Adrienne Maree Brown on Beauty & Freedom
Adrienne Maree Brown is an author, doula, women’s rights activist and Black feminist. She is all about radical love, actions speaking louder than words, and communication as a point of evolution. We asked Adrienne for her perspective on beauty.
Photography by Anjali Pinto
What has your journey to believing in your own beauty looked like?
Looking in the mirror until I found something I could tolerate.
Looking for and looking at other fat Black and Brown people and realizing how beautiful they are.
Noticing how, in bathhouses and spas, the round curvy thick bodies are the most appealing to me.
Noticing how my joy attracts to me those who I am attracted to, and beginning to grasp that physical appearance is only one layer of beauty.
Learning to invest in things that make me feel beautiful - good lingerie, Onion dresses by Whitney Mero, glitter.
Feeling radical ease in my nakedness, my frumpiness, my writer-at-home self, my body at rest, my body in my lover’s eyes, and realizing that the ease is something I produce, it is the way beauty feels in me.
What was the first moment you remember feeling like you weren’t beautiful enough, just as you are? How old were you?
I remember as a Black mixed race kid moving to a school in the deep south from out of the country. I'd felt normal before this… pretty some days, awkward others, in a highly diverse and international childhood. Then we moved to the U.S., and in one year I was rejected by White boys as anything more than a physical hookup, embraced by White girls as a potential friend; rejected by Black girls as someone who could belong to them, and embraced by Black boys as girlfriend/wifey material. The boys tried to take from me things I didn't want to give, in ways that left scars and bruises. The girls tried to shrink themselves and shrink me. I felt very confused about what beauty was. The Black girls I needed friendship from, and was already developing strong attractions to, were challenged by how the boys responded to the whiteness in me. The White girls felt safe because their boys rejected the blackness in me (I wasn't someone they could bring home), so I was a safe sidekick. This was the 90s. I understood then, before I had all the language for it, that beauty is political, is tied into hierarchy, class, trend, heteropatriarchy and the constant presence of white supremacy that seeks to divide and conquer. It took years of healing, political education, coming out, and a cultural shift around fatphobia for me to return to feeling normal in myself, realizing I'd been beautiful and deserving of community and respect and boundaries and love and attraction all along.
What do you want to tell young girls growing up in this digital era?
You are the fantasy and reality of your life. Learn what makes you feel satisfied in life - what is your destiny, your purpose? Who can you help and serve and learn from? Who can you trust and trustworthy with? What is your enough? Answer those questions and you will feel beautiful every day.
What do you think is the most beautiful thing about you?
My freedom.