Are you a POC who doesn’t find themselves attractive? This song is for you: Are you comparing yourself to someone specific when deciding that? Are you measuring yourself against Cis Able Bodied Whiteness

The more attractive I’ve found myself the less attractive I’ve found them

This is no coincidence

I’ve been training my brain to perceive My Afrocentric features through a fresh lens unrelated to comparisons to white features and y’all

I’m different now, I’m happier with me and in my own skin
My body dysmorphia was related to this white gaze

We learned about Foucault’s Panopticon at my HS, but we didn’t expand it the way I wanted to at the time

That panoptic gaze that follows us everywhere? It’s a white Cis abled gaze and it glares and it grimaces and it makes us feel alien exotic ugly worthless

Cast it away

You’ll find yourself finding your people more attractive too, you’ll find yourself seeing softness where you hadn’t before

You’ll find yourself being more welcoming to Yourself and more Forgiving

Pretty Privilege is essentially having the privilege to be treated as a person

That’s a controversial take, but it’s why I don’t really Believe Pretty Privilege applies to marginalized folks and to white folks the same way

For white people it’s given access no one else gets

For marginalIzed folks it’s being given the most baseline of humane treatment

In conclusion: if you’re POC and you think you’re unappealing you’re probably just in need of a mind de-colonization

Which is a phrase that makes my skin crawl and it should it’s really invasive my Thoughts have been colonized, but it’s true

I’m pretty and I never knew