OT: A girl like me

I just wanted to share this with everyone. I felt this topic relates to SOME IR couples. I'm a believer in, you're attracted to whoever you're attractived too. I find BW or minority girls more attractive than wm. Nothing wrong with that. Whereas some wm find bm more attractive that wm. But some people are attracted to others because they've been conditioned too.

Some will admit it, while some won't. And I don't want to turn this into that type of thread. But this clip shows how black girls or kids in north america, are conditioned to be white. And being black is not good enough or ugly. I constantly argue with my black female friends and even my sister about this.

I find black girls who try to add white features unattractive, or atleast I lose respect for them. Such things as getting a yellow weave, adding blue contacts, bleaching the skin and so on. Alot of bw feel unattractive if they don't add white features to them.

This clip breaks my heart. One girls mother told her to stop acting "african" because she decided to leave her natural features. The fro and everything. And another girl was asked to chose between a white and black doll. She chose a white doll. Then she was asked why. She said the black one was ugly. After that they asked her to point out which doll represents her. She pointed at the black doll. Basically saying she's ugly. That is sad.

India Ire (I know that ain't the right spelling) song "I am not my hair" with akon says alot. That's a sista I respect. And to the whites on this board, this will help educate you more on the slight skin negro vs the dark skin negro. Anyways here is the clip.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fEy0q6yqc

 

This is terrible man, I could not even watch the whole clip. Today I was in a shopping mall where I came across Blackmen most of the women on that magazine were light skin, on some pages there were blondes with big asses; the darker women were put on the back pages, I don't think WP run that magazine this is BP doing this to themselves. How pathetic it seems they have an agenda, I'd never ever ever eva !!!!! subscribe to such magazine.

 

Actually this is old stuff and there have many numerous studies about the subtle and overt ways societies push this. And trust me it's not just North America.
But it's very important to understand the difference between institutionalized racism and individual acts.
I've always said that before you can address a problem you have to define and see the true root of a problem.
This is a symptom.

Positive self awareness and faith in their own self worth is the best thing any parent can teach a child but the parent has to have it first. By the time children go off into social settings their self image is pretty much set but it can change if they are around positive people. People smart enough to see it and give them the skills to deal with it.

It's not just race either.

I understand the need for all girl schools and I understand why some people make the choice to go to all black colleges.
It's not for everyone but there is a need to this very day.

 

About the "Blackmen" magazine, sometimes you'd think the magazine were run by Latinos, given the fact that they have a penchant for Vida Guerra and women who look like her. I swear she has had at least 5 different spreads. Now i dig Vida and all (she is hot), but for a magazine that calls itself "BLACKMEN", it seems refreshingly humorous, better yet ironic, that they choose to broadcast the beauties of Latinas first. Hell, even white girls are even squeezing their way into the magazine. Words cannot express the awe that encircled me when Vida Guerra was named "Black Men's Magazine Sexiest Woman Of the Year". Oh, the irony.

Now do not be mistaken - i appreciate beauty in all shades - but in an area where black women (dark-skinned ones especially) take a back seat, for "us" to do the same thing reinforces and validates the underlining belief that anything "bright" is better than anything "dark. Moreover, mainstream "white" magazines such as FHM, Maxim, GQ and Playboy will never give black women (and other women of color) more than one front cover (if any). The notable exceptions, predictably, are J.LO, Halle Berry, Eva Longoria and (oh, how surprising) Beyonce. I'd be willing to bet my life and everything i possess that a Latino-themed magazine will never give a black woman 5 spreads in 1 year and dedicate a special cover to black women (Black Men Mag did it).

Even when we decide to celebrate the beauties of black women, they more often than not are either light-skinned women or women who, in 1945, would have used the "White" restrooms. That isn't inherently wrong but doing so at the expense of darker skinned black women speaks volumes of our mentality. In every of "our" magazines, we constantly have products emphasizing the usage of hair-straightening products. I do not think for the most part it is conscious but that is another story.

I think you all see what i am delving at. If we want to respected by others, charity begins at home.

 

It is sad that such attitudes are ingrained into our culture. I remember reading in a teen magazine about ten years ago that BM found darker-skinned BW sexier than the light-skinned ones, but that they were more likely to marry the light-skinned BW. Why can't we just accept who we are, white or black, Asian or Aboriginal, and flaunt it proudly for the world to see? People were meant to be all shapes and sizes and colours, else we would never have been created that way. To try and change that is self-deprecating and blasphomous. Society as a whole needs a self-love revolution; we're all trying to conform to standards set by our parents, by the media, and our peers, when we should just say to hell with all of them and love ourselves for who we are, not who others want us to be.

 

film

The documentary was really insightful and the young sista who created it is very talented.

bell hooks, a noted black feminist wrote a book years back from margin to center? She basically stated that black women have and continue to occupy a space outside the mainstream (margins). She proposed that black women collective (individual acts) find power in that space so that it can become their center. Being an outsider has its advantages.

It's time that the stories of black women who see the margins as a space of enormous power and potential have their stories told. The Indie, Jill Scotts, Lauryn Hills, etc. those before and after them have their stories told. Young black girls need to understand the possibilities and not just hear the same sad song and dance.

Without a doubt any black woman who comes of age in america even today-will sufficient self-esteem and self-regard given the reality of what the young sista documented in her film has accomplished a revoluntary act (how every she accomplished it-trial and error, family affirmation, etc.) Revoluntionaries know that really there has to be a space in one's psyche that is site of pure resistance to the everyday bs that has gone on in america for centuries. It is indeed very sad that some parents or community did not begin to assit little black children especially in this case black girls in developing this space in their psyche. Sad. Sad.

 

Re: film

I'll be sure to locate that book.

 

Unfortunately the horse has already left the barn on that one.