Nude | Charcoal Magazine Issue 7

As a publication, we’ve always toed the line of what is different to explore the depths of people of color and their experiences. We push boundaries where they are set and dare to break them. In this issue, we set our intentions to execute our newest issue nude, inspired by one thing: boobs. The hardships of the past year are inescapable, but in this issue, we continue our introspective journey as we explore our interpretation of nude in color, in name and in its literal form.

With this issue, Charcoal Magazine celebrates its third year as a running publication. We’ve experienced many changes throughout the past few years, but Charcoal’s commitment to serving artists of color by providing a space to create and share their work is unwavering.

Throughout this tumultuous year, we’ve found ourselves in community with you all, and for that, we owe utmost gratitude to you. We hope to continue our work together as we create art that serves communities of color. Thank you friends, family and supporters for the time and energy you donate to this publication. Without it or you, Charcoal Magazine would not be the publication it is today.

Until next time.

Peace and well wishes,

Charcoal Magazine’s 2020-2021 Executive Team

Editor-in-Chief

Archelle Thelemaque, COM ‘21

Managing Editor

Angelina Wang, COM ‘21

Digital Content Editor

Kianna Sanchez, COM ‘21

Creative Directors

Mansavita Maddi, CAS ‘23 Shamayam Sullivan, CFA ‘23

Art Director

Seyun Om CFA ‘22

Planning and Operations Director Jessica Zheng CAS ‘22

Marketing and Communications Directors

Traci Felton COM ‘23 Sabrina Weiss COM ‘21 Chike Asuzu COM ‘23

Cover Photo

Toni-Marie Gomes, CGS ‘21 | SAR ‘23

Printing

Puritan Capital Press

Thanks to the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground for their continued support.

Submit your work

If you would like to know more about submitting to Charcoal Magazine, please write to: submit@charcoalmag.co.

Visit Us

For more information, or just to say hi, please email us at: charcoalzine@gmail.com

Boston Office 808 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, MA 02215

You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter by visiting us at: www.charcoalmag.co/newsletter

For daily inspiration follow us on Instagram @charcoal_mag

Photographers

Isabelle Yap, SAR ‘23

Ramsey Khalifeh, COM ‘23

Traci Felton, COM ‘23

Videographers

Josh Pei, CAS ‘21

Staff Writers

Lauren Richards, COM ‘21

Celene Machen, CGS ‘21 | CAS ‘23 Mya Turner, ENG ‘23

Armand Manoukian, COM | CAS ‘21 Ireon Roach CFA | CAS ‘21 Daniel Reis, CAS ‘23 Guari Nema, CAS ‘24 | Pardee ‘24

Production Assistants

Brittani McBride, CFA ‘22

Irvin Alonzo, CAS ‘23

Stylist

Ria Wang, COM ‘21

Make-Up Artist

Atiyyah Mayaleeke, CAS ‘23

Web Managers

Stella Ikuzwe, CAS ‘22

Graphic Designers

Abby Gross, CAS ‘22 Ken Rudolph, CFA ‘22 Hikima Lukomwa, SAR ‘22 Irene Phung, COM ‘22 Chike Asuzu, COM ‘23

Models

Brianna Gilmore, CAS ‘21

Allyson Imbacuan, CAS ‘23

Patrick Udeh, SAR ‘23

Toni-Marie Gomes, CGS ‘21 | SAR ‘23

Izz Decontreras, CFA ‘21

Ejiro Agege, SAR ‘21

Zakiah Tcheifa, ENG ‘22

Irene Phung, COM ‘22

Soumya Nimmu, CAS ‘21 Joan Garcia, QST ‘21 Jayda Bonnick, CAS ‘21

Contributors

Valyn Turner, CFA | CAS ‘21 BU Naturally

Charcoal Magazine issue #7 is dedicated to the Charcoal and Boston University community for our continuous resilience.

