Author's Note:
This project asked us to re-purpose another piece of our writing from a previous experience. There were very few limitations to what we could choose as our original piece. It could have been anything from an academic essay written for another class to a grocery list you took to the store. Our task was to select a small seedling from the original piece and re-purpose it into a new genre for a new audience with an extended or completely different argument. It was no easy task, but like most things having to do with writing, starting is always the hardest part...and a lot of parts in-between. My original piece that I chose to repurpose was a self-reflective narrative written for my freshman year English 125 class. Its purpose was to share my traumatic week of being bullied at horse camp as a kid and how I grew from the experience as an individual. I decided to focus on the theme of bullying and repurpose this reflective narrative into an open letter (the new genre) addressed to the girl who bullied me about my fair complexion all throughout middle school. While the original audience for the reflective narrative was comprised of my classmates and my teacher, the new audience for my re-purposed letter is targeted at girls in their early teens- early twenties, because of its focus on beauty standards--something I feel most strongly affects girls when they are young and transitioning (although it can be argued we are always transitioning). A larger, personal goal I had for this project was to explore the nature of women and how we see ourselves as compared to others and why we feel the need to do so in the first place. The visuals paired with this piece are original illustrations by University of Michigan art Student Rachel Dawson, made specifically for this letter.
Below are three models of open letters that I used to gain inspiration.
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“An Open Letter to my Temporarily Broken Heart"-Hello Giggles
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“Quit Dumbing Me Down, and Do Something Great Instead: An Open Letter to Facebook”- Huffington Post
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"‘Parks and Recreation’: Leslie Knope Writes Letter to America Following Donald Trump’s Victory" -Yahoo
Go to the bottom of the page to see the in depth step by step details of my process, including: the original piece, my first draft, peer review letters, instructor feedback and more.
Who’s the Fairest of Them all?
An open letter to the girl who made me hate my skin.
Dear D,
I have this problem that I need to solve. It isn’t your fault, but you are a perpetrator of it and for the purposes of this letter, you mark the beginning of the whole endeavor.
Before middle school, I had no problem with how fair my skin tone was; no issue with being “a ghost” or "casper" as you referred to me on a daily basis. I didn’t even think of my skin! Then I met you and I soon began to believe I was ghost, that I was invisible, and that I did blend into the white brick walls of the classroom—as you so kindly told me in music class that one day. You asked me “what’s wrong with you?” as if I had something to be ashamed of. Others would join in, happy to not be on the receiving end of your body shaming and spitfire. I didn’t blame them. At least I was a friendly ghost right? There were a lot worse thing to be called, but it didn’t end there.
Many would say that this isn’t even a problem. You’re too white? Big whoop. White people have been privileged for centuries. Those tears you’re crying? Wipe them up and move on, because there are a lot more serious issues than that. I know that there’s this argument that I shouldn’t care, that no white person should be agitated by his or her whiteness, because white is privileged. However, all unfairness is not equal. This doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be addressed. The larger problem at hand—whether it has to do with skin tone or the pimple on your back—is that people aren’t ok with you being ok with yourself these days.
I know now that putting others down made you feel powerful and in control. I just didn’t know how to deal with bullies like you yet. My dad was an avid believer of never being someone’s doormat and lectured me daily on the value of standing up for myself. I agreed with him, but the problem was that I never knew what to say. You know that annoying “ah-ha!” moment you get as soon as you walk away from an argument with Suzy down the street about her dog that poops in your yard or your friend
Becky who kindly followed her compliment about your new dress with a tip that “adding mascara to your daily routine would really help you not look so dead”? As soon as the confrontation is over you know exactly what you should have said, but it’s too late and you have to move on, because at the end of the day the more you think about it the more power you give to the person who hurt you in the first place.
You made me feel this way every day.
For days after the music room incident I thought about what I wish I had said to you, like “I have blonde hair, you have black hair. That’s just facts. Why does it matter?” Today I wonder if making me feel insecure about my skin helped you deal with your own insecurities. I guess I’ll never know, but I hope for you’re sake that you’ve found a different way to deal with them.
To this day my white, fair skin has been the center of uncalled for and confusing harassments. Uncalled for, because it’s 2016 for crying out loud and no one should be made to feel inferior in some way, because of their skin tone, and confusing, because who really cares? Apparently far too many people. I once felt stung by your insensitive remarks, but now I am simply baffled by the attention my white skin gets and why on earth people feel the need (or right!) to comment on it. Yes! I’m white, get over it please.
I should have said this to you in 5th grade and maybe then I would have had a different outlook on this issue sooner than my freshman year of college.
