Beauty Stereotypes Black Femme and Baggage
But being Black in America (or POC in general) means that we do have to struggle for basic decency. This even comes to seemingly trivial things such as having representation in mass media that isn’t so… stereotypical.
Eurocentrism in Media
We didn’t get the first black Disney princess until 2009 with princess Tianna from Princess and the Frog. By this time I was 13 and I already had a built-in sense of what was supposed to be ‘beautiful’’ by Eurocentric standards. Growing up all I saw were White Disney princesses whose beauty I could never compare to with my physical differences, like my kinky hair I always wanted my hair to be longer, prettier, and straighter than what I had. I wanted to fit a mold that I would never fully be able to.
In current times we still have to deal with people who think that only pale skin and straight hair is the only beauty standard that should be normalized. There was this one girl who had the audacity to say that this one black girl should bleach her skin because her skin was darker than you know a ‘standard’ light Asian. (Yes, there are more than just pale-skinned Asians too and they’re beautiful as fuck. Fight me.) Mind you this was in a j-fashion community. Where pale skin still dominates the space. Granted not as much since June of 2020 when the Black Lives Matter movement broke out and went international but still we have issues we need to have long hard conversations about.
Hell, I even wear a fucking wig to cover my real hair all the time because I still have issues showing it to the public because even I am fighting my feelings of comfort towards what God gave me. Feelings like this involve self-hatred. Our society traps us in eurocentric standards making it harder to challenge it on an interpersonal and external level. Finding one's inner beauty amidst the eurocentric muck is like rolling a consistent set of zeros in D&D (Dungeons and Dragon).
Beauty standards are deeply ingrained in our culture. It’s been that way for a while. That’s not going to suddenly disappear because we want it to. We have to actively fight it. day in and day out. I imagine it will take a few lifetimes, We owe it to future generations to be able to love ourselves without horrible beauty standards attached. We no longer owe anyone explanations about why we look different physically when it comes to how we look.
Removing the Wig
I didn’t realize until I was in my ’20s that I truly did have a hatred for myself when I was younger that I now know as internalized racism. I used to hate my hair and always longed for it to be flowing and straight as I would see in Seventeen magazines or on TV or like the cartoon characters that Cartoon Network had Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel. I’m still trying to have a love affair with my hair now that I’m 25 and wearing wigs all the time isn’t the most feasible thing.
Internalized racism tears you down from the inside and makes you feel like trash for looking the way you do, speaking the way you do, and overall for not being that perfect pretty blonde with blue eyes. Beauty standards are so embedded into our culture that even passing phrases, and lingo encourage those standards. This narrative for what is only beautiful to some has wrongfully set the mold for all. A good example of this is Ballet. I never got to see a Black Ballerina until I was 23, and the ballet shoes didn’t offer other skin tone options until after that. Moments like this are frequent for Black girls and women all over. Expanding representation is still happening in real-time in several niches and communities. Over time my interests expanded and I felt more comfortable exploring costume design and drawing, which I can safely say I’ve taken to with decent skills. I’m good at these things, but representation is not easy to seek out or even encourage in niche spaces. We don’t all want to be tokenized and just want to enjoy what we love. I’m sure that some of you can relate to me on this when it comes to this.
The narrative of stereotypes
“Black people have big butts!”
We applaud this to a certain extent
We indulge the sexuality.
We indulge in the fantasy
But yet when it comes to pain.
We decry its not real.
“Snowflake”
“All lives matter”
As if Black lives never mattered in the first place.
It’s a literal joke to some
When they’ll never understand the struggles of having melanin in the skin
That forces people to be on survival
Every. Single. Day. Of. Their. Lives.
They’ll likely never know what it feels like to be safe.
All because of skin and perception.
Having stereotypes like this is a limiting mindset put towards black people. It sets us as the Jezebel stereotype where we were once only seen as sexual objects. As explained in an article from Dr. David Pilgrim from Ferris State University: “The portrayal of black women as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype. The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd.” (Dr. David Pilgrim) This isn’t true; many Black women have complicated facets of their lives. Their life is not just their ‘big ass’ that we’ve come as a culture to glorify to a certain extent.
Or girls who do have these assets are under pressure to become as sexualized as possible or they’re not seen as good enough. They’re not given that headspace to be who they truly are at whatever capacity that may be. Their body is political. It shouldn’t be.
There is no such thing as a ‘proper sized, shape, or color, of a Black woman.You know black women come in all shapes and sizes, right? It’s a spectrum that just has to be respected. I repeat: respected.
I didn’t say put on a pedestal or be above all else. Basic respect will do.This means we simply want to be unbothered by unwarranted opinions about how it’s supposed to be presented.
Conclusion:
In short Black women similar to other people of color need time and healing to come to terms with the expectations that they have been forced to look like. To this day yes, I still wear a wig but I support my fellow fashion enthusiasts who decide to go all in and have their hair down and do what makes them feel great. I’m down for it. There shouldn’t be a standard of how people should be in fashion. People should just be allowed to make fashion choices for themselves that suit them. Being Black & a Woman, Trans, LGBTQ+, etc automatically makes you a political target or cultural target of some kind. Our bodies are inherently political to some, unfortunately.
But yet, we persist. And that’s what helps me keep living from dreary day-to-day.
Maybe you feel the same maybe not.
