This comment was so outlandish I had to vent about it.
Today my
roomies and I were discussing the stigma of darker skin women having shorter hair. Its sad to see that some men and even some women overlook true beauty because it's not packaged in the standard of "American Beauty". What makes it even more sad is to see African American men publicly downgrade dark skin women who wear their hair natural. My
roomie told us a well know man-whore/jerk around St. Louis made a comment about her natural hair on
Facebook.
Let's view
Exhibit A:
"that is disgusting...how do you coloreds maintain such nappiness!! im so happy to be a (he put his last name here)!! need a comb?"*The guy who said this has light skin and very curly hair*
I couldn't even find the words to say after we saw this. Its a shame to see how American standards of beauty have plagued the black community. Are we suddenly now not considered beautiful because the texture of our hair? I got so mad to see another black man not only refer to another black woman as a "colored" but blatantly disrespect the style she chooses to wear her hair. As my roommates discussed this, it all brought memories of girls in elementary school that would be "grossed out" at texture of our hair and the oil we had in it and that we weren't "normal" because we didn't wash our hair everyday. And for another man to say pretty much the same thing, at that a black man?? I ask myself, how was this boy raised? Was he taught that the finer the hair the better? This type of view is embedded in him and it probably won't change.
This made me realize is that the racism within our own community still lives and still continues to tear us apart. The light vs. dark complex is apparent throughout the media. Black women in hair commercials always having sleek, straight hair, makeup ads targeted towards lighter-skin women. When black men are discussing the beauty of women the comment "she's cute for a dark skin girl" always, always, always comes up. It's been said to my face, and I think 'is that supposed to make me feel better about myself?' Why do we feed into this obscure opinion? Why are celebrities like Lil' Kim, harm their bodies to make themselves look lighter with more European features. Why don't black men embrace true beauty with whatever shade or hair texture?
:Sigh:
There's so much more I want to say but I could continue to talk about this for weeks. So ladies and gents, how do you feel about this comparison of light vs. dark, natural vs. straight? Will this issue continue or are we seeing changes within media of what black beauty is?
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