zuky:
this is why i LOVE tumblr, speaks the realest shit.. stop racism ! every girl can be beautiful despite their skin color
to tell you the truth… I don’t know how I feel about this.
Angie [in all her UN Ambassador, adopt-a-foreign-minority baby, millions of dollars to charity goodness] is still white. Her eyes, still blue. She’ll get the role of Cleopatra [an Egyptian] one day and play a British tomb raider the next. She is an “every woman” in Hollywood. racially ambiguous. Color does matter. Because my daughters are going to be “idealized” for their light complexion and “good” hair. Because dark black girls don’t get to take positive leading roles as often as they should. Because characters in media are written as either a default “white” or purposefully ”ethnic”.
Color matters because the media tells my sisters, mothers, and daughters they are not beautiful. they are not worth it. they need to press or weave their hair. they need to lose 20 pounds. they need to have narrower noses. they need to wear hazel contacts.
I understand what this image is trying to say: we’re all human and we’re all beautiful. But it’s saying it the wrong way. Show me three different women, three different colors, three different beauties. THAT’s reality. but this just says to me “Color doesn’t matter… they’re white on the inside”. Frankly, that’s not what I would want my daughters to see.
This image screams “Race doesn’t matter if you’re white”. I won’t even get into the contextualized visual meaning of the right-hand portion of the image. This epitomizes the idealization of colorblind racism: “If we pretend race doesn’t exist, it will magically cease to be a problem, so that people of color can stop talking about racism and we can all agree to idolize whiteness!”
can we also talk about the meaning behind a statement like “every girl can be beautiful despite their skin color” (emphasis mine) and how this is tied back to positioning whiteness as the default and people of colour as those who have to somehow overcome their skin (and appearances, in general) to attain beauty.
Please tell me she’s not supposed to be a geisha in the right portion of her face.
^ Commentary.
I wish I could show this to all the people who were causing an uproar about my Gaga lyrics post on my dA page who were saying the exact same thing, that “I don’t see race” and “race doesn’t matter.”
One person in particular was trying to argue that I was being racist by insisting that there are differences between people and we need to acknowledge them. I don’t know why it’s so hard for some people to comprehend that we can embrace diversity AND not be racist at the same time. I would think that’s a no-brainer.
Bubblegum Universe 