Defining African-American Beauty
Tiffany
What Is Beauty to the Young Black Female?
There’s more to me that the human eye can see.
I’m a woman of purpose and destiny.
A perfect design, I’m special and unique.
I won’t be identified by the parts that make up my physique.
My beauty is not defined by my skin or my hair and my soul has more value than the clothes that I wear.
I’m not a symbol of pleasure or sex appeal; I have the natural ability to comfort and the power to heal.
When God made me, He created a gem because He fashioned me in the likeness of Him.
I refuse to do anything that will put God to shame.
I deserve to be treated with reverence and called by my name.
I can’t be purchased or sold at any price because I’ve already been bought and paid for by the precious blood of Christ!
--My Pledge Allegiance to Me, Letitia Hodge
Beautiful, pretty, good-looking are all the adjectives that women and girls aspire to be or encouraged to strive for in their life. From the first years of a young girl’s life, she’s told to wear dresses and comb her hair so when she looks into the mirror, she’ll see beauty reflected back at her so that consequently this shallow image of beauty is adopted by her consciousness. Yet as the years pass, she comes to a point in her life where the very aspect of her being is put into question because of what she’s seen on television or heard on the radio so that as a young woman she constantly feels the need to conform to a patriarchal society’s standards of beauty in order to be accepted. Now let’s look at this transition in a young female’s life through the eyes of an African-American girl who grows up being told to wear this and to do her hair like this in order to look pretty. At such a young age, she may not have been affected by the demands and expectations of beauty that was put upon her, but as she grows and develops a deeper understanding of the images around her, she will realize that the images of beauty presented before her do
What Is Beauty to the Young Black Female?
There’s more to me that the human eye can see.
I’m a woman of purpose and destiny.
A perfect design, I’m special and unique.
I won’t be identified by the parts that make up my physique.
My beauty is not defined by my skin or my hair and my soul has more value than the clothes that I wear.
I’m not a symbol of pleasure or sex appeal; I have the natural ability to comfort and the power to heal.
When God made me, He created a gem because He fashioned me in the likeness of Him.
I refuse to do anything that will put God to shame.
I deserve to be treated with reverence and called by my name.
I can’t be purchased or sold at any price because I’ve already been bought and paid for by the precious blood of Christ!
--My Pledge Allegiance to Me, Letitia Hodge
Beautiful, pretty, good-looking are all the adjectives that women and girls aspire to be or encouraged to strive for in their life. From the first years of a young girl’s life, she’s told to wear dresses and comb her hair so when she looks into the mirror, she’ll see beauty reflected back at her so that consequently this shallow image of beauty is adopted by her consciousness. Yet as the years pass, she comes to a point in her life where the very aspect of her being is put into question because of what she’s seen on television or heard on the radio so that as a young woman she constantly feels the need to conform to a patriarchal society’s standards of beauty in order to be accepted. Now let’s look at this transition in a young female’s life through the eyes of an African-American girl who grows up being told to wear this and to do her hair like this in order to look pretty. At such a young age, she may not have been affected by the demands and expectations of beauty that was put upon her, but as she grows and develops a deeper understanding of the images around her, she will realize that the images of beauty presented before her do