Rising of the Sun: Mothering a Brown Daughter

Living in this country has afforded me the hard truths of enduring many things.  Personally being of a lighter complexion, I never personally had to face the struggles of colorism. 

I've always heard stories from my friends, how lighter skin girls are concerned prettier.  Even some of my male friends have publicly spoken these same sentiments. I've never really thought about it because my family ranges from light-bright, caramel to smooth deep chocolate brown and even midnight black. I've never had a particular preference for what hue of Black was the best or the most desired. 

The madness of this idiocy didn't truly resonate with me until I had children. When I had my second daughter, I realized just how the minds of my fellow African-Americans had been twisted and tainted. 

My first daughter is my look-a-like.  When my second daughter was born, she had the smooth, caramelized-brown sugar color of her father, my at-the-time husband. My second daughter's complexion has an incandescent glow, meticulously placed high underneath her cheekbones.  

As she smiles, you can see the sunrise in her cheeks! 

Unfortunately, some of my close friends and even family were rudely only concerned with her complexion and not the complexity of God's creation. 

"Oh, the first one looks just like you! The other one doesn't even look like she's yours!" 

Some of the comments hit like covert jabs laced with passive-aggressive sarcasm. Thankfully, at the age of 25, I was still engulfed in living a life of "turn the other cheek politeness."  So I just smiled and responded, "Yes, she favors her father."  The harsh reality was most of these comments came from people who, I know for sure,  personally experienced colorism, had children who endured same treatment or had siblings of a darker complexion.  UMPH!  So do they feel this way about themselves and their family members? 

The psychosis runs deep! 

So now, my two daughters would have to deal with superficial comparisons of their complexion.  My first born enjoying the compliments but feeling sorry for her sister when she was overlooked.  My second daughter, living in a world where her people, pour their senseless house slave vs. field slave mentally into her subconsciousness continuously.

Being forcibly indoctrinated this cultural curse, my daughter learned how to shield herself from self-hate at an early age. One day, in preschool, a lighter student persuaded the other students to not play with my daughter, just because she was darker. Subsequently, I had already prepared my four-year-old daughter for this.  

Even though she was visibility hurt while she told me about her day, I sensed my daughter's pride.  My intelligent, illuminant daughter, with the sun rising in her cheeks told the ill-informed juvenile, "You must have bad parents because you're stupid! You may be lighter, but you're not smarter!"  

So it began.

With every passing year, with every new friend or foe, my daughter has had to protect her self-confidence!  Children telling her, "Your mother looks like the sun, and you look like midnight.", " Are you adopted?", "That must be your Aunt, not your mother."

I never buy my children European dolls.  Why I go out of my way, to introduce them to books and movies with children mirroring their exact beauty. Why I've never permed their hair! Why on every occasion possible, I rename them Beautiful and Pretty! 

I want them to become comfortable with themselves instead of trying to be someone else. 

While living in this country, I know my children will have to endure many things. I have to prepare them for injustices from people who don't look like them while supplying them with the weapons to combat the misguided sentiments of people who share their ancestry.   

My lovely daughter

Maybe one-day colorism will quickly fade, interchangeably as the sun continues to rise in my daughter's cheeks.