- Published: November 15, 2021
- Updated: November 15, 2021
- University / College: Loughborough University
- Language: English
- Downloads: 38
Bryan Wong5/9 LA 8Skin I’m In Essay19 January 2018Effects of standard of beauty, colorism, & BullyingIn this society, people judge others according to their skin color and looks. In the novel, The Skin I’m In, Maleeka Madison is dealing with people judging her because of her looks and skin color. Because of this, she gets bullied because the society’s definition of “ beauty” is different compared to others. These are the consequences of different definitions of beauty. Three important lessons I learned from this unit is standard of beauty, colorism, and bullying.
The first lesson I learned was standard of beauty. I learned that everyone has a different expectation of beauty in the world. When Maleeka cut her hair short, everyone was making fun of her and started calling her names like peanut head. This says that in the environment there is a different standard of beauty compared to Maleeka’s. Don’t be afraid to stand out, be yourself, everyone isn’t perfect. I also learned about colorism. I learned that colorism and racism are completely different things.
“ Maleeka, Maleeka-baboom, boom, boom, we sure wanna keep her, baboom, boom, boom, but she’s so black, baboom, boom, boom, we just can’t see her” (Flake 3). In this section, john-john is singing a cruel song about Maleeka because she’s darker than john-john but they’re the same race. Finally, I learned about bullying. A lot of people would just stand and watch when someone is getting bullied. “ Nobody on the street is doing nothing to help him. They’re just watching… Finally, I found my voice. I yell for somebody to call the cops. But folks just stare.
I yell some more” (Flake 154). We should be an upstander instead of being a bystander. A lot of people are scared to be the one standing out. But someone needs to have the diffusion of responsibility and stand up for the person who is getting bullied. In conclusion, we should stop judging people’s skin color and looks. I learned about the standard of beauty, colorism, and bullying.
Why do we harm people with our words?
