Comments

1. dersk wrote:

   For my wife’s 30th birthday last week, I organized a collection of a lot of her childhood mementos, including her black Cabbage Patch doll. The store clerk had apologized to her (dark skinned Jamaican) mother for only having black dolls left! And for the record, my wife was only slightly less nerdy looking than I was as a kid.

   One of the things I’d be curious to hear you guys talk about with beauty standards as well is the problem with going from stats (there’s a global, Euro-based beauty std.) to individual bits, and non-race-based beauty standards (do you care if people use fake tanning lotion or dye their hair blonde?) vs. race-based ones (nose jobs, straightened hair, etc.). In thinking about it, I keep going in circles across the various dimensions and am having a hard time coming up with a justified opinion on it…

   Posted 26 Nov 2009 at 9:57 am ¶

2. Adrienne wrote:

   Those attitudes exist because some people do not understand that white supremacy isn’t just klan memmbers in robes, but a belief that white is the gold standard to acheive to be.

   Being born white isn’t equal to being born dark and coveting white skin because you do not believe who you are born as color-wise is good.

   There were spiritual and psychological consequences for Black people who passed as White back in the day. I know a Black woman whose uncle drank himself to death because the stress of passing for White got to be too much.

   Wanting to have white skin equals wanting a piece of white privilege and wanting acceptance by white people.
   I saw this even in high school in a predominately White school, this Black girl who wore a weave and bright blue contacts who was dark brown and didn’t need any of that stuff to be beautiful nor was it important that she be accepted by White classmates on asuperficial level.

   Education creates freedoms worth more than trying so hard to have white skin. It helps us to love ourselves when we understand history.
   Her mother worried about her so much because it disturbed her that her weave, blue contacts, and desperate need to be welcomed into the fold of whiteness overshadowed loving her skin and eye color and focusing on her education at a college prep private school.

   There are breathing living POC who have the same view of themselves as the main character in the Toni Morrison novel “The Bluest Eye”

   Posted 26 Nov 2009 at 3:08 pm ¶

3. sallyjrw wrote:

   “Plastic surgery is an individual choice, a personal choice.”

   A choice made from absorbing societial standards of beauty and feeling inadquate. It’s terrible that people need cosmetic surgery for confidence and self-worth.

   Posted 26 Nov 2009 at 3:29 pm ¶

4. SuperAmanda wrote:

   I bleached my hair blond and wore white pancake makeup, I looked terrible but had to go through it as teen to figure out who I was. I saw almost every Italian American female in the media with very white skin and bleached white hair (gaga, stefani, madge etc) I did not see the dark sultry Sophia Loren of my personal view of what being Italian is anywhere. I still don’t but I figured it out and I think Sosa will too hopefully. I don’t think you can look at someone’s choices about how they look and judge “self hatred” though not unless you can see through their own eyes. And I do speak from experience even being southern European American, many Jewish women do too. Ultra Nordic beauty standards of beauty set by the media effects everyone but at what point does it start being OUR responsibility to effect change and not the responsibility of colonialism and the media?

   The media is admittedly all mighty yet we DO have the freedom to not have television in our homes. I know of a family who has a no screen policy in their home. No computer, no TV, no DVDs. Their children are not being indoctrinated into what they see via the media. Would any of us sacrifice TV, the computer, the convenience of having our children watch a dvd while get to take a shower in exchange for not having our children dazzled by images over and over?

   Solving problems like this takes action as you know. The constant reiteration of statements regarding race such as “we all come from Africa” which invariably comes up in any race discussion accompanied by PC cheering does not solve anything but further the melting pot myth from a POC perspective. And from the bottom of my heart, I want to change things and I have lived this, I just think the same tired arguments about these issues are constantly bandied about and when one DOES want to posit a NEW way of looking at them they are unfairly scorned. Remember we have a generation growing up who is seeing virtually all POC as preferable and extremely cool. They might read our discussions and think we are living an outdated overly sensitive persecution complex (I said WE not YOU . What they think is important as they are the next generation, they’ll be teens when our babies are nine and ten. They’ll be the next Miley Cyrus and Rhiannas. it would be great to get a few teens (POC and white) in on the New Year’s discussion.

   “In the new year, we plan to do a roundtable on Eurocentric beauty standards and people of color”

   White, white Hispanic, olive, Ashkenazi, Sicilian tan etc are all part of the rainbow and I look forward to them being included in the discussion. All my best to you.

   Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 2:46 am ¶

5. SuperAmanda wrote:

   Kristen made this very apt point on the aforementioned thread about Sosa:

   “Yes, but just because something is cultural doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. Sammy Sosa is Dominican (not African American), but it doesn’t lessen the impact just because it’s a longstanding cultural norm to uphold lighter skin in the DR. I think it’s still a form of racism to value one skin tone over another.”

   From wikipedia: As elsewhere in the Spanish Empire, the Spanish colony of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic) employed a social system known as casta, wherein Peninsulares (Spaniards born in Spain) occupied the highest echelon. These were followed, in descending order of status, by: criollos, castizos, mestizos, Indians, mulattoes,zambos, and black slaves. The stigma of this stratification persisted, reaching its culmination in the Trujillo regime, as the dictator used racial persecution and nationalistic fervor against Haitians.

