The Black Beauty Myth
When blacks arrived in the New World over 400 years ago, they quickly learned to devalue the color of their skin, their eyes, and the texture of their hair.
Clearly in this New World, white skin was synonymous with beauty and prestige, and those blacks lucky enough to closely resemble the slave master were given jobs in the big house as cooks and menservants, while their darker skinned counterparts were consigned to the fields.
This division of work along color lines gave birth to a de-facto caste system, the vestiges of which have survived today.
In the South, where the effects of this caste system were most evident, lighter skinned Blacks enjoyed higher levels of education, resulting in greater social status and financial rewards.
Lighter Blacks also experienced better relationships with Whites, who viewed them as less threatening than darker Blacks.
Fully aware of the advantages of light skin, fair blacks frequently married those of the same skin color, and in subsequent generations, forbade their children to marry dark complexioned Blacks.
If fair skinned enough, blacks could "pass," or move unnoticed into white society, thereby avoiding forever the social pitfalls blackness.
Of course no self respecting Black person would try to pass in this era.
Though there is still a stigma attached to being Black, our progress in gaining political and socioeconomic parity has made the need to "pass" unnecessary.
Not only that, but we have come to appreciate our African heritage, and at present are experiencing a resurgence of the Black pride movement that began in the mid-1960's.
Back then, blacks threw off the yolk of the dominant culture opting for an Afro-centric approach to their lives.
All across the country, Black college students were demanding that African and African American history become a permanent part of the curriculum, tossing out their pressing combs and bleaching cream and adopting natural hairstyles while celebrating the beauty of darker skin.
In the blink of an eye "Black power!" became the rallying cry of the day.
Unfortunately that swelling of ethnic pride had subsided by the 1980's and its seeming re-birth in the 90's lacked the fire and vision that had defined its predecessor.
With no discernible challenge to the values of the dominate culture, Black Pride circa 1990 emerged as little more than a commodity, commercially packaged and exploited for mass consumption.
Poorly rendered portraits of great African and African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.
, Nelson Mandela, abounded in K-marts and on street corners.
Leather necklaces fashioned in the shape of the African continent decorated the necks of black teens while the likeness of Malcolm X graced everything from T-shirts to baseball caps.
The traditional clothing of Africa, worn with such pride over twenty five years ago, was usurped by Madison Avenue to satisfy the public's craze for ethnic clothing.
Fast forward to the new millennium.
Once again wearing one's hair natural is frowned upon except in the entertainment industry and certain counter cultural circles; and the chemical relaxer, ironically bearing such names as Dark and Lovely and African Pride, has become the millennial version of the pressing comb.
Even bleaching cream, now euphemistically referred to as skin evener, is back.
The smiling blonde ideal continues to influence and define the physical perceptions of Black Americans years after we supposedly shook her influence for good.
But there is another image driving Black self-hatred, an image which is perhaps the most insidious of all.
Of course this woman's face is also a fantasy, an ideal thrust upon us by the dominant culture.
Her face is supposed to represent Blacks, but in reality she is something in between.
This woman is very light skinned, her hair is long, brown and loosely curled, her eyes often hazel or green.
Like most media images this one is non-representative, but it exists because it puts White America more at ease.
The harm in such an image is its ubiquitousness in a medium with incredible influence over so many young Blacks.
The message of such an image is obvious and culturally tragic.
Because of it, many of us endlessly straighten our hair, bleach our skins, mutilate our African features and wear colored contact lenses, effectively denying our cultural identity.
We demean ourselves by accepting a beauty standard imposed upon us for the twin purposes of dividing our people and assuring that we remain second class citizens, if only in our minds.
Not to say that Blacks born with more Caucasoid features are somehow less black or that those of us who chose to straighten our hair are ignorant of or ashamed of their African identity.
The argument isn't about who is black or who is not.
There is far more at stake than this simple statement.
At stake is our universal identity as a people.
For who are we truly if we continue to allow ourselves to be defined by a culture that often refused to recognize us as full citizens?Who are we if we continue to allow such a culture to define us in a way that negatively affects the self esteem of our children and sometimes our own? I think about my youngest sister, who is not bi-racial, but for all the world appears to be.
She is a lovely young lady with tawny skin, hazel eyes and wavy, chocolate-brown hair.
How often I have heard other blacks praise hair like hers as being good while in the same breath deriding the woolly textured hair more prevalent among us as "nappy", "kinky", and even plain "bad".
In truth there is nothing intrinsically beautiful nor superior in straight or woolly hair, in light or dark skin in blue or brown eyes.
Racial phenotype, the major physical differences found among the "races" are nothing more than climatic adaptations, much like the white coats of arctic animals.
The beauty in one's racial features derives from the recognition that they are one's own.
Each of us should take pride in how we look.
Whites and Asians certainly do, why don't we? Black people come in a rainbow of skin colors, ranging from fair ivory to deep ebony, and our hair textures vary from bone straight to woolly.
We should celebrate all of our beautiful variances, and we, not some European standard, should and indeed must, define our outer beauty.
