“Black Girls and Fairytales” focuses on a dark-skinned black rent-a-princess who gets magically pulled into a fairytale world where she gets to be the princess, but her ingrained colorism holds her back from her crown. In the end, she discovers self-love and accepts that she’s already beautiful. You can visit the film’s website to learn more about the project.

The following story is Khaliah’s personal story with colorism. She is the star of the short film, “Black Girls and Fairytales.”

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You are pretty for a dark-skinned girl.

I heard these words way too often growing up. As a woman with darker skin, kinky hair, and afro-centric features, I have definitely been on the receiving end of colorism my entire life. In middle school, the boys in the class made a list comparing all the girls. This list was called light-skin versus dark-skin. And it seemed as though the girls with darker skin were, automatically, deemed as ugly. From the boys in grade school fawning over the lighter-skinned girls to colorist rap lyrics that everyone was singing, including myself, everywhere I went loomed the suffocating grip of colorism.

I felt punished for being too black.

I would pray to God to make my skin lighter or buy lightening creams to make myself at least three shades lighter. My mother, who was so deep in the matrix of colorism, would call me and my brother darkie or blackie. I have even witnessed children in my brother’s middle school call him “Bubbles” (Michael Jackson’s monkey) or other horrific names. I can’t imagine how badly that must’ve hurt his little self-esteem. I remember the boys in middle school, high school, and even now fetishizing lighter skinned women to the point where I thought being unambiguously black with 4c hair was undesirable…making me hate my skin even more.

Colorism has affected me so badly…

One thing I can not stand is having almost little to no representation in media for girls like me. When it comes to darker-skinned characters on TV, usually they are portrayed very stereotypically. Unfortunately, it has taken me years to undo everything I have internalized. I remember there was a time I wouldn’t even wear bright colors because I was told “bright colors don’t look good on dark skin.” (P.S. Not true! Bright colors look gorgeous on dark skin!)

There was a time I wouldn’t even audition for certain things because I was scared they didn’t want to hire me because I’m unambiguously black or I’m not exotic enough.

I bought foundation three shades lighter than my actual skin tone because I did not want to be dark.

I spent hours perming my hair to erase my kinky African roots. For every bath I took, I tried my best to scrub the black off. I wanted to lift the darkness from my skin, my knees, my elbows. I remember thinking I was cursed for being black. Moving to Atlanta has definitely made me fall in love with not only being black but my dark skin and 4c hair. I love my skin. I adore it. I make sure I take care of it and I love taking care of it. It took years of undoing all of the internalized racism society has injected into my brain.

And now that I have a sense of self and a sense of confidence, I want to make sure that young black little girls and older black women know that it is ok to be unambiguously you. No matter what society says.

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This story needs to be told. Help make it happen with donating to the filmmakers today. Indie filmmakers do not have big studios behind them. They only have talent and community to help get their projects made. You can donate here. Let’s bring this project to life!