(no) excess

Jewelry, makeup, clothing - in these materials, we dress our bare bodies for the world to know who we are, really. Vibrant colors and bold statement pieces inform our identity, but in their absence, we are vulnerable and without armour comprised of tulle, cotton or denim that shield our bodies from the outside world. Here, we juxtapose the bodies beneath the excess we choose to adorn ourselves.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TRACI FELTON + ISABELLE YAP

MODEL: ALLYSON IMBACUAN, CAS ‘23

MODEL: PATRICK UDEH SAR ‘23

MODEL: MYA TURNER, ENG ‘23

MODEL: BRIANNA GILMORE, CAS ‘21

WHAT’S IN A DICK SHOT

WRITTEN BY ARMAND MANOUKIAN ILLUSTRATED BY SHAMAYAM SULLIVAN

Armand Manoukian is a 22-year-old journalism and political science student from Los Angeles, California. He grew up in the suburb of Glendale, known for its large Armenian community, and was raised by two Armenian parents who immigrated from Iran following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Armenian community has a heavy influence on his interests and beliefs. His love for fashion stems from his father – the best dressed man he knows. He’s a huge sports fan (mostly of London’s Arsenal Football Club and the Los Angeles Lakers) as well as a big hip hop head and politics nerd.

1) 7 Days in Hell (2015) Directed by Jake Szymanski. Dick shown: Chris Romano.

“7 Days in Hell” is an HBO Sports comedy mockumentary starring Andy Samberg and Kit Harrington. It tells the story of a fictional Wimbledon match that lasted seven days because of various extraneous circumstances. It only runs 50 minutes, and I won’t spoil much but this thing is incredible, and I love it dearly. I had seen it multiple times prior to embarking on my Cock-Shot Odyssey.

We see the dick — soft of course — on a naked streaker (Chris Romano) who interrupts the tennis match. Aaron Williams (Andy Samberg) calms the streaker down as security steps back, and then the two engage sexually. They have sex for so long that the sun goes down and the remainder of the match must be played the next day.

This is a classic comedy Dick Shot. The penis is the punchline. Romano starred in cult classic “Blue Mountain State,” where he also showed hog to the camera, so he was clearly comfortable with this being his role.

The penis, and the homosexual sex that follows its exposure, is an encapsulation of Williams’ spirit in the film. He’s the brash, drug-loving rockstar of the Tennis world. The inciting incident of the movie

2) Bad Lieutenant (1992) Directed by Abel Ferrera. Dick shown: Harvey Keitel

“Bad Lieutenant” follows Harvey Keitel as a drug-and-gambling-addicted lieutenant who abuses his station to a fault. The schlong is revealed early on in the film, as character exposition. We are shown a day in the life of Keitel’s titular Bad Lieutenant: he drops his stupid kids off at school, goes to a crime scene, walks around it and demands someone or other to pick up some evidence and ask some witnesses questions, and then he drives off to a dimly light apartment where two scantily clad women await him. They drink and do drugs and dance around in the intensely moody red light, and Keitel and the women become more and more undressed as time goes on.

In the quintessential “This character is an alcoholic,” shot, the lieutenant pours himself a glass of vodka before tossing it to the side and opting to drink straight from the bottle. We see his soft penis in the next few shots.

Keitel’s full-frontal scene is meant to evoke disgust. This man is hollow. Fueled by substances and gambling and adultery, Keitel shows us who his character is so that the rest

4) The Danish Girl (2015) Directed by Tom Hooper. Dick Shown: Eddie Redmayne

“The Danish Girl” tells the true story of Lili Elbe, a famous transgender Danish artist in the turn of the 20th century who received one of the first sex reassignment surgeries. I will address this now and then never again, because I am unqualified to discuss trans representation in film as a cisgender, heterosexual man: Elbe is played, both before and after reassignment, by Eddie Redmayne, who is a (very good) cisgender male actor.

Elbe’s penis is shown, just barely, behind her pale, skinny hands in a pivotal scene in the film.

Elbe is realizing her identity, as she stands in front of a mirror in a closet full of women’s clothing — something that, throughout the early parts of the film, causes the then-male Elbe to seize up and wonder who she truly is. Elbe undresses, and then, in manifesting sexual reassignment, tucks her Danish Johnson behind her legs and puts her thighs together.

Perhaps this is one of the most literal meanings a penis can have in a film: a designator for the sex one is assigned at birth. This shouldn’t be here, Elbe thinks. Not all trans people undergo assignment surgery, it must be stressed, but considering Elbe’s historic surgery — both as a medical achievement and as a social one considering her prominence as an artist — hiding the penis serves dually as visceral bodily impulse and foreshadowing.

It’s also one of the most necessary uses of a penis in a film. A phallic symbol to represent manhood. Incredibly on the nose but appropriate nonetheless.

5) A Room with a View (1985) Directed by James Ivory. Dick Shown: Simon Callow

“A Room with a View” is based on the English novel of the same name, is a romance film about a young in stuffy, repressive Edwardian England falling in love with a free-spirited man. I wanted to watch this film because it does, just as briefly as many of these other films, include full-frontal nudity, but the backdrop of it, and of the whole film, is regal, polished and proper.

