I know this is an issue that's been goin on for a long time. But I still can't understand it. I mean I can't really get it - why has our modern society made so many black women turn into white women. Get me right! I mean why do so many black women trying to look white? Is that some sort of ultimate ideal, for some? To be/look white? For a gut like me, this is so hard to understand. I mean, the defintion of True Beauty is spelled B.L.A.C.K. ;) We need more dark-skinned role models in this world, and less of the Beyoncé/Lil Kim-look-a-whiteys.
18 comments:
Well said! I do like how you show the wide range of black beauty, but I agree that the mainstream media tends to focus on/highlight black celebrities with lighter skin/more Anglo features and hold them up as role models. The whole striving to look whiter is deeply ingrained in the black community and a lot of it has to do with history. I wrote a post on my blog 2 or 3 months ago about colorism in the black community and I found this Wikipedia article very useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorism. It mainly deals with colorism among Black Americans, but it's still quite interesting. Again, I love your blog and please keep highlighting the different types of black beauty!
good post, i think because of our history and colonialism its viewed as the closer you are to the "white standard," of beauty, the more attractive you are. Our history has a lot of to do with it and some people truly don't believe they are beautiful in their natural state and think to be beautiful you have to look as close to white as possible, its very sad.It something that is so engrained into our minds since we're very young. Every image you see that is associate with beauty is white. It's hard not to fall victim to that mentality. Have you ever heard of the doll test?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAOZhuRb_Q8
If you go on youtube and search "A Girl Like Me," it might give you some insight into the problem.
I had to stop depending on the mainstream media to uplift dark-skin women such as myself. I started searching for pictures of dark skin celebrities and saved them on my computer. We are freaking gorgeous! why can't they see that?
I often wonder if it is because dark skin women are more of a threat in the beauty world! if you don't want someone to think they are beautiful...degrade them. That's what the media is doing.
good point sky! I also started collecting pictures of beautiful black women of all hues. From the classical black american beauties of the 1950s to the beautiful women of Nigeria, Ghana. The media has never truly appreciate our beauty in all its diversity, that is why I've started collecting pictures, I'm going to print them out, put them onto a collage and keep them. On the days that I feel ugly and less than others, I will pull it out and look at it. It helps alot.
I agree with you as white man she looks like typical white/latina woman and either way she looks more artificial .Sorry I am not hater to light skin but my type model is exactly Oluchi onweagba .Nuff said beyonce kinda women standards so far to me .Dark compliation models should respect more one day.
My younger sister is very dark like my mom (we have different fathers)...her hair is also different and not as long. She gets teased all the time in school because of her complexion, especially by boys..some even as dark as her :-(. I've never had to go through the American school system until College...so i can't claim to say i know what it's like. But it's unfair that from such a young age she is being made to believe that black is not beautiful. Sometimes she tells me she wishes she had longer hair like me. Or her complexion was lighter. I told her that he hair is very beautiful. I love it. and that shes very pretty. But one day she'll realize how beautiful her skin is...and i can't wait till shes old enough to rock a fro. I just hope her experiences growing up doesn't destroy her self image. It's also worth mentioning that she has the most beautiful smile i've ever seen
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Black women come in all shades with a variety of different features, hair textures, etc. in endless combinations. Just because one black woman is fair and has straight hair does not make her any less black (or beautiful) than darker skinned black women, and vice versa. There are some very dark-skinned black women who have VERY European features. That doesn't mean they are any less beautiful. They are ALL beautiful. We need to stop looking at the colors or shades of black women and defining one as more beautiful than the other, be it bias against lighter or darker skinned women. ALL black women are beautiful, whether their skin is ivory or blue black.
BTW, I fall in the middle - medium brown with what some would call European features and with some "black" features (both my parents are black). My sister is what some might call "yellow" with more non-European features than I. We are both beautiful in our individual ways.
P.S. - I'm married to a white man.
