It’s nothing new that every step Beyoncé (or her family) takes attracts interest, and it’s also nothing new that this attention extends beyond her career and every aspect of her personal life, to the clothes she chooses for the current concert , her new hairstyle, etc. even includes your skin color. And it’s not a figure of speech.
Last weekend, the singer attended the premiere of the documentary “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” in Los Angeles wearing a silver dress by designer Donatella Versace, who did not hesitate to share a photo of the artist on her Instagram account. The post received more than 500,000 likes and around 6,000 comments focused less on the garment and more on her skin tone, which is much lighter than usual, and her straight, platinum blonde hair. There are people who even compared her to the Kardashians, with one user complaining that “she wasn’t proud of her heritage and lightened her image to fit in with a different race.”
In an article in the newspaper El Español, two experts analyzed the images and agreed that the controversy has no merit, because if it looks almost white, it is not necessarily due to depigmentation, but rather to the quality of the image . photo, the use of flash or the color effect created by the dress itself. If it was that simple, why was there so much fuss and what was behind it? Well… lots of questions.
This initially existed before social networks, but today it is becoming more pronounced: successful women are viewed more closely and judged very summarily. They express opinions about their clothing, their physique, their shapes and yes, sometimes their work.
On the other hand, there’s something of a sense of déjà vu here, because this isn’t the first time this has happened. In 2008, L’Oreal received a lot of criticism after using a photo that very clearly showed Beyoncé. The brand subsequently denied that it had manipulated the snapshot.
In addition, the color and intensity of black are also important. Proof of this is the study they conducted at the University of Chicago in 2008, before Barack Obama won the election. In it, they used three photos of the man who would later become President of the United States, one with his real skin color, another where he appeared lighter, and the third where he looked darker. Most people who wanted to vote for him believed that his real tone was the brightest, and yet those who leaned toward the Republican Party believed that the true picture was the one in which he appeared darkest. Since this was the case, a better perception of him was accompanied by the perception that he was less black. What may seem very racist to us happened even within his own party: an advertising campaign supporting Hillary Clinton, an opponent in the primary, was criticized for allegedly “smearing” the person who eventually became the tenant of the House of Representatives: the white woman .
The above speaks of biraciality, the perception of which, like that of race itself, which is a social construct, can be very contextual. There are mestizos who are read as white in Africa, black in the West, or one of the thousand caste designations that Spain left in Latin America. Now it is also associated with colorism, a term coined by African-American writer Alice Walker, who, while admitting that all black people suffer from racism, points out that people with darker skin, thicker lips or wider noses suffer more to be discriminated. are read as more dangerous and less beautiful.
Colorism is usually associated with texturism, which would be the same if applied only to hair. Therefore, curly hair, but not as curly and curlier than an afro, has greater social acceptance. It is not for nothing that last year the US House of Representatives passed a bill banning discrimination based on the possession of natural Afro hair, and this serves as an example that this discrimination is real and not a subjective perception due to extreme fragility.
Just take a look at the film industry or the fashion catwalks to see this. And no, Lupita Nyong’o or Viola Davis are not the rule, but rather the exception. But without having to pay attention to the star system: When it comes to hiring people in public positions or in the care sector, there is a “negrometer” that makes it not so easy to find black people with dark skin and very curly hair perform specific tasks in specific locations.
Obviously this has consequences. Voluntary depigmentation with chemicals is too widespread in several countries on the African continent and in some Caribbean countries, where a part of the population uses cosmetics with very high levels of hydroquinone to lower some tones. The aesthetic references that appear on television, on magazine covers or on billboards are Rihanna’s style, that is, clearly, and they strive to look that way. The problem is that black people are black as a form of adaptation and natural protection in an environment where the sun and its effects can be very damaging to lighter skin types. In fact, this is already the case: the number of cases of skin cancer does not stop, and as if that were not enough, the suture site becomes more complicated during a surgical procedure as the dermis becomes thinner. This practice is more common among women, and although there are some men who declare it (the most famous would be former baseball player Sammy Sosa and dancehall singer Vybz Kartel), most of those who practice it are women, since they have an infinity greater aesthetics obtain prints.
And then there is the question of hair. There are many girls who grew up hearing that their hair was bad, as if, in the words of Cuban rapper and beautician Robe L Ninho, they were a criminal just because they were looking for it as a child the clouds instead of the waist. From this point of view, the use of aggressive preparations, the thousands of hours and bills spent at the hairdresser, and the straightening of generations of women were not an aesthetic whim, but rather a product of the need to adapt to a context in which what had happened and are is incorrect or is not considered sufficient or formal.
The good news is that there are more and more clubs, media and people who have different references through new cultural and aesthetic proposals. Likewise, there are countries such as Ivory Coast, Rwanda or Senegal that have decided to ban the use of depigmentants and/or the broadcast of commercials promoting them. The common goal is to fight for the elimination of impossible, harmful, racist and colonial legislation. Now the message needs to spread.