Zozibini Tunzi Quotes

I think society perpetuates a lot of mixed messages about what it means to be beautiful for all women, but especially for black women and women of color.

I wasn't a major in political science for nothing, so I understood the politics of beauty and the politics of race when it comes to the fashion industry.

We live in a culture where European beauty standards are dominant.

The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking. So did the teachers, too. That meant most of the dark complexion ones didn't like themselves.

I mean in the community that I grew up in, you know, a very, you know, mixed, almost entirely African Diaspora community, one of the things that we were not ever supposed to say was how much self-hatred and colorism determined and guided what we would call our desire. In other words, what we would consider beautiful.

I'm light skinned, and I used to lean on that because that's something a lot of black people pride themselves on, and it's weird.

I don't want to endorse products that propagate fair skin at all.

I think that, as a black girl, you grow up internalizing all these messages that say you shouldn't accept your hair or your skin tone or your natural features or that you shouldn't have a voice or that you aren't smart.

It's fine being stared at as a pretty girl, but not as a freak. When I tried to make myself ugly, they said, 'Oh, she's lost her looks.'

Beauty judgements are many and while we think that light skin women have no judgements to deal with. There is this filmmaker I love and respect and I really wanted to work with, once told me 'You are too fair to be in my movies.' And then I have also heard 'You are too pretty to play this part.'

I have never used a fairness cream in my life. I don't think being fair is in any way superior to any other colour. And when I started working, I found that being fair has actually backfired for me. I have lost a few films because I'm too fair.

If you walk into any magazine store, I guarantee that nine out of 10 covers will feature white, blonde, blue-eyed, slim women because that's still the ideal of beauty. When a black or Asian figure shows up in a fashion magazine, she's the exception, not the rule.

My complexion, we too gutter: light-skinned women are more sensitive.

As a girl, I remember looking up to pop singers, and they all had long, straight weaves and light skin. And I thought, 'That's what I have to look like if I'm going to be fierce and sexy and all those things.'

The lighter the skin, the more acceptable you are. The darker the skin, the more marginalised you become. I want to demonstrate that you can produce beauty in the context of a figure that has that kind of velvety blackness. It can be done.

I love African American women, but I just don't like my skin complexion.

I really don't see little girls growing up and thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to morph myself so I look like Barbie.'

I was a big girl considering herself beautiful, which is in conservative Israel had never been seen.

Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare.

And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned.

European standards of beauty are something that plague the entire world - the idea that darker skin is not beautiful, that light skin is the key to success and love. Africa is no exception.

I saw the things that my sister went through - she's dark skinned - with boys not considering her attractive in her youth and the pain that it caused her.

In my country - even though we have a lot of dark-skinned people - people think the lighter you are, the better you are. They think beauty has to do with being light-skinned. I think that's really wrong.

Society has been conditioned for a very long time to see beauty as something that's been westernised.

I wanted to bleach my skin so bad, but my sister always discouraged me. She'd say, 'This is a bad thing. Don't try it.'