Skin Color Has NOTHING To Do With Talent

One day I received a letter from a young lady on MySpace.  In her letter, she told me something that was bothering her and had asked my advice.  She said she loves to sing and could I check her out.

One day I received a letter from a young lady on MySpace.  In her letter, she told me something that was bothering her and had asked my advice.  She said she loves to sing and could I check her out.  I did and I must say, she was AWESOME!  She said her problem wasn’t her voice but whenever people would see her they’d say, “She can sing BUT she’s too dark.”  She was devastated! Now my question to the world is, why do we base talent on the brightness of ones skin?!  Skin color has nothing to do with talent and the gifts God had bestowed upon the person!  I was livid! I told the young lady, if I had listened to everyone that talked about me being dark skin, I wouldn’t be who I am today.  I remember when SWV first got signed.  I was told that we weren’t really the epitome of what a “GIRL GROUP” should look like because we weren’t all light skin AND the lead singer was a dark skin sister. That hurt my feelings so bad!  But what could I do?  You had groups like The Good Girls and En Vogue who were all light and they were doing their thing!  Even though I was hurt, I didn’t quit.  But it didn’t help to know what the record execs thought and it made me an angry dark skin sister. I felt like I had to prove myself in everything I did.  Whether it was my singing, dating, dressing…whatever!  I just felt like I had to prove the point of  “I maybe dark but I can do whatever you can do.”  In being like that I think I began to lose my sense of self, sort of became superficial.