Celebrating Black Beauty on White Women

In a blog entry at Clutch magazine, Black Snob editor Danielle Belton tackles the double standard of beauty between black and white women through the prism of the ubiquitous Kardashians. She compares some black men’s preference for women like the Kardashians to an alternative sweetener.

I once joked upon the first time seeing Kardashian that I could see why a certain subset of black men fell all over themselves for her because she really didn’t look that different from the prettiest light skinned, long haired, big booty black girl of their video girl dreams — only she wasn’t a black girl. Making her some sort of Racial Sex Unicorn. All the black girl parts they liked, but with none of that “black girlness.” Because, ew, black girls, right? A white woman with a black booty is like a pack of psychological Splenda — still as sweet as sugar, but without the burden of slavery, systematic racism, and centuries of internalized hate and taboos.

But, oh! I can’t help what I love! Whatever, dude. So much of what we love is conditioned by popular culture, history, fads, and social mores. When being “thick” was a sign of wealth and higher class status because most Europeans were serfs, dropping dead from the Black Plague, everyone wanted a big ole booty. Big ole booty meant you had enough food that you could actually eat for recreation, not just sustenance. If you never left Sub-Sahara Africa (and it was never colonized by Europeans), you’d probably still think being pale with long, thin, light-colored hair was a sign of being old and in poor health. Now our “beauty” ideals are malnourished 14-year-old, six-feet-tall former Soviet bloc country fashion models styled to look like “women,” and oversexed PhotoShop illusions with tiny waists and scientifically enhanced butts n’ boobs.

If society tells you, from birth, that you should dream of marrying Blake Lively, but dream of screwing Nicki Minaj, a woman with Blake’s face and Nicki’s ass is going to trade high on the “male gaze” market.

Danielle Belton’s entire blog entry at Clutch magazine.