Dear Maya Jama, Dark Skinned Women Are Not Bitches, But Queens

Dear Maya Jama

I can’t help but somehow feel enraged by you. It’s bad enough that you posted a derogatory tweet directed at dark-skinned women, but you made it worse by directing your ‘apology’ to all women. I’m not really sure you offended any white women. Why was it hard for you to go back and specifically address the ‘dark skinned bitches’ you had insulted before? In my book that was no apology, but you just have a BBC Radio One presenting job to save. Was it a white person who had written such a tweet, surely the public would be calling for BBC to sack them.

But you are a mixed race light-skinned woman of Somali-Swedish descent, you have the privilege of getting away with hate speech towards beautiful women of color.

You may have grown up with the benefits and privileges that come with being light skinned in the black community. You may have grown up being told how fair and beautiful you are, whilst you saw dark-skinned women being belittled, shunned and overlooked. To me it explains why you had the guts to post such a tweet at the age of 17, I can’t help but wonder how you treated the dark skinned girls in person, the insults and the jibes you said to them in school, as you felt superior to them.

You just didn’t go on social media to post such an offensive tweet out of the blue. It was obviously a part of you, something inbuilt in you. Whatever comedian you took the tweet from, you are birds that flock together, and I’m sure the comedian is a dark-skinned black man. They are the ones who usually make careers out of mocking dark skinned girls, as they compliment women like you as the ultimate standard of beauty.

Before I go any further I will not comment on your relationship with British rapper Stormzy, apart from the fact that the woman who gave birth to him is obviously a very dark skinned black Queen, the sort of women you despise.

Some people are disregarding your racist tweet, saying you were only a teenager and it was 6 years ago so it doesn’t count.

Well, may I just mention to you that at 17 I was at university living alone, paying rent and working. At that age, you are no longer a child, but a responsible grown up. I have a 14-year-old daughter, who is dark-skinned by the way, and she’s old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. She would have to be completely out of her mind to go on her Instagram and post something as mean and as hateful as you posted.

Now that I have got all that out of the way, may I get to the real reason why I had to write to you directly. As you sit on your high horse of ‘beauty’ allow me to take this opportunity to educate you, Miss Maya. I want to address the vile things you said in your tweet or the tweet you say you ‘quoted’.

Firstly you addressed dark-skinned women as ‘bitches’. May I kindly educate you that before slavery and colonization, the black queen wore her crown (literally her hair) with grace as she sat on her rightful throne. During that era, there was no such a thing as ‘Brazilian weaves’. I advise you to watch Black Panther, yes it’s fantasy and it’s just a movie, but at least it does give an accurate picture of who the black woman actually is. The black woman in all her melanin glory is not a bitch Maya, but the Queen of the universe, and you are not worthy to even untie her sandals.

Secondly, you were mocking dark women who shave off their hair. Your assumption was that they are desperately trying to look like Amber Rose (which is obviously your standard of beauty). Madam Maya, your Amber Rose was only born yesterday, she is also not a black woman, (she has denied being one) and you obviously know nothing about black hair history, hence you have the audacity to mock any dark-skinned queen who wears the bald iconic hairstyle with grace.

Allow me oh light skinned Maya, to educate you. In a lot of African tribes, women and girls shave off their hair for religious, beauty and cultural significance. From Egypt to Kenya, from Tanzania to South Africa, black women have been shaving their hair long before Amber Rose existed. In Egyptian history, Queens were required to be bald. In Kenya, the Maasai tribe women shave their hair off as part of their custom and rituals, especially when they become widows.

In Southern Africa, I grew up in Zimbabwe where young girls, in particular, were required to have bald heads for hygiene reasons.

Short hair on black women has become a bold and beautiful fashion statement. Today black women go bald not because they want to look like Amber Rose, but because they know who they are and look a million times more beautiful than any woman covered in weaves. Please look up black Queens like Alek Wek and Ajuma Nasenyana, you may learn a thing or two about black beauty. Like my husband always says, a black woman with very short hair or a bald head shows that she is confident and bold.

So please Maya, do not mock the entire black race, our ancestors, our heritage and our history, by your assumption that a bald head look on a woman started with Amber Rose. I do not think any dark women have any ambitions to imitate Amber Rose.

I’m glad that now in the mainstream media we have women like Danai Guirira and Lupita Nyongo who are changing perceptions in the beauty industry.

I had to write this to you because I know a lot of light skinned women (not all) or mixed race women who feel superior to black women. It’s something that I grew up witnessing, and you just happen to be a public confirmation of that.

Women like you break my heart because you benefit from the prejudices dark-skinned women suffer. You are accepted more in society and you get better jobs than dark skinned women. But for you Maya, the privileges of being light skinned in the black community are not enough, you have to go out of your way to insult dark women, and you haven’t got the decency to even apologize directly to them.

This letter is not just for you, but for all lighter skinned women who feel they are more superior to dark skinned women. As a melanin advocate, and for the sake of my beautiful daughters, I am not able to sit back and watch ignorant women contribute in making this world a cruel place. Dark women face enough wrath in society without women like you making cruel jokes about it.

I pray you sit somewhere and humbly read this letter, not for your sake, but as a public figure, you owe it to the human race to positively influence people, not abuse them for something they did not choose. That is just evil.

Yours truly,  melanin advocate

Jean Gasho