“7 Days in Hell” is an hour long Andy Samberg SNL sketch. “Trainspotting” features Ewan McGregor sinking, with his whole body, into a filthy shit-filled toilet. But this movie is about how stuffy the English are! It’s a period piece! It won Oscars and BAFTAs and Golden Globes. And so a dick contrasted with a movie that very much screams, “Nothing untoward here!” is worth looking at.

We see the penis of Simon Callow’s Mr. Beebe, a reverend. He’s on a daytime excursion as a sort of chaperone to our main character Lucy’s brother and the free-living George. As the boys strip their clothes to take a swim in a pond, Beebe stands on the bank. We don’t see the boys’ hogs as they jump in. But they encourage Beebe to have some fun for once, and he’s convinced. He strips, we see his penis, and he jumps in.

It’s a dick shot of freedom. It’s one of fun. There is nothing sexual about it, as with a majority of the cocks I’ve told you about. It’s boyish innocence from a man well into his golden years and repressed naturally by his occupation; the entire film revolves around grappling with a repressive society, and the one character who’s gone against that grain since the beginning is who convinces Beebe. It is emblematic of George’s influence and his role in the story: everyone who meets him thinks he has a point about all this stuffy bullshit.

They are, of course, caught by the Society authority figures promptly, and Beebe is admonished for enjoying himself. A child he is not, fun this world is not. Put your pants back on, Reverend.

Amidst braindead Twitter Discourse™ claiming that sex scenes are unnecessary because they don’t move the plot along (which, by the way, is an incredibly loser thing to believe), I’d like to go on the record and say I wish more films had full-frontal nudity, both female and male.

Society is being far more explorative with masculinity, gender and sex in art, and based on the five entries I’ve discussed above, full-frontal male nudity can mean a litany of things and is just as potent a symbolic gesture in film as anything else.

It represents essence in character in a reverend getting naked to swim in a pond or a lieutenant butt-naked whimpering like a newborn. It can also be a punchline! Dicks are incredibly funny for some reason, so when two non-gay men hook up or a dick flops around as its sad owner is getting owned by a girl, it’s hilarious! And of course, cocks can be representative of manhood, so if someone is realizing their gender identity, they’re a useful visual tool. It all makes perfect sense. |

PHOTOGRAPHED BY RAMSEY KHALIFEH

“I think vulnerability can be first felt in the heart but second on the skin. It’s like our last defender to everything scary in the world. It’s also the largest way we receive its blessings. The warmth of a hug. The breeze of the wind. There is so much to love of our own flesh in bones, but that’s easier said than done.” -Chike Asuzu COM ‘23

Here, are indistinguishable honesty and love imprinted onto the very surface of our skin. There’s also fear. Fear of the very shape and form we were gifted with from birth, afraid that the world won’t accept us with a warm embrace. Feel what we felt in these pages in our love letter to the bodies we bear.

MODEL: TONI-MARIE GOMES, CGS ‘21 | SAR ‘23

Name

WRITTEN BY CELENE MACHEN

Celene Machen is a sophomore at BU studying English and Philosophy. She’s from Carlisle, MA and enjoys playing tennis in her spare time. One of her biggest writing inspirations is Jhumpa Lahiri, an author who is also a BU alum.

My Chinese name is 马子菲. This was something I treated like a burden growing up, something that I felt the need to shamefully hide. The pinyin of my Chinese name, Zifei, is used as my legal middle name, and as a result, whenever there was a reason to list students’ full names in class, I’d feel nothing but embarrassment and disgrace, from the scarlet red blush of my cheeks down to the base of my clenched fists. I’d wait for the shifting eyes and puzzled looks to pass as the teacher read off a horrible mispronunciation, thinking there would never be a more humiliating moment. Looking back, it seems completely stupid of me to be so afraid, but at the time, this was a part of me that I’d kept locked away and concealed for the sake of conformity. The reminder of my heritage might as well have been a reminder that I was a permanent deviance from what was considered ‘normal’ — something that I only later understood wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

My mother calls me 妹妹, or ‘little sister’ in Chinese. Whether it was in stories told to our aunties and uncles or spoken directly to me during family dinners, it was natural for my mom to call me this. When we were younger, my brother used to call me this as well when we were playing in the backyard or building forts out of sofa cushions in the living room, but that was before either of us had entered elementary school, and he took to referring to me by my English name instead. English speakers are usually perplexed, as they assume my mom should call me daughter, since we’re not siblings. But ever since I was a child, I never believed it to be odd, nor did I dwell upon it too much. While Americans tend to refer to those in their family by their individual names, in Chinese families, it’s rather customary to refer to one another as who you are in relation to your family. I’m certainly not my mother’s sister, but I am my brother’s little sister—it’s simply who I am, and who I’ll always be.

