Remember the old saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”? Well, on the contrary, words can hurt–deep. But it’s how we deal with those words that makes us who we are. Just ask 19-year-old Khoudia, who literally used the negative thing people were talking about to become a success.
Khoudia Diop, who began modeling when she was 17 was teased because of her very dark complexion. Whatever dark-skinned jokes you’ve heard, she’s heard them all, plus worse. But she’s turned her once hated dark skin into a career and quite a following on social media in the past two years, boasting over 240,000 fans on Instagram alone.
Kids can be so cruel. Hell, adults can be even more cruel, but Khoudia didn’t let that stop her.
“I was teased a lot growing up, because of my skin tone,” Khoudia, told the Daily Mail. “And now even online sometimes, people will make comments. Growing up, I faced it by confronting the bullies. As I grew, I learned to love myself more every day, and not pay attention to the negative people.”
Khoudia says it’s time that young girls show pride in the features that make them unique.
“If you’re lucky enough to be different, don’t ever change,” she says.
One woman said that if she had Khoudia’s dark skin, she would “triple bleach my soul because my reflection may scare me.” Khoudia laughed it off. “Waking up and seeing my chocolate ass in the mirror is the first thing I do everyday and I can tell you how priceless it is to me and how bad I want to marry myself everytime I see my smile in the mirror. It doesn’t scare me at all because it is who I am and I love it.”
Khoudia told The Daily Mail that she wants “to inspire other young women of color and empower them. I want them to…
…know that they can do and be anything they dream of.” She also believes that there should be more diversity on runways.
She is also apart of and represented by a collective called, The Colored Girl. On their site where Khoudia is listed, it explains the power within the dark beauty.
She is not unshakeable but she is resilient.
She is not omnipotent, but she is strong.
She is not perfect, but she is beautiful.
She deserves to be accepted and celebrated just as much as anyone else. And she stands with those who have also been discriminated against because her empathy runs as deep as her love. It’s in embedded in her DNA.
She is fierce.
She is tender
She is intelligent and worthy.
She is The Colored Girl, reborn.
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