Light vs Dark - Just My Thoughts

As being a female who is lighter than some I will never understand what a darker skinned female goes through. I refuse to call myself lightskin because of all the baggage that comes with it. I was watching School Daze (on youtube 'cause who buys dvds anymore? lol) and there was a scene on "good" hair vs "bad" hair, and when I say scene I mean West Side Story-esque dance and song sequence.

It got me thinking "Is this scene helping or hurting our perception of how we as a people see each other?". See, all the medium to dark skinned women are on the "bad" hair side, while the light to fair women are on the "good" hair side. In my experience I've met some light people with some NAPS and some darkskinned people with more of a relaxed curl, both naturally. I understand that this is based on the situation as a whole, rather than specific instances. Also, I noticed the body types. The darker women were more thick and "natural", compared to the lighter skinned women who were mad toned. To me, personally, this is just as bad as showing someone who is lighter more favourable. Yes, I do understand in media it's more geared toward someone who looks like me, but doing the reverse doesn't make it any more right.

I've been blessed to have been put in a life where my lighter skin was never celebrated. I assume because I didn't fit the stigma. I was fat, wore glasses, dressed like a boy, etc. All the way through college my tone was non significant. Last year though a friend of mine called me lightskinned (which is my biggest pet peeve) and I told him that I don't like to be called that. He was shocked. He began to tell me that being lightskinned was one of the best things you could be as a girl. I never thought I'd see the day when someone would actually tell me to my face that being lightskinned made me better. What year is this?

This is not a plight of a lighty. I would never do that. Darkskinned people face so much more discrimination, I've seen it, I've heard it, I've done it myself (ask me about my loathing of Tyrese and you'll see it come out). I just pray that we as a people could see that we are all blackies, whether dark or light.