I'm not Racist but...

She’s the reason bleaching cream was invented. “You’d need a torchlight to find her in the dark.”

Khady Ndiaye didn’t blend in.

Khady Ndiaye loved the fact that she didn’t blend in.

Her Senegalese parents hated it though, to them her complexion was ‘way too dark’, there was no race mixing in their family yes and both of them equally had dark skin but Khady’s color was ‘way too unique.’ for their liking and they had their reason…

Her complexion made her stand out. It constantly brought unwanted attention and with unwanted attention came unwanted opinions, opinions about how her skin tone was ‘unnaturally’ dark and how she needed to lighten her skin so she’d become beautiful…

Khady hated hearing all that nonsense, to her she was already as beautiful as she could be… Her mirror couldn’t lie, her eyes didn’t deceive her, she loved her full coily afro, she loved the shape of her eyes, she loved her nose, her lips, her body, she was well endowed, how then could she become more beautiful just by changing her skin tone. It didn’t make sense to her.

But as long as it made sense to them, they continued with their loudly aired thoughts…to the point it became uncomfortable for her, even her friends who previously had no problem with her skin tone when they were twelve and playing naked under the rain now had something to tell the eighteen year old girl.

Minenhle, her childhood South African friend who had developed the tendency to immediately translate every word she spoke in Zulu to English, was the first, “Ngilalele, listen to me, Nngani Wami, my friend… Trust me, Wena, you can’t see what we see doesn’t mean we’re wrong.

Don’t you plan on Traveling to the USA very soon for your education? The colorism Laphaya, over there is very terrible… You’d be bullied, we’re just trying to help you. Look at my skin, the cream I use is very good with zero side effects, don’t Wena, you want to glow like I do?”

Khady could only smile as she shook her head.

It was a wonder how her self esteem could survive with all these people around her.

Minenhle didn’t like the silence that followed what she termed an ‘‘intervention for her friend”, so she cleared her throat repeatedly until Khady got fed up.

Khady stood up from her bed and walked towards her dressing table, there was an item she needed to grab, an item that would ensure she wouldn’t need to respond to Minenhle on this very topic ever again, an item that would forever speak for her instead.

She grabbed her olive oil plastic bottle, flipped it over and unto her palm, tapped the bottom until it squirted out a generous amount of oil, then she returned the plastic bottle and rubbed her palms together… While Minenhle watched.

When she raised her palms to her face, she smiled.

After massaging the oil in to her skin pores, she smirked.

“No Minenhle, I do not want to glow like you do because I already glow like I do and that’s far more than enough for me. Is that understood?” Khady asked. Minenhle nodded.

Everyone of the people she’d ever called her friend all received that lecture, same words, different names… in just a span of two weeks.

Some were persistent, returning with new ‘ammo’ … Information on why she’d be lonely if she didn’t lighten her complexion, Information on how she’d stay unemployed for a long time if not forever, Information on how light skinned girls were far more prettier than her.

Ammo that never hit her, Information she always discarded.

But she was an intelligent one and although the bullets — words always missed…she was fond of studying them, the bullets on the ground, she studied them, the words they’d said, she researched on them.

They weren’t lies but neither were they truths, they were just records.. Records of how poorly, dark skinned women were regularly treated in the United States of America.

Researching these records, made her know exactly what to expect, studying them made her know how to handle them.

She was going to make sure that before she had to leave her country, she’d be fully prepared to feel America’s hatred

[Part One Completed]

    Part Two Here