One of the first things I learned when I was little was that I was "pretty". My hair, though thick and unruly and with a definite tendency towards a negro kink, was soft and long, almost to my waist. My skin was golden-brown, my lips fairly small and shapely, my hands dainty and well-formed. My feet were not too large for my height (although my Créole mother with her size 4½ shoe wasn't over-pleased at their size), and though they were on the flat side, they weren't pancake-flat. Most importantly (in my mother's eyes), they did not show a sharp division of color where the skin of the foot met the soles, but easily and seamlessly blended over into a lighter shade. My legs weren't particularly shapely, but they were not "black girl's legs" either. My brow was high and wide above symmetrical, well-defined eyebrows and large eyes, and my profile was straight -- or to be pedantic, orthognathous rather than prognathous. "Little Queen Cleopatra" my mother's cousin Arthur Lee always called me.
But there were other "pretty" girls at the predominantly black elementary school I attended for the first six years of my life. There was Cathleen, whose mother was Japanese and whose father was a mulatto GI from Alabama. Cathleen was a knockout. Even as a child, her long, straight, silky black hair and graceful little body, her tiny high-arched dancer's feet and her jet-black almond eyes could charm anyone. And there was Francine, who was my best friend, a tall, pale, elegant-looking, highly intelligent girl with a beautiful profile who hated not only the thick glasses she was obliged to wear to correct her myopia, but her kinky hair, which she always kept carefully straightened and coifed. Her mother was Portuguese, and her father, like Cathleen's, was a mixed-race GI.
Then there was Diana. Her family was kind of special (I was an adult when I first understood how special they were), because they were something nobody in our neighborhood had ever seen up close before: a so-called "black" family who were in fact the purest of white trash. They were all high-high-yellow, freckled, red-haired (their name incidentally was O'Brien), and totally lawless. They lived in a ramshackle house that the County had condemned as an unfit property, but -- given that the workings of municipal instances grind as slowly as God's mills -- the O'Briens had lived in the place as long as anyone could remember, and there was no sign of them quitting it. Like the white trash that they were, all of them were violent and generally hostile to anything that had to do with community spirit or law-and-order. They kept loaded weapons, and they let people know it. Everybody in the neighborhood steered clear of them, but I befriended Diana, because she was so sweet and funny, and her laughing green eyes were irresistible. She talked a drawling, colorful southern dialect all mixed up with curses and oaths and bad language that made me and Francine die laughing. As far as our mothers were concerned, Diana was strictly off limits, but we got together with her anyway on the sly.
When we were 10, Diana came down with tuberculosis (not so strange, considering that part of the O'Briens' roof had long since caved in). She was sent away to a Catholic sanitarium, and we didn't see her again until two years later. When she returned, both Francine and I were struck dumb by how mature she seemed, and instead of the bad English laced with profanity that she and her brothers had always spoken, she now was mistress of a poised and beautiful articulation as good or better than our own. She talked like a white girl with real class.
And maybe because of that, Diana could never fit into her own family again. Within a few months of her return to them, she was packed off in great haste to parts unknown, and it was rumored that her uncle had raped her. I wouldn't be surprised.
But there were "ugly" girls too. Phoebe, who at the age of 12 weighed 200 lbs. and had been left back twice in class. She was big and heavy and smelled unwashed, Her huge head was topped by an uncombed mass of knots, and her hand-me-down clothes were never really clean. When I was about 10, she singled me out as the object of her envy and hatred, and persecuted me for over a year, chasing me home, threatening me, egging on her lieutenants to humiliate me, etc., until the fateful day when I decided I wasn't having any more, and beat the living bejeezus out of her.
And then there was Beauty, a girl who might have had a future because she was, in fact, articulate and intelligent; but she went through school an object of ridicule because of her name; whatever else she might have been, she was not beautiful in any earthly sense. In fact, she was ugly as sin. She was muddy black-skinned (not the clear-black and beautiful complexion that is seen in some Africans). She had buckteeth, a huge flat nose, formless thick lips, and a sloped profile, not to speak of short, buckshot-and-peppercorn hair. Try bearing all that and being called "Beauty"-in the America of the 1950s-at the same time!
