tHE mISSION
The mission of Our Beauty Matters is to support all women of color to embrace our beauty, dispel myths, and promote sisterhood.
wHY nOW?
The dominance of a Eurocentric standard of beauty has had negative effects on women of color's perception of beauty and has perhaps caused her some shame (Brown, 2012; Bundles, 2001). In order to make progress toward the kind of self-acceptance that will allow women’s authentic beauty to become a norm, we must first explore how our language and beliefs about it have had a generational impact. The callous ways with which we speak about something that appears to be simply hair, coupled with undertones of insult (Moss, 2011), has resulted in a culture of dishonor that has allowed brown women’s aesthetics to become the butt of comedians’ jokes. We have accepted a level of comfort with speaking negatively about Black natural beauty causing “brilliant and beautiful young women of color [to] sabotage themselves, sometimes without even knowing they are doing it, so that they never become the leaders they are capable of becoming”(Brown, Haygood, & McLean, 2010, pg. 3). The moment a brown-skinned girl is called “pretty for a dark girl,” instead of simply "pretty" she may place herself on the bottom of an imaginary totem pole. The offense may be repeated so often in her own mind that it becomes fact. The cycle continues as she opens her mouth to insult, thus passing the baton of shame to another unsuspecting victim (Brown, 2007; Harris & Johnson, 2001; “Dark Girls,” 2013).
Because there is a covert amount of humiliation surrounding colorism and textured hair, Our Beauty Matters would like to approach this issue from the perspective of the cultural identity and the invisible beauty of women of color. Those of us with curly, kinky hair and brown skin are justified to change that which has brought disgrace to ourselves and to others. “Because the most critical aspect of leadership is self-esteem” (Brown, Haygood, & McLean, 2010, pg. 3), our desire is to dispose faulty thinking as it relates to women of color's perception of beauty. This site will be a celebration of ALL beauty, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Let's all shine.