Good News with Twanda Black ft Rhonda Bennett

Good News with Twanda Black welcomes Rhonda Bennett... author of “Momma, I Wanna be Light-skinned: My Journey to Acceptance”.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Thank you for joining me today onGood News with Twine to Black, where
we are discovering some of the mostinspiring trials to triumph stories and empowerment moments.
Call up a friend and let themknow it's time for some good news.

(00:30):
Hello, family, and welcome toGood News with Twine to Black.
I am your host and we talkwith folks from all walks of life about
their good news, because ultimately,when your brothers and sisters are doing good,
you're doing good. All right,All right, now, sit back,
relax and enjoy this. Next guestjoining me today is Ronda Bennett.

(00:51):
She is author check out the titleI Want to Be Light Skinned My Journey
to Acceptance. Let me tell you, Rhanda, this book brought back so
many memories for me as you cansee wow yesterday, so you know I
went through some of the same stuff. Excellent book though, good read,

(01:12):
and it's a good conversation piece forwhen you with your family and your friends,
you know whoever. I think youshould be able to have those discussions.
But tell us about yourself first.You talk about in the book your
childhood and how the things that transpiredthere. Of course, a journey with

(01:34):
you into your adulthood, yeah anddo. And so I'm going and raised
in Tusty, Ya, Alabama.You know, I was a very active
child up until the age of nine. Before before nine, I was always
involved in different things in sports.I'm a tomboy. I enjoyed making friends

(01:55):
and just being outside riding my bike, playing kickball with the name hood friends.
And you know, one day,as I was sitting at my grandmother's
house, she and I were justtalking watching I want to say, in
the heat of the night or whatever, something was on the television. Now
we were watching it, and shejust, you know, happened to look
down at me and she was like, Ronda, you need to marry somebody

(02:19):
white or hy yella if you wantyour children to have a chance in this
world, because you won't. Andyou know, I was you know,
I was called names in school.I was used to that, but having
it from hearing it from someone whoI trusted, who I spent a lot
of time with, you loved me. But to hear her say that,

(02:43):
it made me feel like, Okay, well, maybe what the kids are
saying at school is right. Youknow, I'm ugly, I'm not good
enough, I'm too dark, youknow, and that just started me on
that downward spiral, so you know, and it made me think about,
of course, what I went throughas a as a little chocolate girl.

(03:04):
You know, same thing. You'reugly, you're you know, you're this,
you're that, You're black. Ofcourse I was black. My last
name is black. So that wasa whole nother teasing point. Um.
But I remember my five year oldum so his my husband at the time,

(03:27):
my younger kid at the time,we're all dark and he's light,
and he the kids at school toldhim he was white. So he came
home and said, Mama, whyam I white and y'all are black?
It's like what And so I pickedup this book and I can't remember the

(03:51):
name of it, but it wasan awesome book, and it was for
children about the complexions of our race, of who we are a nestity,
that we come in all these differentshades and colors. And I remember having
to explain to him. I said, look at your grandmother, You're the
same complexion as your grandmother, andthen your uncles, and then we were
just because we have a huge familyand we got all these different complexions.

(04:15):
And so just explaining that to himbut some kind of way, all of
the teasing that he got, andthis is from a boy, it got
in his head. And so whenhe got to middle school, he was
a little freaked out by people lookingat him and asking him, what are
you right? Because he had hehas curly hair, he's light. Are

(04:38):
you Puerto Rican? I get this? I mean, he was like,
I'm black. It's like, no, you're not. So you get it
from little kids in school, butthen when you get it from the people
that you trust the most, yourparents, your grandparents, the people in
your life that you trust, ittakes you to another level. I mean,
it's about a fron awareness. BecauseI was aware, but then to

(05:02):
hear it from her, it justopened up the doors everything else. So
I was noticing everything else now andfelt as though, okay, yep,
this little thing that happened, it'strue my grandmother said was true, happened.
It's like my perspective was just totallyoff now because of that one little

(05:23):
phrase, and everything was, youknow, pretty much an agreement with what
she said about me. So it'scrazy that that that conversation is still going
on. And when I first wrotethis book, first of all, it
didn't even start off as a book, I on a quest to be free.
I was having some internal thoughts thatyou know, had me thinking suicidal,

(05:47):
crazy stuff. I just had mysecond son, and I was so
excited that neither one of my childrenlooked like me. First decided that they
were that in the book. Mymouth felt open. I was like,
oh my god, yeah I was. I was. I was excited.
They came out. They were extremelybright, and I was happy that was

(06:12):
it. And and then I startedto think, what is what is really
wrong with me? And after mysecond time, you know, I was
in the shower and I just beganto weep because I knew there was something
wrong. I did not like myself, and God just began to flood in
my mind with all the memories,all the things that I had suppressed over
the years, because you know,these things happened, but I pressed them

(06:36):
down into my subconscious and I wasliving out everything that I heard that was
said to me or what have youunknowingly and it was just, you know,
I was living my life based ona lie that was told to me.
And I needed to be free becauseI was mormented in my thoughts.
I was talking myself out of somany things. My mind was just it