There was Rosemarie, who wasn't ugly at all, just fairly plain and dark-skinned and crippled, and kind-hearted almost to a fault. She had had polio a few years before I got to know her, and like Diana, she had won a lot of wisdom and good language from a year in an institution. Nevertheless, she too was erased from the neighborhood records when a family member got her pregnant at age 13.
It's hard being a girl. Girls are expected to be pretty, facile, charming, available, obliging and a host of other things that they themselves have no choice in or control over. Nevertheless, I am grateful that in the America of my childhood experience, I was considered a "pretty girl".
Men have always divided women into "pretty" and "ugly"; it is the eye of the beholder that decides which is which. And, assuming that this judgment is valid -- at least in the eyes of those who make it -- we are taught to sort ourselves docilely into the various categories in which they have placed us.
America is chock-full of ugly white girls. They are everywhere with their buckteeth, their acne, their ski-slope up-noses, their small, pinched little watery-gray eyes, their frizzy rat-colored hair and their shapeless behinds. But they do not have to be stigmatized by the idea that they represent a racial "type"; they don't have to hear that they are ugly because they are "white". Phoebe and Beauty were ugly girls, but they had to bear the double stigma of being "ugly" and "black", in other words, the blacker you are the uglier you are.
On the other hand, sometimes caste is even more damning than color. Cathleen, Francine and I -- pretty, light-skinned girls of mixed blood -- all grew up in tidy, middle-class homes; the success of our respective futures was pretty much assured. But the most beautiful of all of us, Diana, came back from an institution to her family, and found herself caste-less. To her family, she was suddenly an unknown quantity, an undercover agent from the world that they would never understand, accept or live in. Suddenly, pretty as she was, she became dispensable, a thing of no further use. And her kin relegated her to oblivion.
"Black" is not "ugly". But men have their preferences, and those preferences are dictated by custom and culture, by the fashions of the day (witness the 1880s when a woman like Claudia Schiffer would have been considered as attractive as a saw-horse), and by instincts that are not decipherable even to those who express them. For example, the pop-icon of the 70s, Grace Jones, would have been thought ripe for burning at the stake in the America of the 1700s.
In America, being black and pretty has always had its drawbacks. And most of all, every "pretty" girl who has a conscience has been keenly aware of what her "ugly" sisters have had to suffer, even in the cruel dimension of "race". Alas, there is no remedy for this. Some of us are considered handsome, some of us are not.
But that will always be. And "race", in this case, is purely an incidental factor-or should be. As we continue to mix among ourselves, these concepts will change. The other day on the street in Stockholm, I saw a tall girl with dark-brown skin, full, shapely lips, golden eyes, and oriental hair buying a hot-dog from a vendor. It is her beauty that we must begin to measure our own against. She represents tomorrow, and the beauty of our children's children. Let's go for it!
The author sounds like exactly the type of girl that my mother and her sisters dealt with in Louisiana when they were younger. I think it's unfortunate that she was not raised in an environment where the true and diverse beauty of human females was known or acknowledged.
The author sounds like exactly the type of girl that my mother and her sisters dealt with in Louisiana when they were younger. I think it's unfortunate that she was not raised in an environment where the true and diverse beauty of human females was known or acknowledged.
What type of girls did your mom and your aunts deal with in Louisiana and how does the author compare with these girls? Where would be an example of a place where true and diverse beauty of women is known and acknowledged? I'd LOVE to plan a visit to such a place!!!
The author sounds like exactly the type of girl that my mother and her sisters dealt with in Louisiana when they were younger. I think it's unfortunate that she was not raised in an environment where the true and diverse beauty of human females was known or acknowledged.
What type of girls did your mom and your aunts deal with in Louisiana and how does the author compare with these girls? Where would be an example of a place where true and diverse beauty of women is known and acknowledged? I'd LOVE to plan a visit to such a place!!!
I made reference to them in my response to A.D. in the private forum. My response here will probably make more sense after reading it.
