The Beauty of BLACK

When asked who was more beautiful, Beyonce or India Arie, 90% of the people polled from the radio station said that India Arie was more beautiful.

I heard this on the Michael Baisden Show and as I recall he was only asking the younger people who they considered more beautiful. According to the results, the young people said that in their opinion it was India Arie.

Here is my problem with that, of the 90% that voted that India Arie was more beautiful, 40% of them were only saying India Arie to fit in with the blackness of the poll and topic at hand. Of the remaining 50% assuming half of them were males, if put in a real life situation and neither Beyonce nor India Arie were celebrities, they would approach Beyonce before they would India Arie.

One young lady called and stated that she thought that Beyonce was more attractive than India Arie. She said that if she didn’t know anything about either woman, hadn’t heard their music or anything about them, her choice would be Beyonce. Then a male caller stated that India Arie was more beautiful and that when people say that Beyonce is more beautiful it has something to do with how they were raised and that he was raised not to automatically think that a lighter skinned person was more attractive than a darker skinned person.

((but does a person stating that Beyonce is more beautiful automatically mean they chose her because she is lighter skinned??))

….  thoughts on this very topic have been rolling around in my head over this for a while. 

Black is beautiful. There are many shades of black and none outshine the other. The shades range from shades of tan to deep browns, each beautiful and black. However there are some black people who have gotten on a black power kick and suddenly feel that anyone who has relaxed hair, wears a weave, fake nails or doesn’t burn incense and plan rallies are somehow faking the funk. Somehow if you do any of the things listed above you are not embracing your African American culture.

I truly don’t believe that just because you relax your hair or wear hair extensions that you are any less black than a sista who wears her hair natural. And I also don’t believe that just because a person thinks Beyonce is more attractive than India Arie that they are somehow racially blindfolded and have issues with being black. True, some of those people would only say Beyonce because she is lighter skinned, but some would say she is more beautiful to them than India Arie because they prefer a Beyonce type sista over an India Arie type sista. Is that wrong? NO, it isn’t.  Just as some men would prefer India Arie because they love her look, some would choose Beyonce because they are more attracted to her.

African Americans have enough historical baggage surrounding skin color and self love, so why is that centuries later, now instead of house nigga versus field nigga, we are now battling over skin color, what is actually beautiful and what is actually real when it comes to our physical appearances? 

Black is Beautiful PERIOD so why are we trying to define which aspects of a black person is beautiful?

Why should a person have to choose to wear their hair in the natural form to be considered real? Is the realness of black beauty defined by a person’s hair?

Why should a person have to say that darker skin is more beautiful than lighter skin in order to be embracing their roots? Is the realness in the shade of black?

No, it isn’t.

Black is beautiful let that be the end of the sentence. There should be no conforming or need to conform to what certain people have concluded to be the beauty of blackness….