Nika Notes: Beauty is Diverse

If you read the “About” section of this blog, you’ll see the reasons why I started Faces of Black Fashion. To be frank, I did not state all of the reasons why I started this blog. A few years ago, I watched a video of the “doll test.”  The “doll test” showed little black girls overwhelmingly rejecting black dolls in favor of  white dolls. To those little girls, white dolls represented beauty and femininity; the black dolls did not.

Watching that video made me cry. I do understand that early on the messages we receive from the media and our environment shape our views of the world. Sadly, the media and society still advance one standard of beauty.

With my whole being, I believe that black is beautiful. I believe that God created tremendous beauty in the human population; thus beauty can be and is found within all races and ethnicities. So the video bothered me. It bothered me deeply that those little black girls did not see beauty within themselves. I did not like it, and I wanted it to be different. I wanted them to see their beauty and value. I wanted them to see what I saw when I looked at them. They would not see it however, if their beauty was or is not celebrated  in the world around them.

Today I watched another video my Carmeron Russell  (see video below) where she talks about the effects of certain privileges; in particular, the way society defines beauty and the impact that has on all of us.

Carmeron articulates a lot of truths about  societal constructs and how they shape our experiences in the world. Though troubling, this video confirmed to me the importance of championing diversity in any industry that acts as a channel that defines what it means to be beautiful. Though this blog is just a small piece of the World Wide Web, I feel even more encouraged to celebrate diversity in beauty. Whether we are tall, short, slender, not so slender, natural haired, relaxed haired….whatever it is, as black women, we are beautiful.

Cheers,

Nika