Lupita Nyong’o stunned her audience and has created a stir on the Internet with her honest and therefore very courageous speech on being black in a world where a dark skin is not esteemed. It is important not to miss its significance. It is not only about black beauty but also about true beauty, which she names as compassion. It is right and very welcome that Lupita has become a role model for black girls but it is fabulous that she points beyond glamour to a more fundamental reality. And glamour will be Lupita’s most seductive and dangerous challenge as she continues to be lauded by the world’s media.

Clearly a remarkably articulate and intelligent young woman Lupita will have to remember the lines from Kiplings’s ‘If’:

“IF you can keep your head ..”

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;”

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much”