(06:58):
was I was overwhelmed with, youknow, thoughts of inadequacy that I'm just
I'm not enough. So that's howthis book started. It started as a
journal. It started for me justpouring out what was going on in my
mind. On two pages, didyou talk to your mom about this?
Did you ever? You know?I know your mom knew a little bit,
but I know you didn't really.Why not? So because I love

(07:24):
my mom, But my mom shewas always not always that's the wrong word.
So the things that my grandmother saidto me should also said to my
mom before. So that's why shecontributed to some of the things like you
can't play outside too long because you'regonna get dark, or we're gonna we're
gonna use this soap or whatever tohelp lighten your skin. So she always

(07:46):
told me I was beautiful. HoweverI couldn't go outside, I couldn't play
out long. You know, mydad wanted me to cut the grass,
and she was like, Nope,you can't do that if you're gonna be
out there only thirty minutes and comingback in the house. Those undertones she
contributed. Yeah, all of thatcontributed to it. So I didn't feel
like I could go to her andtalk to her about it, and so

(08:07):
I didn't. I just bottled allof that in so and there was no
one I could talk to about it. It was just me internalizing all of
those thoughts, all of those words, all of the taunting from school,
just all of that and about yourcollege hears talk about your college hairs.
I thought that was really interesting timefor you. Yeah, my college years
were amazing. I you know,I decided to leave Tuskegee Adventure, you

(08:33):
know, a couple of hours north, and it was a whole new world.
It was literally a different world,which was my favorite show growing up,
but it was a different world.There were so many, you know,
beautiful women, all hues, youknow, loving themselves and I did
not hear about you know, you'retoo dark, you're too this. No,

(08:54):
it was gorgeous. Look at yourdumples. I love your skin.
It was stuff that I was usedto, you know, and it just
made me, you know, startto see myself in a different light.
Um But there was a lot ofwork that had to go into accepting this
newness. People would tell me thatI was pretty and be like, oh,

(09:15):
okay, but you really didn't believeit, did not believe it not
And people until this day were like, really, I didn't know you dealt
with self esteem issues because I hada representative I had. I learned how
to be someone else is different,how to be confident in front of others,
and internally dying inside waiting to getback home because oh my god,

(09:39):
who I don't know who I am? You know, it was. It
was a lot of work, butI worked it out. I fooled a
lot of people for a long ueen. Yes, I was the queen of
my college, Miss Stillman, Yes, is that amazing or what? But
you still didn't believe. No,this is narrative. I didn't. But

(10:01):
the thing is I knew that thiswas what I was supposed to do.
So many things happened during that timeon my quest to be queen, and
I heard God clearly say this isyour time. And so that's when I
was like, Okay, I'm justgonna keep going. I'm gonna keep going.
And I won, and so yeah, that was that was a start.

(10:22):
It was, but I still,with all of that training in my
head, it still wasn't enough validationfor me. I was looking it wrong.
When I met you and I boughtthe book, I never thought I
would be reading. I never thoughtyour story would be this, you know,

(10:43):
I just didn't just in meeting you, and I just met you,
you know a few weeks back,and I'm so glad that you got past
you healed and restored and all thatgood stuff. So once in the shower
after you saw your babies, whichthat that had my mouth on the floor
because because here's a funny story.When I had my first baby really light,

(11:09):
I mean light light light, andum, we're the doctor's office and
I remember this lady asking me,was I his nanny? I have right?
Yeah, I was like what,I still remember that like it was

(11:30):
yesterday. The bat happened to storyreally YEA with it. I went along
with it. I was like,no, I'm just I'm just watching him
for the day. I just laughedit off and kept going. So yeah,
some some interesting things happened with thatone. But anyway, Um,

(11:50):
so when you got into the showerand those tears, and I'm sure you
were probably just wailing at your thoughtsof y'all dacity of how you were feeling.
Yeah, what were your next steps? How did you move from from
those tears of you know, realitythat in reality, I still don't think

(12:11):
I'm good enough. Yeah. Yeah, I had to start the process of
exchanging, exchanging everything that I learnedthat was instilled in me with the things
that God said about me. Andit took some time, It took practice.
It was being intentional about my thoughtsevery day, every moment of the

(12:35):
day, and what comes out ofyour mouth, and what comes out of
your mouth you manifest that, andso you know, I had to be
intentional about the things that I wasI was saying, and you know,
it became a daily practice to whereI was starting to believe that, yes,
I am fearfully and wonderfully made.You know, I was made on
purpose. God was so intentional abouteverything that he formed with me, from

(12:56):
my skin color to my hair texture. Everything was intentional and I had to
learn to love that and embrace thatand validate myself. I think the reason
why I struggled with it for somany years was because I was looking for
external validation and the only validation Ineeded was right here, right, It

(13:18):
was right here with me. Soand the process it was, and you
know, I want folks to know, don't think it's just women that go
through this. Men go through thisas well. I was talking to two
very famous artists of a farming artistsand we were talking about colorism. We

