I'm Judging You (6 page)

The saddest part is that the shade of brown these folks were before was probably much better than whatever shade of light they're trying to go for. I'm saddened by the fucked-up pathology of inferiority that causes such desperation that people will do something so drastic. Why try to change who you were born to be and force yourself into who you think everyone will find more beautiful? Society has failed people to the point where they feel they cannot like themselves in the skin they were born in.

Whether it's our skin or the other parts of our bodies that we feel the need to change, we are doing our absolute utmost to attain perfection we can never reach. With our constant need to be beautiful, the message is that our original selves are never enough. If we're big, we want to be smaller. If we're small, we wish we were bigger. This has me concerned about our current state of affairs as citizens of Earth. I think we're officially taking our need for some narrow idea of beauty too far. Combining our global self-esteem issues with medical advancements, we are now at a point where plastic surgery has people doing themselves ultrawrong by having one, two, or twenty surgeries too many.

Now, don't get me wrong
—
I am not automatically against plastic surgery or other medical cosmetic enhancements. I admit that one day I might get tired of being the parliamentarian of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee. I bring the Doritos to our monthly meetings and sometimes I take notes, if I don't fall asleep during the introductions. I'm mostly there for the chips, though. Anywho, if that day comes, I might opt to upgrade these boobs from a size “404 Error: Not Found” to a C-cup or something; a proper one- to two-cup improvement, like the subtle lady that I am. I'm not ruling out Botox, either. If these laugh lines start looking like crop circles in my face, I might opt for something. Maybe, maybe not. Needles in my face do scare the shit outta me. I got a nose ring once and I cried for twenty minutes afterwards.

What I am against is cosmetic procedures (not medical necessities) that change what we look like to the point where we need new identification. That is what makes me frown. There are people who cannot even do Throwback Thursdays with the rest of us because they have brand-new faces and we'd all require receipts, two forms of ID, and their fingerprints. Why? Because they've opted to get facelifts, cheek implants, nose jobs, lip plumpers, chin shaves, and more. It is all too much.

And keep in mind that not all plastic surgeries/surgeons are created equal. If someone will be cutting into your body, you should probably do your research on them. They need to come with references, background checks, and word-of-mouth praise, and their office should have a four-leaf clover plucked from nature above the entrance. Any old doctor can't do it. This is not a thing where you want to go with the cheapest person you can find. This is not what you want to use Groupon to get a deal on. Go to the best of the best, so your face and body won't look like the universe is laughing at you afterwards.

After all, bad plastic surgery is like adding serious insult to injury. I've seen so many before-and-after shots where the “after” looked like a blooper reel. Every time that happens, an angel sings a sad song. People are out here shelling out thousands of dollars to be made to look like accidental cartoons. I've seen cheek implants that made someone look like Jafar from
Aladdin
. That surgeon was so damb petty. Boob jobs go awry far too often, too. I've seen some that look like two coconuts sitting next to each other, refusing to touch. Your implants should not look like they're giving each other the silent treatment. They really should communicate better.

And the people going from A-cups to GGG? First of all,
why
? That is a lot of boobage, and your chesticular region is gonna be all in shock. You go from ant bites to beach balls
—
OUCH. Why are you paying someone to give you shoulder and back pain? I will never understand that. Moderation does not need to take a nap when you're getting yourself cut up.

People are getting nose jobs that make their nostrils so small that they whistle when they inhale. Facelifts got their skin pulled so tight that it looks like it might hurt every time they have to blink, and their lips are so big and bloated that they look like they have a permanent allergic reaction to shellfish after a night at Red Lobster for an Endless Shrimp dinner.

