A few days ago, someone described a video they had seen. In the clip, a young Black boy is shown two dolls. One white. One Black. He’s asked, “Which one is ugly?” He points to the Black doll. “Which one is beautiful?” He points to the white one. And finally, “Which one looks like you?” He pauses, glances down for a second, and slowly points to the Black one again.
Who taught us to hate ourselves? To hate how we look, how we talk, how we dress?
If you’ve spent time in West Africa, especially in Nigeria, you’ve probably heard the word oyibo (pronounced oh-yee-boh). Originally, it just described white people or anything foreign or Western. But somewhere along the way, it became more than a word. It became a compliment. A standard. Something to reach for.
Lighter skin? “You look like oyibo.”
Long, straight hair? “Like oyibo.”
Foreign accent? “Ah, that oyibo accent!”
When I was younger, I lived in a small community where a white person’s visit would draw people out of their homes. They’d come just to see. They’d smile, try to talk to them. It went beyond curiosity. There was reverence in it.
Admiring other cultures isn’t the problem. The problem comes when admiration becomes measuring yourself against someone else and deciding you fall short.
You see it everywhere in small ways. Store shelves lined with skin-lightening creams. People praising foreign accents while mocking local ones. Natural hair gets ignored unless someone is straightening it, “fixing” it, making it look like something else.
I once talked to an old friend who had moved to the U.S. She told me it took years to see how deeply this had affected her. The way she dressed. How she smiled. How she spoke. She hadn’t even known she’d absorbed it all until she was far enough away to look back.
Things have been changing, slowly. More people are wearing their 4C hair natural, rocking afros, celebrating dark skin openly. Terms like ‘chocolate’ and ‘caramel’ are being reclaimed with pride. But the old ideas haven’t left. They’re still sitting there, waiting.
Not long ago, a little girl told her mother she didn’t want to be Black. She wanted “the silky kind of hair,” like the girls in the cartoons. She was seven years old. Her mother sat down with her and realized how early this takes root.
Hair and skin aren’t just physical traits. They’ve been loaded with meaning. With judgments about value and beauty and worth. Children grow up learning to shrink parts of themselves. To sound different, to look different, to hide what makes them who they are, just to be seen as acceptable.
I think about that little boy with the dolls. I don’t judge him. I see the girl teased for being too dark. The student who changes their accent to fit in. The woman who only feels beautiful hiding her real hair under a wig.
I see myself in all of this.
We can interrupt the pattern, unlearn what we were taught and talk to the next generation differently. Remind them, and remind ourselves, that our beauty, our culture, our roots have always been enough.
