Is she supposed to look like this?
I’m glad you think so. Here we have a conversation about how successful black women are successful in part due to looking white, and one because she dyes her hair blonde.
Because apparently blonde hair is problematic.
Here we are, on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and we’re still hashing out this crap about how light-colored black people aren’t fully black, or fully white. Any of you Social Justice Warriors stop to consider that these folks face racism from both white and black people? Yep, I’m a white guy; and yep, I’ve seen it. Clearly Obama rose above it, but I got to see with my own two eyes just how privileged a half-black girl was in a mostly white town. Her white step-parents had to leave town one night, quickly, for a skin color that was about as dark as Halle Berry’s. I hope I don’t have to spell out why her family had to leave in such a rush; let’s just say it’s a small, all-white, Mid-south town and leave it at that.
Let’s take a look at another picture.
Nowadays, her success as a black woman would be disparaged because she’s “white-passing”, not to mention pretty. Back in her day, though, after she was famous, she once performed at a hotel as the headliner act. When she decided to take a dip in the pool, though, the owner cleared the pool, then drained and refilled the pool for the comfort and peace of mind of the white guests. And she had to eat in the colored section.
Dismissing someone like her for being mostly-white and pretty completely erases her life experience.
I can’t believe how incredibly goddamned ugly and racist this conversation has turned, while talking about fairness and equality.
50 years, and we have a long fucking way to go.
