I believe what we perceive as bullying is, as shown in various TV shows when there’s one person that is weak and has no friends. I have an issue with color vision with will influencers and I decided to share an individual story based on a real high-schoolers’ experience.
Since we’ve obviously been affected by what is going on around the world called “Black lives matter” and a lot of people come out about their black experience. Do these comeouts have a profound influence? Yes, they are. I am neither black nor caucasian. However, I do understand systemic racism because of my Asian dark skin. It is a default risk that girls suffer the painful judgment. Here’s the story.
A boy suddenly texted me: “I like you”. What would I do? Blissful but clumsy. Accept or refuse. After 3 weeks of going on conversation to understand each other, we finally sorted for a date. I would admit those were wonderfully sweet dreamy times of mine that I would resist waking up as long as I could. However, before I realized, out-of-nowhere water splashed on my face: my friend forwarded a message: “You go out with that black girl, huh! You and her combined are just like extremes.” Seemingly joking yet outrageous, directly stabbed at my very self-insecurity. . A few days later, no texting, no phone call from him, he actively broke me first with the reason “incompatible” verbally, left me behind with painful fear and intact insecure about my skin tone. Afraid of being judged, I mantle my face with a thick layer of whitening cream, trying hard to make sure no one could recognize my natural brown skin. Unfortunately, I never knew I had allergies to cosmetic products. The disastrous consequence happened, my face was covered with acne, and was at ease to get sunburn due to the strong bleaching properties of whitening cream. I self-harm my beauty and spirit.
Asian addiction to white skin runs deep
I’ve been through a journey of discovering myself as a person and obviously, I didn’t see myself as beautiful. My self-esteem was probably even minus but as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there’s no arguing with what another person’s eyes perceive, especially when it comes to what they think is beauty. My skin told me to appreciate whatever it looks like. No matter what, you are a beautiful human being. Pimples, skin tone, weight, or any beauty standard doesn’t define you. Beauty is beyond the surface.
“No one is born ugly, we just live in a judgmental society.” - Kim Namjoon.