If we cannot define who we are, what we are, and how we should look, we will forever remain victims of the worst type of slavery.
Clearly in this New World, white skin was synonymous with beauty and prestige, and those blacks lucky enough to closely resemble the slave master were given jobs in the big house as cooks and menservants, while their darker skinned counterparts were consigned to the fields.
This division of work along color lines gave birth to a de-facto caste system, the vestiges of which have survived today.
In the South, where the effects of this caste system were most evident, lighter skinned Blacks enjoyed higher levels of education, resulting in greater social status and financial rewards.
Lighter Blacks also experienced better relationships with Whites, who viewed them as less threatening than darker Blacks.
Fully aware of the advantages of light skin, fair blacks frequently married those of the same skin color, and in subsequent generations, forbade their children to marry dark complexioned Blacks.
If fair skinned enough, blacks could "pass," or move unnoticed into white society, thereby avoiding forever the social pitfalls blackness.
Of course no self respecting Black person would try to pass in this era.
Though there is still a stigma attached to being Black, our progress in gaining political and socioeconomic parity has made the need to "pass" unnecessary.
Not only that, but we have come to appreciate our African heritage, and at present are experiencing a resurgence of the Black pride movement that began in the mid-1960's.
Back then, blacks threw off the yolk of the dominant culture opting for an Afro-centric approach to their lives.
All across the country, Black college students were demanding that African and African American history become a permanent part of the curriculum, tossing out their pressing combs and bleaching cream and adopting natural hairstyles while celebrating the beauty of darker skin.
In the blink of an eye "Black power!" became the rallying cry of the day.
Unfortunately that swelling of ethnic pride had subsided by the 1980's and its seeming re-birth in the 90's lacked the fire and vision that had defined its predecessor.
With no discernible challenge to the values of the dominate culture, Black Pride circa 1990 emerged as little more than a commodity, commercially packaged and exploited for mass consumption.
Poorly rendered portraits of great African and African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.
, Nelson Mandela, abounded in K-marts and on street corners.
Leather necklaces fashioned in the shape of the African continent decorated the necks of black teens while the likeness of Malcolm X graced everything from T-shirts to baseball caps.
The traditional clothing of Africa, worn with such pride over twenty five years ago, was usurped by Madison Avenue to satisfy the public's craze for ethnic clothing.
Fast forward to the new millennium.
Once again wearing one's hair natural is frowned upon except in the entertainment industry and certain counter cultural circles; and the chemical relaxer, ironically bearing such names as Dark and Lovely and African Pride, has become the millennial version of the pressing comb.
Even bleaching cream, now euphemistically referred to as skin evener, is back.
The smiling blonde ideal continues to influence and define the physical perceptions of Black Americans years after we supposedly shook her influence for good.
But there is another image driving Black self-hatred, an image which is perhaps the most insidious of all.
Of course this woman's face is also a fantasy, an ideal thrust upon us by the dominant culture.
Her face is supposed to represent Blacks, but in reality she is something in between.
This woman is very light skinned, her hair is long, brown and loosely curled, her eyes often hazel or green.
Like most media images this one is non-representative, but it exists because it puts White America more at ease.
The harm in such an image is its ubiquitousness in a medium with incredible influence over so many young Blacks.
The message of such an image is obvious and culturally tragic.
Because of it, many of us endlessly straighten our hair, bleach our skins, mutilate our African features and wear colored contact lenses, effectively denying our cultural identity.
We demean ourselves by accepting a beauty standard imposed upon us for the twin purposes of dividing our people and assuring that we remain second class citizens, if only in our minds.
Not to say that Blacks born with more Caucasoid features are somehow less black or that those of us who chose to straighten our hair are ignorant of or ashamed of their African identity.
The argument isn't about who is black or who is not.
There is far more at stake than this simple statement.
At stake is our universal identity as a people.
For who are we truly if we continue to allow ourselves to be defined by a culture that often refused to recognize us as full citizens?Who are we if we continue to allow such a culture to define us in a way that negatively affects the self esteem of our children and sometimes our own? I think about my youngest sister, who is not bi-racial, but for all the world appears to be.
She is a lovely young lady with tawny skin, hazel eyes and wavy, chocolate-brown hair.
How often I have heard other blacks praise hair like hers as being good while in the same breath deriding the woolly textured hair more prevalent among us as "nappy", "kinky", and even plain "bad".
In truth there is nothing intrinsically beautiful nor superior in straight or woolly hair, in light or dark skin in blue or brown eyes.
Racial phenotype, the major physical differences found among the "races" are nothing more than climatic adaptations, much like the white coats of arctic animals.
The beauty in one's racial features derives from the recognition that they are one's own.
Each of us should take pride in how we look.
Whites and Asians certainly do, why don't we? Black people come in a rainbow of skin colors, ranging from fair ivory to deep ebony, and our hair textures vary from bone straight to woolly.
We should celebrate all of our beautiful variances, and we, not some European standard, should and indeed must, define our outer beauty.
If we cannot define who we are, what we are, and how we should look, we will forever remain victims of the worst type of slavery.