   @Tami, I can see why you have been so concerned about this issue being perceived from your vantage point. My initial reaction after reading this was “Sosa never had a chance” but as mad as it makes me I refuse to give in to the oppressiveness of European Colonialism, that’s what they want us to do.

   If my son ever asked me why Sosa lightened his skin, I’d sit down with a map and explain the history of the country and also mention that it was his own choice.

   I may have to add homeschooling to the arsenal of anti racism parenting.

   Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 4:11 am ¶

6. Tami Winfrey Harris wrote:

   SuperAmanda,

   I am well aware of the effects of Spanish and other European clonialism around the world. That is the POINT. The cast system in Hispaniola is not much different from that in other colonized countries, including the US.

   No one is arguing that every POC has agency to change themselves in the way they want. No one is saying that Sammy Sosa is an awful person for changing his skin. The point is that our choices (ALL people’s choices) are not made in a vaccuum and are often influenced by larger forces, including race bias and other “isms.” It is good to examine those larger forces.

   You mentioned, too, that female actors of color don’t take heat for changing their look when it is perceived as erasing ethnicity. I disagree heartily. I have heard Beyonce, Halle Berry, Shakira, Lil Kim and a host of female celebrities analyzes for their choices. That they get slightly less attention likely has to do with the fact that beauty standards are more stringently enforced for women (any women). Larger society sees lightening, blonding, etc. as something women SHOULD do to be beautiful. It’s the intersection of racism and sexism.

   Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 8:50 am ¶

7. Lyonside wrote:

   >non-race-based beauty standards (do you care if people use fake tanning lotion or dye their hair blonde?) vs. race-based ones (nose jobs, straightened hair, etc

   Dersk – I’d argue that your “non-race” examples also have a racial component. Blonde hair is a trait found almost-exclusively in people with northern European ancestry, and both explicit (Nazi philosophy) and implicit (any kid’s human body book showing a stardard human being or “American” history textbook showing a typical American before, say, 1990, at least) has often placed people who look like that or close to it as the gold standard of humanity.

   And fake tanning has a connotation of 1) transience (the person doesn’t ALWAYS look like that, becuase a permanent “tan” would be negative), and 2) wealth and social status (the privilege to look like you went traveling to a warm or tropical climate in the winter months – with the assumption that you would naturally be PALE during the winter. Again – presumption is that the person is beautiful in part because they would otherwise be pale. Which goes back to race and ethnicity.)

   Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 10:53 am ¶

8. Lyonside wrote:

   Sorry – got carried away with the “()” there – it should read:

   explicit (…) and implicit (…) IMAGERY has …

   Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 10:54 am ¶

9. Lisa wrote:

   When I was teaching Asian students in an English Language School, the Korean students told me that most of the teenage girls in Korea that can afford it, have eye surgery to “widen” their eyes. I almost wept right there in the classroom.

   Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 12:14 pm ¶

10. Amy Mueller wrote:

    THANK YOU for these video clips! how can i get a copy of the full documentary?

    White Mother of an African American Girl who also thinks she’s not pretty enough –despite all.

    Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 12:21 pm ¶

11. ZooPath wrote:

    I’ve seen the doll test video over 10x since it came out and it makes me cry each time I see it. I just want to grab those little kids and somehow hug the white supremacy out of them. I wish, wish, wish they were too young to have picked up on this whole system we seem to have going on here.

    Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 2:13 pm ¶

12. SuperAmanda wrote:

    I don’t follow sports so I actually had NOT known of Sosa’s background. I incorrectly assumed that he was from Mexico and therefore buying into the long standing Hispanic-American history of distinguishing and separating oneself from Black Americans as much as possible.

    I think the ultimate solution is to see anti-racist artists with their own film-making communities and film studios. Tyler Perry helped produce “Precious” and hopefully, if the film is a success, he can then invest money into the next film, and so on. Hopefully something in between the slapstick of the Big Mama movies and the heavy emotional impact of Precious. Both films have a place but if you want to start smashing these beauty stereotypes then its going to mean films in which everyday likable characters, with natural hair and features, are in every day situations like “Marley and Me” or “Sleepless in Seattle” without being processed in the traditional stereotype of how the media expects a POC to look. People leave the theater happy beacuse it was a great film and not because it was a film where POC overcame obstacles related to being POC.
    How about a film with an interracial couple who have no racial situations associated with being an interracial couple? Like a film about an Atheist who has a happy life, I don’t think its ever been done.

    I don’t hold out much hope for TV as I do for film. TV advertising dollars make most of it happen and advertisers are people like Ponds. Films move mountains though and as I mentioned before, even a B movie is like a maturing investment as it nearly always keeps making money in some capacity. Yet the tie ins and merchandising that surrounds films featuring POC and AR influences can’t be out sourced to sweatshops in China or third world countries or whats the point? I listen to Daymond John who founded FUBU on Shark Tank and wonder why he thinks he’s a trailblazer; all his merchandise is made cheaply overseas by other POC!

    Anti-racist artists are in the ultimate catch 22, they have to uplift communities, defy stereotypes as well as be alternative business people and make a decent living without exploiting others.

