INTRO TO AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES

 

 

The media decides what skin color is beautiful, and what beauty is.

 

Producers will most likely chose a lighter skin color cast over a darker skin color cast, making light fare skin the golden standard. Desirable is connected to the light skin.  Someone might ask why? Glad you asked.

 

 

WHY?

The hammering of self-hate started as soon as the Black race arrived to America. Dating back to slavery, the very notion of being free was to be White. Black African people wasn’t even considered human, let alone called or referred to as beautiful. The ideal of beauty was directly linked to slave masters wives (blonde hair blue eye.) Nothing attractive, good, respectable, or anything related to beauty was associated with dark skin. The further away from white you were, the uglier you were. This is when self-hate first began.

 

House slave vs. Field Slave

The dominating theme became, the house Negro has a better life than the field Negro. Whereas, in actuality the house Negro was still a slave, being constantly beat by white women, spat on, sexually assaulted, etc. As a result some lighter skin women wished they were dark enough to be a field Negro and vice versa for dark skin women; causing another layer to self-hate amongst the African American community.   

 

Representation of Skin Color in the Media

In the media when there are black people trying out for desired media roles as an actor or model, when the desired role isn’t granted to them, they instantly attach their skin color to the reason(s) for it. Therefore, studies have shown that actors/models make adjustment to their skin, trying to reach a level of what society says is beautiful.