A few months ago I was browsing the local English bookstore here and leafed through Ugly, a memoir by UK Judge Constance Briscoe, one of Britain’s first black female judges. I decided not to buy it.
I’m glad I didn’t for if I had, I would have been contributing to this obviously mentally disturbed woman’s fund for knifing herself up.
Check out this article in the Daily Mail - “Ugly no more: Judge Constance Briscoe reveals how only radical cosmetic surgery could lay her mother’s taunts to rest.”
Briscoe got her feet, teeth and nose done because, even after being out of her mom’s house, where she allegedly was called “ugly” and all sorts of ish, for DECADES, she still had no freaking confidence in her looks whatsoever.
Some gems from the article:
“‘…I’ve had a thing about my feet since I was a child. They were too broad and I wanted to be able to wear nice shoes.’
‘I had to go to America because you can’t get the operation in Britain. They think it’s just vanity, which it is, but that’s no reason for not having the operation. If you can have your boobs enhanced, why can’t they just snip a bit off your feet?’
At the foot clinic in New York, Constance had the bones on the outsides of her feet shaved down to make them narrower, and the middle joints of some of the toes removed and then pinned.
It was, she admits, extremely painful.”
Now, I can kind of understand the foot thing. I have ugly feet. I have bunions. I actually NEED to have surgery…but do you see me chomping at the bit trying to get it done? That ish IS painful. Why someone would have foot surgery done on perfectly functioning feet purely for vanity is beyond me.
Another gem:
“She’s had cosmetic operations to narrow and straighten her nose, to slim her lips, to remove eye bags, to whiten her teeth and narrow her feet. Her mother, she tells me, had lovely narrow feet.
Yet despite being a very attractive woman who looks much younger than her years, she’s not finished yet. This year she wants to have her eyelids done. They are a bit heavy, she says, although to my untrained eye they look anything but.
Indeed, when Constance first consulted a cosmetic surgeon in Harley Street when she was a 22-year- old law student at Newcastle University - telling him she wanted surgery ‘because I’m ugly, ugly, ugly’ - he replied: ‘Constance, you are not ugly, you just think you are.’
‘That doctor was completely wrong. I was ugly. He was just trying to persuade me not to have the operation in the nicest possible way.
‘I knew I’d be terribly happy once I’d sorted out my nose and mouth, which I am. He only had to look at me to see I was in need of a sharp scalpel. For years I tried not to look in a mirror in case I caught my ugliness looking back at me.
‘I knew I was ugly because I was told that by my mother. I had no reason to doubt her,’ she claims.
‘I still feel ugly now. I don’t think you ever get away from that.’”
Okay, I can understand the bags-under-the-eye thing. Eye bags run in my family. I probably will have them and perhaps will consider surgery…when I’m about 70 or so and I look like I’ve got a pair of Samsonites glued to my face.
By the time I finished the article I was borderline nauseated, then I got pissed. How dare she lay out her ish for young girls who are “too dark, too big-nosed” or whatever to pick up. Hell, I heard the same thing as she did when I was growing up, I’ve even considered a boob job and a nose job, but realized that that money could go for something better…like oh, I don’t know…shopping!
And I’ll be good and G-d damned (sorry for cursing, but I’m mad as hell right now) if I’m cutting up my face to prove anything to anybody.
How dare she.
Briscoe doesn’t need cosmetic surgery. She needs a lobotomy.
Note: I’m traveling so I’ll approve comments when I have internet access.
Comments (7)
[Sigh] Sick and sad. A living example of the legacy that is self-destruction.
Sigh, the fact that she was one of the first black female judges in the UK, isn’t that what we should be celebrating? I wonder how many men have similar body issues. BTW, what is “ish”? Not familiar with that terminology…
@Z-> “ish”=”sh*t.” As for celebrating, I guess if she celebrated her accomplishments, I could do the same.
