Sooo a ridiculous rumor has emerged that the recent blog entry I wrote for the Huffington Post was plagiarized. Wow!! This is an unfounded insinuation that has no basis, merit or truth. I’ve never heard of this author or her book until Thursday afternoon. African-American women struggling with complexion issues is not a novel or an original topic. It’s an issue that has been written about for ages. Numerous African-American publications and online sites have addressed this topic. Even the Tyra Banks Show devoted an entire segment to it.
I shared my personal story as a dark skinned woman in America, an experience that parallels millions of other Black women. Regrettably, this other author has no copyright (or patent) on the Black female experience. While I’m delighted to discover there is a new book with a similar theme available I only wish the author would have embraced our commonality as sisters in this struggle rather than opt for such a defamatory public recourse via a disreputable gossip writer. Approach is everything. Plagiarism is a serious implication that I’m extremely disheartened and insulted by. If this author can produce the same references in her book that I made to Alek Wek, poet Khalil Gibran, an experience in Brazil, disparaging public comments surrounding living as a “dark skinned” woman as well as scrutiny regarding her marriage to an R&B singer then perhaps she should seek legal counsel to handle this matter with the proper protocol.
Lastly I want to express my sincere gratitude to Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alex Haley, Susan Taylor, Khalil Gibran, Langston Hughes, Frederick Douglass and Zora Neale Hurston, just a few renowned authors who have touched on this similar subject and who I have indeed read and been inspired by.
Original blog post: https://globalgrind.com/content/901458/Shes-Pretty-For-A-DarkSkinned-Girl/