    The bottom line is that if people see an image over and over again it starts to become the “image next door” and not something exotic and scary. As Dersk pointed out:

    “In thinking about it, I keep going in circles across the various dimensions and am having a hard time coming up with a justified opinion on it…”

    And therein lies the problem aka how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? It would be unfortunate if the perplexing and seemingly solution less answer to beauty stereotypes enforced on all of us became the core issue of anti-racism the way marriage has become to GLBT rights. There are bigger issues to be dealt with I think. Issues like the proper and honest teaching of history that if resolved would positively effect this one.

    Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 2:38 pm ¶

13. Adrienne wrote:

    The reason why I cringed at reading the article had more to do with this…imagine that the little girl in the video above is an adult woman who bleached her skin white. We would say she was a victim of racism, that she had hatred for her own skin color…we wouldn’t say she was racist.

    The “Sammy is racist” thing being taught from an adult to a child made me cringe because technically it makes more sense to say that Sammy Sosa chose to believe racist ideas that his dark complexion was not attractive or clean (wtf? on his calling it a procedure to cleanse and soften his skin as if dark skin isn’t clean and cannot be soft).

    Even in circles who feel that they are enlightened, and intellectual about racism, we sometimes view women as victims (victim of racism, poor thing p.o.v.) versus men as victimizers (Sammy Sosa is racist) who engage in the same behaviors that reflects a hatred of themselves.

    Even in an emotionally charged topic as this, the point gets lost that the way Sammy is described is cringe-worthy because of how past discussion of the effects of racism on women differ.

    Maybe something about a Black man seeming that powerless or weak angers some of us. We can stomach the same behavior from Black women much better than what Sammy did to himself.

    I feel sorry for Sammy. I couldnt help but notice the level of anger that permeates the article towards him. That is what I cringed at…not the idea that skin whitening of Black folks is cool or a historically, racially (and emotionally) neutral action.

    Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 11:55 pm ¶

14. Katie wrote:

    @Amy:
    It is a short documentary, 7 minutes or so. The full thing is available on youtube, just type in “a girl like me.” It really is an amazing film, AND it was made by a highschooler (at the time) I can’t wait to see what else she has in store for us.
    Seeing how early children internalize our racist society’s views is really heartbreaking, and the doll test scene has a visceral impact on me, I’ve seen it several times, but it still makes me cry.
    The fact that the filmmaker was so young herself reminds me that we can look to our children to see not only how much we are hurting them, but also how they are being critical of the ways that racism hurts black girls and actively working to open minds, create discussions, and try to bring about positive change.

    @Tami:
    Thank you so much for responding to this!
    I really like this site, but I have been concerned about some of the recent changes, including the tone of some comments (and the replacement of the word “racist” with “colorstruck” – colorstruck sounds so neutral to me – racist seems like a much more accurate way of describing the world)

    @Dersk:
    How does race ever not factor into beauty?
    White people have the privilege of choosing to alter their looks, OR leave their appearance exactly as god made them and still benefit from white supremacy.
    A White woman can choose to perm her hair if she wants to, but if she wears her hair natural (as most white women do) she will experience no fall out: she will still be able to be percieved as “looking professional,” people will not make assumptions about her political views, people will not only not speculate about her motives for choosing to wear her hair natural, they will likely not even stop to consider that it even is a choice.
    I am tired and getting a bit incoherent, but dersk, you acknowledge that you are going around in circles, and that seems to be a pretty accurate discription. Going around in circles is not productive, you seem intelligent and capable of engaging in discussions that could really change your thinking, and help you (and all of us) learn and grow. So why the circles?

    Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 1:32 am ¶

15. dersk wrote:

    @Lyonside – No, I defnitely agree on the tanning thing. It’s purely socioeconomic. Super pale white skin was popular long ago because it meant you didn’t have to go work in the fields; in the last century it was popular (and still is) because it means you have the leisure to relax in the sun.

    I’m just saying that there’s more dimensions than race to the issue…

    Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 9:57 am ¶

16. F wrote:

    Certainly, colonization and the globalization of U.S. media has affected beauty standards and caused self-hatred in many POC. However, skin whitening has a much more complex history. Let’s take China, for example. White skin has been prized since ancient times (check out Tang dynasty art and poetry) — but not because of white people! People with light skin were aristocrats who didn’t have to labor in the sun. Also, the aristocratic classes tended to have lighter skin than many other ethnic minorities in China. This was all before Europeans were even a blip on the radar. And it wasn’t even until the 20th century that Europeans were considered anything but hideous by Chinese standards (which were influential throughout the region).

    This isn’t to say that hating the color of your own flesh is good or even “okay.” It’s disturbing on many levels. And it’s not to say that colonization and contemporary Euro-centric beauty standards don’t play a role in contemporary Asian skin whitening (and of course they absolutely do in such travesties as eyelid surgery). But looking at skin whitening in Asia solely through a U.S./European cultural lens will result in a very limited understanding of the phenomenon and its longstanding cultural significance.

    So yes, I believe that contemporary Asian skin whitening does reflect self-hatred and the influence of Euro-centric standards. At the same time, it’s also an “Asian thing” that developed independently. Teasing out the differences and their impact is no easy feat, but insisting that it’s all about white people is likely to insult and condescend to a lot of people in Asia.

    Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 11:09 am ¶

17. Lyonside wrote:

    >No, I defnitely agree on the tanning thing. It’s purely socioeconomic.

    But I’m arguing that it’s not purely socioeconomic.

