Three sisters and I’m the ugly one.

That’s because I’m the darkest. In fact, I’m the darkest in my family. My mum and older sister are lovely light skin, almost yellow. My little sister and brother are a gorgeous shade of milk chocolate. My dad as well has smooth brown skin. Then there’s me; I’m saddled with dark skin that Nigerians like to describe as ‘BLAACCCKKKK!’, emphasis on the ‘CCCKKKK’. It’s the unattractive, mostly shit coloured skin tone that would not find you a husband. The skin tone people encourage the bearer to not stay out in the sun too much ( how’s that possible, Nigeria is a bloody furnace). The skin tone that is subtlety encouraged to bleach.

In secondary school, teachers asked me if I shared the same mother and father as my older lighter sister. They were absolutely perplexed. How does a beautiful delicate FAIR (as light-skinned people are called) lady come out of the same womb as this BLACCCKKK girl? Even my parents are light-skinned, fair. It was practically impossible that I came out… well, not. I didn’t overthink this question. I was still a child, blissfully ignorant.

When I gained consciousness of this light-skin vs dark-skin debacle, I realised I was utterly stumped. I had nothing going for me. My skin was ridden with rashes, my hair was short, my skin so so dark, unattractive. Somehow, I still got a few boys. I’ll chalk that up to being slim and hopefully my personality (as far as being a Gemini goes). Though one of my classmates told me about the debate the boys had about me: is Aisha fine or not. The conclusion, surprise surprise, was not. Never smiles, too BLACCCKKK.

In my final year of secondary school, my skin posed another problem for me. Our inter-house sports (school sports day) was looming ahead. Each house was required to pick a theme for the entrance parade. My house theme was India, and as a senior, I managed to get myself in the parade as the queen. I was so excited. 6 years of being a lowly parade member and finally I was the star. My dreams came crashing down as our coordinator, the teacher in charge, decided I was certainly too dark to be an Indian queen. It made zero sense that a BLACCCKKKK person would wear the crown and be the focal point of the parade. She proposed to kick me out of the parade entirely and put a prettier, fairer girl instead. Fortunately, the house captain bargained. I was demoted to a princess. All because of my dark skin.

This was not the last of these events. After I graduated, my little sister told me stories of teachers randomly calling her to say ‘how pretty she and my older sister are.’  They spoke Yoruba behind her back (thinking she doesn’t understand) and would say ‘that one(me) was not fine, not like her sisters and mother.’ They would shake their heads in pity as if to imagine what it would feel like to be so BLACCCKKKK and ugly.

Colourism is a bitter seed that has grown in the world. The closer you are to white skin, the more desirable. Unfortunately, a person’s worth is equated to the colour of their skin. People don’t realise their ‘preference’ to lighter skin is a harmful social construct that leads people to extreme solutions (i.e. bleaching). The only reason I never bleached my skin (crazy as it sounds) was that God sent someone to tell me never to try it. However, not everyone gets a divine intervention. This is a message to those feeling ugly because of their dark skin: Dark skin is excellence. Literally! Look at Oprah, Michelle Obama etc.

Key quote: ‘The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.’

                                                                     -Foxy Brown (film)