Brown is Beautiful

I used to think that brown was not a pretty color.

After all, what exactly is brown?

The mud, the dirt, the dead leaves left to rot

at the end of the warmest season.

They told me I was pretty enough but would never be beautiful because my

skin was not translucent, because my skin was the color of grime, of

something tainted, of something unclean.

But as I grew older, I began to understand just how wrong I was,

just how wrong the world around me was to talk of the color as being ugly,

as being dirty, as being impure.

Because now, I’ve begun to see just how striking the color brown really is.

For it is necessary, it is foundational, and it is indeed beautiful.

It is a representation of the earth, a symbol of this miraculous planet that

grounds us.

It is what helps provide life to all the plants and trees around us, the dark

roots taking all the nutrients within the ground to help aid growth,

the rough bark providing safety and support to help the trees rise up.

Its hues exist in everything, in the soft richness of the chocolate I

adore, in the undulating patterns on the wooden floors of my childhood

home, in the pools of adoration that exist inside the eyes of my furry little

companions.

But most of all, I love the color brown because it is me.

A tapestry of rich melanin with shades of brown that makes me who I am,

that shows me where I come from, where my roots truly lie.

For when I look at my skin, I feel the blazing heat from the sunny summers

I spent in India. I feel the warm embrace of my mother, my grandmother,

and all my ancestors who have paved the way for me to love myself, in all

my brownness, today.

The color brown is in the lines of my palms, in the birthmarks that adorn

my body, in the irises that exist as a portal to my soul.

The color brown is not ugly at all.

It is the most spirited, resilient, empowering color there ever was.

And I am proud every day that I get to wear it, that I get to call myself a

brown-skinned girl.

For there is nothing more beautiful than the color brown.