BETTER LEFT UNSAID: SHE WAS DARK AS FUCK

Yesterday I got a tattoo (AND THE PROVIDED PICTURE IS NOT IT! THAT'S NOT ME LOL) And my tattoo artist Haley was talking to a fellow tat artist and she asked him how the tat he just did went. He said, "Alright but occassionally I lost the line because she was dark as fuck! But nothing like the guy I did the other day I mean he was dark as this glove (which was black) I shoulda just said no (to giving them a tattoo)

Now...at the moment I kinda just chuckled.

My tattoo artist then looked at me and said...But of course Reds and purples will show up real good on you. (since I have a red star) .............I'm not dark but I'm not light either. If you picked up a brown crayon.......I'd be about that lol...maybe a lil lighter. Point is...I'm on the darker side.

I hate these moments because 1. I don't wanna piss off my tattoo artist (I mean she gave me a 50 dollar discount because I put her in a 'good mood') 2. How do you go about telling a white person that they sound racist? Or that the joke was insensitive EVEN if it was a legitimate complaint? It just may be harder to tattoo a dark skinned person.... 3. We [black folk] joke about skin tone all the time...I've hard light skinned people be called light bright. I've heard dark skinned people be called midnight. My question I suppose is it ever fair to call out another race for doing the same shit we do? (Like the whole nigga thing...but see nigga has a really complicated history and I still wouldn't want a white person calling me a nigga -not that it would personally offend me -but it would offend my racial lineage and I have to take that into account)

Point is...it was insensitive...I feel like I should have said something...I guess I didn't know how to go about doing that. What exactly do you do?

BETTER LEFT UNSAID: STOP WHINING LADIES

So one of my friends is doing research on the light skin/dark skin debate that thrives in the hip hop world and........she's uncovered, some crazy stuff.

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh06z1I9ZOH0Gw0lei

http://www.afrothought.com/editorials/the-blacker-the-berry/

http://globalgrind.com/channel/culture/content/1524146/EXCLUSIVE-Complexions-Of-A-Video-Model/?pc=1&pi=0

http://theurbandaily.com/gossip-news/casey-gane-mccalla/video-does-hip-hop-like-light-skinned-girls-too-much/

As you know people leave their comments but nothing tops this

"I don’t care what these ladies say, stop whining. If you put a fine chocolate sister next to a fine ass redbone, the redbone will get chose 9 times out of 10. It’s JUST that way. And you sisters complaining about men n...ot seeing your “real beauty”, are the same m.f’ers that will walk past a brother and not speak when he says hello. Too stuck up and filled with attitude. It’s not about hating yourself, it’s a preference, it’s exotic and stimulating to see that yellow bone next to you with those pink lips.. don’t hate ladies."

I'm tired of running off statistics about black women and the rate of marriage. The rate of unplanned pregnancies (the baby mama epidemic) I'm tired of trying to explain to black men how black women have been there for them since settle. We been ride or die! BUT I'm tired. Nor do I want it to sound like....I'm begging black men to want to be with black women for the reasoning that we are the shit! We the bad muthafukkas that folks are obssessed with. (Why do you think the hypersexualized rap game loves Nicki Minaj, Lil Kim, etc...them some bad bitches. And we freaking love it.)

It doesn't however dispel the obssession with light skin and/or the exotic perpetuated by the rap world.

I'd never say that light skin women or exotic women need to be like bashed or pushed off to the side; at the end of the day, if the person is beautiful. They are beautiful! Regardless of skin tone.

We've been enamoured with those who look exotic since black was considered not. Black sounds so flat? Does it not? It doesn't sound special at all. But think Somalian. Now that sounds exotic...and therefore...interesting...and desireable -although hella Somalians are dark as and darker than me! How soon do we forget that to be black is to be mixed? We're not techniquely African Americans -because we have no direct lineage to Africa. We got a little of everything. We've made a little of everything. We have the most unique hair; the widest range of skin tone and other phenotypes......We are exotic! I've gone off on a tangent...

I wish that internal racism wasn't so prevalent. I wasn't alive 40 years ago, but it would seem that internal racism exists on an even more extreme level now than it did then. What can we attribute this too?

What you think?