Gabrielle Union schools stepsons on appreciating dark-skinned women

Gaby doesn't play when it comes to colorism.

Jul 16, 2018

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Gabrielle Union takes her role as a stepmom seriously and she’s committed to raising her three boys right. She co-parents Dwyane Wade‘s children, Zaire and Zion, as well as his nephew, Dahveon and she recently revealed she had to school them on appreciating the beauty of ALL Black women.

The actress and producer was unpleasantly surprised when she asked her boys to show her the hottest girls at their schools and realized their preferences were a little too narrow.

“Literally, probably about 10 girls I looked at had the same light skin, curly hair, tiny waist, butt, boobs — it was the same girl over and over again,” she said at Essence Fest. “So I asked them to show me the most beautiful chocolate sister they’ve seen. They say there are none. I was like, ‘Why do they get exed out so fast? What is happening in your brain that is causing you to look at these women through a prism that is distorting their actual selves?'”

That’s when Union decided to show them a particularly gorgeous darker-skinned sister, Ryan Destiny.

“They’re like, ‘Oh, she bad!’ But do you know how many Ryan Destinys there are? I pull up every Black model, women from all over the world, and they’re beautiful. But they don’t see the beauty unless it comes from an actress or a supermodel or a video vixen. They have to have somebody else tell them that a chocolate woman is attractive for them to believe it.”

When it comes to her own ideas of beauty, Gabrielle Union is in a sweet spot of self-acceptance.

“So many of us have battled all sorts of sh*t…Now, we’re on the vibe of ‘Love me exactly as I am, or not.’ I’m so happy in my own skin, I’m so happy in my own body, and I’m so happy in my own identity. It’s refreshing.”