Tierra Whack Quotes

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.

In grammar school some of the girls had problems with me. My face was too light. My hair was too long. It was the black-consciousness period, and I felt really bad.

Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind?

Growing up, at that time, I didn't want to be black because I was bullied, and I'd tell my mum that I wanted to be white like everyone else at school.

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

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.

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?

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.

It's hard to love yourself when you've been told your whole life that there is something wrong with you - when you are called dirty because of your skin color.

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.

Self-doubt is a constant companion for a chubby, gay, black boy born in the South.

I grew up thinking I was inferior to white-skinned people. And as a child if you are conditioned like this, it becomes a part of your upbringing that you believe that probably because I look like this, I won't get anywhere in life.

I'm a multi-racial person - I'm black and white - and growing up in North Carolina, I've dealt with a lot of racism. Growing up as a kid, I've seen it. I've been through it in many forms and fashions.

When I was in the second grade, one of my teachers said, "Where are you going to find a husband? How are you going to find someone darker than you?" I was mortified. I remember seeing a commercial where a woman goes for an interview and doesn't get the job. Then she puts a cream on her face to lighten her skin, and she gets the job! This is the message: that dark skin is unacceptable. I definitely wasn't hearing this from my immediate family - my mother never said anything to that effect - but the voices from the television are usually much louder than the voices of your parents.

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 grew up as the ugly duckling, they called me 'la prieta fea', which means ugly dark one - that was my nickname.

Kids made fun of me because I was dark skinned, had a wide nose, and was dyslexic. Even as an actor, it took me a long time to realize why words and letters got jumbled in my mind and came out differently.

Who taught you to hate yourself?

I had to go to a mirror and look at it. I couldn't picture myself in my own head. I had no image beyond a stick figure. I wasn't a mean person as a kid, or dumb, and something has to be said to justify excluding you.

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 remember feeling all right with myself until age 13. Then, I was getting off the bus one day and this guy called me Miss Piggy. That was the first time I ever really felt like I wasn't okay.

I'm Armenian, but I'm very fair and I look white... I would always get such hate about it.

I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.

When I was seven, these kids in the alley behind our house in Omaha called me Freckleface Strawberry. I hated my freckles, and I hated that name. I thought it was humiliating in the way that only a seven-year-old could hate it.

I am the daughter of a Chicana and anglo. I think most days I am an embarrassment to both groups. I sometimes hate the white in me so viciously that I long to forget the commitment my skin has imposed upon my life.