Hey you guys,
Right now I had to log on to my computer and vent to you all about some things that trouble me about society's standards of beauty and the colorism so prevelant in ethnic culture. This whole idea of why light skinned women are typically viewed as superior in most ethnic cultures was provoked by a conversation that I was having with a black male shortly before. His argument was that lighter skinned women just seem more exotic, more beautiful, more feminine and more submissive to their men. Thus, it would be obvious why many cultures hold them to such high standards. How did I feel? Enraged. Yet, I could completely understand where he was coming from.
Pump your breaks before you call me a self hating coon, as a brown skinned woman myself. I understand why he felt the way that he did due to the fact that this cycle of skin tone preference has been coexisting amongst us minorities for a very long time. Sadly, the lighter skinned women were historically made to feel superior to darker skinned women due to the crooked mentality of "white is right, light and bright." Society rationalized that although a lighter skinned ethnic woman was not "equal" to a white woman, she was that much closer to being on her level, as opposed to a darker skinned woman who was on the complete opposite end of the color spectrum.
Other traits such as hair type and eye color played a part in aesthetic rank as well. Where do you think minorites got the term "good hair" from? The concept that looser curl patterns and softer textures meant that your hair was automatically prettier and more desirable than someone with coarse, kinky hair. The closer your hair texture was to that of a white person, the better it was. Colored eyes. This is something most commonly associated with white women. However, when an ethnic women possesses this trait, she is seen as being more exotic and appealing than the brown eyed woman.
The reiteration of the roots of such norms is extraneous due to the fact that we know much of this stemmed from slavery through out the world and the instellment of self hatred in order to turn slaves against eachother so that they might not ever unite as a people. Anything more is up for your own research, if you aren't already aware.
Still think that colorism doesn't exist? Do you feel like light skinned priviledge is extinct? Are the days of the brown paper bag test truly over and done with? Here's a test. Look at the first 5 images below. These are all darker skinned women of many ethnic backgrounds, Latina, African American, Asian and Native African. Take a good look at them. Afterwards, review the categorized women below detailing the top selling females in a variety of areas. Tell me, do you see any resemblance between the top selling women and someone who looks like this:
Or This...
"Top Selling Ethnic Female Musicians"
Beyonce
Sofia Vergara
Right now I had to log on to my computer and vent to you all about some things that trouble me about society's standards of beauty and the colorism so prevelant in ethnic culture. This whole idea of why light skinned women are typically viewed as superior in most ethnic cultures was provoked by a conversation that I was having with a black male shortly before. His argument was that lighter skinned women just seem more exotic, more beautiful, more feminine and more submissive to their men. Thus, it would be obvious why many cultures hold them to such high standards. How did I feel? Enraged. Yet, I could completely understand where he was coming from.
Pump your breaks before you call me a self hating coon, as a brown skinned woman myself. I understand why he felt the way that he did due to the fact that this cycle of skin tone preference has been coexisting amongst us minorities for a very long time. Sadly, the lighter skinned women were historically made to feel superior to darker skinned women due to the crooked mentality of "white is right, light and bright." Society rationalized that although a lighter skinned ethnic woman was not "equal" to a white woman, she was that much closer to being on her level, as opposed to a darker skinned woman who was on the complete opposite end of the color spectrum.
Other traits such as hair type and eye color played a part in aesthetic rank as well. Where do you think minorites got the term "good hair" from? The concept that looser curl patterns and softer textures meant that your hair was automatically prettier and more desirable than someone with coarse, kinky hair. The closer your hair texture was to that of a white person, the better it was. Colored eyes. This is something most commonly associated with white women. However, when an ethnic women possesses this trait, she is seen as being more exotic and appealing than the brown eyed woman.
The reiteration of the roots of such norms is extraneous due to the fact that we know much of this stemmed from slavery through out the world and the instellment of self hatred in order to turn slaves against eachother so that they might not ever unite as a people. Anything more is up for your own research, if you aren't already aware.
Still think that colorism doesn't exist? Do you feel like light skinned priviledge is extinct? Are the days of the brown paper bag test truly over and done with? Here's a test. Look at the first 5 images below. These are all darker skinned women of many ethnic backgrounds, Latina, African American, Asian and Native African. Take a good look at them. Afterwards, review the categorized women below detailing the top selling females in a variety of areas. Tell me, do you see any resemblance between the top selling women and someone who looks like this:
Or this....
Or this...
Or This...
"Top Selling Ethnic Female Musicians"
Beyonce
Rihanna
Nicki Minaj
"Top Selling Ethnic Female Actresses"
Halle Berry
Raven Symone
Sofia Vergara
"Top Selling Ethnic Female Reality Stars- Socialites"
Kim Kardashian
Amber Rose
La La Anthony
"Top Selling Ethnic Female Youtubers"
Superwoman
Dulce Candy
Michelle Phan
Are you done yet? Do you see what I mean? Even if you can throw in a few plausible answers of women who are successful who happen to be darker skinned, the vast majority rules. And, the vast majority is that lighter skinned women gold the upper hand, the priviledge and society's general long standing preference. That is not to say that a lighter skinned woman is handed everything that she achieves or doesn;t know the struggle. It's merely a different struggle than that of a darker skinned woman.
For example, you can have a White woman who grew up in financially unfortunate circumstances who might argue that she knows the same up hill struggle as a Latina woman. Many people would quickly shut her down and remind her that the simple fact of her being a White woman, society was generally going to show her favor over a minority. Thus, with lighter skinned ethnic women, you may indeed have seen a struggle and worked incredibly hard in becoming a success but your journey will never be that of a darker skinned woman. And that is something that needs to be recognized, as opposed to being faught with flimsy arguments. This is because we can not progress towards fixing the issue if we do not first acknowledge that there is an issue. Look at the facts, we've seen them for centuries but refuse to face the music and move forward.
Unifying together is the first step in making a change. Thus, hold not your resenment towards the favored parties, lighter skinned women and White women. Whereas, you need to fuel your fire at those who are propelling this twisted idealogy. Being mad at the favored parties simply because they happen to fall into that category is just as bad as someone showing you mistreatment due to the fact that you stand in the opposite category. Judge man not on the color of their skin but on the content of that person's character. If everyone could open their eyes and follow that same mantra, so many issues in teh world today would be obliterated...we can only hope that one day this can occur.
Let's strive to make that happen.
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