I don’t really know whether to call what I experienced “bullying,” but looking back now, I think that’s exactly what it was.
I was bullied and teased from a very young age, and I never told my parents about it. As a child, I was very dark-skinned and very slim—extremely thin. I grew up in Kano, Nigeria, and in primary school, my classmates, and sometimes even people I considered my friends, would make comments about my skin and my body. They would say things like, “You’re too black” or “You’re too thin.” To them, maybe it was just a joke. They probably didn’t think it was serious. But to me, it was.
When I was in Primary 2, even some of my teachers started using me as an example. Whenever they wanted to describe someone dark or black, they would point at me. If they wanted to describe someone thin, again, I was the example.
And it kept happening. From Primary 2 to Primary 5, I had to hear those comments over and over again. One particular moment in Primary 5 really stayed with me. The teacher used someone dark-skinned as an example. There was even a picture of someone who was extremely dark, darker than me, but instead of using the picture, the teacher pointed at me and said something like, “That girl over there.” Everyone turned to look at me. And I remember thinking, Why is it always me?
I never told my parents when I got home. I felt like there was no point because whenever I tried to talk about things that bothered me, I often felt like they wouldn’t take it seriously. So I kept everything to myself.
When I moved to secondary school, I thought maybe it would finally stop. But it didn’t.
Even there, I was still being referred to as “that black girl” or “that thin girl.” Sometimes, even when I was around my friends, I felt like I was somewhere in the middle—not really included, but not completely left out either.
When I got to JSS 2, I started trying to change myself. I started using bleaching creams because I thought maybe becoming lighter would make people stop talking about me. I used different creams that lightened my face while my hands and legs remained dark. Sometimes my whole body would become lighter, only for my skin to darken again later. I was literally trying to change something that was never wrong with me in the first place.
I eventually moved to another school, but even in JSS 3, the comments continued.
It wasn’t until I finished secondary school that something changed in me. I realised how much I actually loved taking pictures. I realised that I had always wanted to be a model. And suddenly, I started seeing the things I had spent years being insecure about differently. My dark skin became something I was proud of. My slim body became part of what made me, me. I didn’t suddenly become bigger or change my skin colour. I basically just grew taller. But my skin became healthier, and most importantly, my mindset changed.
Even after becoming an undergraduate, the comments didn’t completely stop. A few months ago, something happened with someone I consider my best friend. The moment I stepped into school, she looked at me and said, “Look at Amina, look at how thin you are now.” She even questioned why I wore the clothes I was wearing and commented on how I looked in them. I had been sick at the time, so I had lost even more weight. I remember responding, “Do you expect me to start wearing my hijab because I’m thin? Should I cover myself completely just because of my body?”
Later, when I was about to leave, she said it again and even called the attention of other people to how thin I was. And honestly, I was angry. But this time, I wasn’t that little girl who would go home and cry or wonder what was wrong with her. I just thought, ‘I don’t care.’ Because today, I know something I didn’t know back then: There was never anything wrong with me. 🔺
As narrated by: Meenahsa’ad (Kano, Nigeria).
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