Who taught you to hate yourself? From the top of your head to the soles of your feet
Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash
Enfleshing Witness: Rewilding Otherwise Preaching
Each month, members of our preaching cohort offer reflections sparked by our ongoing conversations about storytelling and the art of preaching. These are not summaries but riffs—responses to what lingers, expands, or unsettles in our work. From collage to origin stories, from representation to the living Word, we hope this series gives voice to the many ways preaching is crafted, embodied, and imagined anew.
“Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?”
“Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?”
This question–posed by Malcolm X on May 5th, 1962, at the funeral of Ronald Stoke, a young man murdered by the LAPD–is a question that my body, newly dressed in perimenopausal hormones, has wondered at 3 in the morning when gripped by insomnia.
Whose words created the dam that caused me to second-guess my thoughts, creating a reservoir that has nourished many but drowned me?
What images have disillusioned me into believing that I am unworthy to sit in beautiful spaces with my golden locs, richly melanated skin, and full body?
How did I convince myself that the being once called “good” by the creator needs to be transformed into standards enculturated by modern society?
Much of my womanist lens is cultivated from the perspective that my daughter, Tabitha Odette, is doing as I do, not necessarily as I say—an endless paradigm in parenting. I engage with myself and society, knowing that I am teaching her what to accept from others and how to treat herself through my example.
She notices when I look in the mirror, pinch the side of my thigh, and complain about how I’m not seeing results fast enough from my time spent in the gym. She sees me as beautiful and hears me proclaim that I am not good enough.
“Who taught you to love yourself so that I can love myself, too?”
She observes my hesitation to eat particular foods, not because I am working to become the healthiest version of myself, but because of my vain insecurities.
She reads the constant ridiculing of my size, hair, and skin not as a movement to become better but as an indictment of who I am and, ultimately, who she is.
She likes to say, “Your business is my business because I am you and you are me!”
What does it say to her that I am uncomfortable with who I am evolving to be, not because it’s leading to sickness, but because it doesn’t meet the standards that are lauded in magazine covers, music videos, or European metrics?
“Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?” Perhaps it is society's obsession with sleek hair and flawless skin? Perhaps it’s my Caribbean context that has often led to desires for white approximation (i.e., white as the standard, not necessarily the phenotypical aspect)? Essentially, though, it was I who taught myself to hate myself. It is I who constantly compares past tense me with current me. It is I who has prioritized standards outside of myself. It is I who struggles to see the ways in life, experience, and growth have shaped me into my current self. Now, it’s up to me to reimagine myself for my current context.
There is beauty in seeing things from a child's perspective. Children, while unabashedly honest and direct, often reflect the purest parts of society, not yet soiled by unattainable metrics. Their ability to provide objective observations, to see things as they are, is the part of me that I hope to regain as I journey through the rest of my life; it’s the part of society that I hope we regain.
A society that doesn’t hold to one standard but instead embraces multiple ones. I hope that in learning to appreciate the ebbs and flows of body, skin, and self, I will teach a generation raised to despise growth to nurture it. A society so well loved that that love permeates and asks a different question, “Who taught you to love yourself so that I can love myself, too?”
