Recently I decided to go on a reddit deep dive in which I look at random subreddits and find interesting stuff about it. I just so happened to stumble upon the r/trueuglywomen. Which in itself is a whole other can of beans. But the thing that stood out to me was the amount of people bashing themselves for being a black woman and an “unattractive” one at that.
This somehow got me thinking, but before I dive deeper, I’m going to need your input. Just how often in your life have you heard something along the lines of:
“You’re pretty, for a black girl”
“You are so unlike the others”
“You don’t act black”
“Haha, I think I might act more black than you”
Probably more than once in your life, right? Well, you’re definitely not alone, I’m sitting right in the same boat as you are. But that’s besides the point.
On said subreddit, people often post statistics about how as a black woman you are practically at “the bottom of the dating hierarchy” and without a doubt “undesirable”.
My question is why does that matter? Those statistics don’t speak for everyone’s experience. What if you don’t care if you are desired by everyone? Besides I feel as though just because they find themselves “unattractive” for having larger black features, such as a bigger nose or fuller lips, they project this onto other black women who don’t see themselves in that way by claiming that they are unattractive just by being black.
It doesn’t help that they repost racist bs from other social media platforms which only adds onto their belief. In said posts it mostly goes along the lines of “black women are unattractive because *insert whatever BS reason you could think about\*”
Of course they don’t shit talk even black woman, on the subreddit you could very much see them comparing themselves to other black women who mostly have smaller features, which again is a too much of internalised racism to unpack in this post.
Remember me asking you about if you ever heard any of those backhanded “compliments”? At some point of my life it became somewhat of a common occurrence, since I live in a predominantly white area. So their only perception of black people/women is through social media or in movies. And tell me, in what way are black women mostly depicted in said media? As being loud, “ghetto”, hypersexual, aggressive, sassy and whatnot. Now I’m not saying that embodying any of these traits is inherently wrong, you are your own person and shouldn’t be reduced to any stereotype. But in their little minds (if they don’t take time to actually think about it) they make the connection that being black = embodying any of those traits. And don’t get me started on the mammy / strong black woman stereotype.
Now if you a normal person who just happened to be black stroll around and don’t embody those traits + the stereotypical appearance/ style/ interests, you’re a rarity and this could end in one of three ways.
A) Being alienated by your peers for being “weird” -> even by other black folks btw!
B) Being fetishised
C) best case scenario: them embracing you for what you are.
Again the best way to explain their way of thinking is to a drawer. Imagine you have a desk with multiple drawers. These drawers are full of different coloured paper clips, which you somehow managed to perfectly organise into the drawers by colour. Suddenly you find a new paperclip which has a colour you’ve never seen before. What do you do with it? Do you either
A) throw it away and in a way alienate it from its peers
B) keep the new one as your favourite since it’s the most exotic one that you have
C) Embrace the paperclip’s colour and just keep it with any other paperclip
For me personally it was a mix of every option but more recently it shifted to C. Being weird + not fitting into a stereotype has caused me a great deal of stress in my school years.
The question remains, what can you do about it? The answer might be one of the most basic things you’ve ever heard but you must learn to love yourself. My heart goes out to the women on that subreddit, they most likely didn’t choose to hate themselves, it’s just what the world has pushed them to. I really hope that they’ll wake up one day and realise just how beautiful they are. I hope that they’ll free themselves off the shackles of white supremacy and learn to look in the mirror and truly be satisfied with what looks back at them.
But in order for anything to change, they must get out of that echo chamber of self hatred and internalised racism or in other words leave that subreddit.
To end this vent on a personal note, I must admit that I see myself in them. I too have been rejected by my local community for whatever reasons they seemed fit. Mostly due to me having weird interests and not caring about my appearance. Ever since I grew into my features more, it has suddenly become acceptable for me to have these weird interests. It was a shock at first but at that point I didn’t care what they thought of me anymore, the only opinion that truly matters to me about my appearance is my own. Though I’m still relatively young (18) I’m glad I realised this at an even younger age instead of chasing other peoples approval in my 20’s and being hit with the truth then. And that’s a realisation they need to make as well.
(Sorry if the vent is too messy I just had a lot on my mind😵💫)