Junot Diaz Quotes

I've heard that I've gotten a lighter complexion, as if I've bleached my skin. I think that is so stupid and ludicrous. For those who want to bleach their skin, that's fine. I just didn't bleach mine. I'm a black woman. I don't want to be anything but a black woman.

I went to a predominantly white school, and I was the only black girl. I can remember thinking, 'I don't want to be as dark as I am - I want to be a little fairer.' I didn't want to be me.

I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin, and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come, and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first.

I wanted to be pale. I didn't wanna go in the sun, because I was in school with a lot of white girls. I remember one girl said to me, 'You look better pale.' And I was like, 'Well, you're tan!' She was like, 'It's not the same.'

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

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

A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment

I like having black hair. When I was really young, I wanted to be Asian - Asian hair is beautiful. I also wanted to look like the girl in George Michael's 'Father Figure' video.

The girl next door isn't necessarily blonde and blue-eyed anymore. So I don't feel like I need to morph into that all-American thing.

I grew up in a predominantly Caucasian community, and most of my friends had blonde hair and blue eyes. So I was always straightening my hair, wearing colored contacts, and I never tanned, if I could help it.

When I was young, to have a big nose, big lips or dark skin was the worst. You were the wretched. That was something I not only felt, but I participated in.

It's fascinating how much of our sense of attractiveness and feminine identity is bound up in our hair.

When I was, like, 5 years old, I used to pray to have light skin because I would always hear how pretty that little light skin girl was, or I would hear I was pretty to be dark skin. It wasn't until I was 13 that I really learned to appreciate my skin color and know that I was beautiful.

There's competition among women everywhere you go. But back home, we understand that you can look like a variety of things and still be from the same culture. What I'm saying is that I've never felt like I was a light-skinned black woman. Never felt that way because we shared the same culture back home.

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.

Pop culture says that if a black girl is to be taken seriously, she has to assimilate and be as white as possible, to the point of bleaching her hair blonde.

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.

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.

Black women I'm talking to you, because it's not white women, it's not Latino, it's not Native American - I checked, it's y'all. The self hate is ridiculous. Why do you hate yourself so much, why do you hate your texture, why do you hate your culture, why do you hate your history?

Even though I was very young, it was traumatizing seeing someone try weird things on their skin all for the sake of being lighter. It's as common as relaxing your hair or maybe even brushing your teeth. I had friends not wanting to do it, but their moms gave them creams to help lighten their skin. That's how accessible it is.

In private school, I definitely judged myself against the lighter-skinned girls. I wanted to have different hair. I wanted to fit in. I thought that was more beautiful.

I used to hate my behind, like every other black girl. I hated my behind. I hated my hair. I hated my nose because no one said it was beautiful.

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.

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.'

The most moving parts of 'Real American' come when Lythcott-Haims stares unflinchingly at her own self-loathing, writing about the racist encounters of her childhood that convinced her from a young age that there was something inherently wrong with being black.