Dark Hair, Deep Skin, Brown Eyes

My hair was the first thing about myself that I remember fully loving. I pseudo-loved it at first — I liked it because everyone else liked it. My hair type is 4B, one of three subcategories of Type 4 hair (4A, 4B, 4C), hair that is classified as coily: made up of really tight curls within curls. The curlier one’s hair, the higher the number and letter, so hair types range from straight (Type 1) to the tightest of coils (Type 4C). Many Nigerians have Type 4C hair, which makes their hair look like an endless mass of soft foam. My curls are looser. When my hair is combed out into an afro, the glorious frizz comes forth in full force, but the little loose curls are still visible. This looser curl pattern led to my hair being labelled as oyinbo (Nigerian pidgin. Translation: White, as in race) hair. When I was younger, my mother received compliments in my stead when we would walk together:

“Oh, it looks like jheri curls!”

“Your daughter’s hair is so fine!”

When I was older, I received the same praise. I also received a number of questions I could not answer:

“Are you part oyinbo?”

“Why does your always look high?”

Essentially, my hair was beautiful because it brought me closer to Whiteness. This is merely one of a number of troubling colonial beliefs that have seeped into the fabric of consciousness of people of colour everywhere. When I began to see this truth, that my 4B hair was only beautiful because, to the world, 4C hair was “unkempt,” I began to disregard this false sense of love. In any case, 4B hair is also called “unkempt,” and “nappy.” I stood out against the majority in Nigeria, but shrunk to the minority in the US. It was perfectly alright though, because by that time I had begun to love my hair because of its ability to form the glorious afro, because my curl pattern was one of the tightest. I took care of my curls and grew to love them for their intrinsic beauty, and not because they were “more beautiful” than someone else’s.

My next hurdle on my marathon of self-love and acceptance was my skin tone. Oh, my skin tone: I was, on several occasions, jokingly (perhaps lovingly sometimes) nicknamed Blackie. Did I hate it? No. I understood it to be a shout-out to my darkness. In Nigeria, I was surrounded by Black people. Colourism existed, and it stung bitterly every now and then, but I would receive compliments, sometimes praise, for my dark skin: “Bleaching creams can be bought in the market; no one can fake dark skin,” I was told.

They were wrong.

Enter the United States of America, where Blackface, for some reason I will never quite understand, was and is a popular trend amongst non-Black people. Foundation and bronzer ten shades too dark would adorn the faces and necks (sometimes bodies) of people who were trying to “spread awareness” or “appear tanner” or whatever the excuse-of-the-week was. So, my dark skin was not unique, apparently. What did I have, then? I had the ridicule of cast upon me for being a dark-skinned woman in the US.

But I also had the fact that it was mine, that it was beautiful. I had to teach myself to love myself. No, I didn’t grow up with Disney Princesses who looked like me. But I have the bravest and strongest Queens I have ever known, I have the richness of the earth after rain, I have the depths of the night sky. I am beautiful because of my dark skin. My Black is beautiful.

Last came the brown eyes. My boring, muddy eyes. I actually thought my eyes were black for the longest time, that my irises did not have the privilege of having a colour. Then, I saw my eyes in the sunlight for the first time. How they shone. Brown eyes capture the Sun light in a way that I don’t think I have ever seen before. I would take all my pictures facing the Sun — Sunrise, noonday, or Sunset. The Sun became my special light. A day came, however, when I saw a poem called “Brown Eyes” by e.h. I don’t need the Sun to appreciate my eyes. They are beautiful in and of themselves. My dark, coily hair is beautiful. My deep skin tone is beautiful. My chocolate brown eyes are beautiful.

I am beautiful.

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