The type of woman who judges beauty based on racialized features (no surprise there), usually finds darkskinned and/or African-looking women lacking and isn't shy about saying so. This woman doesn't have a particular phenotype but has the same mentality it seems. My mother especially encountered Creole girls who went out of their way to be catty to her and exclude her because of her skin color and probably her lack of money. She had a Creole roommate in college who treated her like a pariah. My aunt, who is lighter but not European-looking (and prone to similar colorist sentiments), also experienced the same behavior.
Susan is not expressing any opinions that aren't shared by the vast majority of people. That is the consequence of socialization in white supremacist societies. What I am saying is that one can inhabit physical and mental space on this earth where that kind of thinking doesn't dominate one's perspective or sense of self-worth. It's where I live and I love it. I'm a true believer in the mantra that one's perceptions shape one's reality.
Places and people who do not see the world as a racialized pecking order of female beauty are everywhere. I have lived in 2 countries, visited many more and lived in several parts of the U.S. Had I not encountered them I could not have formed the opinion that some people are able to recognize beauty as beauty and nothing more. Most people are not fortunate enough to be raised in these environments or reared by people with these beliefs. I find this sad personally because the world doesn't have to be this way. I have often said that this is a mentality that can be overcome.
I didn't come away with the feeling that the author doesn't recognize beauty in its various expressions throughout humanity. Is there something specific in the article that suggests that the author is conveying a lack of appreciation of diverse expressions of beauty? It appears to me that the author is very well rounded and fair in this article. What did I miss?
Her overall tone suggested it to me, but I am one person and that is what I took away (it's not all I took away but it struck me). Honestly she says a lot of unflattering things about White women that I would take exception with but it seems her point was to say that European beauty shouldn't be assumed. She just sounds very ethnocentric and I usually don't like that.
Posted: Thu 09 Aug 2007 15:23 Post subject: "Pretty Girls"
sagascend wrote:
The author sounds like exactly the type of girl that my mother and her sisters dealt with in Louisiana when they were younger. I think it's unfortunate that she was not raised in an environment where the true and diverse beauty of human females was known or acknowledged.
I think you have inferrred the very opposite of Susanne's message.
You sound like you have a lot more familiarity with the Creole culture of New Orleans than I do and it possibly had more of a personal effect on you indirectly. I haven't had any personal exposure to New Orlean Creole culture, either directly or indirectly at all to draw on so perhaps this is what's missing for me to see the ethnocentrism that you see in her essay in regards to NOC culture.
I totally agree with what you said about a point being made in her essay of not assuming European beauty across the board. She's quite correct.
The author is well travelled and has lived in places outside of her home town and thus has been exposed to a variety of cultures and attitudes which I can see in her writing. I don't see a woman who opines that any group by virtue of membership is ugly or beautiful but I can relate to what she's written in general. Maybe its because she and I are both MGM Mulattas, but I don't have the NOC culture as a starting place. Or, maybe not.
Posted: Thu 09 Aug 2007 15:30 Post subject: Re: "Pretty Girls"
Powell wrote:
sagascend wrote:
The author sounds like exactly the type of girl that my mother and her sisters dealt with in Louisiana when they were younger. I think it's unfortunate that she was not raised in an environment where the true and diverse beauty of human females was known or acknowledged.
I think you have inferrred the very opposite of Susanne's message.
No, I get her message loud and clear and agree with her ultimate conclusions. I appreciate her honesty about her family's and her own perceptions. Her tone and choice of words is what I am responding to.
I'm late in replying but here goes! I remember one thread when we all talked about how dark-skinned women often have problems with lighter or mixed women.
I realize that this hits a nerve with you because you're one of the darker mixies here, therefore you relate to it. Admittedly, like mixedmom, I never viewed Susanne Heine's article as possibly hurtful to those of darker skin. I simply thought she was being honest about the racist ways in which people judge all women. As a dark lady, you have opened up about your mother's painful experiences with people who mistreated her because she is dark.
I don't believe Heine's intent was to belittle darker women when she wrote "Pretty Girls". I would say it is more of a commentary on the unfairness of it all. She learned in childhood that looks like hers were more revered than darker children. She didn't literally mean that those girls were ugly or inferior...she described them in those terms to clearly show the cruelty of society towards black girls with kinky hair and brown skin. She was honest when she said that she was thankful as a child to not look like them growing up in the 50's...because that would've meant harsh racial discrimination, perhaps even from her own mother, who was pleased that she didn't turn out "too black".
