Growing up as a Black or Brown girl can be difficult especially in a society that values lighter skin. Thanks to social media and other platforms societal and beauty standards are changing thanks to many innovators. One person in particular who wants to change society’s views on beauty is model and actress Asia Jackson.
Jackson, who is half black half Filipina, started the hashtag #MagandangMorenx which means “beautiful brown person” in Tagalog. Growing up she spent most of her time back and forth between the U.S and the Philipines. While living in the Philipines she experienced a great deal of colorism because she has dark skin. Despite many indigenous people in the Philipines being dark skin and having curly hair, being fair skinned is still deemed as more beautiful in the Philipines compared to other Asian countries.
The goal of her hashtag is to celebrate dark skinned Philipinos of all genders.
During an interview with AJ+, Jackson stated, “The reason why I wanted to start this hashtag is so that I could inspire other people who look like me – other Filipinos who look like me – to also love their skin. Because it’s really, really difficult to do that when you have your mom telling you, ‘Oh, don’t go outside, you’ll get too dark.’ And you have all these billboards and things telling you that you need to whiten your skin.”
Took me 20 yrs to embrace my skintone. I created this hashtag to empower others in a way that I didn’t have growing up #MagandangMorenx 🇵🇭🤘🏾 pic.twitter.com/vZfgnNAa8x
— Asia Jackson (@aasian) October 27, 2017
“I knew that colorism was such a huge issue in the Filipino community, and I felt like no one was really talking about it. It’s time for it to go,” she added. “I just want everyone to feel super confident in their skin and really embrace what it means to be Filipino.”
The hashtag couldn’t have come at a better time as it is Filipino American History Month and it’s always great to see Black and Brown people from other cultures and nationalities embrace what is god given.
