By Kristen Gentry
Turn your television to BET (Black Entertainment Television) and watch some music videos. If you allow yourself a considerable amount of time (one to two hours), you will begin to notice a pattern beyond the iced-out jewelry, platinum grills, and sparkling clean cars.
Look at the girl shaking her booty next to the Escalade. Now, look at the girl wiggling in the hot tub. And finally, look at the girl getting Cristal poured on her stomach. What’s wrong here besides extreme sexism? Most of the women in these videos are pancake beige with bone-straight, mid-back length hair. There’s nothing wrong with a slightly toasted sister with hair flowing like Carribean waterfalls, but there is a problem when it becomes the ultimate standard for beauty.
Flaxen blonde hair and sky blue eyes attached to a rosy peach face has always reigned in America as the epitome of beauty. I don’t mean to disregard this beauty, but it has held the spotlight for far too long and received more than its fair share of due credit. It has seeped its influence into minority culture and manifested itself as low self-esteem and, in extreme cases, self-hatred. Women of color were created in a rainbow that goes all the way to ebony brown. Our beauty is not soley restricted to cornmeal yellow.
In the movie Imitation of Life, a young girl shuns her African-American heritage, including her own mother, to live her life as a Caucasian. Though the movie was released in 1959, it still adequately imitates life in 2001. Some people see their God-given culture as ugly and give in to sterotypes often voiced by majority racists. I, personally, have been called a “pickaninny” by another black person because of my cornrowed braids. Queen Latifah aired an episode of her talk show about black women who would only have children with white men because they wanted their children to be light.
Some African-American and other minorities still chase after the Barbie doll dream. They subject their bodies to harsh chemicals and surgery in the process. Some Asian-American women have even gone under the knife to remove the slant from their eyes so they can be more European.
America has to look beyond the Christie Brinkleys, Cheryl Tiegs, and Baywatch blondes. Slowly but surely, progress is being made. Jill Scott, Lucy Lu, and Salma Hayek are setting new standars that include wild hair, freckles, and naturally bronzed skin. It’s time to love ourselves. Our “real” selves, complete with chocolate brown eyes, mocha and cocoa skin, big nose, thick lips, slanted eyes, petit nose, whatever. Embrace yourself and open your mind to all the beauty that yours as well as other cultures has to offer.
Kristen Gentry is a senior communications major, and the Assistant Focus Editor of the Louisville Cardinal.