To make matters worse, now teenagers are getting in on the action. Are their faces even fully developed? I'm pretty sure I made that up, but let's go with it. It's absurd to allow a fifteen-year-old to get cosmetic surgery. What do they know about true beauty at that age? At fifteen, I thought denim suits were high fashion. I knew nothing. I also thought I was a size nine shoe, when I'm really a seven. I can't even explain this. All I know is from my sophomore year of high school until college I bought size nine shoes and always wore thick socks. Then I got to college, tried on someone's size seven shoes, and realized they fit me
so
well! So everyone's shoes don't flop when they walk? I had been wearing the wrong size for three years; I was a dumbass.
That
person should certainly never have had the option to get plastic surgery.

Body dysmorphic disorder is a bombastic bastard. Surely it is to blame for some of these extreme surgeries people have. When they look at their reflection and see a funhouse-mirror version of themselves, of course they want to change it.
See
: Michael Jackson (may he rest peacefully) and Lil' Kim (who went from being a Black woman in 1995 to now resembling an Asian mermaid).

Just dambit. Dambit all. In the words of Queen RuPaul, “If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

AMEN!

People who are girth-blessed get hell for it, but then folks go and objectify them for having ample yanshes. So now it's a thing, although Black people have had asses since forever. We (as a collective; not me) have been blessed with these bodies for centuries and we've been considered freaks for it (
see
: Saartjie Baartman). We've been ridiculed and made to feel like our bodies were somehow less than beautiful because we were pushing extra cushion. But then, one day, big booties started being celebrated in the mainstream. They became the new standard, and people started thinking they needed them to be beautiful.

Again with our ever-changing, impossible standards of beauty: we want women to have big boobs, small waists, and now, big asses. So now rates of butt surgeries and injections have skyrocketed. I reiterate: no Groupons for plastic surgery. Do your research!

Read this closely: if you insist on getting your ass by any means necessary, the least you can do is go to someone who is licensed. Google was invented so we can do better. Call the medical board if you have to so you can be super-sure that your doctor is authorized to do the work and not just someone who watched YouTube videos about giving butt injections. If your surgeon's office is someone's basement, it's probably not where you should be. Ask your surgeon for some receipts. If your surgeon also does hair in their office, that ain't who you want.

Do not be cheap about your procedures. This is not the place to skimp. Pay a premium, because your body is your house.
You need it to live
. Well, at least until we all have the ability to transfer our souls into robots when we ruin our bodies
—
but we're not there yet. For now, this is all you have. Yet people are dying from botched butt injections performed by fake surgeons and back-alley nurses without the certifications and degrees to do it. People are dying from allowing someone to inject unknown substances into their asses so they can be rotund. Again: women have actually
died
from quacks injecting concrete into their bodies. I am sad for everyone. Our common sense has officially jumped the shark.

If you die from getting your butt injection from someone raggedy and get to heaven, I hope the angels meet you at the gate and execute a choreographed group side-eye. You should have known better. I mean, big butts are not that serious. But if they are for you, get a personal trainer. Do squats, lunges, and all of that. If not, just accept your “flaws.” Sure, your ass might be concave like a spoon. You might owe yansh. Maybe your back goes straight into your legs. So what? Develop an amazing personality so no one will care as much. Learn to make people laugh. Or just wear really big, distracting hats. There are things that will make your ass oweage no big deal. Look at me: I've just learned how to give side-eye so proper that people never notice my ass deficiency. What we lack in certain areas, we should make up for in others.

In fact, I realize that there are things about my body I could have decided to change but that have actually become reasons why I am who I am today. I also know that the LAWD is well aware of who He gives which gifts to. And this is why I do not have a ginormous yansh and am a semidecent person. I feel like the day the Lord was handing out booties, I was late (as usual) and so I missed out. Then, when I did show up to give an excuse, He took one look at me and said, “Nah, you look like you'd act a fool if I was to give you one of these,” and He denied my application for a donk. He is indeed all-knowing.