    I mean, do you see black and brown girls and women (usually, the pressure is on women) talking about whether they’ll go to the tanning salon before the prom or a wedding?

    It’s the transience – the idea that you aren’t ALWAYS this dark (and that that is a GOOD thing) that definitely IS a race-based beauty concept.

    Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 3:44 pm ¶

18. mamacandtheboys wrote:

    This makes me wonder about the trend in adoptive family social work (by trend I mean that I have heard this over and over again) to tell parents that it is developmentally “appropriate” for an adoptive child of color to want to have white skin like their parents. This is normal. I have never heard my son verbalize that to me, and if he did, I would not find it normal. I think it points to a very problematic association in the field. Or problematic approach period. Thank you for this post. More fuel for the important work we all do every day.

    Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 4:14 pm ¶

19. SuperAmanda wrote:

    @Katie You wrote:
    A White woman can choose to perm her hair if she wants to, but if she wears her hair natural (as most white women do) she will experience no fall out: she will still be able to be perceived as “looking professional,” people will not make assumptions about her political views, people will not only not speculate about her motives for choosing to wear her hair natural, they will likely not even stop to consider that it even is a choice.”

    Not necessarily true at all, if you are a white woman with curly, wavy or kinky hair. You face a huge stigma in trying to look “professional” and “polished” as in much of today’s work that equals straight, pin straight hair.

    A study about four years ago was done of about a 5000 various people of all backgrounds who were shown photos and asked to match professions . The white women with long dark curly hair were preconceived to not have a college education, be only moderately intelligent while a blond woman with long blond straight hair was not. Most assumed the dark curly haired white woman worked a low paying retail job. Did any else notice as soon as JLo, Beyonce and many woman of color became household names around the late 90’s that suddenly stick straight hair that you’d only seen on the Brady Bunch became hugely popular and still is? That is no accident!

    Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 5:18 pm ¶

20. Adrienne wrote:

    Did you read Jesús Triviño Alarcón’s article about Sammy Sosa at Essence magazine’s website?

    It goes addresses the history of racism and racial hatred of dark features within Afro-Latino cultures.

    http://www.essence.com/news/commentary_2/light_skin_vs_dark_skin.php

    Plus the ideals of white supremacy is global. It is not strictly an American issue, IMO.

    Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 10:14 pm ¶

21. Tami Winfrey Harris wrote:

    SuperAmanda,

    ALL women, regardless of race, are oppressed by strict majority standards of beauty. But, the fact remains that the standards are based on physical attributes found most commonly in people of European descent. Therefore, the standards are particularly a tyranny to people whose natural features are considered the opposite of the ideal.

    It is true that brown, curly hair is not considered the ideal, even when worn by white women and girls. However, kinky, black hair is considered so offensive that even most black women (who have absorbed majority standards) take great pains to cover it. It is thought unkempt, dirty, unprofessional, political and unsightly. (See the Glamour debacle from a couple years ago.) Black women lose their jobs for wearing their natural hair. Businesses write standards forbidding hairstyles most common to black, natural hair. The situations oppression comes from the same root; the oppression is not the same.

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 8:16 am ¶

22. S's mom wrote:

    I would like to hear opinions about the white women who lighten their hair to very blond, but who have children with dark hair (either by birth or adoption.) It happens all the time, but a perfect example is Madonna, who normally has brown hair. What messages are being sent? How do people feel about it?

    In any case, I think Sammy Sousa looks very handsome in his first picture, and it is a shame.

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 4:13 pm ¶

23. Biryani wrote:

    Its been decided by many that in order for us to combat racism its wise to start at early ages, but its not just teaching kids to learn to respect themselves (granted that is a huge part of it) and to critically analyze their own actions, or to keep them from television sets or computers (because seeing billboards on the train or going over to a friend’s house where they’re just as equally influenced by media), but to teach them via experience what we as Americans have been saying to preschoolers for years: treat others the way you want to be treated.
    And granted it works well to do so through the school system like in Jane Elliot’s experiment “A Class Divided” (found on youtube) but should also be made mandatory for parents to learn and teach their kids at home not be “color-blind” and not quite “anti-racist” but humanist and indulge in broad spectrums of culture.

    In my experience (akin to the children filmed in “A girl Like Me”) my parents conducted the same experiment on me but gave me (what could be considered a medium) a hispanic doll as well. Even so, I chose the white doll and when I was shown that I was wrong, I grew upset despite the fact that my parents had always taught me about my background. I needed pictures. I needed to tie emotions to words and vice-versa.

    As Adrienne said:
    “Education creates freedoms worth more than trying so hard to have white skin. It helps us to love ourselves when we understand history”

    However, education comes from experience. A child may recite the words but to truly and empathically understand them is what makes us grow.

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 4:27 pm ¶

24. SuperAmanda wrote:

    “The situations oppression comes from the same root; the oppression is not the same.”

    We have all lived different lives and see this through our own eyes which is why the issue is so complex and potentially nebulous. Racism is racism and the blatant nastiness one gets from US society for having curly/kinky hair starts really early just as it does with black children. Alot of it coming from the mouths of all races that are raising children and that is inexcusable.

    I agree job hiring for black women in the US with natural hair is an example of white supremacy but if a child experiences teasing and racism from blacks as well as Hispanics or whites, nastiness from public school teachers paid by the state and the lack of no one visibly representing them in the media how is that any less oppressive? It ALL ends up contributing negatively to society, race relations and personal self worth.