Later on, when I was catching up on all the years I’d spent suppressing an entire part of my life, I took an interest in our family trees and all the names my relatives and ancestors proudly donned. My mom always told me I was named after one of her favorite singers, 王菲, but upon realizing that the meaning of my name was a sweet-smelling flower while my brother’s name, 子谦, meant modesty and humility, I angrily demanded that my name should be changed. “It’s very sexist,” I told my mom, “to have his name define his personality and character, while mine is merely a pretty plant.” She sighed and relented, so we spent days pondering the most suitable name — one that could express my nature or my intelligence — and decided upon 马陈知非, agreeing that my name should include both my parents surnames in the same way my English last name does. I was elated by my new Chinese name, as its meaning was based on a Chinese proverb and it meant to know the difference between right and wrong. Of course, when my parents are still furious at me, they always shout my original Chinese name, but I was more than pleased with both names, seeing as after so much time wasted on shameful hiding and rejection, I was proud to finally include and accept them as a part of myself.

My English name is Celene. When I was younger, I used to despise it, the way it was never spelled “correctly.” I don’t think anything made my 7-year-old self more furious than seeing the little dotted red line underneath my name every time I was in Microsoft Word on those white, public school-provided Macbooks public schools . I’d always tighten at the inevitable autocorrect asking, “did you mean: Celine or Selene?”, and go back home to my parents, whining that they had made a spelling mistake when filling out my birth certificate. My parents would just roll their eyes and tell me that they named me after Celine Dion, but purposefully chose to change the ‘i’ to an ‘e’. “It’s much prettier that way,” my mother would say contentedly. I disagreed at the time, immaturely irate over the people and technological devices that told me my name is an error. But now, years later, my English name has become a part of my identity that I find beauty in and treasure, through and through.

Once I got to college, ‘Celene’ slowly began to morph into the ‘Cece’. The nickname was one that I probably would have deemed as far too cutesy in high school, but gradually stuck after unexpectedly being coined by my eventual roommate’s hometown friend. The first time I heard it being used was during the summertime quarantine, where each day seemed monotonous and unending, and a simple Facetime call wasn’t quite enough to cover the vast distance between me and those I missed most. “Just call me Celene,”

I had said between laughs, thinking it was so abnormal to shorten the name I’d had for 19 years. Though it was said as mirthful teasing, hearing the nickname being applied to me almost sounded unseemly or faulty, as if I was putting on a coat that didn’t fit quite right. Originating from a playful joke — but invigorated by the increasing number of people who became accustomed to calling me Cece — the nickname steadily grew on me and became something that I associated with a new page in my life, a new and ever-growing part of who I was.

When I turned 19, I had been at home for a couple of months. I missed seeing all the new people I’d befriended and longed to hear the thunderous rumbling of the T as I walked down Commonwealth Avenue again, anxiously waiting for the ‘walk’ signal so I could hurriedly cross the street and rush to my next class. But I was also more than happy to be at home with my family again, watching summer bloom from previous spring showers as the sun-saturated the sky, its honey-like orange glow lingering a little longer each day. I always used to feel fragmented, as if I had to lead multiple lives that were like oil and water—they could never converge with one another. It felt alien to hear my name being spoken out of the wrong mouth, in the wrong setting, since I’d defined my boundaries so deeply. It was exhausting, to have to maintain such a splintered self. But on that day, as old and new friends called me, sharing laughs and sending their wishes, and my family celebrated with me later in the night, devouring mango vanilla cake while taking pictures at my mother’s request, I felt whole.

peaches

“mama, where’s the peach? mama?” “girl, whatchu need the peach for? use ‘chocolate chip’. right there.” and i colored it in my skin etched in crayola it wasn’t clean, but it was mine a little outside the lines i tried not to mind that mine didn’t look like Ivy’s

