What Representation Means to Me.

     There's apparently these things called windows and mirrors. No, not the glass pieces, but kind of the same thing. This term of mirrors and windows is meant to represent how different media portrays different people. Mirrors are stories that reflect your culture/reality and help you understand yourself. This means for me seeing black girls with curly hair, ballerinas with different body types, etc. Windows are books, movies, art, etc that let us see other people's experience. In order to be a understanding society, we need both. I started this conversation with my school's diversity director way back in the beginning of the summer of my Sophomore year. I was aching to find an important topic to talk about in my Junior speech that upcoming fall. I kind of wish I would've stuck to this topic. (Although I loved my topic, if you read THIS post you'll understand why I wish I would've kept the original.) 

     I've always known how important windows were. Maybe not as the term, but as a naturally empathetic person being able to properly learn about other people's experiences helps me really see where they are coming from. Through windows we are able to consider a persons motivation behind saying what they are saying. We can also better understand the needs of people when we know where they are coming from. Windows allow us to understand why people think the thoughts, say the things, and respond to situations the way they do. Windows also help us be more aware of ourselves. We can better understand what people think of us based off of our words and actions, this can help tremendously with unspoken communication with people. Basically Windows are the best thing for navigating conversation. 

     However, we can not have windows without having mirrors. Like , it's pretty weird to have them separately. I don't think I really understood the true importance of mirrors in a child's life until just a few weeks ago. As the Olympics paraded across my screen floods of posts of inspired young athletes flooded my timeline. I realized that this might've been the first time young female athletes had seen the spotlight put on other female athletes. It created a sense of 'If she can do this, I can do that too!'

      The thing about mirrors and windows is that it's not just about ethnicity. My mirror isn't just about seeing a black girl on television. It's about seeing divorced parents that get along, it's about girls who love school, and suddenly having quadruple the siblings that you've had for 14 years suddenly in one month. (Maybe not exactly this!) the importance of mirrors is that everyone can get get hooked on a media source because they see themselves represented. 

I've also learned that mirrors are not just in media. People can be mirrors too. Just last Tuesday I was talking to a little girl and our conversation went like this;

Me: (drawing a picture of myself) And then I'm gonna give myself big curly hair

Her: but you don't have curly hair, your hair is in braids... Like me

Me: yeah, but when I take my hair out, or when I wet it, it get all curly (shows her a picture) 

Her: WAIT ME TOO

       It was in that moment that I realized that I could be a mirror to other young black girls. I was representation for her, in our predominantly white school. Just like myself, each and every one of us has the opportunity to be both a window and a mirror for someone else. We have the ability to both teach and inspire, and that's what's truly one of the most important things to me. 

The Bias for North vs. Blue Ivy

      Now I don't like to pit people against each other, especially two kids barely old enough to be in Kindergarten, but the internet sure does. Last Sunday, at the VMAs, hundreds of grown adults chose to sit behind their computer screen and waste their time calling Blue Ivy ugly. It's been happening since birth. From hearing my grandmother talk about how Beyoncé needed to comb out and flat iron Blue's hair to seeing article judging the way Blue Ivy acts, the Internet has not stopped judging this little girl since before she came out the womb. I love Blue. I think she is just trying to live her life as normally as one can when their parents are two of the biggest names in the world. She has tantrums, probably loves to play dress up, and in the end is just like every other five year old. But, back to the VMAs. Blue walks the red carpet with her mom in this gorgeous golden dress with two French braids and a tiara top fit her like the princess she is. And as usual, so many people are not pleased. They commented on everything from how her edges weren't laid properly, to the size of her nose, and even her eyebrow shape. (Which I'm sorry, do you want to put a five year old in a full face of makeup, so that she'll fit your standards, or will you just complain about that too?) Blue Ivy's criticism got out of hand. 

