Short, Fat & Ugly by Torri Oats

I was around 14 or 15 when those very words were used to describe me. It was from a boy whom I’d met at a basketball game. He was actually one half of a set of identical twins, but I preferred him. He humored me to my face but voiced his real opinion behind my back. Through small town gossip, his comments eventually found their way to my ears. I wasn’t sure how to react to his words. I have never been much of a cryer when it came to my own life, so my reaction was more of disbelief. He planted weeds that continued to sprout for years to come.

His criticism came at an age when I was the least comfortable in my own skin. My body was transitioning from girlhood to a womanhood, and I was coping with its changes. When I looked in the mirror I saw a chubby face, boring eyes, uninvited pimples and a butt that was too big. I had breasts that didn’t seem to belong with the rest of my body and I’d started growing hair in places that I had to shave. Those were just the physical changes. I was also socially awkward — a shy, athletic nerd who only felt at home on a basketball court. Around boys all of my insecurities were magnified a thousand times. I worried they saw me as I saw myself.

Although I struggled with a negative self-image, I had never been that harsh. I knew I was short, but I thought of myself as “athletically built”. Though my face was not perfection, I didn’t consider myself “ugly”. I could see the good which offset the negative. But his comments cut me to my core and made me question everything I thought I knew about myself.

I wondered if others thought the same thing and if I was the one who was lying to myself?  

His painfully seared words became a springboard for a journey that began with self-loathing and later transformed into self-love. However, I didn’t wake up one morning and decide the words he spoke were lies. Rather, it was a series of twists and turns that led me to discover my own truth.

In the immediate aftermath, I was determined to fix some of my “flaws”. I began chugging Slim Fast until my mother discovered my secret stash hidden in my favorite reading spot  — my closet. I obsessively washed, scrubbed and moisturized my face. I was raised to discard the noise and lies people told me, but it was easier said than done.   

For years, I randomly thought of the words “short, fat and ugly”. I have never worn a size larger than six, but it didn’t matter. When I studied myself, my stomach always seemed larger than it was, my thighs fatter and my butt thicker. In my eyes I was still what he labeled me as.

As I’ve matured, I’ve maintained a commitment to fitness and health. Regular exercise and clean living are priorities. My body has changed as I’ve filled out in certain areas and slimmed down in others. My face shed its baby fat and my skin is long past its weird hormonal stage. There’s nothing I can do about my height, but I carry myself with an outward confidence that matches the inside.

Years later, he winded up getting a job where my mom worked. He walked into her office one day and worked my name into their conversation. He got nowhere. A reliable source told me that he said, “I heard Torri looks good now.” I smiled. His more recent assessment of me was simply an ego boost. As I began to love myself more and more, I realized that I didn’t need him to validate me nor did I require his stamp of approval.

The woman that I am is not defined by anyone’s standard of beauty. The woman that I am is one who is confident in her own skin, embraces her assets and flaws, and continues to live her life on her own terms.

Recognize Lies by Dale Francis-Forteau

Chances are, if you’re an African-American woman, you have been bombarded all of your life with all sorts of nonsense masquerading as facts about your heritage, physical beauty, intelligence and contributions black people have made to American history, or your general overall worth to American society. This is UNACCEPTABLE. No other culture is so beset upon with such vehement disrespect as our culture. We’re looked upon as a race of people who serve no real purpose in this country, and generally speaking, we’re portrayed to the world as worthless, baby-makers or criminals who speak the language of “Ebonics” and collect public assistance, rather than pursue education that’ll result in gainful employment or businesses ownership.

It’s believed that we have no inner drive to contribute anything but problems to American society. The full reality of our lives is far from these unfortunate stereotypes. These lies are perpetuated and manipulated so often by outsiders to our community that even people who come to the US from other countries arrive with a perverted vision of the average African-American person. It’s past time we right these wrongs committed against us.

Being an African-American female, I can personally speak to the unjust, mean-spirited lies about my personage that are so constant I have learned to put up my own walls to the abusive talk in order to exist here. These walls are my vibranium armor (Black Panther reference 😏) against the persistent unfair and unjust pummeling my character takes from ignorant, ill-informed people who don’t even know me.