“get that poison outcha mind, child whatchu mean you need to look like Ivy?” well she used peach so did Ethan and Leah used peach interchangeably with ‘skin color’ “can you pass me the ‘skin color” and she didn’t mean chocolate chip and i dipped my chocolate hands into a basket full of sand and pulled out a peach and called it “skin color” knowing damn well it wasn’t mine

“we are not defined by our hue. not me and not you. so go’on and use the crayon that you want to use.” and i picked up the peach and mama frowned and i held the peach up to my mouth and opened wide and took a bite and mama smiled and i asked if i could have the chocolate chip

Big Boobs, Some Problems

WRITTEN BY MYA TURNER

PHOTO BY TRACI FELTON

Mya Turner is a sophomore studying Computer Engineering who only gets the chance to explore this hobby outside of her required curriculum. She is also a Student Manager at the Center for Antiracist Research and on the executive board for Boston University’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. Besides writing, Mya also enjoys spending time with her friends and listening to the latest music.

WRITTEN BY LAUREN RICHARDS

PHOTOGRAPHED BY ISABELLE YAP + TRACI FELTON

Lauren Richards is a writer and a photographer. She loves finding stories and their profundity in the simple and mundane elements of life, and strives to share peoples’ stories with accuracy and care. She is a junior at Boston University majoring in Journalism and minoring in African American Studies. She enjoys reading, walking and biking around the city, sketching and painting.

Glowing and fair skin, silky and straight hair, and a graceful and meek persona created a beautiful woman. Images around young Soumya fed her this notion and she responded accordingly. In middle school, she started rubbing lemon on her face in an attempt to lighten her skin. The grocery stores with shelves jammed with creams promising fairer skin seemed to encourage this. The celebrities on television and influencers on social media with pale skin and smiling eyes seemed to encourage this.

of her thinness that remained regardless of what or how much she ate. Yet, she’d continually witness family members telling her mother that she wasn’t feeding Soumya enough.

“I wish my younger self could have seen earlier how big the world is and how differently people think,” Soumya said. “Like, you’re seeing 100,000 people, but there’s a million people out there who think the opposite thing.”

EJIRO AGEGE IRENE PHUNG

Oiling, combing and brushing her hair became another essential element in her daily routine. Her mother refused to let her use conditioners and instead encouraged an all natural, chemical-free, way of caring for her hair. Soumya complied and began trying to tame her curls with the natural products rather than care for them. Every day, she’d brush and brush until her natural curls transformed into something straight and limp.

SOUMYA NIMMU ZAKIAH TCHEIFA TONI-MARIE GOMES

If she did let her curls out, she’d hear comments like, “You’re not a ghost, braid your hair,” and “You look like a Rakshasa.” She hadn’t seen the natural way her hair took form as beauty, but rather as something to control. Afterall, curly resembled the unruly hair of the rakshasa, which were essentially like demons.

At weddings and family events, Soumya overheard her relatives confronting her mom about her weight. “She’s too skinny,” she heard all too often, followed by suggestions like feeding her more cashews and raisins to fatten her up. Soumya grew self-conscious

When she moved to California from Hyderabad, she encountered a world of opposites. Skinny became positive. People paid to get tan. Curls lacked the connotation she had always known them to have. One day, a white girl approached in the hallway and lauded her brown skin. Something clicked. Soumya began asking herself questions she’d never posed before. Suddenly, she was wondering whom she was trying to impress— why did the words resonate when a white individual spoke them? where did this desire to lighten her skin come from— and other matters of the sort. She never spoke with the girl again, but the encounter lingered on her mind long after they parted ways.

“I had the realization that whatever subset of people I was with, that that was very much a subset, not the whole world,” Soumya said.

The ideals of beauty became a broader notion for her to deconstruct as time went on. She saw how the past influenced beauty standards of the present. She also became more keen to the various pressures and expectations different locations encouraged.

“I identify beauty today as something like a light that draws me to a person,” Soumya said. “That can be things that inspire me about them or their strength, or how they see the world differently than me—I often find beauty in that.”

At university, she surrounded herself with a diverse group of friends. Everything from body shape, to skin tone, to personality, to style varied, yet she found each of her friends exceedingly beautiful. They helped her recognize beauty within herself.

She stopped oiling and combing her hair with the intention to make it straight. Instead, she found conditioners that accentuated her curls she learned to find beauty in. She accepted her body for what it was rather than trying to force it to take another form. She started loving herself.

“I [thought that] if any of these rules and boxes apply [to what makes someone beautiful], then all these people can’t be stunning in my eyes like that,” Soumya said. “When I realized that, it made sense that some people could view me that way too.”