Colorism comprises one of the most destructive psychological "wack-jobs" that can be perpetrated against a people because of the self-loathing that it causes, and unfortunately is has become self-perpetuating. If someone tells you enough times that you are ugly and undesirable, unless you have impenenetrable spiritual fortitude(which many don't especially when young) you begin to believe it. Much of this encoding begins in childhood and we as black women will potentially spend a lifetime purging ourselves of destructive images and rhetoric that cripples your self-image. When I was a kid I had gone to a summer picnic, and I swam for 6 hours. I'm medium-skinned and when I'm out in the sun, which is often as I'm from Texas, I darken. This women (a distant relative, I presume, who was dark-skinned herself) told me, "Your mama's gonna get mad at you for getting so dark." My mother never made skin color an issue because she went through that kind of BS with her family. Yes, FAMILY. Consequently, I was bewildered and just decided that she was stupid because I knew my mother wasn't THAT damaged. Unfortunately, many black women are; and this memory has never left me because this woman's pattern of self-hatred had become so unconscious.
I have so much to say about this issue, as I have two best friends. One of them is very dark and the other, very light. The former gets a lot of mess because she's dark, while the other gets ostracized by many black women who project all of their trauma onto her because she's light. It's so dysfuntional. I would also like to reiterate what the previous poster wrote: black women are found across the color spectrum by nature, and it's important not to make assumptions about them. It's not their fault that the media and culture at large is oriented to them.
If you want a poignant, heartbreaking insight into this VERY contentious, painful issue; read Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye".
Amen to that.
Agreed. I find it said that so many dark girls I know aren't happy with the way they look, they feel they are to dark. And make comments like, "I don't want to be in the sun, I'll get darker." And that's really sad. This happens because society has held light skin blacks on a pedestal. As a dark female looking into the media, I have no true role models. Beyonce, Lil Kim, Mya etc etc, I can't relate to them, I look nothing like that. It's sad to think of all the black people who will grow up with complexes because of society. I would really like to see the media move away from this and start looking at real average people. Not just light skin blacks with fake blond hair. How about the average black girl with real natural hair. I would like to see that publicized and more in the media. I would like to see them stop chasing around light skin blacks and dumb bimbos and trying to sell them to us basically. Why? Because it's not working just causing harm. I don't know if they know, or maybe they do. But what is being presented deeply affects people.
Now just imagine this. Your a dark female. And all you hear is "You're so dark" "Light skin is better" "Why is your hair like that." Very sad and damaging to one's ego. It's time to change this, our society needs to open up and stop feeding children and adults alike this nonsense of "white or light" is better, prettier.
I agree with Mocha. I realize mine is not the only experience an dI don't speak for all Black women, but I've definately not experienced any better treatment from Whites for being pale (to all the Whites I know, Black is Black; they don't look at shade), and many of the Blacks have treated me like I'm an albino freak, especially when I was younger. But then, I'm paler than all of the "role models" you listed but have more Black features (the big eyes, the big lips, the round nose, the hair, the shape), so I don't ever have anyone I can relate to. I see all successful Black women as role models, from Beyonce to Heather Headley. All gorgeous and all proud of who they are. And I like the way Jessica worded it too.
It's easy for a black man who 'doesn't discriminate' when it comes to women to say all women are beautiful. Those are the main ones that sisters see with white and Asian women. I love my dark skin, so much so that my sister and I don't mind adding an extra layer of black. Black men are celebrated, the darker the better for a lot of non-black women, so they DEFINITELY don't have the problem when it comes to finding mainstream role models. Look at all the dark skinned role models out there: Tyrese, Morris Chesunut, I could go on all day.
Dark-skinned women are the zenith as far as I'm concerned, and until you are a black woman, or at least until you try to think about how it is to live as a dark skinned black woman, you have no clue. None.
Dark Skinned women rule.
For a man who "loves" black women, to call Beyonce white looking and not understanding that black women come in all diferent shades shows his true ignorance.
i have to admit to being disappointed when i see black women re: Beyonce, leona lewis et al dye their blonder and blonder, starts with a few highlights then it gets lighter and lighter.
Andreas has a point, why can't these chicks keep to their dark hair? I'm from Southern Africa and believe me we DO NOT WORSHIP WHITES!!
i love the fact that i can have a curly afro tmrw, or blow dry and flat iron my hair(as in my profile pic) though it damages it, but then wash it to return it to its natural state. But then to dye me hair blonder would look too weird.
i just don't find them attractive as blond, beyonce is cute but she look prettier with darker hair.
I find it really disturbing that you keep saying true beauty is black that is just a type of beauty.
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