Celebrating the Black Beauty On White Women
Everybody likes a winner.
Which is the only way I can really explain the success of the Kardashians. They won the genetic lottery by being born relatively attractive while being the scion of a wealthy and prominent Los Angeles attorney. Bonus points for living in a country that has no royal family, so all sorts of kind of rich people have a shot at being “de facto” royalty of various classes. (Like the Kennedys, for you folks who don’t know who the Kennedys are, would be the Kardashian Family of Politics. Ugh. Sorry, I think I might have vomited a bit just after typing that.)
Of course, though, you can’t just become famous for nothing. You still have to sort of do something besides be pretty and rich. You need a gimmick. For heiress Paris Hilton, that was an accidental sex tape. For Kim Kardashian, that was an “accidental” sex tape, with a black guy and a big ass this time.
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.
Which brings us back to Kim Kardashian. (And by proxy, her sisters, Ice-T’s wife Coco, Angelina Jolie’s lips who are gorgeous on her, but “ordinary” on every other black girl in America, etc.) This goes beyond just physical beauty.
Everyone likes black stuff when it’s not on a black person. Ask Elvis. Ask Led Zepplin. Ask the “Justins” – Timberlake and Bieber. Our music, asses, lips, hair, dance moves are all crass vulgarities until some non-white person “cleans them up” and “makes them accessible” by doing the exact same thing – but being white while doing it. And these days, you can be white and completely sincere about your love of R&B or Hip Hop or having a fat ass and society will still gladly put you on that “Oh, but a white person did it this time” pedestal – whether you asked for it or not. And they’ll go there “oooing” and “aaahing” as if your mentors and predecessors meant nothing. As if your pop n’ lock routine came to them mature and fully-formed like Venus from the sea foam.
Eminem can write all the love songs to his mentor Dr. Dre as he likes, but for some folks he’s EMINEM! Stop ruining their fantasy.
Case in point: When the 2012 Grammy nominations were released Adele’s ground-breaking album wasn’t listed among the “R&B” albums. But if Adele isn’t singing R&B, then what on Earth is she singing? “Rolling In the Deep” is pop music? Does Adele know she’s singing pop music?
Oh, yeah. She’s white, so the old codgers who handed out the Grammys probably thought she cleaned up and classed up that pesky “race music.”
(Bruno Mars is also listed under “Pop” in this year’s Grammy nominations. Apparently if more than “just” black people buy your music you’re “Pop.” Is Cee-Lo Green “Pop?” Nope. He was only nominated in the R&B categories.)
It’s not even worth getting mad about anymore. Heck, you’ll even find some black folks who love the Kardashians and will defend them vigorously. After all, they seem pretty committed to pulling random black athletes out of obscurity. I’m sure that wins bonus points for someone. Plus, again, it’s not like the Kardashians invented the “it’s better when a white person does it” game. They’re just the players. And you can’t hate the players who are, in essence, the winners of this game.
And everyone likes winners.
So I hope you have a happy Kardashian Khristmas.
Maybe it is just me but I could give a crap less about white people with black features. I consider black features timeless while Hollyweird considers them today’s trend but I doubt they will be here tomorrow. I think that is because I had parents that told me I was beautiful so you couldn’t tell me otherwise. I am more so disgusted by everything the Kardashians represent (greed, materialism, stupidity, etc.) rather than what they look like. I will say this, when curves are no longer the “in” thing, I wonder how fast it will take Kim to deflate that “real” behind?
So basically Kim Kardashian is the arch nemesis of black women given the amount of attention given to her by them. Oh well thats what happens when you seek validation in others.
BTW aint nothing ground breaking in Adele’s album.
Kim Kardashian herself is not, of course. But I can’t lie that it bugs the holy hell out of me to see my attributes (as a black woman) ignored on me, but glorified when they are on someone else. Kim is just an example. (I.e. “Somebody walked off with alla my stuff.”)
For another example, take a whooty (youtube the track) and tell me there isn’t a glorification of white girls with black booties… I know the song is rather coonish, but it still speaks of a permeating (and troubling) mindset.
Ignored by who? Because it surly isn’t black men, songs, magazines, music videos, books, movies, and pictorial books have all come out with black women’s butt alone being the subject. So who is ignoring you? The only answer to that is that your seeking attention from whites and their media, nothing I can tell you there but good luck on the search for the Holy Grail of white validation.
Well, first of all, let me say that after reading my initial response to you and then your response, I think that I may have come off as a bit combative with you, and that was not my intention, cause I don’t even completely disagree with you. Tone is often the first casualty of comment threads. :)
So, while I understand–and in large part agree–that we should not look to the media, or even much further than our own eyes for validation, I do think we can talk about these appropriations of our culture/identify in ways that can be cathartic and productive.
Also, while I don’t personally look to the media for validation, and am pretty well-validated on my own, I still recognize that these things are happening.
I see what your saying but I can not see body parts as appropriations of our culture/identify, when not everyone in that cultures shares those parts, and under normal circumstances complaints have been made of objectification when focus has been given to them. This isn’t art or intellectual property that has been stolen and not given credit to, its a girl with a big butt who has done nothing but be her self. This article is all about validation or the lack there of.
Again, I see your point. I mean, we as black folks are kinda responsible for fueling the current national obsession with the booty. I do feel like the popular obsession with white girls with booties (in the national discourse, not the black community) as an extreme form of exoticism, and eroticism with black women– but in white face this time. But I digress.
Also, I agree that Adele’s album was not groundbreaking. Actually, it probably has more appropriation going on there than the matter at hand. The ground she was standing on has been broken, plowed, planted, all that shit.