    How many white women with curly dark hair are on TV or in movies? Or ever depicted princesses in children’s marketing? or as dolls? Streisand only got acceptance (and Redford) when she goes to Harlem and gets her kinky Jewish ironed in “The Way We Were” and Julianna Marguiles has not straightened her hair post ER.
    But on the other hand, is a biracial person automatically buying into racism if they want straightened hair? If someone like Norah Jones who openly identifies more with their European ancestry “internalizing white supremacy” or simply identifying with whats she really is? Though I know you are not responding this way, the beauty debate is not really resolvable when one replaces a personal choice with the umbrella response of ” internalizing white supremacy” and that’s most of what one reads on the blogs and in the anti-racism media.

    My point is not to down play the oppression that black women face in anyway but to ask why, with so much knowledge available now, do blacks as well as whites in day to day life not just the media, continue to foster these “good hair” “trying to act white” “you look ghetto” stereotypes?
    When does it become the responsibility of all of us to switch off the TV, not buy the magazines, stop the nasty comments and start reading? I would not be surprised if the majority of the children in the doll video above grew up watching hours of TV daily. Internalized US racism coming through generations has a solvent in the bravery of people to shut off the TV, speak out not just against white supremacy but those in their own community who buy right in.

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 4:49 pm ¶

25. SuperAmanda wrote:

    Correction: Julianna Marguiles *HAS* straightened her hair post ER.

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 4:50 pm ¶

26. Biryani wrote:

    Not all television programs are racially biast. Turning off the television doesn’t make the pressures of society go away for children. You cant just turn off media influence because it is everywhere. It isn’t your job to “speak out against white supremacy [and] those in their own community who buy right in” but to educate them because otherwise, you’re only thickening the tension and barrier of “us” and “them”

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 6:25 pm ¶

27. Victoria wrote:

    There is no doubt that skin color is a prevailing part of the American culture. Remnants of slavery are still seen in today’s society. White privilege and subtle racism seem to be at the core of race relations. Sammy Sosa’s actions appear to show that the white ideal is still deeply ingrained in our culture. After a mere half a century of slavery being outlawed, the prevalence of the white ideal comes as no surprise. For something that is so ingrained in the American culture and took so long to establish, it will take a few generations for it to disappear into the oblivion.

    With the first black president as a bright, yellow super-highlighter that emphasizes race relations, A Girl Like Me is a wonderful short film and comes at a great time for the US. The director did a great job at compressing the information and getting her point across in just a few minutes (in reference to the link posted above, which I assume is the documentary in its entirety). It was smart of her to focus on the young African-American female population since a lot of the other documentaries – that I know of – focus on white women. The connection that was most salient to me in the documentary was of body image and wanting to appear whiter. Upon watching the featurette, I thought of a movie by Joan Kisbourne called Killing Us Softly, which discussed the medias’ –specifically, advertisements’ – focus on and objectification of the perfect woman. She discussed how these advertisements constrained women and made them feel powerless, hopeless, and ugly. The perfect image, as Joan Kinsbourne said, is unattainable. As can be imagined, most of the advertisements featured white women, with size 2 bodies, unbelievably proportioned features, and the like. The point that I would like to make is that white women are unable to achieve this image of “perfection,” and, even with race aside, it is doubtable that black women would be able to achieve this image of “perfection.”

    Wanting to seem white because of this system of privilege is a serious problem. However, it is important to consider all possible causes of the actions of African Americans to try to attain a white look. As Adrienne wrote, she had a classmate in high school that wore a weave and bright blue contacts in order to seem whiter. This is quite possibly due to the system of privilege. Nonetheless, it could also be due to other factors that should not be automatically discarded. It is also important to note that brown eye color is a lot more common for all of the races than blue or green. Therefore, the blue contacts might have been as a result of fashion, which changes every season. It might also have happened to be at the time that colored contacts were all the rage. In terms of the weave, it might have also been a fashion or a simple peer pressure. I think that a number of us have been in that place where our eye color isn’t the desired one, our hair is an unfashionable mess (or, in my case, a mop ☺ ), and our bodies are a lot curvier or skinnier than the norm (which is a whole other topic).

    The message behind this post is that media is one of most important influences in our modern society. And, unfortunately, it carries messages that do not represent the masses and influence them in a negative way.

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 11:29 pm ¶

28. Karen L wrote:

    @Katie,
    You wrote @dersk: “Going around in circles is not productive, you seem intelligent and capable of engaging in discussions that could really change your thinking, and help you (and all of us) learn and grow. So why the circles?”

    In no way do I want to respond for dersk, but I thought your question was interesting and thought I’d have a go at answering. It’s not about intelligence, is it? In fact, intelligence can be misapplied and end up being used to rationalise all kinds of foolishness. There’s a difference between intelligence and wisdom.

    My head didn’t really spin on this topic, but I can see how it might for some white people. I (mentally) agreed with Tami and Liz very quickly when I read their posts about Sammy Sosa – which in and of itself was worrying to me. It has nothing to do with what they wrote, didn’t write, or what I read between their lines. It has everything to do with my realising that my snap judgements about anything to do with race should not be trusted because I’m white and racism is engrained. Add to that that I had a “yuck” reaction the to the before and after photos. Another red flag.

