Dear African Woman…..’You Are Not Good Enough’
Model, Aamito LagumImage: 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 NegraImage: 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