What would you do is someone offered you $10,000 to bleach your skin?
South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech has gorgeous dark skin and she found herself in that exact predicament when her Uber driver put a price on her gorgeous skin.
She shared her story on social media, read below:
“I was [asked by] my Uber driver the other day, he said, ‘Don’t take this offensive but if you were given 10 thousand dollars would you bleach your skin for that amount?'” the beauty queen wrote on Instagram in late March.
“I couldn’t even respond I started laughing so hard.”
“[Then] he said, ‘So that a no’ and I was like hell to the f*king yeah [that’s] no, why on earth would I ever bleach this beautiful melanin God [blessed] me with,” she added.
“[Then] he said so you look at it as a blessing?”
“You won’t believe the kind of questions I get and the kind of looks I get for having this skin.”
Gatwech makes it very clear on her Instagram that she always is faced with criticism over her skin and she uses the platform to celebrate her skin removing any negativity that she or anyone like her, has been faced with.
Getting to this place with her skin was not always easy though, she told Yahoo beauty recently that she has considered bleaching before:
“there was a time in my life where I considered bleaching myself to avoid the dirty looks, the laughter, and for boys to find me attractive,”.
All of that has since changed but she acknowledges that children from all over the word deal with this issue of self-doubt and sometimes hate every single day.
I was particularly moved by the open letter she wrote addressing “little dark girls” who might be faced with criticism and doubt. In the post, she wrote
Dear, litter dark dark black girls,
You might be darker than everyone in your school, your community, and your peers, but guess what, from older dark girl your are beautiful.. your are not along and you are drop dead gorgeous despite what anyone might think or say about you.
The media and your peers and some family members might want you to change your skin tone.
Don’t listen… To be dark as I am and as you are in America is to be ugly not a lot of people consider your skin tone to be beautiful but trust me you will someday over came all the criticism!
You are beautiful, you are unique and there are people who love you just the way you are.
Remember They say the darker the cherry the sweeter the juice! Embrace your darkness?????? Love,
your far away sister Nyakim
Check out some of her gorgeous photos below:
Nyakim Gatwech is called the queen of the dark and the fact that she uses her platform to celebrate her skin and all of the young women who have dark skin is amazing and well needed.
