Your opinions on race and "degrees" of blackness?

Question

My wife has a theory that Beyonce actively tries to look "whiter" than she is (blonde hair, etc.) so that she's more palatable to certain segments of her audience.

Basically her thesis (and she applies this to prominent figures like Barack Obama as well) is that African Americans with lighter shades of skin are more acceptable to racist populations.

I think this is a bit of reductionist primordialism, but I'd like to hear others' opinions (and examples).

Answer 1

I kinda a agree with her.... the lighter side of the black community seems to be more accepted.. less feared in some cases... it is racist, but I do believe it to be true

Answer 2

I agree with Sandy for the most part. I don't think Beyonce tries to look white to be more relatable; I think that lighter-skinned African Americans are considered more "attractive" than darker-skinned in our culture, even though that evaluation is often innocently subconscious. If you watch the Spanish channels as much as I do, you'll notice that Hispanics have the same standard of beauty (light=pretty). In fact, I saw a documentary on race where one Hispanic girl's uncle told her sister and her, "you know, you're both dark, but you're still pretty."

So, we can talk about racism as maybe a factor of the socially constructed standards of beauty, but I think that's more complicated than simply appearing more white to be more palatable.

Answer 3

I think every person should live life, not worrying what race they are.  Personally I'm a white american with many nationalities.  My last name is german, and I appreciate most of the nationalitiles I have.  It repressents who I am, and where my culture is from.  I've lived in America my entire life, and American is where we leanr about different races and cultures.  

I know people who are African American, and regardless of race; is them them as nice people.  A race of one person doesn't make that person nice; it's the personality and actions of that person; who makes the person who he/she is. I've meet people of all different races throughtout 19 years, and there are really nice people within all races and cultures.

Answer 4

There are no "racist populations" it's your assumptions that there are that make the public look racist, you see the racist thing was over 200 years  ago, but ignorant people always bring it up and remind us of how our ignorant ancestors acted but the rim of the basket is that they tend to forget that actions have nothing to do with geanology so it cant be passed down from generation to generation

Answer 5

I believe this is only somewhat true. I do agree about Beyonce. And I do believe that lighter skinned black people are more accepted by whites on a whole, but not because of racism but because people are naturally drawn to what is familiar and similar to them (I remember all of the Asian students in high school stuck together, gravitated by a similar appearance regardless of nationality). I think skin color means a lot within the black community as far as physical attractiveness is concerned as well. It never occured to me until I overheard black co-workers talking about it a few years ago, making fun of another one saying "she's so black..." and cracking jokes.

Answer 6

Actually, I find this a quite interesting subject. It may have some bearing on how people precieve how successful you are, or professional you are.

I have a freind who is half black, and he joined a student organization for black students on campus. He actually gets made fun of because he's only half black. Even white freinds will make comments like "Yea well, you're only half black." as if it were slightly derogatory! I find it to be quite odd.

I do think your wife is on to something. WHITE people may be more accepting of a black person with a lighter skin color.