A Girl Like Me

When the Brown vs. Board of Education test was done over, I thought that more of the children would choose the black doll because it was what they are. But it turns out that they still preferred the white doll and the white doll was “good” and the black doll was “bad”. It broke my heart a bit when the little girl said this and then was asked to hand the doll that looked like her to Kiri. She stopped and looked at both of the dolls and then preceded to hand the “bad” doll to Kiri.

Within the black community, there seems to be a lot of discrepancies about skin color and hair types. I’ve known about these for a long time. I’ve had a lot of black friends and they have shared with me their concerns. I would say that I’m sick of my boring, straight, brown hair and would like curly hair. And they would convince me that I didn’t because it’s much harder to take care of. I have also known about the skin color issue. There is supposedly something beautiful about light skin and something ugly about dark skin. I don’t remember the name of the dark-skinned girl in the documentary, but she was gorgeous! And I didn’t think she looked that dark. I don’t think it’s fair to say that skin tone and hair texture determine value in the world, but sadly it seems to be that way. Even in the white community it’s the same thing. Pale skin is looked down upon and tan skin is adored. Straight hair is loved and curly hair is despised

The mythical norm is “a white, middle-class, heterosexual, abled, thin, and young adult”. But then the book goes into saying that there are different classes of normal based on who you are talking to. Because each person you ask what is normal or what is different from normal, will give you a different answer.

As I was reading the text, I’m not sure exactly what the author is conveying in one part. She speaks of Susan Wendell and her “The Social Construction of Disability” and the idea of ableism. It was in context of lesbianism and that ableism is “discrimination against the mentally and physically disabled. When they put lesbianism and ableism together, it seems as though she is saying lesbianism is being mentally disabled? I really hope I am reading this wrong and you are able to correct my mistake.