Written by Miracle Okah
If you ask me what the first thing people notice about me is, I’d probably say my eyes. But if you had asked me that question when I was twelve, I would have said my skin.
I would say my skin because I hated it, and I thought about it too much. I obsessed over it in a bad way; it felt like a burden I had to carry. It twisted my self-image, and for years, I felt so ugly.
The first time I acted on that feeling was when I tore up a childhood photo of myself.
I was about four or five in that picture. My mom had moisturised my face with cream, and it made me glow, maybe a little too much. She had made my hair with a rubber thread that just wouldn’t stay down; it stood straight on my head like tiny horns. I thought I looked like the witch from Ralia the Sugar Girl. To make matters worse, I wore a brown gown that my mother had picked out and I remember feeling like the colour didn’t suit my skin at all.
One day, I took a long look at the photo, climbed onto our cushion chair, took the framed photo off the wall, removed the photo, and tore it into pieces.
I didn’t regret it then, not even after my mother scolded me. But if you ask me now, I would say I wish I had not. I wish I hadn’t treated myself that way. I wish I had given myself…a little grace.
But can you blame me, though? I was a young girl living in a society where colourism was such a huge thing, and still is. Strangers would see me and tell my mom, “Ááhn ááhn, omo yìí mà dúdú o,” which in Yoruba means “This child is black.” To them, it was just a comment, but to me, it was not.
In school plays, especially Christmas ones, they cast dark-skinned kids as the devil, while the angel or baby Jesus was always light-skinned. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it did something to me. It made me feel dirty.
Even in the Christian movies we watched, the devil was always played by a dark-skinned actor. And in rare cases where they weren’t, their faces were painted black. These may seem like small details but they weren’t. They were the little things that subtly told us something was wrong with our skin. We grew up believing that there was something wrong with being dark-skinned. That is why when someone says, “Black and shine” or “Black is beautiful,” it is meant as a compliment but over time I realised it was a backhanded one.
No one sees a light-skinned girl and says, “Fair and beautiful.” That is because beauty is assumed if you are light-skinned. But if you are dark and beautiful? That is surprising. It is a discovery, like, “Wow, look at you despite everything.”
As an adult, I cannot count how many times strangers have walked up to me and said, “Please don’t bleach your skin; you are beautiful the way you are,” as if their opinion matters. But you can’t really blame them. This kind of unsolicited advice comes from a history of dark-skinned women bleaching their skin just to be seen and accepted. It is why some mothers even try to bleach their babies before they grow up.
Until university, I hated taking pictures because I always felt like the odd one out. There was something about seeing myself in pictures that made me feel too black, too invisible, and too wrong. I would try to hide my face for the longest time.
But I am older now, and if you ask me the top three things I love about myself, I would mention my skin. I didn’t just get here; it took years of unlearning.
If you ask me what the turning point was, I would say it was when I decided to love myself and give myself grace, because despite everything, my skin never left me or made me feel like a stranger.
I would also say it started from unlearning the shame tied to darker skin. Because that shame does not just affect the way the world sees you, it also affects how you see yourself. So, I stopped seeing myself as flawed.
I accepted that I could never be lighter unless I bleached, which, thankfully, never crossed my mind. I began to accept compliments I got from people without overthinking them like I usually do. I would stand naked in front of a mirror and be grateful for how perfect my skin was for me.
I came to realise that in our society, beauty is the price you have to pay for admission. That means in order for you to be seen at all, you must first be considered beautiful. And it doesn’t matter whether you are light- or dark-skinned; you will face colourism and beauty judgement, just in different ways. The same goes for body types. That’s why when people go the extra mile to alter their appearances, I don’t judge them.
In a recent seminar with Lydia Forson—a top Ghanaian actress and the founder of Kinkymatters and UnapologeTHICK—she said something that I dwelled on for a while:
“If we are being sincere, all of us want to be liked. Everybody seeks some level of acceptance.”
She is right; if society is in love with a certain skin and body type, and we have seen people get certain privileges because of it, wouldn’t we want that too?
At the end of the day, it takes self-discipline and personal choice not to get swayed by society. Especially because beauty standards are constantly changing.
Do we now alter ourselves every time a new beauty trend comes along?
We need to get to a point where we understand that loving yourself starts from within. From actually seeing yourself and saving yourself from yourself and from the shackles of society. And saving yourself isn’t a one-time thing or something that just happens; it is a gradual process, a daily decision.
On the days when I feel ugly, I’ve learnt to speak gently to myself and thank my body for staying with me, for carrying me.
What no one will tell you is how hard it is to unlearn shame. Even when you think you are done healing, the world will still treat you like you are not enough. And in those moments, you have to stop letting that dictate how you feel about yourself. You have to stop waiting for the world to confirm your beauty.
“People will see your beauty from your own point of view,” I remember Lydia saying at that seminar.
This is why for anyone else to see you as beautiful, you have to believe it first, then you can show up with that confidence.
Beauty is not something you earn; it is not something that is reserved for a chosen few. It is not a reward or a gift that someone hands you for passing a test. It is yours because you are here, because you are breathing and that should be enough.
Anyway, I have decided to step out of the game where the world ranks women’s bodies like a scoreboard. There has never been anything wrong with me in the first place; the problem is the system, our culture and the society. And they only win when I start to believe I am not good enough and that, I have decided, is never going to happen again.
About the Author:
Miracle Okah is the first daughter of two teachers. She initially dreamed of becoming a doctor but ultimately found her true calling in writing, where she discovered the power of words over stethoscopes. Passionate about African literature and amplifying the voices of Black women, her work has been featured in Amaka Studio, Black Ballad, Better to Speak, Black Girl X, and beyond. She is on the writing track for the 2025 Adventures Creators Programme.
