I am still not quite sure about what to make of this stunning confession from the "Twelve Years a Slave" actress, Lupita Nyong'o:
"I got teased and taunted about my skin," Nyong'o began, on stage in a ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "My one prayer to God was that I would wake up lighter skinned. The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of the mirror because I wanted to see my face first. Every day I would feel the disappointment of being just as dark as the day before."
Nyong'o said she tried to bargain with God by vowing to stop eating sugar cubes and to never lose her school sweater again, if she could only see a change in her skin tone. It wasn't until she discovered Sudanese British supermodel Alek Wek that she began to believe in her own beauty.
"She was dark as night and was in all the magazines and on runways," Nyong'o said. "My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome. I couldn't believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me as beautiful. It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn't help but bloom inside of me."
While I wish she had indicated where this experience took place - Kenya, Mexico, USA? - it should not be this hard to be a young black lady in any place in the world.
"I got teased and taunted about my skin," Nyong'o began, on stage in a ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "My one prayer to God was that I would wake up lighter skinned. The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of the mirror because I wanted to see my face first. Every day I would feel the disappointment of being just as dark as the day before."
Nyong'o said she tried to bargain with God by vowing to stop eating sugar cubes and to never lose her school sweater again, if she could only see a change in her skin tone. It wasn't until she discovered Sudanese British supermodel Alek Wek that she began to believe in her own beauty.
"She was dark as night and was in all the magazines and on runways," Nyong'o said. "My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome. I couldn't believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me as beautiful. It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn't help but bloom inside of me."
While I wish she had indicated where this experience took place - Kenya, Mexico, USA? - it should not be this hard to be a young black lady in any place in the world.
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