To discuss every unjust belief about African-American womanhood would not be something totally accomplished in an article, so I’ll just touch on the subject of our beauty. The African-American woman was blessed with as much beauty, and in my personal opinion, more beauty than other races of women. That’s not to diminish the beauty other women naturally possess, but I happen to personally feel that our full lips, curvy hips, wavy/curly hair, almond-shaped or doe-like eyes, high cheekbones, and hourglass shape have been so often imitated and plastically duplicated to the point of people believing they do it better than God.

To this I say, “Not so fast!” Let’s open our eyes to how we’ve been spoon-fed lies about our physical beauty, ladies. I was raised in a family that taught all girls that our God-given physical beauty is but one reason to walk with our heads held high, no matter what the media at large says about us. (Thank God for strong and proud African-American family bonds!) Black women have been told our facial features are too large and misshapen and our skin is too dark to reflect beauty, yet cosmetics companies and the cosmetic surgery industry pedal our beauty. Full lips, high cheekbones, and exotic eye makeup tricks to reshape or contour eyes, and not to mention, spray-on tans to give the appearance of exotic beauty and opulence. REALLY?! How many Sistahs were whispered about and had their ample posterior was ogled as they walked by?

Well, obviously, the smack talk was just the green-eyed monster rearing its ugly head in other women because now all the butt-exercises, implants, built-in fake butt shapewear, and shots for a more “coke bottle body” is rampant. Hmmm…I guess filling out your yoga pants in the seat isn’t as undesirable as we (Black women) have been told. After all, you can’t twerk with a flat butt! Even our hairstyles are “in” now. If I have to see one more fake, locked-up or renamed cornrow style that the latest Non-Black reality star family (you know who I’m referring to) is sporting and reclaiming as theirs, I am going to SCREAM!

Sistahs, wake-up to the fact that we are naturally beautiful, and no media outlet, cosmetic company, plastic surgeon, or society in general can take our brand of sexy and do it better than us! “Black Empowerment” scares people. It flies in the face of an unjust society that wants to vilify or degrade any aspect that concerns African-American women (and men). That’s why it’s so important for Black parents to take up the gauntlet and arm their children with the true knowledge of “Our Family’s Legacy of Greatness”. To quote a Black man (Mr. Jesse Williams) who defines the awakening that I pray for our people to manifest, “What I’d like to see us do is to return to a space where it’s okay for folks to be proud and outwardly Black in public…” My Sistahs…don’t swallow the lies…YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!  

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Dale Francis-Forteau is an African-American free-lance writer currently living in NYC with her husband and two grown sons. Her love of the written word was instilled in her from an early age and influenced by the numerous family members who have worked as educators. An alum of The Bronx High School of Science, Mrs. Francis-Forteau has recently returned to college and is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.

NLTT Presents: Guest Blog Series - What Lies Were You Told?

The journey to No Lies Told Then has been an enlightening one. We have gained knowledge and shed weights and lies we didn't even know we carried. Black women have illuminated our path with unforgettable moments and reminders of our value. We plugged into black womanhood - not just our own, but the magic that binds a global sisterhood with an invisible ribbon. From Sandra Bland to Lemonade, so much has taken place and we keep up with it because all of these occurrences are the beating heart of what we stand for.

We decided that it's now time to turn the proverbial microphone to the black woman who inspire the passion we have for our film. We're proud to introduce a guest blog corner where black women tell their stories and get the lies they've been told off their chest! If you're interested, you're invited to submit your words. We want to hear from you. If you're here to read, get comfortable and let these stories empower you. 

Tell Them They Are Special: What are We Teaching Our Young Queens?

Black womanhood begins as black girlhood, and the seeds we plant in our young queens are the messages that carry them into adulthood. How adulthood turns out has a lot to do with what we’re exposed to in childhood and that’s a screaming fact when it comes to learning to love yourself. To put it simply, if we want to continue this celebration of the beauty of black womanhood - we have to teach the young ones to love themselves and love their sisters, and continue with work that was started by the ones that came before us.

Our elders had to fight harder to be seen and speak a lot louder to be heard but they still reminded us that we matter. They reminded us that we must aspire to appreciate the beauty we see in the mirror - hair, lips and everything! We had that message passed down and now it’s our duty to teach the beautiful young ladies following our lead the same precious lessons about what it means to be a black woman today.

