Even though you're Black, you're pretty

I have been told by many that though I am black I am pretty. The statement alludes to the premise that to be African-American is to be ugly. So if you are pretty and African-American that occurrence is an abnormality.

This statement has been said to me by Whites and Blacks. Whites have often been thought of as a people that hold their beauty as the standard by which all other races are measured, and often the Black race doesn't even reach the bottom of their measuring stick. Within the AA race, conversely, they are often thought of as a people that measure beauty by the standards of Whites. Therefore, the lighter a AA, the more potential for them to be beautiful. I am a dark skinned AA, so I am, by the standards of the White and AA race, not beauty pageant material.

But, alas, I guess I must break the standard because I have been told often that though I am Black, I am pretty. When the statement comes from Whites it speaks to my race, as it seems no woman who is Black can be pretty. When the statement is made by an AA, they are speaking of the darkness of my skin and how its hue refutes the adage which laments that a lighter toned AA woman are automatically thought of as pretty because of their proximity in skin tone to Whiteness and those on the opposite end of the spectrum are automatically ugly because they look nothing like the ideal.

Whites often never think of Black woman as pretty or beautiful because AA woman throughout history have never had a mystique about them that encompassed beauty. AA woman were and continue to be thought of as animalistically sexual. There is nothing subliminal about them as woman. Prettiness and beauty are the subliminal aspects of sexuality. Pure and animal sexuality can be applied to the ugliest of things as it raw and ostentatious - the opposite of subliminal. And for Blacks to think of woman of their race as beautiful is to think they are similar to those they think epitomize the standard of beauty - white woman - and to do so eliminates their darker hued sisters who are therefore closed out of the definition for beauty.

So should I consider myself lucky to be an exception to the rule of beauty as applied by many? No, I consider myself unlucky because that statement, "Even though you're Black, you're pretty", is a testament to how little we have progressed racially. I shake my head because such an ignorant statement speaks volumes as to how far we have to go.