Ejiro and her sisters would stare at the television, enthralled by the drama and beauty of Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model. These women were tall, thin, and in young Ejiro’s mind, free of any impurities. No acne. No scars. Not a hair too long or out of place.

The Black women on the show had hair as straight as their white counterparts, so Ejiro wanted the same. In elementary school, peers would ask why her hair wasn’t straight, and why she couldn’t easily run a comb through it. She equated her nappy hair with bad hair, and at age six she had her hair relaxed, continuing until age 17.

In middle school, a classmate pointed out the hair on Ejiro’s arms. She hadn’t noticed it before, but then saw that there was more hair on her arms than the girls around her. The realization led Ejiro to buy hair removal cream to eliminate what she deemed as excess.

By high school, she was relaxing her hair, trying to remove it from her arms, and feeling self conscious of her melanated skin.

“I didn’t really feel that beautiful because I wasn’t getting the attention or being perceived as someone who’s pretty compared to the white girls I was around,” Ejiro said.

As she followed more and more women who looked like her on social media, she began to view her complexion as beautiful and accepted her dark skin. She quit lathering her arms with Nair cream. She hadn’t seen the kid that pointed it out since then, and nobody else made such a comment.

At 17, Ejiro stopped relaxing her hair and started trying protective styles and eventually natural styles. She was curious about her hair and wanted to understand it rather than force it to be something it was not. Her younger sister started about a year before she did, and tried to offer advice. While well-meaning, it proved to be futile because Ejiro’s hair held a different curl and texture.

She started with Garnier shampoos and conditioners, then went through a Cantu products phase, before doing research on the best ways to care for her hair. Slowly, she started to add to her natural hair knowledge and adjust products and usage accordingly. When she grew frustrated, she’d get her hair braided for a few months and then return to natural.

Ejiro came to university and joined a larger Black community. As she saw other Black women being affirmed and lifted up, she started feeling affirmed

and lifted up as well, and started seeing beauty within herself in a way she hadn’t before.

She was confident in her body. Her dark skin, long legs, and nappy hair were features she now admired. Beauty was no longer something reserved for the stick-thin models with pencil straight hair, but rather something more inclusive and plentiful.

“I would tell [my younger self], just because you don’t look like someone that’s on TV doesn’t mean you’re inferior in any sense,” Ejiro said. “I also would tell her to love her nappy hair.”

Irene felt pressure to live up to American beauty standards and Asian beauty standards simultaneously. She avoided the sun to keep her skin pale, she’d pinch her nose to try to keep it flat, and when she was around 10 years old, her aunt tried to smooth out her hair’s waves with a perm. That perm, while accomplishing the straightness her aunt desired, damaged Irene’s hair.

When she was little, she was borderline overweight, and continued to grow into a bigger frame. Family and peers called her fat. The popular images of those around her—both American and Asian— emphasized thinness as beautiful.

In middle school, peers regularly made passing jokes about her weight and acne. The comments added up and stuck with her long after they were uttered. She tried to find acceptance and would wear brands like Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch and style her hair with trendying accessories. She didn’t feel like herself, but she wanted to find some sense of belonging.

She went to a high school where there was only one other Asian girl. The two of them connected and became friends. They studied the dynamics of the school, noting how students only dated within their own race, and how they and other BIPOC students weren’t considered attractive.

“People wouldn’t really look at People of Color as beautiful,” Irene said. “All the Asians and Black people and whoever else wereas basically ostracized and isolated.”

Irene was never ashamed of being Asian, rather, she took pride in it. She accepted herself and who she was, but she struggled to find beauty within herself. Towards the end of high school, she gave up trying to bend to the standards around her. She started to forsake the trends of her peers and began choosing outfits that she enjoyed and letting her hair find its natural wave once more.

“Despite all the efforts that I made, I was always ostracized because of who I was, because of my race,” Irene said. “Because I eventually started to accept that, I started to embrace who I am. I kind of just found my way naturally.”

After an eye-opening doctor’s appointment, Irene was determined to take care of her body. She began exercising, dancing and finding ways to nurture her mental and physical health. When she came to university, she was encouraged by the diversity around her. She began embracing her Chinese American identity, her personality and her body.

She further developed her fashion and found outfits

that fit her mood and made her feel confident. She started turning music on and dancing in her dorm room to express herself and find enjoyment through movement. Her social media feed included more and more diverse accounts and individuals.

