I feel like this conversation is beginning to delve into the extremes and routing off course, which it often does when it comes to political correctness and the perspectives of marginalised communities. And a part of me wants to talk about it in depth to help those of you who don't understand but want to - but another part of me is utterly exhausted at having to expand energy & labour to express such a personal perspective to people who ultimately will never have any idea of what it's like to be a black woman in society, only to have those perspectives reduced to and laughed off as hyperbole every time. It's exhausting & infuriating in equal measure.
Here is a video of Jesy sometime in the last few days, she's a shade or two lighter than the presenter who's actually black.
Here's a picture of Jesy without any tans for reference (sorry for the size)
I fail to see how her 'tan' can be deemed as anything other than excessive & unnecessary.
Nobody is stopping her from doing it, but surely she can be criticised for benefitting from picking & choosing parts of a culture she is not from originally?
Ask any black woman whether their features have been mocked and made fun of throughout their life and the overwhelming answer will be 'Yes'.
Those same features are being bought as part of a buy 1 get 1 free special at every plastic surgeon by non-black women, and they continue to represent symbols of beauty both in a historical eurocentric beauty standard (skinny, white, blonde hair, blue eyes etc), and a modern day 'kim kardashian' (darker skin, bigger lips, curvy body, bigger butt etc) beauty standard.
This is how black features get praised when they are not on black people - leading to erasure of black women from the topics of beauty standards, because we can't conform to the traditional eurocentric beauty standard, and even when our features are being praised and celebrated, that praise only comes when they appear on non-black women.
That's where the pushback comes from. Black women have had to create beauty standards of our own because of racism, have been excluded from just about every mainstream conversation when it comes to beauty, also because of racism, yet when the standards that we've created do become mainstream & celebrated - it's only due to it being picked up by non-black women, you guessed it - because of racism.
Surely you can see why that would cause people to be upset? It just reaffirms that there's no space for black women to be celebrated.
If black features on black skin was celebrated and seen as beautiful, then blackfishing wouldn't be an issue.
From that hopefully you can see why 'whitefishing' isn't really a thing, in the same way 'reverse racism' isn't really a thing.
Agree, or disagree - I don't really have the patience to debate the topic much further, because it's kinda dehumanising & exhausting, and i'm not trying to be a dick when I say that, it's just hard to express just how tiring it is having to validate your feelings & experiences repeatedly.
And anyone who is genuine about wanting to be educated on the topic can find smarter, more articulate people who have spoken at length about these issues online and in books.
@Isotope @2 man midfield @Pogue Mahone
Here is a video of Jesy sometime in the last few days, she's a shade or two lighter than the presenter who's actually black.
Here's a picture of Jesy without any tans for reference (sorry for the size)
I fail to see how her 'tan' can be deemed as anything other than excessive & unnecessary.
Nobody is stopping her from doing it, but surely she can be criticised for benefitting from picking & choosing parts of a culture she is not from originally?
Ask any black woman whether their features have been mocked and made fun of throughout their life and the overwhelming answer will be 'Yes'.
Those same features are being bought as part of a buy 1 get 1 free special at every plastic surgeon by non-black women, and they continue to represent symbols of beauty both in a historical eurocentric beauty standard (skinny, white, blonde hair, blue eyes etc), and a modern day 'kim kardashian' (darker skin, bigger lips, curvy body, bigger butt etc) beauty standard.
This is how black features get praised when they are not on black people - leading to erasure of black women from the topics of beauty standards, because we can't conform to the traditional eurocentric beauty standard, and even when our features are being praised and celebrated, that praise only comes when they appear on non-black women.
That's where the pushback comes from. Black women have had to create beauty standards of our own because of racism, have been excluded from just about every mainstream conversation when it comes to beauty, also because of racism, yet when the standards that we've created do become mainstream & celebrated - it's only due to it being picked up by non-black women, you guessed it - because of racism.
Surely you can see why that would cause people to be upset? It just reaffirms that there's no space for black women to be celebrated.
If black features on black skin was celebrated and seen as beautiful, then blackfishing wouldn't be an issue.
From that hopefully you can see why 'whitefishing' isn't really a thing, in the same way 'reverse racism' isn't really a thing.
Agree, or disagree - I don't really have the patience to debate the topic much further, because it's kinda dehumanising & exhausting, and i'm not trying to be a dick when I say that, it's just hard to express just how tiring it is having to validate your feelings & experiences repeatedly.
And anyone who is genuine about wanting to be educated on the topic can find smarter, more articulate people who have spoken at length about these issues online and in books.
@Isotope @2 man midfield @Pogue Mahone
