I was around seven or eight when the “dress” incident happened.
I can still feel the strain of my eyelids—wide from fear—as pale, grubby hands touched and brushed all over my abdomen. My art teacher had noticed I was wearing a Kente cloth dress, a type of fabric originating in Ghana, and had decided I would be the perfect mannequin for my class to touch. Considering my class was in the deep south of Arkansas and I faced racially-charged encounters almost weekly, I wasn’t entirely sure they knew or even understood the culture or historical context that dress held. Nor was I sure they knew and understood the waves of discomfort that rolled through me as I played the pretty, black mannequin, bile slowly boiling in my stomach. I looked over at my teacher for help in hopes she might see the terror in my eyes and tell them to stop. But all I was met with was her unknowing smile. It really hit me then, the statement I had heard on TV once: “To be black and show it, is to be uncomfortable.”
To me, growing up knowing I was black meant growing up knowing no boys would ever pick me. It meant knowing that my name would never be the name a guy would nervously whisper to another guy about while he laughs and calls him a “simp.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m necessarily ugly. I’m just not blonde-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned with a perky button nose—more like black-haired, brown-eyed, sepia-skinned with a medium-wide nose. Back then, it used to make me feel ugly and weird. I hated watching TV shows in the living room as a kid, surrounded by toys, and never seeing a girl who looked like me. I hated furrowing my jet black brows as I watched the “oliveskinned,” brunette female protagonist throw her arms around her beach blonde, slightly tanned lover. Most of all, I hated how jealous I was of the girl. Not because she got the boy, but because the boy wanted to be hers, wrapped in her arms with such ease and no hint of reluctance.
Most of my young girlhood was spent awkwardly at war with my limbs and mind. I knew I was different from my Caucasian peers, though it never fully occurred to me then that being black was the reason why. All I knew was that I was taller than most of my friends and matched the height of most of the boys, was darker than probably 90 percent of them, was naturally stronger and faster than they were, and approximately zero boys had a crush on me. By the time I was nine, at least four of my friends had a boyfriend or knew a boy who was inexplicably really rude to her. Which obviously meant he liked her. I know how it sounds small and unimportant now, but back then it meant something to me. I would sit down alone on the swings, look down at my lanky and tanned body, and think, What’s so wrong about me? Am I too loud? Too rough? Too fast? Luckily for me, my long-term memory wasn’t effective enough to let it weigh down on me so heavily. But it still left a little stain on my growing self-confidence as a black girl, and an idea began to fester: Boys are uncomfortable with liking me.
I was around ten when quarantine hit, and I was in one of the most horrible mental spaces of my life. The uneasiness I felt towards my budding body was much more than the woes of puberty and a soul-deep dislike of my appearance. Couple that with being stuck inside four walls with little human interaction? You have the perfect recipe on how to base a person’s self-worth solely on looks. 10-13 became a blur of wanting to change every aspect of myself, horrible eating habits, and scouring the internet for any tips and tricks on getting smaller overall. Other than my mom, videos on how to diet and too many makeup videos to be considered healthy were the daily interactions I was getting with the outside world. For too many hours a night, I would watch videos of adult women telling child me that I needed to lose my chubby cheeks, straighten my curly hair, flatten that flabby stomach, while also learning how to do makeup. And so I did. And with straight hair, a barely smaller body, and so much makeup you couldn’t tell if I was 12 or 22, I felt beautiful. But it wasn’t real, it wasn’t lasting. The feeling would wash down the sink with the overly light concealer and the too harshly applied contour. When it was off, the same overwhelming disgust for my ethnic features would come back. I would squint in disdain at my wide nose, huff in annoyance at how big my lips were, make my face red with how I would try to manipulate my eyes to be less “buggy.” But it never worked. “I’m so uncomfortable to look at,” I would still think. “No wonder nobody likes me.”
Fourteen was a breath of fresh air. I finally began to accept my West African features. I liked my body, and I met so many new people who ended up being some of the best people I’ve ever met. And in that summer, two months into being fourteen, I met a boy. We spent time being slow during practice to just talk about our lives, and then race to the finish together. We’d text each other random things at random times, talk about what high school might be like, share food and seats on the bus when going to away meets. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t work out. Nothing bad happened; we just fizzled out. Even though we became nothing but acquaintances and former teammates in the end, the experience did teach me something. I’m likeable—most likely pretty to somebody due to my big eyes and pouty lips. I realized it’s possible for me to like a guy and for him to like me back, that I’m not some ugly girl who will forever be alone without a single person who thinks my face is decently pleasant. “Maybe black doesn’t have to always be uncomfortable.”
I’m fifteen now, and I realize now that I shouldn’t rely on fickle, teenage boys to validate my looks. I now know that I am still worth care and love, even if a light-skinned, blonde, or brunette boy doesn’t have a crush on me. My circle of friends has expanded much more since then—it now filled with people with such different features and life experiences thatI find myself dazzled by all of them. My blackness is no longer a curse on me, but where I find the freedom and confidence to be my most unapologetic self. My eyes are not “buggy,” but they help me see both the wonder and the worst of society. My lips are not too big, but they are the perfect vessels to unleash my opinions. My body is not too lanky or flabby, but incredibly hard working and performs the most difficult processes with ease, all enveloped in a package of beautiful, black skin. And now, I can confidently say, “Black may be uncomfortable, but what grows from it, is beautiful.”
Author’s Note:
In a world where it feels as if the black girl is more and more ignored, I wanted to use this as a platform to share my story! I’ve always been told I’m too political, yet too philosophical and think too deep into things. Using this, I shared my story about the feminine, black experience and how it’s shaped me today.
Jayla Lee | 15 | Caddo Mills, TX | @jay_jaywithluv on TikTok
