Lost && Found

"beautiful, also, is the sun.
beautiful, also, are the souls of my people."
-Hughes



what is beauty? They say it is in the eyes of the beholder. But just who are these beholders? Everyday I watch my people succumb to the inferiority complex, a state of being that suggest one is not as adequate as another. This is true not because there is a lack of substance, like intelligence, but most often it's because they don't look good enough, their skin is not light enough, their clothes are not cool enough, their hair is not straight or long enough. We as a Black people spend so much of our time and effort tearing each other down. We nick pick and hyperfocus on the external, and fail to pay any mind to our internal, which leads me to believe that us black people have yet to become comfortable with ourselves. We have not yet accepted that we are African-Americans and come in all diffrent colors, shapes, and sizes. We have not yet become comfortable with the fact that this will never change. We are who we are, and yes, we like what we like, but that's a truth that should not be void of appreciation for all the others. I may not look like you, I may not dress like you, and we may not have much in commen, but despite that I appreciate you, I respect you, because we are the same kind of people, we came from the same place. No matter how you slice it light skin, dark skin, brown skin, thin, medium, or thick, long hair, short hair, course hair or fine hair, when others look at us they see that we all the same race, they see our blackness, our beautiful blackness. That diversity makes us beautiful makes us special, and sets us apart. The sooner we realize this, and the sooner we begin to embrace each other, as cliche as it may sound, the sooner we will be able to move forward past our history.

-Alexis Montgomery