Lifeisannoying’s Weblog

Why are these two women in my head line space?

well i was drawn into a worrisome debate over on abagond on black beauty  and historically what that has meant. I became really troubled. Black beauty comes in all shapes and forms, i celebrate your beauty if you are fair or dark, but what worries me is that a LOT of black people do not.

For them only one of these beautiful women is truely beautiful. It’s the one on the left, it’s Cassie.  She is beautiful that is not what i am trying to raise, the fact that women like Gabrielle  are maligned for being dark. why should that be an issue in a worldwide diaspora  where the majority of that diaspora are dark skinned, where Cassie and fair skinned persons are a minority .

My arguement is not one that will degrade the beauty of fair skinned women of colour to uphold and glorify the dark skinned beauty, that is just ignorance, and not what i am about. My arguement is why sooo many people in my community hold so dear to a value system that asks them to hate so much of their self identity.

Too much of this arguement is taken up with mud slinging and to help ourseleves we have to stop.Much is  said of “fair skinned ,high yellow,redbone,red skin, clear skin…” and too much of  “nappy hair,blackie,darkie,….” no wonder we seemed to have regressed from the 1970’s and it’s high ideals of “emancipate yourself from mental slavery” To celebrate the beauty of one does not mean the denial of the other.

Growning up in the 1990’s i knew that the black women were all represented , in my community and  in black media,  vanessa williams, naomi campbell,nia long,tyra banks,alex wek,Crystal rose,Llwella gideon,Angie Le mar,Oprah winfrey,Aaliyah,lil kim,Faith evans, Mya, Lauren Hill

,en vogue ( had all shades covered),salt’n'pepper,TLC,Kele le roc, the Honeys and my favourites Eternal. By the end of the 1990’s something started to turn and i cannot say honestly i know what that was. After lauren hill had finished her miseducation releases, i noticed slowly that the women of colour in the media was tipping in favour of the lighter skinned woman. I cant say i minded a lot i will support black women  and i hope we all support each other regardless of small differences.

All of the female singers that recieved good to execellent Pr in england after 2001 were fair to medium in skin tone, we had  ashanti, we had christina millian, we had of course the indestructable machine that is Beyonce knowles, we even had her sister solonge knowles. we had tedra moseswe had the rappers trina, we had jackie o. I like most of these artists and they cannot explain this, they have walked into the situation  and  they are trying to earn a crust, but where did the dark skinned singers go? It could be the record companies fear that someone who is so differnt in phenotype to the consumer that the consumer will be put off? is it the conservative hopes of a record producer who feels thata fair skinned female will have better crossover appeal.

 we had Tweet whose first two singles were an absolute treat, and they did well, but then we never heard  her songs or follow up singles , we read about them and wondered why they were not on the radio? we had India arie, who ever was doing her publicity ought to be shot…. She should have been on this morning, on evening magazine shows, but apart from “black radio stations” i only saw things about her buried deep in the papers gigs sections 30 pages in.  but instead we have the beautiful but almost tuneless Rhianna  We even had the most popular sexual rapper in this decade Khia, she must have made a mint out of the amount i have heard that song in clubs and out and about, but in England they completely remade the video with 3 or four white models and a fair skinned black woman, completely airbrushing her image out. she’s no oil painting but i feels she has her own dirty charm. she really has the dirtiest face i have ever seen, like she has just done something unmentionable and is about to do so again.

 the acting world  faired no better, Halle berry was a household name in black household throughout the 1990’s due to her appearance in R kelly videos ( the ones that can be seen legally on music tv not the ones with the underage girls) and her apperance in classic film boomerang.       she is a biracial woman who self identifies as black, we have loved her sooo long. but after her oscar win, she seemed to be the only black actress cast in anything big budget. ( we love halle , hate the game not the player).Nia long was at the corneras working hard , after love jones and soul food , the big guns in hollywood would not let her in, she has done very well for herself in third watch and boston legal. However gabrielle union has cleaned up doing it big in will smith vehicle “bad boys 2″ and bring it on.  But with film there is the added trouble of competition from actresses whose racial identity is seen as less threatening. white actresses or ambigious latina actresses

The gripe in hollywood is “it’s all about money” and if they cast two ethnic leads white people won’t watch and the movie will tank and lose money. FALSE FALSE  look at slumdog millionaire…. all entirely south asian, big hit, we empathised with them not because we shared ethnicity but because we cared.

meanwhile where is Aisha taylor?i think she’s great but if you google her for images you will get not only the actress but about 7 or 8 other aisha taylors and fun snaps they posted of themselves, the same thing does not happen  to talentless losers like audrina from the hills…. life is annoying tho  so here is a picture of Nia long because she is always cute and  all the pic of Aisha were crappy.

So to summerise i think we need to evaulate why certain things are the way they are in our communities, why with the blecahing cream? why is that a viable business? we know it can cause all kinds of medical maladies and we all condemn it use, but we should ask ourselves why people want to use it in the first place, it is not as simple as saying “it’s the desire to tan in reverse”  people can use bronzing pearls for that and the last time someone ingested mercury or benzines from that i may have been asleep (it has not happened). Blecahing creams are damging, imagine if white people’s suntan lotions were found to contain carcinogens and mercury, people would be screaming from the roofs, so why aren’t we? Is it a nessecary danger for our women folk? a means to an end?

 come on people lets have a serious debate because it really is more than skin deep!!!