Race and Beauty Standards Theme Analysis

Despite these racial tensions, migrants of colour and their British-born children had truly made London their home. In Tottenham, a few island grocery shops had sprung up: aisles stacked with jerk seasoning, tinned ackee, smoked salt fish and bruised plantains. The occasional black hair salon could be seen, with racks of multi-coloured hair-weave pieces, giant tubs of sticky dreadlock wax and netted sleeping caps spilling onto the footpaths. After twenty or so years, a strong black community was being forged.

‘Here it is!’ Carlita, whose designated bag hook was stationed next to mine, wrenched the doll from inside my bag and waved it above her head. ‘Look! Maxine has a brown doll! Look at it! It’s so ugly!’

The other kids unpacking their bags in the cloakroom turned to look. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the exclamation of disgust.

Susana, another of the girls in my class, rescued the doll from Carlita. ‘Of course it’s brown,’ she said, looking it over. ‘It’s the one that was grown especially for her. It’s her kid.’

‘I’ve never seen a brown one before,’ another girl said. ‘Pass it over here!’

[…]

‘It’s ugly,’ Carlita repeated.

‘Go away, Carlita,” Susana said firmly.

There was something different, something protruding and sticky-outty and not-quite-right about my behind. I was sure that, in time, everybody would look at my body and realise that I was some kind of circus freak: the only little girl on earth whose bottom did not align neatly with her thighs when standing in first position. When news of my enormous bottom went public, I would probably need some kind of painful, humiliating bottom-trimming operation.

I’d known somehow, when I prayed for this miracle, that there was something distinctly shameful about wanting to be something I could never be, something shameful about wanting to alter the colour of my skin—to be white. But it wasn’t about wanting to be better. I didn’t dislike being black. I didn’t think being white would make me a better person. I just wanted to be like everyone else I knew, and everyone else mostly did not look like me.

I looked around the bubbler hut. The only girls still in the game were myself; Belinda, who still had what Mrs Gerard called serious toileting issues and perpetually smelled like the wee smell that drifted out of the boys toilets; Mahana, the light brown girl who had recently started at our school with her twin brother Amira, and who wasn’t allowed to eat ham or sit in scripture classes or talk to boys; and Claire, the grade two bossy-boots.

I’d been the victor of Catch and Kiss for the last few days, but suddenly winning didn’t seem like such a victory.

Standing out the front of the party girl’s house in my damp frizzy-again hair and yellow halter-neck swimmers, waiting for my mum to pick me up, I had at last come to realise that I didn’t even like most of these girls I’d somehow come to idolize. That if my best friend wasn’t around, I preferred my own company. The realisation was enormous. It was sad, and tragic, and depressing. It was comforting, glorious, and freeing. It was bittersweet.

I didn’t want Michael Callingham anywhere near my school. But the rumours of him still had a strangely pacifying effect. The bullying slowed down. The comments about my skin stopped as the pigment slowly returned to its usual coffee bean hue. Some cute, rich white boy saw the worth in me, and that was major playground cachet, not to be taken lightly.

That afternoon, I couldn’t concentrate on studying, I sat at the desk in my room. I could hear the scissors snapping in my hands, the ugly, abusive words I’d said to Bhagita. They played over, and over, and over in my head. I felt sick about what I’d done. I wondered what Bhagita was doing; if she’d gone home and told her parents about me hassling her. I hated myself. I wanted to tear the hair extensions out of my head.

‘I like your hand. The way the brown on the back of your hand meets the white of your palm, on the edge there. It looks…cute. Like a paw or something. Like a possum paw.’

It was there, all of a sudden, out of nowhere. Walking home with my boyfriend, when I least expected it. The dry tongue. The nakedness. The can’t-think freeze.

[…]

I was Patch again. Seven years old, standing in the line for tunnel ball. You look like my dog. He’s got white and brown patches all over him too. Fetch, Patch! Go fetch, doggy!

Cecelia was a spunky black-magic pixie, sparkling and vibrant. Her hair was cornrow braided flat to her head with the long ends hanging down her back. She was beautiful, my sister. Breathtaking. Not despite her blackness, but inextricably entwined with it.