The Study of Racialism

Hanzou · Mentor Joined: 05 Nov 2005 {Posts: 261 }

Gemini's response:You just answered your question. common AA many AA. Upon seeing Boris most people did not think or assume he was biracial.[/quote]

How would do you know what most people [i]think or assume? C'mon Gemini, that statement is simply ridiculous.

gemini072 · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2942 }

Grasshoppa · Posted: Mon 02 Jun 2008 16:06 Post subject:

Tyra banks is 50% or less SSA? Somehow I highly doubt it.

Edit: Ok, maybe 50%, but somehow I still doubt she's any less than 50%. That's my opinion based on her phenotype.

Hanzou · Mentor Joined: 05 Nov 2005 {Posts: 261 }

anonymouse · Wizard Joined: 09 Oct 2007 {Posts: 677 }

There is a point when a debate ceases from being a intellectual exchange and turns into pointless bickering.

I will leave you with this: From my observation Tyra Banks is more representative of the African American phenotype than Alek Wek.

sagascend · Moderator-at-Large Joined: 17 Jun 2006 {Posts: 2413 }

LOL Hanzou I am just going to address a few points that I feel are egregiously wrong or just silly:

1. In any light, Boris Kodjoe’s skin color and features are unremarkable in the general AA population. I was also quite surprised to learn he had a European parent.

2. His daughter is lighter than both of her parents…as a baby and as a toddler. Case closed.

3. You are quoting (and deducing) admixture percentages based upon the imprecise and often wrong “science” of eyeballing. Oprah Winfrey has no detectable Euro DNA, Don Cheadle has 20% Euro DNA. Yet Oprah Winfrey is much lighter than Don Cheadle. Produce some admixture test results or qualify your statements about celebrity admixture. Feel free to say that Halle Berry is 50-50 ancestrally but you do not have any idea what her admixture proportions are.

4. I’m quite sure that the top 100 list of most attractive women reflects POPULARITY and is momentary. Just because a female celebrity is not on the list does not mean she is unattractive to men, or that the men who ranked celebrities wouldn’t find women not on the list attractive. Do you have any idea how many drop dead gorgeous women of ALL phenotypes will never make a celebrity list? Should they go and hang themselves? Good grief. And no I don’t think it is odd at all that Kerry Washington is on the list and the list is stacked with European-looking women. That’s to be expected in this culture. It reflects orientation not reality. Reality is that beautiful women exist across the human phenotype spectrum.

5. I’ve said this before, probably even to you because you seem positively obsessed with pointing out that AA women are not perceived as attractive, but any person who bases their self-esteem and opinion of themselves on media imagery is sadly misguided and was probably raised by someone who always compared themselves to others and thought they came up short. I was raised by a darkskinned mother who owned her beauty and didn’t sit in a corner somewhere with her lip poked out because Jayne Kennedy or Farrah Fawcett were It-Girls in the media. And why would she when she could barely walk down the street without being gawked at or hit on (well into her 40s I might add)? And if my own appearance and admixture is any indication, she’s not exactly racially ambiguous though she is mixed (NA not Euro). That, my friend, is the difference between reality and media imagery. When a young girl is raised by such a mother, who shows one every day what beauty is and how all the validation it needs (even in this colorist world) is its own existence, this girl grows up to own her own beauty too. When this girl is surrounded by women of varying SSA admixture levels, as well as friends and associates who are European, Asian and everything in between, she actually learns that beauty is a rare commodity but it is found in every human population. So if I can look at my café au lait grandma and my green eyed cousins and caramel aunts and see myself in them in a positive way, I imagine little AA girls who are brought up around people with some damned sense will turn out just fine. The problem is when they go out into the world unprepared to deal with BS like this, and believe that a hot-or-not list of celebrities and male fetishism of their features and body parts defines who they are as people and as women. I don't care what people label themselves, we need more mothers and fathers to raise girls with good self-esteem who appreciate their physical and mental qualities without feeling inferior to someone else.

6.Please stop using the term “black” in such an ambiguous manner. Although you say that you mean it denotes the ideological orientation towards AA identity it is clear that you mean it in a racial sense. You’ve repeatedly broken Rule 3.3:

fwsweet · Posted: Mon 02 Jun 2008 23:54 Post subject:

I completely agree with Anonymouse. This has gone beyond silliness. In numbers of messages, this thread is second from the top, in popularity (number of viewers) it is close to the bottom. Let's end it. Please

I also agree with Maya. Colorism is a worthy topic. I am not sure that suggestions on how to diminish it belong in this forum since they unavoidably will say how things "should be." But we can at least kick it off here.

Hanzou · Mentor Joined: 05 Nov 2005 {Posts: 261 }