Everytime conversations on colorism come up, I think about when my daddy connected colorism and sexual assault/coercion together to discuss with me when I was in middle school.

One day my daddy told me "If someone tries to tell you that if you do sexual things for them you'll become light skin or people will be attracted to you more, do not believe them"
That launched us into a wild (for my 7th grade mind) convo.

From there my daddy talked about how boys and men will pretty much use all kinds of excuses to talk you into sex or sexual favors and that its not ok.

So me and my daddy are dark skint. My mom couldn't pass a paper bag test, but she was brown and pretty and poised enough to still have a decent proximity to whiteness.

My mom made a point to always tell me how beautiful I was all the time.
But it was really this discussion with my daddy that drove home the point that it was nothing wrong with my skin... Its society.

So in this same conversation, daddy says "A lot of people will make a lot of jokes. They will say you're ugly standing next to the ugliest of white women. Its not true. They still will probably be attracted to you in silence. But its never anything wrong with you"

I still struggled for a time going through the rest of middle school and highschool and even some of college.
But at the end of the day my daddy spoke truth to power and got me hip to the game earlier than a lot of other black kids had a chance to be.

I've always wondered if he was bullied as much as me because of his complexion ad if that's what started that talk. I'm the darkest of all my siblings, so it would make sense that he connected a lot there.

But that word on coercion..... It helped me later.
Thankful for my daddy .