(13:39):
were talking about this very thing,and they were talking about how bad they
had it when they were young andgoing through college because they were dark skinned.
Wow. And you know, wemade jokes and we talked about it,
and then we all hugged it outand because we were like, well,

(14:00):
you know, now we're okay,we're in, but we we went
through so much to get here.But again, it's exactly what you said
that it's an inside job. It'san inside job, but it is not
validation from the world because the worldstill don't like us because we're black.
But when your old people don't likeyou because you dark skinned, you know,

(14:20):
oh, you're good looking for adark skinned girl. And that one
of the guys told me, say, yeah, there's tim you fine and
good looking their thing, but youdark skin, you're too black. You
know that kind of stuff. Hesaid he had to work through that,
and I mean, he's a veryfamous artist right now, but he had
to work through that color issue.Yeah, And that was another reason why

(14:41):
I felt I needed to tell mystory because there's so many people who are
so many women and men who arein their ties and forties and fifties who
are still working through things that happenedwhen they were nine, ten, eleven,
teen years old, and I wantit. I want it to stop
now. I want young girls someboys to know that they are perfect just

(15:01):
the way that they are, regardlessof their skin complexion, their color,
whatever, They're perfect just the waythey are. And I think if we
start having these conversations early and instillingin our babies early about how awesome they
are, all of them, everypart of them, then they won't have

(15:22):
to be thirty, forty fifty yearsold having an identity crisis because you don't
know who they are early on.That is My next question was to talk
to the parents, because parents thathave gone through it are now passing down
again. They might be telling youbeautiful, but they're doing the undertone stuff.
Well, you know, don't stayout of the sun too long.

(15:43):
You need to use some skin whiteningor your ashy or your disc or your
that, and so you know,parents, parents, we need to do
better with our children. We do, we need to do better. But
the problem with that is if wedon't learn to accept ourselves, will never
be able to teach our children toaccept themselves, will always put that undertone

(16:07):
on them. So yeah, yeah, it's it's it's interesting that and it's
interesting that in twenty twenty three,we're still going through this. We're still
having this conversation within our own family, within our own ethnicity, within our
own black people. Yeah, we'restill having the conversation about skin complexion.

(16:29):
Yeah, we are. It's amazing. I go to different UM schools,
elementary, middle and high schools,and I talk to the students there,
and even now, they're still havingthese questions. They still have issues with
among their peers of being UM incompetition with the lighter skin. Why is
it? Why is this still anissue? Why is it steel an issue

(16:52):
today? And you know, they'rethankful that I'm able to talk about it
now because it gives permission to alsotalk about it and work through these issues
that they're having as well. Andmy prayers that you know, they can
stop it right now and move forwardin their life being the great, awesome
girls and boys and women and menthat they are. And the other side

(17:15):
of that is that the kids thatget bullied because they are light. My
we had my husband's daughter for while, she's very very light complexion, and
those girls terrorized her in school.Yeah, terrorized her. She need to
know, she was cute, butthey terrorized her in school and to the

(17:40):
point where, you know, wehad to intervene because there was some pushing
and shoving and the name calling.And the other thing was she was afraid
to use the bathroom. Wow.So yeah, we had to intervene because
that girl would hit the steps whenshe got home. So like, what's
happening. What's happening? I can'tgo to the restaurroom in school? Excuse

(18:03):
me? Wow? Yeah? Yeah, So I mean it's two sides to
it. However, again, youknow, um, parents, what we
say to our children will affect themfor their entire lives, if you will.
Yeah, yeah, it really does. UM. Tell folks how they
can find your book. It's abeautiful book. I read it in probably

(18:26):
an hour, lets me reader,but it um, you know, easy
reading. I think any kid,Um, any child in your life who
is having issues or having some issueswith how they feel about themselves. It's
definitely a great book. It is. It's definitely for for all ages.

(18:48):
Um. You know, I wroteit in such a way that a child
can understand everything that I'm talking about, UM, And I wanted to make
it more of conversation, um piece, So as you're reading it, it's
like you're sitting across the table fromme and I'm just telling you my story.
And I think that's how you knowit translates into being just an easy
read. But yeah, you canfind my book an autograph copy you can

(19:12):
get at order dot dark Skinned Divadot com. It's also on Amazon,
so just typing your mom I wantto be light Skin and you can purchase
it off Amazon as well. Yes, Yes, awesome book, awesome book.
Thank you so much for taking outtime to talk with us and to
share your journey with us. Thankyou so much, thank you. I

(19:33):
so appreciate you for having me ontoday. This has been a pleasures soon
all right, Yes, wasn't ita good conversation? We could have talked
forever. If you want to bea guest on the show, you can
email me at Towanda Black at LOVEPGnetwork dot org or good News at LOVEPG
network dot org. You can watchthe show via pg NTV on all digital

(19:56):
streaming apps, or visit us atp gmtv dot org. We'll see you
next time with some good news.God bless you. M