Black women are so beautiful. Our culture, features, and physique are so amazing that people actually pay doctors to make them look like us. I live in Los Angeles and tanning is a huge business here as well. Here’s the thing — everyone wants to be us, but no one really wants to be us. Is wanting to be us an insult or a compliment? When a non-Black woman compliments me on my skin color or my hair, which I wear in a huge natural style, I feel, well, amazing! I love when I am asked about my hair and in all honesty, the most compliments I have received about my hair have been from white men. But, when does a compliment become something else?
French print of Sara Baartman on display, titled La Belle Hottentot
As a young woman sold into slavery, Baartman was literally entertainment as her “unusually large” buttocks were put on display. She was displayed in a cage, in London and Paris, and was literally ordered around like a circus animal. In 1815, Baartman was studied by French doctors, zoologists, and physiologists, who concluded that she was the missing link between animals and humans. She was shamed into believing that because of the shape of her body and color of her skin, she was ugly, deserving of a cage, and a freak show attraction. Baartman died at the age of 26 and one of the doctors that put her on display, dissected her body. Her remains were given to him by French police. The doctor made a plaster out of her skin and cut out her brain and genitals, which were displayed in jars, in a French museum until 1974. It was not until 2002, when Nelson Mandela was able to obtain her remains from the French government and bury her in peace.
It seems as if our natural beauty is not accepted as, beauty, until a non-Black person makes it beautiful. Having a “big butt” is popular again due to J.Lo, Kim K., and Iggy, because it seems less “aggressive” when it is coming from a non-Black source. Our sexuality is looked upon as a weapon, something that is not beautiful, but rather threatening and shameful. Nicky Minaj poses in a thong on the cover of the “Anaconda” single and it’s “obscene,” her big butt is seen an an aggressive attempt at shoving her sexuality into our faces, and her “Anaconda” video is deemed horrible and anti-feminist. Lopez seemingly copies the video in form and is praised for her beautiful booty and sexy shape at age 45. Rihanna wore a see through gown on the red carpet and was trashed by the media. Rose McGowan (an actress and the ex-wife of rocker Marilyn Manson) wore a chain-mail gown, if you can call it that, years ago to an MTV event and was called a fashion risk-taker.
We deserve to be valued and recognized for what we bring to — everything! Young Black girls growing up need to see us in film, television, and on the cover of magazines, being celebrated for our beauty and intelligence. This is what is most important. I don’t need my niece growing up thinking that what makes her unique is her big butt, what I need her to know is that she is not a fad, and that her beauty is timeless. From designers styling their (non-Black) models’ hair in cornrows and gelled down baby hair on the New York Fashion Week runways, to pop stars, magazine writers and well, everyone else, we are an anomaly. Our beauty is enviable, our hair can do things no one else’s can, and our bodies come in the most beautiful colors and sizes, so much so that they want to be us … until the cops come, then, no one wants to be us.