Zael

Zael Ellenhorn

11.5.12

Attitudes about skin color have definitely changed, but are not, by any definition, changed. To be changed would be to be completed, and attitudes along with prejudice towards skin color and ethnicity is still prevalent in every day life. Spike Lee made this idea very public back in the 1980s, when he directed, produced, and starred in School Daze, which was about skin color on college campuses, specifically, black college campuses. The Color Complex discusses Lee quite a bit, stating that Jungle Fever was an exploration of interracial sexuality

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Spike Lee is an interesting figure, especially because through his films and his shows, he usually states something that is very obvious but is never stated, such as opinions about the way that black people are still treated in this country and how those racial stereotypes affect their every day lives. 

These stereotypes and differences between people with different skin tones create insecurities and situations like the one with the therapist and the black female who says that her sisters hate her because her hair is long and straight and not nappy and short.

One of the things that really struck me in this chapter introducing the idea of the color complex was when the woman was out to dinner with a man and he said that he couldn’t get too involved with a dark skinned woman. I think that idea is ridiculous. If you are attracted to someone and you like them as a person, there is no reason that skin tone should play a factor in your decision to have children with them. His reasoning was that he wanted to have light skinned children, which is disturbing, because he is talking about them the same way that people talk about breeding dogs, trying to match genotypes in order to avoid making a mutt and keep the bloodline pure.

I dont think that skin types should be political when it comes to sexual attractiveness. People are attracted to who they are attracted to, they cant help it. Its ridiculous to think that a light skinned black man is trying to “get back to his roots” if he goes out with a girl who’s skin is darker than his, and its ridiculous to think that if he dated a white woman, he would be accused of having a color complex. Attraction, most of the time, barely even makes sense. Being good looking is entirely, 100 percent, subjective. Therefore, because everybody has different opinions on beauty, literally everyone views it a little bit differently. This makes attraction random, and not conscious, and skin color should be entirely disregarded when it comes down to it. However, what I find interesting is when the article talked about how black men are actually statistically attracted to lighter skinned women, the same way that white men are.

One of the points that the Gender and Society article makes is about how womens attractiveness, from society’s point of view, is one of the most important factors in terms of judging their worth, and therefore, because more men find lighter skinned women attractive, the skin lightening business exists, and sells its products. Everywhere you look, as a matter of a fact, has celebrities with so much makeup caked on their face they look white even if they are black. There is a poster of Nicki Minaj with a powder white face and blonde hair, along with a picture of Beyonce that is so washed out you cant even tell what color her skin is. Women, as always, feel extra pressure from society to look a certain way, and this is one of the main reasons that skin lightening is prevalent and popular in modern day society. No matter how far we think we’ve come, lighter skin is still subconsciously more accepted in the modern world.