American Fuckery...

Maybe it's because I was watching VH1 Soul with my friends the other day or maybe I just have a sudden sense of black pride swelling in my heart, but shit like this:

...is what is wrong with America today. My friend pointed this out to me in an email, and I have to agree with her, Vogue, of all the venues should know better than to acknowledge the most stereotypical example of a white girl as the American standard of beauty. It's bad enough that 95% of the time, main stream magazines pimp out volume after volume of issues sporting covers graced by the blond, blue eyed "Americans", but to state clearly on the cover that it's "All American Beauty"...is just beyond comprehension. Especially since her last name is Panettiere...what is that, French?? What about this person makes her All American??

AMERICAN, is the 168 countries that are represented by the students in the New York City public schools alone. American is every color of the rainbow. It's half breed babies and adopted children, gay and straight people, hippies, health nuts, leather-clad wanderers and uptown socialites. American is not blond and it's definitely not blue eyed. It's a messy, chaotic abstract painting of everything imaginable. And we should be damn proud of that.

But apparently we aren't supposed to be. This is why little black girls who grow up in white neighborhoods pull and straighten their beautiful kinky hair so they resemble their pale counterparts. It's why the same little girls feel ugly because she doesn't look like the girls around her, or the girls on the cover of the mainstream magazines. In order to be comfortable with being black you have to be ok with being the exception to the rule, instead of the rule itself.

Just ONCE I would like to see Selma Hayek or Gabrielle Union on the cover of one of these magazines with the same caption. Just once I would like to NOT notice how many same-format white girls are representing designer labels that originate from countries whose majority population is FAR from the American "standard". A boxy-shaped blue eyed blond is FAR from America's beauty. Just like BASEBALL is far from the American past time, and HAMBURGERS and FRENCH FRIES are far from America's favorite meal.

Sick sick sick