On rough days, Irene would force herself to look in the mirror and try to imagine viewing herself from someone else’s perspective instead of fixating on the parts that she wasn’t pleased with. She said she recently started to love her body.

“I don’t want anybody to ever feel what I felt [growing up], so for me, to treat people how they should be treated makes me feel like a really beautiful person,” Irene said.

I

built this image of ethereal beauty and swore I’d achieve it. Every inch of my being would grow into this pure, benevolent figure with narrow hips, a narrow nose, and a thin lipped smile revealing perfectly pink gums and white teeth. This was the image I was certain I’d be, one I bound myself to as I saw it dance around me on television and into my dreams.

She was gentle, demure and always giving from an endless well of energy and wealth. At least, these are the attributes I believed she possessed and hoped that I one day would too—almost as much as I hoped to obtain her beauty. This perfect and beautiful version of myself looked nothing like me, but as a child, I had faith that I would grow into her with her long limbs and pale skin.

There was a summer when I became too dark to become her. I was swimming with my best friend in her blue, inflatable pool when she pointed out the ebony my skin had grown into—one that almost matched my mother’s. I think back on it now and I wish I could envelop myself in sunlight and truth. But that moment evoked a deep fear within me. I asked my mother what happened to my skin and she told me that that’s what happened when I spent time in the sun. She told me I was beautiful, but I could only see a blackness that my friends couldn’t help but point out as if it were unnatural in comparison to the red, flaking skin that summertime donned them in.

I didn’t think of my mother’s beauty, or my aunties’ beauty, or any of the family friends whose complexions were darker and far more lovely than the images around me. I only saw whiteness and my lack of it.

The ideal of beauty felt further from me and I began feeling shame that I attached to my skin. Yet, this ideal beauty beckoned me to try harder—I would simply have to avoid the sun to be closer to her.

When I got braces, I noticed my gums were dark. I feared it was something detrimental occuring and grappled to understand how my orthodontist and dentist had missed it. I figured that I could fix it through brushing my teeth and gums more frequently.

When I finally voiced this concern to my dentist, he told me that my gums were healthy and that the darker pigmentation was a common feature of “African Americans.” I wanted to shrivel in the dentist chair. I wanted, no, needed my gums to be pink. That was a small and simple detail in this ideal I had created and yearned for.

Not long after, my body began to swell in ways my

peers did not. Soft curves formed and wandering hands brushed against them. I told myself that if I were thinner, I would have been spared these unwanted touches, and viewed as someone pretty, rather than a mere curiosity. I blamed myself.

I grew to hate the flesh adorning my thighs that gently nudged one another with every step. I so desperately wanted to evolve into something, someone slim and elegant, just like those around me were doing with an effortlessness I was growing to envy. Their limbs elongated while mine remained short. I began to despise the muscle wrapping my bones and the fat that lingered alongside it. I would contort my body if it wouldn’t naturally grow into the expectations of beauty I had internalized.

I took up running. I removed entire food groups from my diet. I purged when I felt I ate too much. That definition of “too much” began to look like less and less. As the number on the scale shrinked, the compliments increased. In a cruel way, the shame did too. So I ran more, tried to eat less, and sprinkled in religious fervor to my veneer of health. I called my restrictive diet fasting and my excessive exercise taking care of the “temple” that was my body. I used a blanket of rhetoric to moralize the shame that compelled me to act against my every instinct. Friends and teachers applauded me—it seemed like only my parents were concerned. For the sake of the ethereal beauty I’d imagined long ago, I willingly subjected myself to fatigue and hunger.

It wasn’t until my senior year of high school when I realized that my imaginings of perfect feminine beauty were a distorted image that lauded proximity to whiteness and Eurocentric features.

I never built the image. Rather, the image of skewed perfection superimposed itself upon every popular image of success and instilled its doctrine of Eurocentric features within my young, malleable mind. I thought this ideal was one I myself had construed, but only after I spent years trying to contort my body to fit into its mold, I realized the demon of white supremacy this alleged beauty was rooted in.

It was liberating recognizing that I could accept my body and its figure: embodying the acceptance took far longer.

Deconstructing notions of beauty and garnering an understanding of true beauty—one that’s inclusive of features and sizes I was taught to despise—proved tedious but liberating.

My freshman year of college left me in internal turmoil. I had gained weight after spending the past six years trying so desperately to lose it. One night in December I called my mom, sobbing inconsolably.

