Find The Lupita Nyong'o in You

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o, the beautiful Kenyan award winning actress who won The Oscars 2014 best supporting actress for 12 Years A Slave. She has recently been noticed and mentioned as a positive role model for women and little girls everywhere.

I wanted to really open up about myself, and the way Lupita has made me feel about myself, my skin tone, my hair and other little things and how I feel we should unite and feed the younger females in our generation to come.

When i was growing up in the 90's/00's, if I'm honest with you, i was never really happy about my skin tone, having a very fair skinned mother being dark seemed like a curse, darker than the 'popular' girls in school i felt like an automatic victim, my physical appearance not being pretty enough, not having the perfect smile, not having the perfect skin, not having perfect eyesight and having to wear glasses, my hair being so bushy and thick not having a nice hair texture etc (hence relaxing it around college), basically anything i could moan about, i did.
I remember writing a letter to mother asking her to pay for me to go on extreme makeovers (used to watch that show all the time). When i was growing up there wasn't really a black female icon (famous, my mum was an amazing icon lol) that i could look upon and relate to, I mean there was Kelly from DC, but with Beyonce taking up all the lyrics there was little for Kelly to really do, apart from be half naked in the background. Additionally i wasn't well educated about the women who fought for black females rights like i am today. And i guess if you aren't looking for the role models they won't just fall into your lap!

The Beautiful Gem, Lupita

Nigerian Singer, Dencia

We fast forward to 2014, when the unity of sisterhood is getting stronger, we as a people are starting to educate ourselves, and learning to love one another (so of course are not at all, we pray they wake up soon) mothers are being the best role models they can be for their children and surrounding them with nothing but positive famous icons. In an era where sisters a like are choosing which skin tone is better otherwise known as Light skin vs Dark Skin, where sisters a like are going out of their way to alter their skin tone, create bleach cream brands such as Nigerian singer Dencia who was blasted for promoting her bleach cream (personally i found her images extremely sad but i somehow could understand why some women might result to bleaching being unhappy with my own skin tone) Basically an era where our darker skinned princesses need to have someone they can look up too because lets be honest as amazing as Beyonce is she isn't really a role model for our darker women is she lol.

This is why, for me personally it is so refreshing to see a black, dark skin female embracing her beauty, being a beautiful colourful soul who against the odds is being called beautiful by all races minus the bullshit line of shes beautiful for a darkskin girl, i mean like seriously? ¬__¬ fix that comment, I've never really liked that comment tbh but that's me lol. Back to the point, i love that even at 23 i can see a Lupita in myself, i can look at my reflection and feel beautiful. I can look at my skin and not worry about it's shade, its complexion, i don't have to worry about not being societies perception of perfect. I can smile when i catch my reflection, i can embrace the thick bushy mane that is my hair and i so badly wish she was my icon when i was growing up, because having light skin icons (no disrespect to my fair skinned sisters) had a negative psychological effect on me, and was probably the reason why at my lowest point i questioned buying bleach creams etc.

We as darker skinned sisters, need to learn to love our skin, appreciate our skin tones our black pigment, our princesses and possibly even our princes need to have more positive role models, we have no boundaries, we as a people really do not we just restrict our damn selves. While writing this blog i saw this picture on Facebook (Sisterhood of natural hair divas) which pretty much sums up what this paragraph was aiming to say by the end of it, so instead of ranting on i was the picture to speak it's 1,000 words.

I guess for me i am envious of the younger generation, simply because Lupita is an amazing role model for our darker gems, positive and shows we can embrace our shades no matter what end of the scale you are on. On a more personal note, if there is anyone who is reading this and feels discouraged about their tone, how deep and dark it is. Please take the time to listen to every speech Lupita has made, invest in your queendom and buy and read A Taste Of Power, A Black Woman's Story. Empower yourself, honestly we are beautiful even if it is "for a dark skin girl" love the skin your in, empower yourself and love that chocolate brown coating!