This article was originally posted on Kidpallas.com on June 19th 2014. When I first began to delve into the discourses surrounding ethnic identity and beauty, I found many of my long-held worries, fears, anxieties and discomforts given vindication and explanation. Growing up not-White, there is an ever-present awareness of what is not for you, and it is mostly everything. I knew when I opened up a women’s magazine that the make-up tutorials were not for me. A smoky eye never looked right no matter how carefully I followed instructions. Walking up to a make-up counter to find only one not-White shade dubiously named “Chocolate” or “Mocha” amidst thirty variations on Whiteness , I knew that the beauty industry was not built to cater to me. I don’t mean “me” as an individual, I mean “me” as a Black woman. It’s easy to tell a brand or product’s target audience. It’s easier to tell when you’re not it. By the time I was in primary school, I knew who the target audience was for make-up, for girls’ toys, for beauty: White women. I hadn’t, at that age, entirely figured out why that should bother me but it did. The effect...