One's Complexion does not matter

I was told the other day that my roommate was beautiful by a guy that I work with. Now don't get me wrong, my roommate is gorgeous, but its the comment he said after he complimented her that has me writing this. He went on to say, "its something about her color. I don't know. She's just so beautiful." You see my roommate is light-skinned, with beautiful hazel brown eyes, and with what many people would describe as "good hair". That is until they try to do something to all that thick curly stuff. She is what society, as well as, the media has deemed a beautiful black woman. Now the compliment was not missed placed, because like I said she is beautiful, but what does her skin color have to do with her beauty. And I know he most likely was not implying that because she just so happens to be of a lighter complexion that she is beautiful. But my question is what if she wasn't light skinned would people still think that she is as beautiful as people think she is now? And what about all of the other African-American women out there who are dark-skinned? Are they not just as beautiful? I watched a trailer the night before about how many dark skinned women felt about their skin color. And as a dark skinned woman today I can tell you first hand that I can relate to those feelings. And at times I still feel like that lonely little girl, hating herself because she was the only black child in the class, and if that wasn't bad enough I was dark, so it was even more noticeable. Now I'm not saying that I though I was ugly or anything because I've always thought I was beautiful. Hell even on a bad day I'm still goregous. I just never liked the fact that I am as dark as I am. Now I have excepted it and I've grown to love it espeically since that's one thing that is not going to change. But to me the color or shade of a person's skin is not a determining factor of their beauty. A person's personlity, character, self-esteem, and self-worth is what makes a person beautiful along wiht theri outter appearance. And their color has nothing to do with it, it just shows the world that they are a black woman.