While it has been a very long time since I have heard this, I am very well aware of its implications. Being of medium brown tone, I did not get teased very much about my skin color. I knew of classmates who were teased incessantly from elementary to high school about being dark. I also knew of classmates who were put on a pedestal by not only their peers but adults for having a lighter skin tone. I can remember classmates saying "she think she cute, who does she think she is" referring to a lighter complected classmate with long hair. Family members used skin lightening creams as I was growing up and family members/church members and the like doled out far more compliments to the lighter children than I received. I remember in church once, this girl about my age was visiting. She was light-skin with fairly long hair. My sisters and other church members stood around her as she did the Hammer dance and ended in a split (looking back...why was she doing this in church anyway?). Well I could do some things too and tried to show them but I was told to be quiet and get out of the way as they doled compliments on this other girl. I'd be lying if I said this didn't affect me...I wouldn't be telling the story now if it didn't. I try to be mindful of how I handle situations with the kids. Things stay with children, no matter how minor.
Anyway in my rare visits to CNN (as I have little interest in being constantly bombarded with foolishness and negativity), I came across a story discussing this sweet little girl. Anderson Cooper did a story where CNN recreated the doll test used to support the Brown vs the Board of Education case. The results were still similar to what they were all those years ago. How is it that we have not instilled in our children a love of self? What was interesting was the lady who was interviewing them, her reactions. Her attitude was like, "what are these parents doing to their children?" as though the parents were wrong. When it comes to race specific issues like this, I don't expect other races to understand and I do not agree with them even getting involved because they are on the outside looking in without understanding the true dynamics of what's going on.
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2010/08/12/ac.obrien.doll.study.folo.cnn
I try to expose my children to mostly ethnic influences, preferably black. My children love Little Bill but as a whole it is not easy to find modern day examples of positive Blackness. My children watch Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which I grew up on, and love it. They mostly (thankfully) ignore the television in favor of playing with each other or crafting with me so it is easy for me to monitor and control what they watch. I need/seek positive Black families to show my children, our own included. I want my children to have the sense of pride in being Black that seems fleeting these days. It's sad but a constant reality for many Black women and men. How do you grow to accept an image that is constantly portrayed as something bad? Nappy hair, darker skin...what do you do when these images just aren't beautiful to you? Situations like this remind me of when I first went natural. It was not popular or "the thing" as it seems to be now. Attitudes towards natural blackness have certainly become more friendly since 2004 when I cut off my past shoulder length relaxed hair to rock a short two inch nappy fro.
These and other things that have been going on have been weighing on my mind. I think so much it's amazing I'm able to get any drawing done. I had to get a bigger purse to carry around a larger sketchbook and a lined journal. My husband was driving me to work last week and I was just leaning back watching the scenery go by. This image came into my mind and I just had to sketch it as it came. I knew I would pretty much stick to the sketch. I made one significant change in the pose since. I started it this morning and it is still drying on my easel. It's going to take awhile to finish this one...I'm dealing with multiple mediums and I didn't do a trial run. Now there was a drawing sitting on my easel for the longest, this drawing of an old woman expelling her spirit. I was never quite happy with it so like many others it is being recycled into this new work. It's been torn, burned, decoupaged and gessoed and I still haven't started the new drawing yet. If the new drawing doesn't fit my fancy I have discovered that in its new cropped state the old woman makes for a much better drawing so it's a win win either way. I am sorely in need of a proper update. My process is slow. I've been battling colds and other distractions of late but no excuses. My next post will have a record of the work I've done up until now and my current work.
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