you are always in second, third, hell, even fourth place.
But it’s not the job of others to tell us that we’re not these underappreciated and tragic figures, because quite frankly, most people probably won’t tell us those things. And as frustrating as it might be, it is not our job to convivence them otherwise.
We are the ones who have to make ourselves believe we are not second fiddle or the man on the bench. We are the ones who have to not only surround ourselves with corrective promotion, but create it. And we are the ones who have to make it a point, to date, love, f*ck, and marry people who appreciate us for what and who we are.