    Now what to do with those red flags?

    If I don’t want to deal with my own racism (or the possibility thereof), then I can dodge the issue. One handy way for white people to avoid dealing with racism is to recentre on classism. It’s “safer” but totally missing the point that a person of colour is telling us that this is about RACISM. The circles come because we trying to talk about race/colour/ethnicity without approaching the part of our brains where we’ve “hidden” our own racism. Dodge racism, weave to classism, oops dangerously close to racism again. Try again. Rinse, lather and repeat.

    Now if I’m up to dealing with my own racism, I might or might not like what I find lurking in my own head. Why was I SO QUICK to agree that Sammy’s whitening was BAD? Some scary and not-so-scary possibilities:
    1) What Liz and Tami wrote is clear, convincing, and down-right irrefutable.
    2) As a woman I’ve experienced how beauty standards have been harmful to me; and so, it appeals to my intuition that Eurocentric standards can be just as harmful or especially even more harmful to people of colour.
    3) Did the “after” Sammy’s racial ambiguity defy my cognitive short-cut of putting people into boxes labelled black, white, red, and yellow?
    4) Maybe “after” Sammy doesn’t look good because his skin looks greyish or “unnatural?” Hm. I don’t like where this is going.
    5) If “after” Sammy didn’t look good to me, let’s look at “before” Sammy again. Uh oh. I have to admit, I’m not very attracted to him. Coincidence I hope. And yet, I can’t come up with any good “excuses.” That’s a nice smile. Nice teeth. Proportional features. Unblemished skin. Seems pretty symmetrical. Clean-shaven (my preference.) Neither over- nor under-weight (another issue altogether.) Best I can come up with “too old for me.” Still younger than George Clooney, though. This is getting a little dangerously close to: I’m not attracted to him because he’s black.
    6) “Who’s he trying to fool? Everyone knows he’s black and he still looks black.” Uh oh. Am I mentally trying to keep all this pale privilege to myself and keep Sammy in his place?

    “Danger, danger. I don’t want to be a racist. Can we please think about something else? Like how lots of cultures have a history of prefering light skin for class reasons, from even before European influence, ergo, this can’t all be about European racism?”

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 12:40 am ¶

29. dersk wrote:

    @Katie / @Karen:
    Well, when I said I was going around in circles, it’s more that I think the issues go way beyond just race:

    - I disagre with Karen that all of these standards for beauty and attractiveness boil down to race (for example, tans on white folks, the quest for youth, etc., etc.).

    - While in some cases corporations form the standards (for example, if you shave your legs it’s because Gillette needed to figure out how to sell more razors early in the 20th century), in most cases I think they’re trailing and reflecting societal trends, rather than leading them.

    - On the one hand, I think people ought to be able to do whatever they want with their bodies to fit whatever their personal ideal of beauty is; on the other hand, it’s a shame if people aren’t happy with what their chromosomes gave them; on the third hand, I suppose that it’s impossible to have a standard of beauty that’s free of external or in some cases genetic influences.

    So I don’t think it’s a really cut and dried (black and white?) issue – even Tami’s title says “It’s never OK” and then in a comment she’s careful to say that she’s not condemning Sosa.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 9:23 am ¶

30. cocolamala wrote:

    but “tans on white folk” are not the focus of the discussion here…this site is about the intersection of race and parenting…if you are parenting a child of color, how does race particularly impact their experience, how can you educate yourself towards understanding those experiences and creating a positive avenue for growth and self-esteem.

    this discussion thread reflects denial and refusal to engage these topics on the issue as they relate to and affect people of color. its not about how white people with kinky/curly hair deal with the european beauty standard…it is about how being a person of color distances you from the beauty standard in a particular way.

    i wish people would address that issue instead of pretending it’s okay to ignore it, or act like we’re supposed to be examining class on this website instead.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 11:17 am ¶

31. cocolamala wrote:

    “how being a person of color distances you from the beauty standard in a particular way.”

    it seems like we are trying to examine the particulars of that experience using Sosa as an example. some questions we can ask include these:

    “how did he come to the conclusion that bleaching his skin was an acceptable cosmetic choice?”

    “in light of the health risks associated with these cosmetics, would you encourage your child to change their skin color?”

    “if you are parenting transracially, how can you encourage your child of color to cherish their own skin color? is that even important to you?”

    “if not, would you feel good about your child attempting to erase their race to better fit in with a european beauty standard or come closer to your family’s look?”

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 11:28 am ¶

32. Adrienne wrote:

    All this talk of women, beauty standards for women, and Black women and White women is making me notice the absence of talk about Black boys and men and the ways that racism impacts them.

    Maybe I notice this because I am raising a Black son.

    I want to hear from other Black and Latino men what they think of the Sammy Sosa thing.

    Karen L brings up a good question…why did I automatically assume Sammy bleaching his skin was bad?

    Because of the dangers of skin bleaching creams, which can cause scarring of the skin when used long term, can cause the skin to turn purple in the sun, makes the skin more vulnerable to the sun…in other words I think that skin bleaching is caustic to the skin…and to the sense of identity.

    Because of the history of racism and colorism and what the symptoms of those would manifest in someone who has the means to change their features.

