dalal tahira

 I was in Spain for around 10 days travelling and touring the Andalusian cities with my dad. It was easily one of my favourite holidays ever! The first city we went to was Seville and stayed there for 2 days before moving onto Cordoba however we did return to Seville towards the end of our trip and spent another day there before coming home. We only stayed in a small 3 star hotel but it was more than enough and was plonked right in the centre with a MASSIVE Zara across the road and so many more shops. Oh and McDonalds was like 3 minutes away it was fab. So many photos were taken throughout the couple of days we were there so here they are. We did go on a tour bus for one of the days which was so convenient because not only did it transport you around the city, they also offered a free guided tour of the old Jewish quarter of Santa Cruz which was amazing. We went to the Torro del Oro, a watchtower over the Gualidivir river used by the Andalusian kings. Plaza Espana was absolutely stunning ermagahd!!! The architecture was so intricate, I loved the warm tones of the building and all the colourful mosaics. We also went to the Alcazar which was developed by the Moorish Muslim kings (ayyyy reppin') It was so eye opening and genuinely interesting to travel around all the Andalusian cities, as they were previously occupied by the Muslim Moors (Moroccan ancestors) so learning about all the history and seeing traces of my own culture in Spain was pretty cool. And once again, the architecture and all the attention to detail in the palace was so so so beautiful. Anyway, enjoy the (very many) photos- the next travel post will be on Cordoba...

You guys probably already know how much I love the whole glowy and healthy looking skin. As a person who has never really liked the whole cakey, 'beat yo face' trend this new wave of makeup has been a blessing for me so I've obviously started embracing it. As I've just come back from holiday I have finally managed to tan again and be all bronzed and golden (as I should be, England just makes me pale and ghastly grr) I feel as if this trend is even more fitting. So, here are the products I use to achieve that fresh and dewy look!

brows

concealer

lashes

highlight

glossy lips

don't mind this- 9780d9a5373aeaa17221d8b4f1b70293e578a8e7b52b5eedfd

First I'd like to state that I, indeed, acknowledge those white individuals who are vocal about white privilege and accept that it is in fact a problem that needs to be handled. I also understand that not every white person is a racist (of course) and accept that there are many individuals who fight for black rights and are aware of the inequality happening around us instead of batting blind eyes to these injustices among us. The 'whites' you'll see me referring to in the following are essentially the white supremacists in this modern day society.

If you're white, then you most likely experience this thing called white privilege often defined as a myriad of social advantages, benefits and courtesies that come with being a member of the 'dominant race'. People of colour can only dream of being accepted into modern day society and being at equal terms with whites as this racial profiling happens on a day to day basis both socially AND institutionally.Yes, black people and coloured people in the US have it much worse but with America being one of Britain's closest allies it's inevitable that they'd share similar ideologies. You see, this 'all live matters' shit is just a way of white people bringing the value of black lives down, yes all lives matter but in most cases these black lives don't matter as much as the life of a white man. In fact the whole black lives matter movement is here to highlight that black lives are just as important as white lives. We need to comprehend that the 'all lives matter' movement will only become successful once black lives fully matter too. The hue of a persons skin should not and I repeat should not determine the value of a persons life. This 'all lives matter' movement is just there to avail the injustice occurring in our society and it needs to be stopped because as I said before, it's there with no significance. Did you ever hear of the all lives matter movements before the black lives matter movement arised? No. It's there to supposedly 'fight back' and manipulate people into believing what is wanted to be believed. All lives will matter when the amount of melanin in people's skin will no longer determine their value. I cannot bare to live in a society where the death of a white man is more significant than one of a poc.

"Oh but more white people are killed by the police." I understand that fact but those 'white people that are killed by the police' have a reason to have been. They were killed because they were endorsing in criminal matter whilst the two black men that were recently killed were not. They were targeted solely because of the colour of their skin, they had no criminal record thus no reason to have had been suspects other than their racial identity. So, yes white people are killed by the police but there's a reason for that.

The black lives matter movement does not care about black on black crime. Yes 93% of black murder victims are killed by other black people however it's also been proven that 84% of white murder victims are killed by other white people. The focus on black on black crime is a diversionary tactic. A tactic trying to prove that black people have no right to be outraged by police activity in black communities because those community members are the ones killing their own people. The BLM movement is aware of the crime problem but as I've said before, it isn't a focus at the moment, the focus is on the fact that wealth is unevenly distributed with black people being highly disproportionately poor and more likely to be targeted by the police.

Ultimately it's all down to the whole false idea American Exceptionalism, the belief that America is both politically and socially perfect and that it has done nothing wrong, so in a nutshell ignorant white America. The belief that these White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are the master race and they deserve all these privileges that they seem to disregard and view as basic human rights which they are. Only poc don't get to share these basic human rights, and that's where the problem is lying. We need to deconstruct white privilege in order for us to move on but when 80% of members in congress and 62% in parliament are white males it's pretty hard to do so. Think, the last time a key figure went around trying to gain support for civil rights movements, they were assassinated. We've been put into such a position where we feel threatened to fight for our lives and our rights but then again, our rights and safety can simply be threatened and harmed by being non-white...*sips tea*

In school we are taught to overlook and disregard Jim Crow, segregation and general injustice that occurred in the 18th/19th century America because "it's a thing of the past" yet occurrences like 9/11 are told to never be forgotten. These white superpowers have the audacity to label a certain group as terrorists. Both ironic and hypocritical for a country who literally obtained, sustained and built their country by inflicting terror against Natives to say. Who's the real terrorist now?

If this offended you then- this is going to be a hard pill to swallow.

I took the photo for this post a few months ago and really really really want to update it BUT I managed to drop the blush and it smashed so it's not the most photogenic right now. Also, ya girl is back from Spain ayyy.