     That same night I came across all of the criticizing tweets, I saw many comparing her to Kim Kardashian-West and Kanye West's baby girl, North, or Nori as she's affectionately called. She is also gorgeous, and the Internet knows that. One tweet I read said that "Blue should take some lessons from North, that baby is gorgeous." I'm sorry, but how could you say something like that about two girls not old enough to have a Twitter. The problem is that the actual problem stems from more than people loving Nori more than Blue, it stems from a greater acceptance and sometimes even fetishization of mixed children. Nori is what many people would call the "perfect" black baby. Her complexion lies just golden enough without being dark, Her hair is just curly enough to be exotic without being unmanageable, and her tantrums are cute, not a young black girl with an attitude. Nori's mixed heritage gives her a boost that not many are completely aware of, but many subconsciously recognize. The reaction to Nori is just one case of people's obsession with mixed race babies. 

     As hopefully this topic comes up, I hope everyone remembers that practically every one of Blue Ivy's critiques are rooted in anti-blackness. Rooted in the belief that 100% black women/girls aren't as beautiful as those who are mixed. Also remember that these girls are children, North is three and Blue is five. Be mindful of how you talk about them, lest we help perpetuate the false belief that value is rooted in looks. 

I Love Free Stuff #AD

So I, like many others, love a good free thing. Recently a friend convinced me to sign up for a website called influenster that sends me all kinds of free stuff and all I have to do is review it. Recently, I received three shades of the new Multistick ($24) by Bite Beauty (blondie, macaroon, and cacao) for testing and what not. Before receiving the package I had watched a few vlogs of other people using it, to help get a sense of what I was working with. Overall the packaging is beautiful, simplistic, and small enough to bring on the go. I especially love the magnetic closure.

Blondie - This is the color that I was most worried about. In many of the video I watched the vlogger deemed it to light to put on their face. I run, in Sephora foundation iq, a 2Y11-2Y13 depending on the time of year. So when people way paler than I talked about it being too light I was definitely worried. And we we're right. Blondie is definitely my least favorite of the three shades. It's too light for my lips or cheeks. I used it as a base in a makeup look for my eyes, and it worked better there. There was no creasing or anything like that. Unfortunately this isn't a color I can just wear on my eyes in one swipe because it just makes my eyes look kind of ashy.

Macaroon - I tend to not wear Blush because I personally think I'd doesn't look natural or flattering. BUT, I think this might be my perfect shade. It blends into a nice sheer coverage that doesn't make me look like a clown. A little too light to wear on my lips, but I think when I find the perfect lip liner for it, I'll be able to work it out.

Cacao - I've had it for too short of a time to call this a holy grail, but give me a couple weeks and it'll definitely be on my September favorites blog post. This is the one shade that I think I can use on cheeks, lips, and eyes. Right now it's actually a great contour shade for me (I KNOW), great for putting in the crease of my eye just to add some definition, and a great statement lip. I'll definitely get more use out of it as a lip shade in the fall, but this will definitely stay in my purse as a go to makeup product.

What It's Like to Learn How to Love Yourself.

I’ve always wanted to be beautiful.

That is how I started the first draft of a speech for my required public speaking credit in high school. I opened myself up to audience, and my emotions were eventually deemed too raw for a high school auditorium. I revamped it. Putting on a fake smile, I wrote a senseless piece filled with false stories of overcoming low self-esteem. The truth was, that just wasn't me. At that point in my life I still avoided mirrors, terrified of what would show when I spent too long looking at myself. When I did finally build up the courage to look, I could see myself changing. It was as if the first glance was what I wanted to be and every second later showed off the body of who I thought I was. Ugly. Undesirable. Obnoxious. I was more than not happy in my body. I hated myself.

After my speech, which was really just a mess of well written lies practiced enough times to the point where I myself almost considered them truths, I was approached my multiply people. I even was convinced to edit and submit it to an online website. Everyone responded saying how brave I was, how it was great story to hear, and how they were so glad I didn't just talk about myself, but included boys in my statistics. All of these were great compliments, but there was one that convinced me to turn my lies of self-confidence into truths.

Hi!

I know we don't really know each other, but I am A. I am a 14 year old girl from Maryland, and I just started high school this year. I enjoy reading and wasting time on Twitter. While on Twitter yesterday I found a link to your article, speech, whatever you want to call it. I found myself so deeply related to the story and statistics that I started crying. literally crying. I just wanted to let you know how much of an inspiration you are to me. If it's okay I'd like to share my own journey in regaining my self-worth, with you. Thank you so much. 