Hey Sassy Frassy, I totally get what you’re saying. It’s not so much that there are white women who are born or “born” with black attributes that are the problem, it’s more the fact that these attributes that are natural to a black woman are only glorified when on a light-skinned or white woman. The glorification of the “black booty” on a white/light-skinned woman is where the cultural appropriation comes in.
To reiterate, it’s not the butt itself that’s the appropriation, it’s the glorification of the big butt on everyone but black women that’s the issue.
“The only answer to that is that your seeking attention from whites and their media, nothing I can tell you there but good luck on the search for the Holy Grail of white validation.”
LOL!!! Right. While the other ethnicities, who don’t give a damn what white folks think just as long as they give me a business loan, continue to expand their influence, increase their wealth and become highly educated.
In addition to the continued media attention this family banks off of, it really bugs me that some Black women feed into the hype and somehow see these broads as competition or some sort of threat to their sensibilities. Stop allowing the media and poor, wayward souls with delusions of grandeur, to use novelties as a weapon to assault the Black female aesthetic, because at the end of the day it’s all smoke-and-mirrors. Let the hungry beast starve… stop feeding it.
Great solid comment!
ditto…folks trynna read their palms with their hands 1/2 an inch from they face
2011 was apparently the year for people of African Descent and I don’t see black people going anywhere ANYTIME soon. The two highest grossing couples of last year were black. Don’t you fret the Kardashians really are just a fad. Like Kim’s ex said “Once you have kids and get older NO one will care” or sumthin like that. Rihanna has put ot an album every year for the past 5-6 years and you can barely go a week without see here on the front page of something. I LOVE Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones I’m not going to ignore societal issues because I’m sure in some way or another they exist. BUT CAN YOU PLEASE STOP COMPLAINING SO MUCH ABOUT THESE TRIVIAL THINGS!!!
Black people are woderful and have done so many great things which you’ve covered to a great extent, but I think the Kardashians ar okay looking. I can’t blame anyone for the fact that Kim has a big ass anymore than I can blame myself for being brown. Just embrace what you have fuck media if they don’t cover it. Just do you!
The problem our generation has is that we call everything trivial. They are digging into your culture and what then happens is the Black artist who created the art form no longer has the opportunity to create and earn a living off of their heritage. Where are the black rock and roll artist?Where are the Black Jazz artist? They are trying this mess again by pumping up Adele, Amy Winehouse, and Joss Stone.
We have to start viewing things as collective and connected. It is similar to having Street Smarts.
Do not fall for the banana in the tailpipe!
@bertamae
Excellent points. I call them “culture vultures”
@bertamae and @Whatever As far as I know Adele writes most of her songs as did the late Amy Winehouse. They also were professionally/classically trained musicians. Their admit that their inspiration comes from soul, gospel, and r’n'b, please don’t discredit them for years of hard work and dedication my point is… You don’t have to put down other people to make yourself feel celebrated. If there were copyright issues and some one black was being blatantly taken advantage of THEN I would have a problem.
On the Kardashians. The fact that these women who aren’t even white are being called out for features beyond their control bothers me. Booty is not limited to those with melinin.( I don’t know if you watch gymastics, but most of those atheletes are certainly not lacking in that department)
You are saying the Kardashians aren’t white? I am confused. They are not Hispanic, African or Asian and their mother is mainly Irish.
@guilty
“The fact that these women who aren’t even white are being called out for features beyond their control bothers me.”
See that’s the thing… Kim’s ass is not real. It’s been enhanced.
The thing about Amy, Adele and Joss Stone is that it is such a novelty to have these white women singing soulful music that this is why they exist. A black woman walking into a record company with the same exact album would be told it isn’t marketable. Their efforts would end up on the sub soul segment instead of being pumped into heavy rotation.
@whatever. LOL i was totally just gonna say the same thing! for those who think her behind is real……http://gossip.whyfame.com/files/2010/05/kim_kardashian_butt.jpg
COME ON NOW! whose butt gets THAT big without the rest of them getting big as well?
thats what i think is so sad. how do soo many magazines constantly put her as #1 for “best butt” when its not even real? yet they would never in a million years put a black woman because we all KNOW black women would shit all over that list.lol
currently white people are spazzing out over kylie minogue’s butt and kate middleton’s sister…. both who would totally get knocked out the water by meagan good,serena williams,angela basset,ect.
if they’re gonna put fake booties like kim’s they might as well just put nicki minaj on their lists…… oh wait shes black. oops!
Please don’t give me that Nicki Minaj has been a covergirl and she is celebrated the world over. That being said her music isn’t my cup of tea and neither is her look, but then again their isn’t one form of beauty. You act like people are just now focusing on large backsides it was Jennifer Lopez not too long ago and Destiny’s Child had a hit with Bootylicious( I’m joking, but hopefully you get the point). Celebrities are constantly getting called out for being too thin. I see alot of black women with the opposite problem. The point is just be healthy and love yourself and your look. I have no beef with Kim Kardashian. I have no way of Knowing she had surgery or not unless I’m her surgeon or someone close to her.
Am I supposed to be mad that talented musicians are getting recognized? I don’t work in the music industry, but I don’t see enough young artists with a combination of a powerful voice and actual music knowledge or a sound that goes against the grain. I don’t listen to Joss Stone so this is moreso for Amy Winehouse and Adele. They are revisiting a retro sound which was VERY popular in its heyday anyway. I don’t know many black musicians who are using that sound now. Maybe Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, who is AMAZING, but younger musicians who prefer to use actual instruments and more soulful sounding music aren’t plentiful on the airways. If you know of some current black artists like this feel free to prove me wrong.
Nice to see “Snob” writing for us again.
That said . . .
Ahh, my eyes! I can’t take all this photo-shop! Who is that woman standing next to Lamar Odom cuz it sure as hell aint Kholoe?
That’s what I was thinking…
LOL Ikr! They don’t even look like they were in the same room!