If you have a pulse, then you are probably a fan of extremely talented actress Lupita Nyong'o. She recently opened up to Glamour mag for their December issue about what it was like growing up with such dark skin in her home country of Kenya. Fun fact: Lupita was actually born in Mexico, which is how she got her Spanish first name, although her parents moved back to Kenya shortly afterwards. Here is what Lupita had to say about the reception of her darker skin:
“European standards of beauty are something that plague the entire world, the idea that darker skin is not beautiful, that light skin is the key to success and love. Africa is no exception...When I was in the second grade, one of my teachers said, ‘Where are you going to find a husband? How are you going to find someone darker than you?’ I was mortified.”
First of a fall, if anybody is going to have trouble finding a hubby, it will undoubtedly be us, not Lupita. Also, we don't think we're alone when we say Lupita looks absolutely perfecto just the way she is. Well her teachers can now zip it because Lupita was signed as the face of Lancome beauty earlier this year. Suck on that.
Lupita said she remembers that the media also played a role in making her feel shame for her luscious skin colour:
“I remember seeing a commercial where a woman goes for an interview and doesn’t get the job. Then she puts a cream on her face to lighten her skin, and she gets the job! This is the message: that dark skin is unacceptable."
We speak for just about everybody when we say that we 100% accept your flawless skin, Lupita. She continued on to make an excellent case for TV parental controls:
“I definitely wasn’t hearing this from my immediate family — my mother never said anything to that effect — but the voices from the television are usually much louder than the voices of your parents.”
She brought it home Lupita-style with a beautiful quote about how beauty comes from the inside. If friendliness is what Lupita is prescribing for basically perfect skin, then count us IN:
“I come from a loving, supportive family, and my mother taught me that there are more valuable ways to achieve beauty than just through your external features. She was focused on compassion and respect, and those are the things that ended up translating to me as beauty. Beautiful people have many advantages, but so do friendly people … I think beauty is an expression of love.”
Well, we're convinced.
Do you think Lupita made some good points about skin color? Tweet at us! @sofeminineUK!
This article was written by Dagney Pruner. Follow her on Twitter @dagneyp
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