    I also noticed Sammy didn’t have a dark skinned Black woman on his arm, but a White woman when he bleached his skin…which signaled to me his wanting to be accepted by White folks, versus being himself whether amongst White folks or Black folks.

    I noticed the contacts, and the hair straightened, and I noticed his statement that he was “cleansening” and “softening” his skin, as if his dark skin wasn’t soft or clean and needed extreme measures for it.

    Sammy Sosa cannot create a whiteness that only God created. Being born Black is beautiful. Being born White is beautiful. Artifically creating Whiteness in yourself isn’t beautiful, IMO. It doesn’t look natural (yes it does look grey-ish, bizarre, unnatural). The complexion won’t remain the same, it is more vulnerable to changes caused by the sun and scarring and other effects of long term bleaching.

    If it were just a trend, and the trend changed, he’s stuck as he is.

    At least the girl I went to high school with could take out her contacts and the weave should she have realized her own hair was wonderful and so was her own eye color.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 12:43 pm ¶

33. SuperAmanda wrote:

    “Not all television programs are racially biast. Turning off the television doesn’t make the pressures of society go away for children. You cant just turn off media influence because it is everywhere. It isn’t your job to “speak out against white supremacy [and] those in their own community who buy right in” but to educate them because otherwise, you’re only thickening the tension and barrier of “us” and “them”

    I mentioned educating people on the original post, teaching history without glossing over colonialism (but at the same time not using it as an exclusive excuse to blame white supremacy for today’s racism) and possibly homeschooling as a solvent. I know its not a popular truth but I think we all know that parents of color reinforce these nasty beauty and racial stereotypes (including the arcane one drop rule and color casts) as much as white supremacy does. Blaming the past, internalized racism or even economics is not the answer, in fact it plays right into the hands of the white power structure and white nationalism which is skyrocketing as a movement even before Obama’s election. Divide and conquer, its their trick and its still working. We all know what created this tragedy, changing it is going to take more than the attempts of the past which have obviously not worked. When I hear racism I always speak out if I can because ignoring people is how it continues-it is your job to say something or do anything you can or else more children or going to be self hating or racist and passing that hatred along.

    The media is the new Colonialism and has been since Birth of A Nation premiered, don’t think for a second that it can be used to effect long term positive change in the lives of POC and anti-racism. If you want nothing to change then that is the prevailing attitude to have, that the media is not “all” biased. Please name one mainstream show that is not advertised by or does not feature racial or culture stereotypes or POC processed to look white? I’m not just talking blatant in your face stereotypes either but the fact that almost all women of color on TV look somewhat to virtually all Caucasian while most of the male actors have had their noses altered, even sports stars. Thousands of hours, countless times over and a repeated image, even subtle one effects how people judge and rate others visually. The media is where the national ideals are set in fact many of the reasons we have these stereotypes in the first place are because of films, radio and TV which like Civil rights only moved out of the 19th century when their was untold pressure. Until there is more untold pressure and a huge backlash by consumers and viewers as well hypocritical dolts like Spike Lee ceasing their attacks against other POC who come along (like John Singleton &Tyler Perry) the white supremacist stereotypes will continue to endure and get stronger.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 1:56 pm ¶

34. SuperAmanda wrote:

    “I also noticed Sammy didn’t have a dark skinned Black woman on his arm, but a White woman when he bleached his skin…which signaled to me his wanting to be accepted by White folks, versus being himself whether amongst White folks or Black folks.”

    It can also signal that he’s found someone he’s genuinely in love with too. Imho once you are casting aspersions on why someone is sleeping with another person than I think the race and beauty debate has gone too far afield.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 3:45 pm ¶

35. Katie wrote:

    @Karen L.
    good point about intelligence! (I totally just threw that in to make sure my post was approved and to clarify that this wasn’t a personal attack).
    I think you are probably right that discomfort about talking about race / confronting their own racism is a major reason that white people engage in circular thinking (or just change the subject) when talking about race.

    @dersk:
    So here’s part of your circle. We are talking about the ways that racism influences our ideas of what is attractive. And you say:
    “I think people ought to be able to do whatever they want with their bodies to fit whatever their personal ideal of beauty is.”

    WHERE do we get our “personal ideas” of beauty??? None of us live in a vacuum, and growing up and living in a racist society profoundly influences our so-called “personal ideas.”

    Racism really messes with all of our heads. And the point of a site like this is to help us untangle the racism we see every day as well as the racism we carry around in our minds.
    And we are trying to teach our children to think critically, and not just accept the racism that surrounds them.

    @Adrienne:
    good point about getting the male perspective… especially since the person who sparked this “discussion” is a man. I think we have a disproportionate number of women commenting here, but also maybe men aren’t as used to talking about male looks.

    For me personally, I don’t quite feel like what Sammy Sosa did is “bad.” It just makes me very sad. I feel like what the world did to Sammy Sosa, in making him want to bleach his skin is bad.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 4:31 pm ¶

36. Jaclyn wrote:

    The first video, “A Girl Like Me” mentions that the results of this experiment are just as painful as the results of the experiment 50 years ago. How deeply wrong they are. This is more painful. Even after all of this time, nothing has changed with this experiment. Even after the consciousness raising groups, anti-racists, activists and education, this has stayed stagnant.

