I've always been proud of my heritage, but embracing my deep skin tone has admittedly been an uphill battle. Elementary and middle school was years ago, but I'll occasionally catch myself remembering cruel lunchroom jokes about my complexion. Sometimes, after one too many glasses of wine, I'll end up 96 weeks deep in a light skin appreciation Instagram account, because yes, those do exist. And then, while taking a break to check out my usual lineup of gossip sites and blogs, I'll observe the light skin arm candy that my MCMs end up with on the red carpet. Oh, and I can't forget about the one time that a guy told me that he usually dates "girls like me," with braids or natural hair, but he finds himself attracted to racially-ambiguous Tinder matches with long, curly hair. (After the date, I recapped to a friend who asked, "What is he? A fucking Lil' Wayne song? ")