The final thing that gets me, is the ongoing war on light skinned girls being better than dark skinned girls. Dark skinned females not feeling beautiful because their skin is dark. When I was a teenager, I went through this phase. The phase of not being confident or thinking I wasn't pretty because all of the females in the videos were light skinned and rappers always talked about how their bad bitch was light skinned or a ‘red bone' was. However, this has been ongoing in the black community for decades upon decades. If we take a moment and remember about slavery, the lighter skin slaves worked in the house while the darker skin slaves worked outside. Is this the actual reason for the way that the black community thinks? Of course this has an impact on our culture however it is up to ourselves to change this image and I believe it begins with our youth. Hip hop though seems not to be getting the picture. The influence rap has on our children is so heavy that, they can get us to do almost anything. I remember crying at night time at the names I was being called at school about my skin. The term 'black' was looked at as a insult, instead of a compliment. With the power of hip hop, they can change the term to let our youth know that our 'black' is beautiful. All type of shades.
As I grew up and realized what I watched in the music videos and heard in the songs, I seen that rap artist made light skinned females seem like the only pretty black women there are. Now, I am a huge hip hop fan and I support many artist even though their preference are the 'red-bone' or lighter complexion females. But one artist sort of disrespected all dark skinned women in a very hurtful manner causing me to never look at him the same. Rapper Lil Wayne, who makes it known that he loves lighter skinned women, showed a whole other level of disrespect towards the community. Hip hop weekly, a blog site, shared this story with us:
A lot of people don’t like to discuss issues like this and we all heard the lyrics in “Right Above” (Uh, how do he say what’s never said?
Beautiful black woman, I bet that bitch look better red) but we waved it off as the “shock value” of an artist venting. Well according to a letter from a groupie/fan who was reportedly hanging out with Mr.Carter, the Young Money CEO don’t like dark skin women and don’t want anymore dark skinned children either! Read the letter below:
Destiny wrote:
My friend Tammy is a model she had a couple of photo shoots to go to in miami ..after going to her photoshoots we met up with mack maine from young money, he then took us to a hotel a couple of other girls were there and so was lil wayne, guda guda, lil chuckee, and birdman. My friend Tammy is light skin and me and my friend jessica are dark skinned chicks, when we entered the room guda guda was like “damn ya’ll pretty to be dark skin” and then wayne quoted a verse from one of his songs that said “Beautiful Black Woman i bet that b*tch look better red”.
I heard the song before and i was offended when i heard the lyrics i brushed my feelings off and forgot about what the gremlin said, but him saying it over again made me angry as hell, tammy was looking in shock and jessica was clearly upset ,so me being the outspoken person that i am i said Wayne your daughter is dark skin so why would u say such ignorance. he then said “my daughter is a dark skin millionaire thats the difference between her and u”. Is this fool serious?
I can tell he was very upset because i brought his daughter up but that is no excuse for what he said next he stated “MY daughter is the first and last dark skin child im having, the rest of my baby moms light skin chicks i even got an asian baby moms to make sure i have a daughter with good hair, too bad we had a son”, everybody start laughing and me and jessica stormed out of the room and some guys followed us saying “not everybody hate dark skin girls Young Money just allergic to Chocolate”, of course me and my girls cursed them out..
I will never buy or listen to young money songs again and the rest of the dark skin girls shouldnt buy them either! F*CKN JERK
No way to know if this true but a man that has a dark/brown skinned mother and daughter, it would be hardly intelligent or logical. It would be the greatest form of self-hate to the fullest. Say it ain’t so, Wayne? Say it ain’t so!!??
Many people could think of this as simple song lyrics or an opinion. But when you are in a public eye, these things could indeed be more than that. How do you think dark skinned females feel after hearing things like this? Me being one, I personality know that it dampers with my confidence. But as i grew up, I've learned that the color of your skin is not as a big deal as people may put it. in fact, i would describe it as only a trend that men follow because the hottest rappers are saying it.
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When researching about this touchy subject, I also stumbled upon this video documentary about dark skinned females in the black community. It touched me to find out about girls in the world that had the same feelings I did when they were younger. They felt separated, unloved, and unworthy just because the color of their skin. they even went as far as bleaching their skin to get that lighter look. I cannot express to you how much I personally relate to these women. Watch and find out what the feeling is like growing up in a black community where hip hop is an influence.