The commentary on my fair skin has transformed as I’ve gotten older. It’s no longer inspired by cruel intentions like yours, just strange curiosity. In high school the Casper joke continued, because it was the same group of girls we had been with since middle school. It wasn’t really mean anymore though, because my friends adopted it and gave it new meaning—a better meaning. When my friends called me Casper it wasn’t intended to hurt my feelings, it was just a nickname. I figured it would fizzle out with time.
I was wrong.
The first week my freshman year of college I joined the waterski team. Every weekend we traveled to tournaments together, shared tents together and made crazy memories together. We were also in bathing suits every day and my fair skin tone was once again the topic of conversation. Imagine that. My teammates were amazed at my whiteness. Almost baffled by how such a skin tone was possible. I was baffled myself to say the least at their reaction.
I was in college, how was this still the first thing people noticed about me? My whole family was fair skinned, I had friends who were just as fair skinned and I couldn’t understand why having fair skin was any crazier than having tan skin or black skin. Heck it shouldn’t matter if you have freaking rainbow skin, it’s just skin! I wasn’t upset by the attention my teammates gave it. I was just surprised. Surprised that such an educated group of people (people who are admittedly my best friends) asked me why I am so white. I know they don’t actually want to hear how I am 75% Scottish and that my ancestors lived way up in the highlands where the sun don’t shine. Yet, their question begs an answer, so what exactly do they want me to say? What did you want me to say when you asked why I was so white? What would you have said if the roles were reversed and I asked you why you were so black?
This past summer on a kayaking trip with some girls from my internship, I asked a similar question to a fellow intern. Naturally it was ninety degrees and sunny out so I lathered on the sunscreen. At some point during my sunscreen application, one of the other interns looked down at herself and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! I’m so white, it’s embarrassing.”
She was a nice girl, and although her statement wasn’t directed at me, I couldn’t help what I said next.
“Sam, if you were black would you say, oh my gosh, I’m so black it’s embarrassing?”
Her face fell and I immediately felt bad. Sam was the nicest girl and unlike you she didn’t mean to offend me. However her statement was a huge red flag that the beauty standard for skin tone (and many other things) is so deeply engrained in all of us that we don’t notice what we are saying anymore or how it may come across. Sam isn’t black, so obviously my question didn’t carry the same connotations or reactions it would have if I had asked you the same question. But my point remains the same. When you feel entitled to comment on another’s appearance, you not only affect their self-image, you enforce the patriarchal beauty standards we have worked so hard to move away from.
Do you remember our friend Ayo from middle school? I spoke with her on the phone recently about this issue and she had a lot to say, so listen up.
We discussed the issue of colorism and how it affected her as a black woman over the course of her life. She spoke of her visits to Nigeria and the attention her lighter skin tone attracts from her relatives. She said that, “with African Americans in general there’s an association that having a lighter skin tone is beautiful” and that “it’s very much imbedded in the psyche of being black.” This felt strangely familiar to me as someone whose fair complexion has made me hyper aware of the messages splayed across our beauty magazines to “achieve the perfect tan.” What resided with me most, after our conversation had come to an end, was how she explained the process of colorism. She said it’s important to consider that, “when it comes up in conversation it comes off in compliments like, ‘oh you’re skin looks so pretty today’ so even though it’s not a negative comment, it reinforces the idea that lighter is better.” Your negative comments worked just as well though, D. We have so many set rules in our society that dictate what a perfect woman is supposed to look like that we internalize and later try to imitate. Ayo applied sunscreen heavily to avoid getting darker and I (even though I wouldn’t admit it at the time) applied the lightest SPF to try and get even a fraction darker.
My experience as a white woman is not the same in any way, shape or form as yours or Ayo’s, but it’s an interesting concept to consider. No matter what race or ethnicity you are, we lie on a spectrum whose center is considered the pinnacle of beauty. It is this point that we all strive to move closer to inch by painful inch and we need to stop.
So maybe you and I aren’t so different after all D. We both live in a culture that measures our beauty on a spectrum, but pointing out where I am too far one way on the beauty spectrum doesn’t change where you lie. I just want us to be ok with ourselves and ok with other people being ok with themselves. If you think someone has ratty hair, but they like it, who cares? If you think someone has yellow teeth, and they think they’re bright and shiny, who cares? If you think that someone wears mom clothes, but they think they’re hot off the runway, then who cares? I’m not asking you to have zero opinions, because we all have them. I’m asking you to consider the implications of what you say, before you say it. Women have enough problems as it is without body shaming each other.
So the next time you see someone with shockingly pale skin…ignore it, because it has no bearing on you and remember that we all fall somewhere on society’s beauty spectrum, and where we are is just fine.
Best regards,
Brenna