I know for a fact that I would be awful if I was built like Serena Williams or Jennifer Lopez. I mean, seriously. Allow me to lovingly objectify those two ladies when I say “GOOD GAHTDAMB!” Those women are so beautiful; their bodies are the brick-house cherries on the sundae of life.
Whew
. If I had a body remotely close to what they have, I would be a terror. My ass would cause me to do really inappropriate and rude things. I'd be so ridiculous that people would be able to pick my labia out of a lineup. I'd wear zero clothes any- and everywhere, every day. I'd show up at church rocking a denim thong and a cropped T-shirt and have the nerve to sit right next to the head usher and dare her to say anything to me. And if anyone did say something to me, I'd tell them, “Jesus blessed me in many ways, and I am just showing off His works. HALLELUJAH.”

People would be disgusted and appalled and I wouldn't care. All insults would just bounce off my ample backside. To whom much is given, much is required, and I'd require that my much would be given nary an inch of fabric. I'd hire a band whose sole job would be to follow me around and play theme music for my yansh, based on the mood I was in. They'd be called Ass Pandora. I might opt to walk backwards into any room I entered, because why not? I would be a good fool and wear short shorts in Chicago winters, because why should five feet of snow stop my show? I might also declare my booty its own limited liability corporation, assigning myself as CEO and chairman of the Donk. My jeans would be tax-deductible business expenses, and I would add my ass to my LinkedIn profile's Skills section. Everyone would throw hateration in my dancery, and I wouldn't even see it, protected as I would be by the throne I sat atop. I would just be up to all types of shenanigans. I'd be so stupid with it. I might tell people to refer to me as the queen of the Republic of Yanshmunda.

I would have no friends and no character. Thank goodness the Lord
—
who works in mysterious ways—gave me the petite body I have, because He knows how little behavior I'd have if He blessed me with a bodacious behind. Yes, I know I could go out and buy one of those bodies, but I'm glad that I'm built this way. It is part of what makes me who I am.

So to the Man Upstairs, thank You for doing the world a favor and not allowing me to have a ridiculous, tear-jerking, onion, dumbass, makes-no-sense booty. You truly are omnipotent and all-knowing, Father God. And to everyone who
is
built like a Coke bottle and still manages to have a conscience and be nice and put on clothes sometimes I say, kudos to you. You might not even have to read the rest of this book because clearly you're doing something right. This book wouldn't exist if I were you, because I'd be too busy being a menace to society. Because: shallow.

The moral of this story? Don't be the version of me I would be if I was gluteus maximus–blessed. Sure, rock makeup and hairhats
10
to your heart's desire, but don't die in the pursuit of different body parts, like giant boobs when yours were previously ant bites, or skin tone that started as Coke but ended up as Fanta. Yes, you can judge me because I just dedicated an entire half a chapter to talking about my yansh. But I'm judging YOU, I'm judging Lil' Kim's surgeons, and I'm judging society. Because everyone hates how they look, everyone wants what we don't have, and everyone is stuck in a cycle of so-called self-improvement that is really self-defeating. Do better, everyone.

 

5. Weight a Minute

One day, I was being interviewed for a feature story when the reporter made an offhand comment that he thought was a joke, saying “Aren't you like a hundred pounds?” He chuckled to himself, and I was stunned into silence. Sir, you got some ever-loving gahtdamb nerve. You don't know my life and yet you have the unmitigated gall to try to guess my weight. It wasn't even relevant to what the hell he was interviewing me about, and I was too flabbergasted to give a proper response. What did my weight have to do with the price of beans in Uganda? He felt so comfortable commenting on my weight, essentially making fun of my petiteness. I was pissed.

We suck so bad for shaming people's weight, whether heavy or thin. We talk about people's size constantly, and no one is considered perfect as they are. Folks are always trying to lose, gain, tone, or change their bodies in some way. We go in extra hard on big people. If you are deemed to be too girth-blessed, the vitriol that comes your way from all sides is outrageous, and it dwarfs any comments I've ever received about being small. I've witnessed a lot of fat-shaming, and I've probably been guilty of it, too, in the past. It's so commonplace and normalized that people do not consider how humiliating it can be to be ridiculed for existing in your natural body. This is why I'm judging us, for our collective contempt and shaming of people for their weight.