Glad to see you back (though I have been on the go myself). I don't think Heine intended to belittle dark women, but I'll be damned if she didn't insult White women in a very blatant manner and exihibit the usual disdain of more sub-Saharan looking women. Like I said above, I found her tone at times to be disconcerting. Some things were just downright funny and weird ("black girl's legs"...what the hell??? ) and it reminded me of how some people from her culture and generation that I have known/heard about tend to think. I have successfully limited my association with people who have this mentality (or any other similar mentality) so it's striking when I see it. I don't know Susan but I wonder if she, by virtue of her age/culture/upbringing, is conditioned to believe beauty is demonstrated through having a certain phenotype rather than good genes? To me beauty is something that is rare in general, but found in every population. It's more universal that people might think or want to believe.
Her basic message is correct and her honesty is appreciated. That's the price of honesty openness, you put yourself out there for other people to judge and formulate their own perceptions of your speech.
I'll be damned if she didn't insult White women in a very blatant manner and exihibit the usual disdain of more sub-Saharan looking women.
My take on Ms. Heine's descriptions of the less attractive "white" and less attractive "black" women was to bring about a full picture of what real people looked like rather than glamorizing a group on the one hand and demonizing a group on the other hand. The message that I got from the author was that there were pretty girls and there were unattractive girls on both sides of the colorline in spite of the prejudices in favor of "whites" and the prejudices against "blacks". I don't see any overall disdain for either group. What do you mean by the phrase "the ususal disdain" in regard to a more Sub-Saharan appearance? Do you feel that her description of Beauty is an example of this disdain for the appearance of dark complected West African appearances in general? Do you feel that her description of the "plain-Jane" white girls was a blatent insult of white women in general?
I'll be damned if she didn't insult White women in a very blatant manner and exihibit the usual disdain of more sub-Saharan looking women.
My take on Ms. Heine's descriptions of the less attractive "white" and less attractive "black" women was to bring about a full picture of what real people looked like rather than glamorizing a group on the one hand and demonizing a group on the other hand. The message that I got from the author was that there were pretty girls and there were unattractive girls on both sides of the colorline in spite of the prejudices in favor of "whites" and the prejudices against "blacks". I don't see any overall disdain for either group. What do you mean by the phrase "the ususal disdain" in regard to a more Sub-Saharan appearance? Do you feel that her description of Beauty is an example of this disdain for the appearance of dark complected West African appearances in general? Do you feel that her description of the "plain-Jane" white girls was a blatent insult of white women in general?
It's clear that you and I do not interpret this text identically, and I wouldn't expect that we would. The great thing about it is seeing the diversity of opinion.
What I mean by the "usual disdain" of Sub-saharan features is that nowhere in Heine's essay (except for her reference to the complexion of some Africans) is there a positive description of dark skin or other "classical" Sub-saharan features on dark or light complexioned girls/women she describes. I find that this is typical of our societies in the West with exception of the adoration for "the booty" these days (I can't speak for African societies). I cannot find one reference to hair that is not straight or wavy that Heine describes positively - can you? The comment on "black girl's legs" is another example of a blanket racialized statement, negative in this context, for which I even lack the words to describe (weird is what I'm left with). If anyone knows what "black girl's legs" are I would love to hear the description! Another clue for me was the fact that Heine either cannot recall meeting or chose not to include pretty "black" girls that she came across as a young girl. Do I believe that there were no pretty girls with coiled hair, rounded noses and burnished brown skin in Louisiana that Heine could have been described? Not for a minute. I'm not complaining that they weren't referenced at all, or suggesting that they 'should' have been to present some sort of balance, just remarking on their absence as indicative of what I have described in previous posts on this essay.
Heine's description of Beauty is singular, as are most of her descriptions of girls/women she encountered. I think the only archetypes or representative standards she outlines for female beauty are those found within her Creole culture, as she described herself. And while doing so, she generally juxtaposed herself positively with "black" features that she didn't possess and negatively with "white" features in the same manner. That seems to be a consequence of her cultural background, an assessment that she would likely agree with.