Suddenly I had someone who actually looked up to me. Someone who thought that I was a good enough role model that they wanted to share their experiences with me. It was ridiculous. Here I was, a liar. Someone who waited at Thanksgiving, lungs filled with air yet unable to breath, for my family members to feed me false statements of my beauty.

When I returned home the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I emailed her back. In my right mind I could not continue to lie to her, so I told her the truth. I was ready to disappoint the first person to ever look up to me. But she wasn't angry. Instead we made an agreement. Together we would learn how to love ourselves.

The roughest part was definitely the beginning. As our first step we looked back onto our own past. The root of the problem for us both, middle school. In middle school I started to care about my appearance more, some may even say too much. I would make myself late to the bus, worried about if the clothes looked right on my body, or cursing my unruly hair into a ponytail. I was drawn in by media's expectations. Suddenly I was begging my mom to let me straighten my hair, buy me new clothes, even allow me to wear makeup before our original agreement of 16 year old. Wanting nothing but the best for me, she let me. After realizing that changing myself would get more people to talk to me, I began to look at other ways to be more approachable. However, every time I thought I had made an improvement, trends would change and the beauty covering the magazine wasn't what I had achieved. It seemed that the standards of beauty that had always surrounded me, finally began to take me down. Unless I was skinny with long hair and perfect skin, I believed myself to be worthless. My fear that nobody would like me unless I was beautiful, and exciting, and living an outrageous life had taken over. The aftermath was a downward spiral of low self-esteem, self-hatred, and at that point, no sense of self worth. High School continued this same trend.

After reliving through all of that it seemed nearly impossible for me to actually love myself, but A stayed determined. In the midst of a history class I got an email, "5 Easy Steps to Loving Yourself." I opened it immediately because Ughhhh history.

5 Steps to Loving Yourself
1) Find what you don't like about yourself. 
2) Find out where that came from and talk to somebody about it. 
3) Write Positive Affirmations on your mirrors. 
4) Love your body section by section. 
5) Embrace the process. 

At that point, One and half of 2 were taken care of. I knew exactly what I didn't like about myself, and thanks to A's wonderful exercise, I knew exactly where they stemmed from. I just needed someone to talk. Luckily there's a lot of people who want to help you get better on the internet. By the end of that week I had four people willing to listen to me at whatever point. Step three also proved to be pretty easy for me. I mean, what else would I use all that makeup I bought in middle school on. (I still only used the Wet 'n' Wild lipsticks because you should never truly waste makeup.) I received a few questioning looks from my mom, but it the end waking up every morning and receiving a compliment, at the time of day in which I usually felt the worst, was good for me.

Out of all of the steps four was definitely the hardest. By attempting to love my body section by section, I was forced to face in detail everything I saw as flaws. Fortunately for me, Bee, a person I met on the internet, told me about how when they consider themself compliment worthy, they immediately document it. I began to take photos on days where I loved my makeup, or felt super confident in my outfits. If I found a joke I told particularly amusing, I would keep it in a journal. Whenever I was feeling down I would look at it and reminisce to remind myself what my goal was. This was a major part of surviving step five.

Step five was the the most important of all the steps. We all know that stupid quote about how important the journey is, but the things is that every stop on your journey is really your destination. By embracing the process, I was able to actually learn how I got to where I was at the end. I learned how easy things become when you're actually motivated. The only reason learning to love myself suddenly got easy, was because I was at the place where I was ready to love myself. I also learned that loving yourself is not a process done alone. You'll need people who are ready to hold you up through all of your times. If I were to make my own steps on loving yourself it would look a lot like this.

5 Easy Steps to Loving Yourself
1) Get to a mindset in which you are ready to love yourself.
2) Find people to be in your corner. You'll need a person to vent to, cry own, help you distract yourself, and someone that understands 100% where you're coming from. Sometimes you may find this all in the same person, if you're like me it'll take you at least 4. 
3) Every time you find a reason to compliment yourself, document it. Take a photo, write it down, etc. 
4) Be honest and be open... if you're comfortable with it. Not everyone is in a place where they can tell a multitude of people about what they're going through. Heck, even I'm anxious about making this live. However, when you allow yourself to open up to people, you'll be able to find people like A. 
5) Embrace the Process.