To all my black women, you are beautiful—no matter the skin color
I recently got word of an upcoming film called “Dark Girls” (thanks Robert Pierre), and the reaction to the film has seemed so strong that I almost felt obligated to chime in on the conversation.
The gist of the film is that there is still a deep-seated bias and negative attitude about beauty toward dark-skinned black women. Most black folks are aware of the divisions that have been created in our community because of slavery and the construct of race, which tries to place a value on skin color and causes all kinds of frictions among men and women (“Looks like light-skinned brothas are coming back…” You’ve heard them all before.).
I spoke to two of my aunts about the film, and they shared their experiences of being treated differently because of their darker skin.
I’m sure most people have also heard about the article evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa published in Psychology Today in May titled, “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” You already know how that one ended.
I asked some of my Facebook people for their thoughts on the film, and the response I got from one of my former Cal classmates was so on point that I wanted to share it in its entirety. From April Brown:
Many cultures have similar issues with darker skin tones being undesirable, and while I do think this is an interesting topic to explore I hope the conversation is not about Dark skinned girls V.S. Light skinned girls, because we truly don’t need any further division. The last comment about the lack of a Black Community as a result of lack of language and other cultural aspects is what I would like to hear a dialogue about, and how this void is being filled by others who do not have our best interest at heart.
April also added:
and something else came to mind after thinking about this for awhile. Why is it a “popular belief” that lighter skinned women are more attractive, but not that lighter skinned men are more attractive. Is it just because in society at large women are judged based on beauty and men are judged by other criteria? I really can’t think of many women I know who prefer a lighter skinned man for any reason other than having children who have hair with a loosened curl pattern?
I’m sure that when it comes out, this film will bring out a lot of deep-rooted emotional pain. But let me repeat the comment I made after I first saw the preview of this film, just to make a point here.
I know this is an issue in our community and in America, but it’s still unfortunate that blackness is still too often viewed as not being beautiful. I never understood that. My grandma always taught me that there are 21 shades of blackness, and we’ve got a lot of them in my family. So I have never associated beauty with skin color, although I guess many people still do that.
The issue for me here is this: why are we focusing so much on these skin color extremes when the real battles are outside of our community? It seems like this film is more about the problem with black relationships (i.e. marriage, dating, raising our kids). If we’re talking about real issues in the black community, I think a bigger issue is this thing of being black enough (something I’ve had personal experience with, even though both of my parents are black [I actually have had to explain that to people]).
Or perhaps the bigger and more important issue is just self-esteem and mental health (check out allhiphop.com).
Either way, it seems like there are just too many people who haven’t heard enough about what the Bible already tells us: that we’re fearfully and wonderfully made.
‘I sho am hungry…’
Photo by sfbike (via Flickr)
A story in the LA Times this past week (“UC Irvine says fried chicken and waffle dinner on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was insensitive”) immediately caught my attention not just for the obvious reasons but also because it brought up memories of a similar incident that happened when I was a student at UC Berkeley.
As background, the LA Times story was about a last-minute decision by the dining hall staff at UC Irvine to serve chicken and waffles for a Martin Luther King Jr. symposium organized by the school’s Black Student Union, which sparked an uproar among the school’s minuscule black population (only 2 percent of the school’s entire undergrad makeup).
Without being there and being in those UC Irvine students’ shoes, it’s difficult to come to any definitive conclusions about what the correct reaction should be. But for the sake of this post, I’m going to do just that because I know exactly how they feel, having had a similar experience.
On the last day of Black History Month (Feb. 28, for those who have forgotten) in 2001, the Daily Californian printed a full-page ad by prominent conservative writer David Horowitz titled, “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea-And Racist Too.” Needless to say, the black students at Cal saw this as a complete slap in the face and raised issue with the campus paper and university (check out my bio on my portfolio website to understand the connection this incident has with my career in journalism).
But incidents like these aren’t just limited to happening once every blue moon. You remember what happened last year at UC San Diego, right? A student hung a noose in the school library like it was a joke during Black History Month. That was preceded by an off-campus party that was labeled the “Compton Cookout,” which mocked black culture and, of course, also ignited racial tensions.
So the question I pose about all of these incidents is this: How are black people most appropriately supposed to react? As expected, are we supposed to complain about the fact that someone basically said, “Hey, these black students are celebrating their culture. I know what will make them happy. Let’s serve them some of that good old-fashioned soul food because we know they’ll like it and all we serve throughout the rest of the year is that un-ethnic cafeteria food.”? Or should we just bite our tongues, be ourselves and enjoy the fact that, on at least one day out of the year, someone was considerate of our interests—even if it makes us a little self-conscious. Because, let’s be honest, there’s nothing like soul food and it does taste good.
The answer is both. Black folks have a right to be upset about this, and the fact that someone made the decision to serve chicken and waffles—one of the greasiest kinds of soul food—is just down right insulting, no matter what the person’s intentions might have been. On the other hand, this didn’t have to be blown out of proportion because, let’s be honest, it’s not every day at a majority white and Asian university that you get to enjoy soul food. Bottom line: W.E.B. Du Bois’ observation that African Americans live behind “the veil” and have double consciousness still rings true. And despite the U.S. having a black president, most Americans don’t get that concept.
