I hate ugly. It may be evident from previous posts that I take offense to people being referred to as ugly.
It makes me wonder, what exactly is ugly?
I remember watching The Color Purple as a child and one of the infamous quotes came from the character Shug Avery when she wickedly sneers at Celie, "You sho' is UUGGLLYYYY!!!!" Many would agree that Shug spoke those words out of anger and jealousy but many also would agree with her assertion. I remember as a child thinking what makes Celie ugly?
Years after I would hear regular folks and comediens call Whoopi Goldberg (who played Celie) ugly. Today while watching The View, I heard Whoopi refer to herself as cute. It made me think of an old article about her. In that interview Whoopi said something to the effect that she did not consider herself a great beauty but she sees herself as cute.
Then there is Michelle Obama who I think is beautiful but a lot of people don't. That is fine but what bothers me is their willingness to volunteer their really harsh opinions of her. Let's assume that she was universally accepted as ugly. What exactly does that mean? She doesn't have a right to be successful, fabulous, the First Lady? What is your point exactly?
If I, as a child, would have called someone ugly, my mother would have stopped me in my tracks. She then would have asked, Did you make that person? That person is a child of God, who are you to call God's child ugly?
She would then equate ugly with behavior. We were told that behaving poorly was "acting ugly."
To me there is something physically beautiful about each and every person. The things that makes someone ugly to me are attitude, behavior and motives. These three are ugly characteristics that can make the prettiest person in the world and old, hag in my eyes.
I would encourage everyone to try to find the beauty in others instead of critiquing one another to death.
In case you don't, what is ugly to you?



