I'm pretty sure Im not bugging out, but lets talk about it
So Im at the hospital and my little cousin who is about 7 years old with a complexion that is a beautiful deep black is walking around with a doll that is white as the pure driven snow and a fake cell phone with a picture of Cinderella on the front.
*Do you think its wrong for me to want her to have some black toys?
*If she has some black dolls is it ironic that these are the toys she chooses to take out of the house?
*Do you think society fails to promote positive images of DARK girls? Not African American but DARK.
*Is playing with white dolls really damaging to her self image?
Keep in mind...
IN THE NEWS
Young Berg makes THIS IGNORANT STATEMENT
“I’m kinda racist… I don’t really like dark butts too much… It’s rare that I do dark butts. Like really rare… It’s like, no darker than me. No darker than me.”
THEN THIS MANDATORY APOLOGY
Also this is not just an American thing brought on by slavery. This is international. You'll catch this at the end in this ACTUAL COMMERCIAL overseas. Just getting the conversation started yall!
posted by BreevEazie at
12:23 AM
7 Comments:
Okay, I'll be the first to say what we have all been thinking for a long time. For a while I've been thinking this but I've held my tongue because I'm not a hater and I respect the man's hustle. With that said...I speak for all of us when I say
THIS GUY IS A CLOWN (with a capital B-E-R-G)
Moving forward, I do think and know there is a serious problem with uninterrogated coloredness (Emilie Townes) in this country. Especially with CREOLE folks, which I am and Christian (Berg) may be as well. Especially in the generation that bred us, we were raised mostly in the thinking that darker people were inferior. Certainly the light-skinned girl was the one to bring home. What he said is what a lot of people think (he was just STUPID enough to say it out loud)
With that said, he has the right to like whoever he likes, as does your little cousin, but it should be because they CHOOSE that life and not because they were BRAINWASHED.
EXHIBIT A: I'll give you 1,000,000 dollars if you find one (and just one) dark woman on Telemundo. JUST ONE
This is something very near and dear to my heart b/c my niece, my sister, and I have had this argument for years b/c for some reason my niece doesn't fox w/ black or brown dolls. (I'm not a un black or brown people hater in the least. Blue people are awesome too...Smurfs, the Man Group, Grimace, Grover etc).
What I have learned and is important b/c I have daughters is that this starts at home for them to understand what beauty really is. It isn't always the peachest or the beigest like J or Breeve for that matter. T, this will be important to make sure you instill in your upcoming daughterwoman.
I actually was thiking about u 2wo when I wrote this because of your two daughters who happen to be at both ends of the spectrum. Well, The oldest isnt blu black but shes dark and her sister is very light. So will/DO you take extra effort to buy them dolls around thier complexion? Will/DO you buy them white dolls? If so why or why not? Does it really make a difference in thier self awareness and ability to see value in thier own image? Is a child who prefers white dolls or dolls that dont look like them showing signs of a lack of self worth?
I just want to get THAT conversation started. We KNOW Berg is nuts for saying what he said and even more wack for apologizing for something he clearly meant, but is he wrong for having a preference?
I have seriously considered researching and writing a scholarly work on the persistence of complexion bias in modern culture – indeed, such and undertaking is required to truly understand this phenomenon. I certainly do not have all the answers today, but I will share what I think… (the abridged version; I have a headache and this monitor doesn’t help)
First to answer two questions…
Is anyone wrong to have a preference?:
Nope
Does a preference for that which contrasts you indicate a lack of self-value?:
Not quite, but close
To the first question, we could never make decisions or be unique if we did not have preferences. It is natural that we will choose one thing over another, and also that we make a different collection of choices than our neighbor.
To the second question, to me, this indicates not a lack of self-value, but conditionally less value for yourself relative to that which you prefer – you like yourself, but you like someone else better. I say conditionally because I cannot prove that this preference transcends the doll; maybe this is only true under some conditions. What’s more is that not only do I think this indicates comparatively lowered self-value, but I think it is counter to what is innate in us. I think it is natural to give preference to those things that we most identify with. If it is natural to prefer self, what external force nurtures something different?
It’s called IMPERIALISM :)
Story time: I sat in the office on my cushy corporate gig, and listened to the discussion next door. A woman described her surprise that the locals in Puerto Rico were “dark.” Immediately, her white colleague chimed in, “yeah, there are a lot of pick pockets down there.” Perhaps this exchange is coincidental, or maybe dark skin calls to his mind negative things. Either way, it led me to ask myself the question, “How did Europeans succeed in convincing the entire world that lighter was better??” The answer is simple: you dominate, promote that which is like you, and oppress that which is not like you. When the oppression is most effective, the oppressed not only fall to states that reinforce the purveyed fallacies about their worth, but also themselves believe that they are worth less…. Worthless. Anywhere that there was ever the intervention of European occupation, this type of thinking persists.
This does not mean that black girls with white dolls, I, or anyone else influenced by such historic dynamic is devoid of self-esteem and self-love. We should also understand that we have not escaped the history of our world.
I, unlike Berg, love women…. Period… I’m still in the process of diversifying my portfolio. I do also have a preference…. Her complexion is the same ay my own (chocolate). Still, I rate a dark skin 4 a 4, and a light skin 4 a 5. Several times I have stepped back, and realized that I awarded an extra point for complexion…
the honesty here is beautiful. M Dot thanks for the words, I still wanna hear what 2wo plans for his cosby family (Denise and Vanessa)
Yeah M Dot killed that joint. Denise and Vanessa...lol
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