Comfortable in My Own Skin

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Media Archive, United States on 2020-06-22 01:51Z by Steven

Comfortable in My Own Skin

Sojourners
January 2020

Maika Llaneza
New Orleans, Louisiana

My theology says brown skin is beautiful, but my Pinterest page said otherwise.

MY EXPERIENCE BEING color-shamed began when I was 5 years old and still living in the Philippines. My mom and aunts often told me that I could be mistaken for “the maid’s daughter,” due to my darker brown skin. Even at a young age, I understood it was intended as an insult.

As I grew up, billboards, films, television shows, and magazines bombarded me with images of white Americans and Filipinas with white facial features. Mestiza Filipina models and actresses—celebrities admired by young girls like me—advertised skin-whitening products.

Color-shaming by other Filipinas continued after I moved to the United States at age 7. My mom, titas (aunts or older women), and lolas (grandmothers or elderly women) told me to “stay away from the sun” and “try not to get so dark.” They told me I would look even prettier if I had lighter skin…

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President Obama on “The View”

Posted in Articles, Barack Obama, History, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Religion, Social Science, United States on 2013-01-11 05:00Z by Steven

President Obama on “The View”

Sojourners: Faith in Action for Social Justice
2010-08-02

Valerie Elverton Dixon
Just Peace Theory

President Obama visited with the five hosts of the ABC daytime talk show “The View.” People complained. He should have gone to the Boy Scout gathering. The office of the presidency ought to be above such a program. These complaints are nonsense. The president ought to speak to his constituents, and the views of “The View” are all people to whom he is accountable.

The women asked interesting questions about the economy, the war, and the Shirley Sherrod episode and what it says about race in America. The president was able to make his case on all of these issues. Barbara Walters asked the president about his personal identity: why he identified as African American rather than as mixed race since his late mother is European American.
 
In my mind the answer to Walter’s question was obvious because President Obama is literally African American, the son of an African father and an American mother. He answered that he identifies as an African American because in the African-American community the reality that we all are mixed race is known and readily accepted. In one family you can find kin that is the blackest of black and the whitest of white. Racial purity is not a concern…

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