Beauty Comes in all Shapes, Sizes and Colors @ Brooklyn's West Indian Day Parade

So me and my classmates actually had a day off today! Some of us decided to spend our last hours of freedom at the 41st annual West Indian Day Parade and Carnival in Brooklyn. The parade is the largest gathering of Caribbeans in the U.S. and people come from Canada, the Caribbean and even England, just to experience.

Now I love the authenticities of the parade; jerk chicken, rice & peas, bami, sorrel, mauby, plantain, soca, reggae, mannish water...I could go on and on. Year after year, I'm never disappointed because it is always such a good time, meeting and interacting with new people from all over the world.

That's one of the things I love best...the people. Black, white, Indian, Chinese, dark, light, mixed, skinny, fat, locs, natural, permed, pressed...they're all there having a good time.

As usual, the music was banging, the drum line was thumping and the sistas were windin' to the rhythms, bouncing up and down, keeping in time with the beat. They were there on top of and in front of the floats, sparkling in their magenta, blue, yellow, red, green and purple bodysuits, complete with feather headdresses and flags. Their vanilla, bronze, chocolate and caramel complexions were gleaming in the September sun. They were beautiful as always.

But for the first time this year, I saw the women surrounding me with new eyes. I looked around me and I was surrounded by so many different shapes, colors and sizes. I saw a little blubber. I saw some flab. I even saw some hip bones jutting from bikini bottoms. The sistas were big, tall, skinny, short and curvy, all shapes and sizes. Caribbean beauty comes in many variations and I don't know why I never noticed it before.

As a woman who is full-figured, I've had my ups and downs with the way society portrays a "thicker" woman. We are not all fat. We are not all sloppy. And we are not all unhealthy. If you saw what I saw today (woman as old as my mother, with a little meat on their bones, running back and forth the 3 miles of Eastern Parkway) you'd probably think a little differently about those stereotypes.

Now society tells us that we're not supposed to be proud. We're not supposed to show-off our curves. We're not supposed to embrace, who we are. We're supposed to hang our heads in shame and waddle around like seals, unfashionable and unkempt.

Well, that wasn't the case today and it won't be the case for me...ever.

I am so glad that those women were there in their sequins and leotards, shaking their rumps, twisting their hips and waving their flags, all in the name of love and pride.

Big ups to the women of the Caribbean who are not afraid to shake what their mommas gave them!