Rashunda, while I am certainly not pro-cosmetic surgery (when it’s by choice, and not as a result of an accident etc…) I’m amazed that you would form your opinion of Constance Briscoe purely based on an article from The Daily Mail - enough to write the tirade above. I would encourage you to read her book as I believe Constance felt she needed to have this surgery, and the other planned surgeries in the future, as a result of HORIFFIC abuse as a child. And if that’s how she’s going to deal with a past like she has, and she’s paying for it herself and not expecting any sympathy, then I’m not entirely sure why you are so angry… I don’t think she’s saying to anybody else that they look ugly and require surgery, more that she feels she needs it…
The reasons why I wrote the tirade are numerous:
1. Briscoe, whether she likes it or not, set herself up to be a role model. People, especially young, dark-skinned black girls, just may look to her as an example. What example is she setting by having her nose whittled down and constantly referring to herself as ugly? The most beautiful compliment I got when I was in tv was a man who told me that his daughter was being teased at school for being dark. He made her watch me when I came on. He said that he thought it was important for his daughter to see a dark-skinned woman on tv. Did I ask for that? No. But, I realized that with the job I chose, I had a responsibility.
2. Which leads me to my next point: I truly believe there is a war on women (black, white and other) in terms of their self-esteem. Sure, families play into it, but they reflect society. We need to be strong enough to take up armor against the warped view that society tries to make us conform to. The last thing we need is yet another woman who has given in to the pressure of hating herself.
3. I’m just plain disappointed. All that education but not bright enough to know that full lips are just plain sexy.
3.5. If you’re going to chop yourself up like that, call yourself ugly because of your black features and ruin those features, don’t go around riding on the publicity being one of the first black female judges. Just go somewhere, work, have your surgery and live your life. Don’t write books. I’m not belittling what she went through as a child. I’m just saying she should handle her business without dragging other people (young girls) down with her.
4. As I’ve said before, I was called every type of name growing up and made fun of. Folks made fun of my teeth, my hair, my shape, the whole nine yards. But you know what? After a lot of soul searching, praying and counseling, I’m making it. I’m not there yet, but I’m trying. The past few months have especially been a time of transformation for me. And you know something? Even with my big a$$ fro, my big a$$ gap and my big a$$ a$$ I’ve learned (and am still learning to this day) to hold my head up high in the face of temptation. I’m in Switzerland for crying out loud. I’m surrounded by women here in Zurich who are drop-dead gorgeous (either naturally or medically aided). If I wanted a nose job, it wouldn’t be that hard to get.:-)
5. If I could afford to take two months off of work to write a book, I would. I’d call it “Beautiful” and it would be a love letter to all the little girls who are going through hell because of their nappy hair, or frizzy red hair, or teeth, or nose, or whatever. What we need more of are women who STAND UP and say “I’m me and I’m beautiful,” not women like Briscoe.
6. And no, I certainly will not be buying her book. If you want to buy it and send it to me, fine:-). But, I’m not becoming an enabler to her ruining herself.
Tip: Find “My Strength Comes from Within” by Dr. Joye M. Carter. It’s the autobiography of the first black female to become a chief ME in the states. I’ve only flipped through it and plan on taking it with me on vacation. But, from what I’ve skimmed in the book, it is the total opposite of Briscoe’s. The sister is BAD (BAD=”really, really good”), on point and chocked full of self esteem. Her site is here: http://joymcartermd.com/.
7. I stand by my tirade.
It saddens me that some black folk continue to go down this road. I’m beyond angry at this point in my life…just very sad and wish I can touch more young girls before they start forming this self-hate.
This stuff starts early in life. It starts at home of some families who have issues with their own features. I’ve seen it in my family (especially on my mother’s side who are light-skinned).
I’m so glad my dark-skinned mother did not have this self-image problem and I did not have to deal with such a nightmare as a child. When your own flesh and blood can brutallize you this way, I find this the worse violation to a child than any of the societal garbage.
If the we could at least work on home and hearth, we can have a fighting chance out there when we get exposed to the societal garbage.
In America, we have black boys in high school avoiding dating certain black girls for this same reason. One would think that times have changed these self image issues, but they continue to render and I’m so saddened and disgusted with it because it has not improved at all over the years.
@Jocelyn - > Here’s my question: What can we do to improve it? How do we counteract this stuff?