Living With Albinism

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Own Your Beauty is a groundbreaking, year-long movement bringing women together to change the conversation about what beauty means. Our mission: to encourage and remind grown women that it is never too late to learn to love one's self and influence the lives of those around us - our mothers, friends, children, neighbors. We can shift our minds and hearts and change the path we follow in the pursuit of authentic beauty.

I use most of my blogging keystrokes to encourage women and girls to celebrate themselves and to feel good about the skin they’re in ... regardless of skin color, cultural background or their perceived imperfections. I tend to think of all of us as perfect ... in an imperfect kind of way ... and I like it.

Take me for example: I have a few crooked teeth, a few extra pounds, a bubble nose with nostrils that tend to flare, my feet don’t look that great in sandals, and my rear end used to sit up a little higher ... and I like it. I am perfectly imperfect and it makes me ... well ... me. But my road to acceptance was, like many others, a little rocky.

As a kid growing up in the Land of La La (aka Los Angeles), I got teased mercilessly (it’s called bullying, actually) for my proper use of English and my confident yet soft demeanor (I’m an only child). Like a brand-new colt struggling to get its footing, I often felt awkward and not-so-perfect as a teen, particularly since the culture in Los Angeles lends itself to celebrating outer beauty and not the glory of what’s inside. In my mid-20s, I did a stint in the modeling scene, but quit to work in the music business after I returned from Europe (where I signed with my first -- and last -- Italian modeling agency). And as if the bullying and fauxness of the modeling industry wasn’t enough to bruise a girl’s self-esteem, I dated at least two guys who, unsolicited, offered to get my nose done, as well as an actor who told me breast implants wouldn’t hurt. Well isn't that just perfect?

But I’m perfectly imperfect, right? Like BlogHer says, I own my own beauty. Hmpfh. In spite of all of the racial and cultural bias in the world, the offers of a nose job to fix my im/perfect bubble nose, and all of the perfect (cough ... airbrushed) images we all continue to witness in the media, I have managed to feel comfortable in my own skin.

Kind of like super models Diandra Forrest (check her out in this video about women with albinism), Shaun Ross, Jessica Langlois and Connie Chiu, and non-supermodels like Syiedah Wilson and Tina L. Olson Markel's daughter Josie (pictured below) who -- as people with Albinism -- have owned that they are perfectly imperfect in their own special way.

Albinism, as you probably know, is a relatively rare condition in humans (approximately 1 in 20,000), animals, and even plants, in which a person (no matter their cultural and/or ethnic background) or animal doesn't have the usual amount of pigment or color in their skin causing a pale white appearance and mostly blue, and otherwise brownish or red/pink appearing eyes. Since the iris has so little color, the eyes appear pink or red because the blood vessels inside of the eye (on the retina) show through the iris. [Kidshealth.org] It is also interesting to note –- per Wikipedia.org -- that most forms of albinism are the result of the biological inheritance of genetically recessive ... genes ... passed from both parents of an individual, though some rare forms are inherited from only one parent. Interesting, isn't it? Oh. And just so we're clear: If you think for one minute that Albinism is a disability, think again. I was getting my Facebook on with some people on the Albinism page, and the general consensus is that Albinism in and of itself isn't a disability, although the partial blindness and sight disorders that often come along with Albinism most certainly are.

I have seen a number of people with Albinism in my lifetime in passing and never really thought too