I couldn’t make peace with myself and who I was becoming. I felt like I didn’t have an image to grow towards.

It wasn’t until my sophomore year that I adopted the radical notion of listening to my body. I began to slowly trust my body and myself in ways I had not known to be possible. No expectations, no judgement—these were the new goals.

In my junior year, I finally began seeing beauty within myself on a daily basis. I began looking at myself in the mirror with a sense of awe; I was humbled by how my body endured the mistreatment I had inflicted upon her. I spent so long working against her, but she was resilient and forgiving. My melanated skin embraced my muscle, bone and fat like a blanket. That example encouraged my mind to accept and embrace them too.

My skin, my curves, my hair that refuses to lie flat— all of them became beautiful and worthy in my eyes. The flesh on my thighs, in my cheeks, and on my belly became dollops of softness deserving of love rather than faulty parts requiring change. I never thought such a view was possible unless I fit the definition of beauty whiteness praised.

Every inch of my being grew into this beautiful, benevolent figure of wide hips and dark gums. The person I became and the one I am becoming are bound to no image, but free to grow into whatever figure or form.

good hair

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHIKE ASUZU WRITTEN BY MORIAH COMARCHO-MIKHAIL

There’s this expectation to be done up all the time and fit one look. I felt it growing up if my hair wasn’t blown out perfectly straight or at least slicked back. There was a certain level of freedom I felt when I first encountered the natural hair movement in high school, I didn’t have to look forward to salon trips just to feel pretty. Still, in many ways the natural hair community has internalized standards of acceptability for natural hair that are unattainable and exclusive.

The mainstream movement has perpetuated this idea that you have to have a certain hair type, your pattern has to be perfectly defined, and if you want to experiment and wear different styles it has to be professionally done. I think I tried to fit those standards for some time but they’d make me view my hair as somehow inadequate and I eventually felt like I was losing the whole point of embracing my natural hair in the first place. Friends and other family members have helped me recalibrate and be unafraid to experiment and wear my hair how I wish, seeing other Black women close to me learn, try out styles themselves and even help me out has been a gateway for me to understand and play around with my hair more.

I’m proud of where I’m at now, I’m free to experiment with styles, test out different methods and products. Still, this journey is not linear or final, there are times I’ll throw a tantrum trying to detangle on washday or give up on a new style halfway through and throw a headscarf on it. Flexibility with my hair is something I’ve come to embrace, if braiding is getting tiring I’ll do a half braided half-out look, if passion twists aren’t twisting the way they’re supposed to, they’ll become jumbo twists, failed wash n go’s will turn into a pineapple bun. I like exploring my hair and its possibilities whether it comes out awkward, messy or not the way it’s “supposed” to look. Having grace with yourself for everything is important and that’s started with my hair for me. I really hope that others navigating their hair journeys find that small community to embrace and inspire them and allow themselves space for grace and growth.

Rachel Harmon

Going through my natural hair journey has taught me so much about myself and what it means to be a Black woman. I remember a time when all I wanted was straight hair, to the point I would straighten it every week. Now, I can’t picture myself without my curly hair. It has only made me more confident in myself and every chance I have I hope to instill that same confidence into anyone starting their own natural hair journey.

Ronunique Clark

“Once I learned how to love my hair throughout every journey, it has been in my control. My patience and my confidence has improved ever since.”

Naomi Boye

My mom was initially hesitant when I decided to go natural. I think she was more worried about how others would view it, but now she’s my hair’s biggest fan!

Hoda Sherdy

“When I was younger, I got teased for my hair because it didn’t fit the European standard of beauty Egyptians were so obsessed with. I had classmates come up to me and stick their hands in my hair, and relatives tell me I would look so much prettier if I just “fixed my hair.” During my senior year of high school, curly hair started to become a ‘trend’ and my hair went from disgusting to desired. In Egypt, there was no natural hair ‘movement,’ many women were just aspiring to match the new standard. I didn’t feel a strong appreciation for my hair until I came to BU. I met other women who had gone through similar struggles accepting their natural texture and starting learning about how to take care of my curls. The more effort I put into understanding what my hair needed, the better my relationship with my hair became.”

Moriah Comarcho -Mikhail PARDEE ‘22

I like exploring my hair and its possibilities whether it comes out awkward, messy or not the way it’s “supposed” to look. Having grace with yourself for everything is important and that’s started with my hair for me. I really hope that others navigating their hair journeys find that small community to embrace and inspire them and allow themselves space for grace and growth.