I Am A Coward...

Some people say their first bully was their mother. For me, it wasn’t my mother, but yes, they were family. Years later, the bullying played out right in front of me.

We had all come home for Eid. Rams were being slaughtered, my uncle was saying something about the cases of Malta Guinness he had brought, children were running around, women with scarves tied around their waists were bent over bowls filled with raw meat, squinting as their eyes watered from the smoke coming from burning the hair off freshly slaughtered rams.

It was our yearly scheduled family reunion because we never saw each other unless there was a family wedding or burial, which rarely ever happened, seeing as all of us younger cousins have refused to marry or die. Alhamdulilah, right? So, Eid it was.

In the middle of the activities of the day, my 9-year-old younger cousin hung onto my hand. She followed me everywhere and told me stories I didn’t ask for but listened to anyway, because for some reason, it was very important to her that I knew the names of all her best friends and the order in which she loved them, before the day was over. So as I performed my tasks for the day, she yapped, and I laughed and nodded where appropriate.

It was while doing so that we heard the comment.

“You people kuku look alike, blackies.”

Those five words triggered so many memories. I grew up with dark skin in a time when it wasn’t cool to be dark, and words like “melanin goddess” weren’t popularised. You were simply a blackie, required to navigate a world that preferred lighter skin.

It was not only the bullying but the gaslighting because whenever I’d try to fight back with tears in my eyes, shouting, “I am not a blackie”, they’d laugh and say “, Are you angry at me for saying the truth?”

They were right; I was very dark, but I also knew an insult when I heard one. They told me to learn to love my skin so I would not get angry every time someone called me what I was, but how was I supposed to love the skin society deemed ugly?

My 8/9 year old brain could not make sense of the situation, so I just cried all the time.

Hearing those words as an adult angered me. My little cousin stiffened for a bit, but in an instant, it was gone. It was like she was used to this comment, this bullying. I was used to it too. The aunt who said those words used to be dark but was now fair because she had “toned” her skin a little bit.

“Toned” was the word they used to justify bleaching. They say it’s your real skin colour, and you’re just “maintaining” it, but we all know that’s a lie because it’s always 4-5 shades lighter.

As an adult, I understand it a lot better. You hate your skin, and to feel better about yourself, you had to strip off the natural colour, but the problem with that is that while that may “fix” the appearance, it does nothing for you mentally. So you look at people who stuck with that very thing you detest and punish them for the choices they made.

Their sadness makes you feel better as you lather on your bleaching cream, convincing yourself dark-skinned people are sad and you are happy.

But the problem is - you’re not.

Bullies are never happy. They derive their joy from seeing other people sad, and that’s why they do it over and over again, because take that from them and their world turns grey.

I turned to my 9-year-old cousin and told her she was so beautiful.

She brushed it off and went right back to the stories about her best friends. I wanted to shake her and tell her I was serious. Tell her it was important that she knew. Tell her that she didn’t have to act like it didn’t hurt her when it clearly did. Tell her that anyone who thought her skin was ugly is an utter fool. Tell her she didn’t have to buy foundation a little lighter than her skin colour and lie to herself that it was her shade. Tell her her skin glows best in the sun because it literally absorbs light. Tell her that dark plum blush will make her look like a goddess, and red lipstick was created for her. Tell her she was the most beautiful thing at today’s gathering. Because I know she may be dismissive of the words our aunt spoke, but words like that fester until you become an adult who hates looking in the mirror.

I wanted to direct my anger at our aunt and tell her that just because she hates herself so much that she bleached doesn’t mean we have to hate ourselves too.

But I am a coward. I do not shake my cousin to tell her that, and I do not shout at that aunty because I was a suppressed child who went through the bullying for years with no one to speak up for me. I am an adult who is going through therapy to undo years of damage. Therapy I can’t even afford to pay for, so my therapist has like 3 more sessions to fix me or all hope is lost, unfortunately.

My only option to let my rage out is to start campaigning for Tinubu so that people can pour their anger on me and I can shout back.

But I hate APC with everything in me, so it’s therapy.

I am a coward, but I have to get better. I have to get braver because one day, I may have a dark-skinned daughter and I don’t want her even understanding the concept of self-hate.

I hope to start a small page on the internet where I can talk to women who have faced bullying and fill them up with love and constant reassurance, but that takes a great level of courage I don’t know if I have yet. So for now, it’s here.

If you dealt with bullies growing up, I am so sorry, and if you didn’t, I couldn’t be happier for you.

I’ll see you next week with another newsletter.

Until next time,

Take care.

This week’s song is Too Much To Ask by Niall Horan.