    It is really disgusting how society makes blacks and other minorities feel down about themselves. They literally are filled with self-hatred. This is incredibly depressing.

    There are only so many ways that a 5-year-old child can express and exhibit self-hatred. The scope of the acrimony that is exemplified in this video is hideous. A young child deems the black doll as the “bad” one, and then when asked which one looks more like them to slowly and shamefully pick up the black or “bad” doll. What is wrong with this picture?

    How can people say that they aren’t racist? How can people say that race isn’t an issue anymore? How can anyone be comfortable seeing these children grow up with the animosity against themselves? How can parents and teachers let this happen?

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 7:35 pm ¶

37. Adrienne wrote:

    SuperAmanda,

    I have the right to cast aspersions by hinting that Sammy Sosa is trying to be accepted in the world of White folks. That is very real. A friend of mine’s uncle did the same thing Sammy did without the skin bleaching and with the disowning of his family. The stress of pretending to be White got to be too much and he drank himself to an early death.

    If Sammy was dating a Black woman I doubt he would bleach his skin. I stand by my statement, as a Black woman who is in an interracial marriage with a White man who hasn’t bleached my skin.

    I highly doubt Sammy will be comfortable around Black folks now, especially the critical eye many Black folks would take to his starkingly bleached out complexion. Many Black folks cast the same critical eye when Michael Jackson’s skin got whiter and we did not know he had vitiligo.

    By bleaching his skin and speaking negatively about his dark skin needing to be cleansened and softened, he loses the high probability of being able to freely mingle amongst Black folks and White folks without being self conscious about his appearance not being acceptable and being stared at and examined for the drastic change he did to his skin. It is very telling that even White people are startled by his appearance.

    By bleaching his skin he is outing his own insecurities about his complexion.

    As a parent I cannot make light of the seriousness of what Sammy did to his skin–a permanent solution that he cannot take back. Even Michael Jackson had regrets about the plastic surgeries he chose to have done to himself, and his regrets had to do with how the surgeries brought his features so far away from what many Black folks share in common in our beautiful God-given features.

    As a parent I wish to teach my son the color and features we are born with that identify us as Black is beautiful, and will always be beautiful, and no surgery that can take those features away will take away the pain and insecurities a person may have about having Black features. I can even show my son photos of his beautiful biological family and point out how beautiful and handsome each person is, who also look like him.

    Black people have used plastic surgery for years and still kept their features as Black, such as Patti LaBelle.

    The irony is that amongst White people, if a White person has extreme plastic surgery, many White folks have critiqued it as bad plastic surgery and plastic surgery taken to the extreme.

    What Sammy Sosa did is extreme. And yes his right to do so, and incredibly sad that he took it there to avoid looking Black.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 7:57 pm ¶

38. SuperAmanda wrote:

    “A friend of mine’s uncle did the same thing Sammy did without the skin bleaching and with the disowning of his family.”

    But while see the point reagrding most of what you wrote you still are ONE person judging another person’s personal choice of who they sleep with and you have no idea what that may be about and why would you want to? That’s not that far off from what Rush Limbaugh and the Prop.8 people are on about or Judge Keith Bardwell who would not marry the interracial couple because HE felt they were marrying for racially unsound reasons.

    To quote Martin Duberman: “Besides, many people have overlapping identities that compete for attention over time; and how we rank their importance in shaping our personalities can shift, which in turn leads to a re-allocation of political energies.”

    and

    “Whether, for example, one defines “working class” in terms of income, job status or educational level, it should be obvious that not all working-class people have had an interchangeable set of experiences; being on an assembly line cannot be equated with cooking hamburgers at McDonald’s, nor illiteracy with a high school education, nor life in a trailer park with life in a slum. A historian with a “working class” background cannot assume that that fact alone will open the gates of understanding to his or her working-class subject. ”

    You may know your relative who passed and his struggles but you don’t know Sammy Sosa’s struggles one iota. I could quote many personal experiences I’ve had regarding race and I simply can’t apply them to someone I have never met or I’d be giving into hatred and resentment of other races including my fellow Italian Americans.

    “Black people have used plastic surgery for years and still kept their features as Black, such as Patti LaBelle.”

    Perhaps but her nose is keeping with the white approved media atheistic of being very straight bridged with a bumped tip at the end and while she and Mary J Blige and Tyra do not look as unnatural as Janet Jackson (at least not until you see them in person and then they do look very “done”) its still based around a Caucasian aesthetic.
    That is what is KILLING young children’s self esteem especially if they are all black.

    Until there are films for both children and adults with people with all natural features and hair in everyday fun, normal situations and not overcoming racial strife via plot lines where race does not even come up as it almost never does in white themed films, then there will be a big change. There needs to be princesses, angels, soccer moms, straight A students, vampires, fashionistas, back backers etc. As for fashion and TV, we are sitting in front of the biggest weapon that can take down a company like Ponds or ad campaigns with models in black face. It is just a matter of using it and being brave.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 10:36 pm ¶

39. SuperAmanda wrote:

    Correction : Your friend’s uncle who passed for white. Sorry that was incorrect.

    Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 10:43 pm ¶

40. Tami Winfrey Harris wrote:

    This conversation, sadly, derailed a long time ago. Comments are now closed. Look for a stronger moderation policy soon.

    Posted 01 Dec 2009 at 6:41 am ¶