Moral of the story: Serve more greens and cornbread.
The other most important black people in America
Ursula M. Burns (via The New York Times)
I know the honeymoon period over President Barack Obama seems to have passed in the eyes of most Americans (his approval rating is now 44 percent). But in the black community you’re still likely to hear talk about how much Obama’s election has meant to African Americans–particularly, young African Americans.
The notion is that now that Obama has become the most important person in the land, black children all across the United States finally have been shown that they can do anything. To me, that thinking is still too small.
Let’s look at some examples of other black folks who have achieved legitimate HNIC status. Despite how you might feel about the economy or executive compensation, we can look no further than the five black CEOs (yes, these are the only ones) who are running Fortune 500 companies:
- Clarence Otis Jr., CEO of Darden Restaurants, which runs Olive Garden and Red Lobster
- Kenneth I. Chenault, CEO of American Express
- Rodney O’Neal, CEO of Delphi Corp., one of the world’s largest automotive parts manufacturers
- Ronald A. Williams, CEO of health insurance giant Aetna
- Ursula M. Burns, CEO of Xerox
So does this mean President Obama’s election should not hold any historical, racial or emotional significance to the black community? Never. What this does mean is that when we now tell our kids that they can become anything they want, let’s expand the horizons of their occupational dreams by showing them there are plenty of tangible opportunities for black people in America. Just a thought I wanted to share.
Slavery a good thing for black people? Another perspective
via PBS
As some people know, I’m planning to go on a reporting trip to Sierra Leone soon. In preparation for the trip, I’ve been talking to a number of folks who are familiar with the country. I had an interesting conversation not too long ago with a Sierra Leonean American living in the Pacific Northwest. He was telling me about how the people in Sierra Leone are some of the most welcoming people you will ever meet.
But as went on about Sierra Leone’s unique history (as you know, Sierra Leone was settled by freed slaves brought there by the British navy in 1787) and how that history plays an important role in why Sierra Leoneans are so friendly and generous to foreigners, he said something that made me pause for a moment and reflect on my own experience as an African American.
He began talking about slavery’s influence on Africa and how, in his opinion, slavery could be viewed as a good thing for black people. What?!?! I was thinking to myself. This can’t be right. But check out his reasoning (I’m paraphrasing a little):
When someone comes in your house to rob you, they could just take your things because they see them as valuable. But when someone is bold enough instead to take you away from your home to go back with him to his own home, that says something about you: that you are extremely valuable.
I know this might sound like something that would come from one of those black folks who got co-opted by Pat Buchanan, but this is coming from an entirely different point of view. It begs the question: Could this brotha have a point?
What would Marvin Gaye say about the number of black students at Berkeley High in AP classes?
By Head of the Class via flickr
This week, while I was at church, I heard the most disturbing bit of news from our pastor about Berkeley High (at one time called the most integrated high school in America): that Berkeley High, the school right down the street from my alma mater, only has one black student taking an AP class. Out of a school population of about 3,300 that is 31 percent black, this can’t be true, I thought to myself.
It immediately made me think of my own experience in high school where, like many other black students throughout this country, I felt like I was the only black student taking any advanced courses. Thinking back on it now, I don’t remember any of my AP classes having another black student in them. So it’s no surprise that Berkeley High is supposedly experiencing the same phenomenon.
But then I ran across this:
Calling the racial achievement gap ‘the most important educational challenge for the United States,’ a 1999 national study by the College Board found only 17 percent of black and 24 percent of Latino high school seniors to be proficient in reading, 4 percent of black students to be proficient in both math and science and no black students and 1 percent of Latinos to be advanced in those subjects.
This comes from a 2001 story from Salon.com that focused on an ambitious program at Berkeley High started by Parents of Children of African Descent, otherwise known as PCAD, which was singlehandedly trying to close the “achievement gap” between white students and students of color at the school. But just when you thought the last statement was bad, the story brings up this appalling point, which is relevant to today’s discussion:
Remedies recommended by the [College Board] read much like PCAD’s (and every parent’s) wish list: making schools smaller, lowering student-teacher ratios, spending staff development money to provide students with better-educated teachers and offering students an academically challenging curriculum.
Many of these remedies have been adopted by the one American school system in which the achievement gap has been addressed with some success: the U.S. military’s. In the 71 schools operated on domestic military bases, 26 percent of black children and 32 percent of Hispanics scored at or above passing level, compared with 7 percent and 10 percent, respectively, nationally.
How does the military succeed where civilian schools fail? One factor is money. Base schools spend 23 percent more per pupil than public schools, fund music and art programs and are well-endowed with computers. Another is parent involvement — a key element of the PCAD approach.
So after being completely shocked after hearing about the one black student at Berkeley High taking AP classes and after being reminded of why that black student is all alone through this Salon.com story, the only thing I can truly do is call upon the oh so eloquent words of our brother Marvin and ask Berkeley, ask California, ask America: What’s going on!