As luck would have it, while at the frigid ND bunker and prancing around in nothing but her tropical New Orleanian wear, your intrepid guest blogger caught a cold and was forcibly isolated from the other monkeys and community computer for a week. Eeek achoo eeek! Hey, the New Orleanian cold front of 75 degrees and 80% humidity just hit yesterday, and this macaca yearns for a mint julep on her sunny porch.
While mired in the hurricane-force sneezes and sea of wadded-up tissue paper, cable TV overcame me and I fell prey to such eye-searers as As The World Turns, Dr. Phil and America’s Next Top Model. Dear Supreme Geek Council, please do not oust me from your favor for this transgression. Your humble servant was merely … ummmm … getting to know the enemy … yeah, that’s it.
Anchal Joseph of Homestead, FL wishes to go beyond model immigrant; she wants to be a supermodel. This 19-year-old sports flawless dark skin, ass-length hair, blue-tinted contacts and a desire to show her people that dark women can walk that catwalk, too. With tears threatening to evict her fake baby blues, Ms. Anchal informed Tyra Banks, Jay Manuel (a planet in the neighboring galaxy is missing its weirdo) and J. Alexander (and I do not quote), “Where I come from, light skin and light eyes are preferable to dark skin and eyes. I want to show them that I am just as beautiful.” Fair enough. So, why the blue contacts? If you want to win on your looks, where is the need for the prop? Then again, Anchal is the only one out of 36 who doesn’t transform into a vavoom covergirl when adorned with that other crutch – lots of makeup. She looks pretty much her beautiful same. (Aside: Check out this definition for anchal)
Conversely, the only personal features I find appealing are my brown skin and black eyes. My hips could use several circumlocutions of the block and 5’4″ isn’t anything to write Elle about. This isn’t to say that my extended family has risen above the inanity of Anchal’s experiences; in fact, I’ve been on the receiving end of such remarks for 12 more years than her. My dark skin has never bothered me, even when met with reproachful stares from the kuppai that populates my end of the South. To each her own pathology or just another plea for Reality-TVTM attention?
Speaking of this past week’s TV, was it the NyQuil crooning or did a segment of Chaiyya Chaiyya open a scene of the Smith premiere?
Jai baby,
If you really don’t give a damn, then ignore me. Trust me, I’d count it a blessing to have your hot air directed elsewhere.
Nowhere above did I ‘debate at length’ about discrimination against darker South Asians. Mostly, I was arguing about Anand’s inane comments. Nor have I restricted my critical comments to men (please do point out anything above which you consider to be ‘hurling abuse’ – none of it was abusive, though some was, admittedly, abrasive). You’ve categorized me for some reason as anti-male, probably because any assertion on the part of a female is automatically understood by you as anti-male. In short, your accusations about my behaviour are based on presuppositions about my character, and not on any actual behaviour on my part.
I suspect this is because you are inherently afraid of being challenged – and especially afraid of your moral integrity being questioned. On a previous thread, you dissolved into a foaming rage when I questioned you. It was amusing.
Yeah, I wracked my brain for months to figure out how it was that I could always tell a desi apart from all other kinds of brown people, even from the back. I realized it’s the extra brown love 😉
Yeah, it’s not as big a deal for desi women as it is for black women, but all women of color have to deal with the hair issue, and it’s a pretty sensitive racism/colonialism issue for some. I think the reason for today’s hairless ideal is one part porn industry, one part “sex sells” advertising, and half part white supremacy. If you think about it, any kind of shaving is bodily mutilation to some degree. For a lot of women of color, it literally does go “ghrr ghrr” because we have thick, dark (visible) body hair. Sometimes it gets brutal and the only thing you can do is wax, but HairFromTheHairBelt grows out really quickly (my first-year college roommate’s hair grew out in 6 hours!), and you can imagine how expensive that might get, with razors or with professional waxing. And then there’s the stubble (really, what’s in it for a guy to prefer “clean” looking legs that feel like cacti after a day?). And as for the melanin, it can overproduce in areas where the skin experiences a lot of razor irritation (i.e. armpits, bikini). For me, I live in Santa Barbara, and the peer pressue to be nekkid everywhere is irresistable, so I do what I gotta do 🙂
Btw, sorry about all the spelling errors in my last comment… and for the threadjack 🙂
it definitely seems to be driven by marketing … even for the men. my colleague was telling me he would love to grow a beard, but his primary function is sales and it just wont do it for him.
moustaches arent quite in for guys up here in canada – only police men or strippers in leatherchaps seem to prefer the taches… but beards seem to be catching on.
the other day… i was sitting in this side room in a coffee shop and it got quite surreal…. every man in the room had a beard – and all women were either hugely preggers or were feeding their kids… however these women arrived at their current states, i’m sure body fluids were exchanged which implies arousal and thusly counters the popular notion that only a certain body type is entitled to sexuality. but this coffeeshop is the favored haunt of adbusters, greenpeace, free palestine, fairtrade etc. types – so probably not a representative sample of the world at large.