We are Still Brainwashed

In today's society, you only have to look as far as a magazine to see what American media has deemed beautiful. Magazines, t.v., and film are saturated with images of thin, light-skinned, straight haired women who sell sex and beauty to the public. All we have to do is observe what is the first thing that comes to mind when we hear the phrase "All-American girl". Most likely someone blond, blue-eyed, thin and young came to mind. Someone white.

I'm becoming ever-increasingly exasperated with people who have difficulty realizing the simple fact that we equate white with American, and have normalized white as beautiful. Beauty is on a spectrum where thin and white is on one end and everything and everyone else is on the other end.

Too many people buy into this standard without realizing it. Every time a black woman buys a hair relaxer to straighten her naptural away or a a child gets ridiculed because he/she is "too dark" or a guy says he prefers his girl with straight hair but can't really give a reason as to why, they are stating that their natural is not enough and that they prefer to move closer on the spectrum to white.

The saddest part is these people refuse to allow the veil to be lifted. For every reason you give them as to why they have a whitened standard of beauty, they will give you a defensive excuse as to why they do the things and think the way they do. Always. Each and every time.

This is too huge and complicated a topic to cover in one post, so you can be sure there will be more posts about this one, but for now, I just want to say this is not simply a black and white problem.

Slip of the Tongue