photo credit: ssoosay
Selfhelp On Skin Color
I was recently participating in this online forum when I came across this one post about how one lady was having issues with her own skin color and wanted some selfhelp advice. This lady has had terrible experiences throughout her life so far with black women in particular and as a black woman herself, she doesn’t feel any pride in being one.
She actually wrote that she wishes that she was a white woman so that she would not have to go through all the negativity that she perceives all black women to have. Her post immediately struck me in some ways because of my own similar situation when I was young.
Similar Situation When I Was Young
If anybody has heard my motivational keynote or read my personal growth book, The Life Champion In You, then my own story of hating my own culture (Chinese) will be quite familiar. I felt kind of the same as the lady in the forum except instead of the color black, it was yellow. I too wanted to be white when I was a kid and have absolutely nothing to do with my Asian culture.
As I read this lady’s original post, it’s no wonder why she feels this way. There’s not really anything significant in the entire post that is positive. Everything she relates to about black women in particular, is negative.
Need Positive Role Model With Same Skin Color
Given this, there is no hope in hell that she will ever change unless she actually finds herself a role model who just happens to be a black woman. Otherwise, no matter how anybody tries to tell her that she is fine the way she is as selfhelp advice, her attitude towards black women and herself will not change. She might even be resistant against change as to psychologically ‘refuse’ acceptance of any potential black role model.
It was the same for me, until that fateful day when I got exposed to the late, great Bruce Lee. Even though I was somewhat resistant, the power and overall persona that Bruce Lee, a man of the same color as I am, was too strong. In fact, his presence completely overwhelmed me. I had never seen such a powerful Asian man before.
But he changed me forever as from that point on, I wanted to be like him (like I’m sure millions of many other guys of all colours at that time). The negative image of Asian men that I had was erased.
Although I still see many Asian men who have the stereotypical characteristics that originally made them unattractive to me, they no longer affect the way I feel about myself and my own culture. It was thanks to one positive role model in my life that made the difference for my own selfhelp – even shot a past episode of Motivational WebTV as a video tribute to my hero complete with nunchuks.
My Selfhelp Advice For Her
For the lady in the forum, I really think it would be whether she finds a positive role model in a black woman or not that will make the difference for her. I would imagine there are many more than qualified candidates out there for her among the black female community. There are highly respected TV personalities like Oprah Winfrey, actresses like Halle Berry and even Nobel Peace Prize winners who are black women.
It would be worthwhile for her to put some effort into researching possible candidates rather than just to leave it up to fate like I did when I was a kid. This would be the major selfhelp advice I would give her.
I consider myself lucky that my hero did come. For this lady, putting some energy into a search for such a positive role model will pay off in spades.