I’ve seen black women ashamed of their skin, aspiring to be lighter or a completely different race. This didn’t happen accidentally. It tells me that the message was poisoned or wasn’t passed down to her all all.

Children are incredibly perceptive and they tend to mimic and internalize before they understand. If they are fed messages of racial self-hate - how can we expect them to become people who love their race? If we teach them that other black girls are competitors and enemies, how does the sisterhood get stronger? It is our duty to actively work on creating an environment where collective #blackgirlmagic can take root and bloom.

One of our followers (s/o @DalieBoo) sent us this message “I think that video about lies we've been told should be the topic of a forum in high schools and colleges, geared towards our beautiful, young Black females.”

Her words express her hope for our young black queens. They need to be taught to shut out the lies they hear and they need to be told that they are special, important and deserving of love. They need to constantly be reminded that they are not second class to any other race, and we need to create films, music, magazines that show this and support brands that preach this message.

The tale of the unloved black girl is as common as it is heartbreaking and it does toxic damage to the self-esteem of young girls with so much potential, and power to shape our tomorrow.

It isn’t just about what we say, we need to wear capes for these girls and show them how capable they are of soaring to reach their dreams without denying their blackness or being ashamed of it. The seeds of who we become are planted in youth and now is the time to put black girls in the position to learn from our successes and our mistakes. Our mission can only be deemed successful once we are able to inspire generations to come, and change the outcome for all black queens.

Taking Back Our Mirrors: How Beauty Ideals Become the Lies That Obscure Our Beauty

Mirrors don’t work the way they’re meant to. We gaze into them to see ourselves, but we don’t see true reflections of the beauty we possess. They become sites to self-examine, point out flaws and what we don’t like. The wrinkles, bulges and marks become what we want to correct - the things that overshadow all the good we should be seeing, all the parts that collectively tell our unique stories.

We don’t go looking in the mirror with these things in mind but the language that surrounds us has conditioned us to see the bad before we even come close to seeing the good that’s so evident. Some magazines and brands use their powerful platforms to make us feel as if we’re lacking in some way. Try as a we might, they keep moving the line, as soon as we brush past a milestone an even bigger one appears up ahead.

“Now that you’ve lost some weight, do you have a thigh gap?” “You look great but we can make you look even better.” These seemingly friendly messages push the bar for perfection further and higher, so much that we risk injury to jump at them.

It’s not problematic to create beauty products that make women feel better about themselves but it is problematic to paint products as what we need to rely on to love ourselves. We have to love ourselves before we put on make-up, that way its application serves the right purpose - enhancement and not total removal of natural beauty. I’m not one for make-up shaming, I just want us to care about being beat on the inside as much as the outside.

When I think of our reflections, and the flaws we so expertly point out in them, I come to conclusion that we don’t own them when we see so much ugliness in ourselves. Our reflections and our mirrors are coated by the lies we’ve been told about what makes a woman beautiful. These lies play in our heads as we nervously approach our mirrors and they play back the long list of things that make us feel unworthy of words like “beautiful” and “sexy”.

The lies that cloud our mirrors are what contribute to the evils of skin bleaching as some women suffer such debilitating self-hate that they decide they can’t inhabit their stunning #melaninonfleek skin. We see our hair in the mirror and we call it ugly because we’ve internalized the lies told about what it is. Our noses - too wide, our lips too big and so it goes. If we looked at ourselves without the stereotypes, the prejudice and the judgment our mirrors would be uncoated and what we’d see and what we’d interpret from it would be of our own making.

To take back our reflections we have to take our mirrors back from those that lie about us. We need to silence their words and let the beauty that looks back at us define what’s truthful about our beauty. With brands like Dove working on helping women see their own beauty we are starting to make strides. Stars like Alicia Keys who have struggled with accepting their own beauty are adding necessary voices to this issue by being truthful about what they’ve faced and by showing us that what they see in the mirror are their truths, gorgeous truths.

One face at a time and one woman at a time we’re going to dust and scrub off all the lies that stubbornly cling to our mirrors. And that’s a charge that “No Lies Told Then” is here for, because these are truths that are worth telling, selling and advertising. Let’s #takebackourmirrors and revel in our magic.