Black Is Beautiful

I fell into a canal when I was a little girl.

And I don’t say “canal,” in the same context as the Suez Canal, the Grand Canal in Venice, or the Panama Canal.

I fell into a canal in the Philippines. And here in the Philippines, “canals” are part of the sewage system, and are full of dirty water, trash, and other icky things.

So, I fell into a canal. Do you have your mental picture straightened out now? Yes? Good. Let me tell you the story:

I love to wander off on my own (I was also lost in Luneta during the People Power rally…but that’s another story for next time. In the meantime, see picture below for reference). Even now that I’m an adult, I would rather separate myself from the group and walk around the mall alone. My parents are aware of this and I was constantly under their supervision when I was a kid. Being “makulit” me, I would always find a way to “escape.” On one such occasion, I was walking along the street outside our house. 

Before I got lost in Luneta. Imagine trying to find me in a crowd full of people who were wearing the same shirt I was!

I was out of my parents’ sight for a whole of a minute (just 1 minute!), and when they turned to look for me, I was gone. Now, many things can happen to a 6-year old kid in a minute: maybe a stranger sped by on his motorcycle and kidnapped me; or maybe a nuno sa punso (enchanted dwarves) snuck me into their underground lair (don’t look at me; it’s the sort of thing some Filipinos believe in); or maybe I ran away, was gifted with super speed, and was already at the next block. Point is, given that I was kid with a propensity for disappearing (i.e: Luneta. A kid wearing yellow, lost in a crowd wearing yellow), my parents could only imagine the worst. They were about to deploy a whole search party (at least, that is what I choose to believe they were willing to do for me, their precious daughter), when they heard a small voice coming from below ground level: “Help! Help!” (oo, Inglisera ako noong bata ako. Hahaha)

I didn’t get kidnapped or abducted by dwarves / aliens; I didn’t run away; I fell into an open canal. Whodathunk?

My parents peered through the opening and saw me standing shin-deep in black muck and garbage. When they attempted to wash the dirt off, the floor of our bathtub was full of black water & sludge. *shudder* I kinda wish they washed me off with ethyl alcohol instead.

It’s a funny story, really. I’ll just pick my ego up when you’ve stopped laughing, thanks.

Ok, so what is my point in telling this story? It has been a long-standing joke in my family that I became “dark-skinned” because of the black canal water. This event started the string of “nognog” jokes I have heard directed at me during my childhood. For those who don’t know, “nognog” is derived from the Filipino word “sunog” which, as an adjective, means “burnt.” It is a term used to describe those with dark skin. It is a term used to describe me.

Teenage girls have many issues about their appearance: “I’m too dark,” or “I’m too fat,” or “I’m too short,” or “I’m taller than most of the boys,” or “My nose is too flat,” or “I have too many pimples.” The list goes on and on. My particular issue then, was my skin color. The pretty, popular girls were mostly of the chinita or mestiza type. I never felt particularly girly or pretty, maybe because girly, pretty girls were usually portrayed in movies as petite, light-skinned types in flowery dresses.

Borrowing Lady Gaga’s words, I was “born this way:” maitim (dark) and payatot (thin & gangly) are just some of the unflattering adjectives used to describe me during my adolescent years (see picture below for a visual reference. DON’T LAUGH). Aside from being dark, thin, with knobby knees, I also had glasses (four-eyes) and braces (metal mouth). In short, I was a really ugly kid.

The floating head in the middle is me, wearing immaculate white on my grade school graduation.

I was the tall, gangly, dark-skinned nerd in loose clothes and chunky Doc Martens.  I was insecure about my appearance, and always felt that I had to change myself to be more attractive / more noticeable

Clothes are easy enough to change…I tried to copy the latest fashion trends (operative word: tried); I replaced my thick glasses with contact lenses in high school; couldn’t remove the braces yet, but a lot of other teenagers had braces then, so it didn’t bother me too much; but the dark skin…that is something that is harder to change. And therein lies my frustration.

I hated my skin color. Hated it. I blamed it for all the unrequited loves, all the ugly duckling photos, all the rejections I experienced growing up. I remember that whitening lotions and soaps began to be the “in” thing when I was in high school. I remember this clearly because I was a victim of their promises to make my skin “rosy-white,” and therefore, prettier. I had a theory that if I could just lighten it just a teeny-tiny bit, I would become more attractive, and would not be mistaken for a boy in fast food restaurants (Welcome to Jollibee, ser!”).

True, there were several factors contributing to my “unattractiveness,” but I was convinced that being dark was the trait that sealed the deal. If first impressions last, then being dark automatically got us overlooked at parties, class pictures, and school fairs.

I’m not saying that we, the dark-skinned girls, are the kawawa ones in the story. But, I mean, c’mon. Is there a specific derogatory term for light-skinned girls? Wala, diba? Because it’s an acceptable thing in our society: a society that is predominantly kayumanggi, with Malay ancestry but who tend to be more accepting of what is banyaga (foreign), that we scramble to be like / look like / talk like our Spanish / American conquerors. Dark-skinned girls are supposedly the majority in our country, but we are called derogatory names like nognog, maitim (dark), negra, or kulay uling (coal-colored).

Now, there are other more politically-correct terms used to describe women of high melanin content in their skin: tan, bronze, sun-kissed, honey / coffee / toffee / caramel toned (what are we, FOOD?), and most common of all: MORENA.

Even if it is politically correct, I didn’t like to be called “morena,” when I was younger, because it was synonymous to the derogatory terms I mentioned above. It was only when I got older, when I became more comfortable with my own skin, when I became more confident about who I am, did I get to appreciate my pagka-morena.

I wish that I could’ve told adolescent Lesley that things will get better with age; that being “morena” is part of who she is, and that she should not try to change it with skin whitening products; that all it takes is a little bit of confidence and belief in oneself to really make the real beauty shine through.

Here I am again, in immaculate white, but now more comfortable in my own skin.
(Photo credit: Stanley Ong for Kris Bacani make-up)

Black IS beautiful, not because it is any better than white (it is not in a competition with white!), but because it is a trait not commonly accepted in society, but which still manages to shine through. And isn't that the most remarkable? :)

So whatever it is that makes you insecure; whatever it is that makes you doubt your worth: Accept it, embrace it, make it work for you.

* * * *

As a treat for my 1 or 2 regular blog readers (harhar), I am posting a long-lost TVC that I did for a skin whitening product. Of course, I was cast as part of the “dark” family. :)) The concept of this ad is something that I am adamantly against now (along with this recent Block & White video about teenage girls giving a morena girl a make-over), and I must admit that it is very hypocritical of me to be writing about my love for my dark skin when I used to moonlight as a model for a skin whitening product. But that was 8 years ago, ok, I’ve changed since then.

Please don’t laugh. :))