Color Me White???
Okay so I'm borrowsing through the pictures on Essence magazine's website (www.essence.com) and I'm noticing how Little Miss Unda My Umbrella a.k.a Rhianna's skin is damn near white! It's funny because she was much darker when she first arrived on the pop/R&B scene. Beyonce, along with Lil KIM(OH GOD plz help her) have both, as their recent photos indicate, undergone some facial transformations! I realize that B has been light skin for most of her career but she is almost white, WTH is the world coming to. White womyn want to BLACK, or they @least want our features but not the struggle, and BLACK CELEBRITIES Are beginning to seek white physical features and I'm sure they want that good old "WHITE PRIVILEDGE"...I think the Industry is promoting some kind of Color Complex but I'll let yall be the judge.
June 1, 2009 at 7:42 PM
ok, so i've noticed this too. with rihanna i do feel like she is actually that light, because i've seen personal pictures of her where she was actually that light. and with that i think, her skin looked darker in the beginning because she was being marketed as a "island beauty" so that put a lot of bronzer on her when her pictures were touched up. on the other hand, i actually do not feel like beyonce is that light. i feel like she is being marketed to be as least black as she can possibly be. and with her its more than skin complexion, they are lighten her hair and decrease her body shape.
i think both cases have a lot to do with white privilege and black womyn trying to make their way into an industry that won't accept then unless they conform.
good article and observations.