THE DARKER SHADE OF BLACK I just have to get this out of my mind. There has been a lot of reaction spouting over #PharrellWilliam’s latest album cover, GIRLS, in which three women are depicted alongside him. There was a lot of commotion regarding his lack of black women on the cover. Some of you might think it’s a trivial matter, who cares? Well, to a black woman like myself, especially a #darkskinnedwoman, it’s important. #Blackwomen are demonized in pop culture every day. The black community in America is the driving force behind it. They don’t know it, but they’re infecting Africa too (globalization). We live in a world where #popculture is the empire and #celebrities are the rulers. Television, movies, magazines, books, social media and music affect all of us, and whether we like it or not, it’s what shapes most of our values, ideals regarding family, friends, beauty, culture, etc. The problem for me is that most of the depiction of black women are quite negative. As you’ve seen in real life, black women come in all shapes, sizes and colours. Some women who identify themselves as black come as white as Mariah Carey or as black as #LupitaNyongo. The problem is that white beauty is still the measurement by which #blackbeauty is measured. Just look around—look at all the most successful black women in Hollywood, many of them are mixed or light-skinned. Their features are often closest to white, complemented with long wavy hair. At this point in my life, I am not hung up on hair anymore, it’s all about the skin tone. Contrary to what you may be assuming at this point, I am not hating on mixed or light-skinned women. I wouldn’t turn against a black person like that. I don’t want them excluded or anything, I just want dark-skinned women included in the love. Shade DOES matter because we still live in a very racist world! I am mad at the people that consciously decide every day on their roles in the industry to ignore the darker shade of black. I am angry because it seems the dark black girl never crosses the mind of people who can have a genuine and meaningful impact in the stratosphere. I am mad because when confronted with this idea of shade, people like Pharrell totally miss the point. We’re talking about shade and he’s talked about race. We’re talking about an issue WITHIN the black community. Pharrell’s album cover is just an example of the plague within the black community in America. Pharrell has since addressed the outrage by pointing out that indeed, one of the girls is black. The girl closest to him, the middle, yeah, ‘she’s black.’ I know this sounds harsh to some of you, but seriously, if you want to represent black women in anything—make sure she looks black at the very least. Maybe he wasn’t planning on representing black women (and he doesn’t HAVE to), but as a black person out there ‘fighting the cause’, with diverse black female followers, is it too much to ask to use someone that reflects the girls in our mirrors too? The crazy thing is that he went on to say that he’s trying to change the standard of beauty??? Ha! By perpetuating it? Oh wait-you have to listen to the album to find that out! Ha, he’s an artist-he’s just in it for the money. He said, it sucked “for people to just look at something and to assume that they know what’s going on. If they just bothered to listen to my album, they’d know that my album was an ode to women, period. The one thing I was trying to help and aid in changing is this crazy statuesque standard of — you’ve gotta be white and thin for you to be beautiful.” First of all, he totally missed the point in my point of view and what a phony he is! We are a visual species. We go by what we see and the issue we are having is ALL ABOUT WHAT WE SEE. The black girl you have on your cover obviously does not look black, so you can’t point to her and expect us to be silent because you indeed ‘represented’ the black girl. It would have been better if they were all white. You could have just acknowledged the outcry and move on. The fact is that Pharrell is just following rules (how to appeal to the masses to sale, sale, sale!). Hollywood has limited the idea of black beauty for years! Nothing will change if we don’t continue to call out people who are perpetuating the limited idea of black beauty, especially when the vessels are black man. Black beauty is diverse! From Halle Berry to Alek Wek. Gosh! When I used to watch #BET, it was the same crap over and over again. Besides the objectification of women— it’s the use of the same type of black girls repeatedly on music videos, sitcoms, movies and commercials. If the darker shades are around, they’re always in the background. (And oh, it really bothers me when black couples are depicted as lights-skin woman and darker-skin men—almost ALWAYS! And this pattern is also easily depicted on red carpet it seems! Also in TV and movie families, a lot of the times the daughters are always lighter than the sons. It’s ridiculous). Even dark-skinned man have no respect for the dark-skinned woman. Even today, you’ll hear black men talking about how Lupita “ain’t all that,” but very quickly bow down to Halle Berry, Paula Patton, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Zoe Saldana, etc. Our dark-skinned brothers are fairing much much better than their counterparts. Tyrese Gibson, Idris Alba, Tyson Beckfod, Kevin Hart, Kanye West, Puff Daddy, Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, etc. Hmm, how any of them are married or dating anyone close to their complexion?? As for dark-skinned female celebrities, Lupita N’yongo, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Kelly Rowland, Naomi Campbell, who else? You cannot erase black girls and we will not be bullied into silence, especially by black men. Go to the youtube page of the Pharrell interview, read the comments, see how Pharrell’s issue has been morphed into the ‘angry black woman’ problem. So many comments there and elsewhere blaming black women for being insecure and angry. They just don’t understand. They are too comfortable bowing down to the white standard of beauty to notice how their daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and friends are being bullied by the same rules that was imposed on slaves by slave-owners. I have to do my part to speak up because this is my crazy world too and my beautiful dark-skinned baby girl is growing up in it. I want to make it a better place for all shades. So I will keep expressing myself and raising my voice for black women everywhere. #colorism #racism #sisterhood by Queen Nehanda
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 06:52:27 +0000
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