As for her "digs" at White women and their flaws, I completely understand why she chose to make them. It's almost like the automatic exhaltation of "white" beauty needs to be taken down a peg, especially since there really are millions of ugly White chicks in this world who are coasting on that exhaltation while the rest of us get picked apart, pretty or not. Nevertheless, should a woman with a flat backside or limp hair feel inadequate? Is it okay for her natural features or physique to be maligned by other women? Again, due to Heine's choice phrases in describing White women the question came up for me.
I'll toot my horn to (hopefully) make my perspective a little clearer, so bear with me and please don't think that I am some egomaniac. For whatever reasons, the way that I look has broad appeal. Not a day goes by without a compliment from someone - men, women, kids from many different backgrounds. I used to joke to people that if I was a lesbian I'd probably have a White female partner because no one remarks more positively on how I look than White women. And I am no one's archtype of ethnic beauty either. For every "standard" I meet, I fail to meet another one. So I literally do not understand how non-racist/non-colorist folks are unable to see beauty just because it's cloaked in "sub-Saharaness" unless someone needs to inform me that I do not look sub-Saharan. People can and do see beauty when it is present, and they are not always "racially correct" about it either. At least that is my experience.
Thank you for your VERY thought provoking responses Sagascend! I'm thoroughly enjoying the diversity of opinions on this essay.
It is clear that this essay is written from the point of view of a light-skinned woman of New Orleans Creole background. About the "black girl legs" thing, it seems that a lot of groups, both intra-racially and interracially, have peculiar ideas about groups that are different from them as well as having peculiar ideas about their own group. It is wierd when we humans racialize our bodies and hold each other to those unrealistic standards. "Black girl legs" have been described as legs with thin calves on the one end to shapely legs to fat legs! The same has been said about "white girls legs". It is WIERD!!!!! Black and white people will swear that they can discern when a caller on the other end of the telephone line is either a black person speaking or a white person speaking! People are often criticized when they make this observation out loud with rhetorical questions like, "what does a black voice sound like?" or "what is a white voice SUPPOSED to sound like?". What might be interesting is to test this on a show and have someone listen to maybe, 8 different people over the telephone reading a telemarketer's shpeel and then have the person guess the "race" of the speaker and see how many correct guesses most people get. Racializing parts of our bodies (voices, legs, hands, feet, backsides, etc) isn't unique to any particular group but it should be called into question when it happens. I'm not really clear just who in Ms. Heine's girlhood days in New Orleans culture would hold fast to whatever cultural "agreement" that defined what "black girl legs" would look like! Did "blacks" confirm this? Or, was this imposed on "blacks" by Mulatto Creoles and/or the "whites"? Did Ms. Heine make this up all by herself so that NO ONE would have a clue to what she meant except her? In any case, it's doubtful that even most "black" women/girls would have them ("black-girl legs)!
You make a valid point that there aren't any references to a specific pretty black girls with "classical" West African features. (I couldn't find any either). I can see where this can be taken as (passive) disdain towards these features even though nothing disdainful was explicitely stated about West African features in general.
Speaking as someone who grew up on New Orleans and around Creoles, Blacks, and Whites, I took her implication concerning 'Black girls legs' to mean those that are scarred (by poverty).
My grandparents lived in the projects, and as a child, my siblings and I were often watched by them in the projects. I remember many of these 'Black females legs' looked worse for wear or like 'boys legs' - unshaven, scarred, marked, bruised, etc.
I think she was talking about how they were 'damaged' (via life in poverty) and not shape.....
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) and it reminded me of how some people from her culture and generation that I have known/heard about tend to think. I have successfully limited my association with people who have this mentality (or any other similar mentality) so it's striking when I see it. I don't know Susan but I wonder if she, by virtue of her age/culture/upbringing, is conditioned to believe beauty is demonstrated through having a certain phenotype rather than good genes? To me beauty is something that is rare in general, but found in every population. It's more universal that people might think or want to believe.
