Vanessa Onyema: I Don’t Get a Free Pass Because I’m Light Skinned

People always say to me: You are lucky you are light skinned, you can’t go to a place without being noticed. You are prettier because you are light. Girls want to be as light as you are. It is the new trend.

People say all these things without knowing the battles I fight within. I have to wear tons of foundation to cover the zits. I go red when I have a rash or when I hit my face against a wall. Nobody knows how I try to follow a healthy regimen in order to keep the skin in check, due to the harsh climatic change.

I may be light because it is a form of a natural birthright, but that doesn’t mean my life has been mapped out to be perfect. It only means it gets tough for me to get what I really deserve.

I once heard someone say, “if you were dark skinned, you won’t be beautiful. Your fair nature makes you attractive.” I was sorry, not for myself but for the person to think that if I was a darker shade, I’d be ugly. Well, do the honors and color me!

Being a light skinned girl in Nigeria has taught me a lot of things, and the most important one is that life should be easier and simpler for me. My skin pigmentation doesn’t make me better. It doesn’t even make me have a 5.0 C.G.P.A. or make me have an 8% I.Q.
It doesn’t make me humble, dumb, happy, sad, funny, annoying, attractive, or ugly. It only makes me have a layer that protects the subcutaneous layer of the epidermis and if we rip it apart, we all appear the same.

What makes me who I am is who I choose to be and what I choose to become. I’ve been at a point where I couldn’t accept my nature; tall and skinny. I got depressed – always got upset with people’s unwanted opinions: Don’t you eat? Are you anorexic? Are you on drugs?
It made me very insecure that I always start to narrate how I eat up to five-six times daily. I always fantasized about having a bigger bum, perfect curves. I tried using butt spanx but in the long run I chose me; because there won’t be anyone else like me!

People feel insecure because they are uncomfortable under their skin. They want to be like people in magazines, they want to be praised with a thousand Instagram likes on their pictures – forgetting the existence of photoshop. They become their own haters by doing so.

I believe that when you have something good, something positive inside of you, it radiates all over you and no one will resist. It doesn’t matter who you are, and how you look or appear; the only thing that matters is what you can bring to the table.

So please, don’t feel like a nobody around me. Don’t feel I’m taking your spotlight. Don’t think I get all the attention because of my skin color. Because if you do, you will keep basking in your harrowing life, hibernating into a shadow of yourself, losing it, slipping into depression, jealousy, envy and self-damnation, while I go ahead taking your spotlight.

Light skinned people don’t have it easy, because life is not supposed to be easy and I do wish most people understand.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime