Most black people don�t think they are beautiful

Lupita Nyongu2019o was named The Most Beautiful Woman by People Magazine
Lupita Nyongu2019o was named The Most Beautiful Woman by People Magazine

The interesting thing about what I’m seeing with Lupita Nyong’o’s moment of being declared ‘Most Beautiful’ by People Magazine is that some black people are having a hard time looking at themselves. They are having a hard time locating themselves within the beauty conversation & how it has been structured to exclude blackness because now the conversation of black beauty is moving into popular culture. Now let me explain why.

How is it that a dark skinned short haired African woman is making waves in a culture known hardly to affirm black beauty that does not compromise itself? Well, I don’t know and frankly I don’t care because that is not what this is about, this is not about white people or whether they validate African women who aren’t unapologetic about their image in a hugely whitecentric industry. This, for once, is about black people and the discomfort that comes with including DARK women in the discourse of beauty.

It has become a convenient thing for us to miss the point, to measure if she is indeed the most beautiful when we know that this goes beyond if she’s prettier than a dark skinned girl you know. People never questioned if Gwen Paltrow was the prettiest white woman when she graced the cover because with them, whiteness constitutes as default validation, which confirms my assumption that this is not really about aesthetics.

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