#ThingsThatFooledMeAsAChild

So as you know #BlackTwitter is always lit. Tbh without us, Twitter would just be full of  post about "Follow Trains", "Wanna make money, fast." and the likes. Anyway earlier this week #Thingsthatfooledmeasachild started trending, as usual this started as funny hashtag but eventually got so deep it opened old wounds and spritzed hand sanitizer all  over them.

Funny things first, #ThingsThatFooledMeAsAChild

• "When your mom didn't want to go out with you, so she'd say "Go get your shoes, I'll wait!" But would leave anyway."- @itsjubi_98 (this one is lowkey the reason why I have trust issues, LOL!
• "I used to think that you bought children." -@TlhalefoMputsoe
• "When it was raining but the sun was out at the same time, it was a monkey's wedding." -@aubz_ab
• "Mommy isn't your moms real name."

Then things got really deep, really quickly. Black bodies started mentioning problematic ideas that were instilled in our minds as children which the majority of us accepted. Things that we now look at and wonder how we just believed it.

• "Degree-21, Job-21, Married-22, Child-23, Happily Ever After." - @gimmethatsnoo
• "Adulthood was a piece of cake." -@DankiE_VyF
• "The white kid is more capable." -@Juss_Chappies
• "The darker your skin, the uglier you are." This is the one that touched me most and the one I'll dwell on.

Remember that scene on dear white poeple when Colandrea (Coco) was in preschool, when her and friends were picking out dolls and one of them told her to take the ugly one( making reference to the black doll)?? That actually happened to me. As a child being the darkest child at home and in most spaces I found myself in, it was quite difficult believing that I was beautiful. BUT NOW, dark skin is in. People who used to be called monkey, ugly, pretty for a black girl, so dark you're navy blue etc are now considered beautiful. What changed? Tbh I don't have the answer to that. Although most times the "dark skin" people that are socially appreciated, especially girls, have to have and hourglass body shape and be oiled up like a piece of meat kodwa asikho lapho (translation: I digress)

The point of my "@naturallywoke IG"-follow, only if you want to though- is to show that you can be beautiful with hyperpigmentation, acne scars-which a lot of brown girls, like myself, suffer from. But one big lesson to learn from this is not to use the media as a beauty standard cause these standards are forever changing 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️
Stay Woke!