VAL ESTRELA SAID: "I’m tired of the dictatorship of beauty.".

During all of my adolescence, I heard that to be beautiful you had to have straight hair and be skinny. So many years of rejection and societal demands, rejection of my body, my hair. Crying in the middle of the night in my pillow after coming home after school and hearing taunts in bad taste, remarks that aren’t even worth repeating. But finally I grew up, I matured and accepted myself, after a long journey to gyms without success, and hairdressers that never left my hair the way I wanted it, I learned that to be beautiful you don’t have to be skinny, tall, and have straight hair. I’m black, fat, and I have kinky, curly black hair, or whatever you want to call it but I am me. I don’t feel offended being called black or fat, to the contrary, I’m proud of it. I learned to be who I am, to value my stereotype, to like my hair, I learned to be beautiful. Because of this today I am saying I’m tired of the dictatorship of beauty imposed by a prejudiced and ignorant society.  Today I am more myself, beautiful, unique, powerful, black, and necessary!