Allure Marks Shifting Beauty Standards; Declares The “All-American Beauty” Ideal Dead

From Racialicious.com

Allure Marks Shifting Beauty Standards; Declares The “All-American Beauty” Ideal Dead
By Latoya Peterson On March 23, 2011 · 26 Comments and 48 Reactions

by Latoya Peterson

In the March 2011 issue of Allure, the beauty bible chose to celebrate their 20th anniversary by looking at the changing ways in which we define beauty.

Two decades ago, Allure conducted a study with 1,000 men and women called “What Beauty Means to You.” A clear picture of what was considered beautiful emerged – and her name is Christie Brinkley:

But the last 20 years have brought major changes to our nation – and no where is this more evident than our ideas of who is considered most beautiful. The new celebrity “ideal” according to Allure is now Angelina Jolie:

But here’s what’s really interesting. Allure also showed photos of non-celebrity models and asked respondents to rank the person who was most attractive. The top winners? A Latina female and a South Asian male (identified as a person of Indian descent).





Major takeaways from the study:

* 69 percent of all respondents believe there is no longer any such thing as the “all-American” look
* 85 percent believe that increased diversity in this country has changed what people consider beautiful.

* 64 percent of all our respondents think women of mixed race represent the epitome of beauty, and around 70 percent believe they might well be attracted to those who aren’t of their own race or ethnicity.
* 74 percent of all respondents said they wanted [their lips] to be fuller.
* 69% of respondents believe there is no longer any such thing as the “all-American” look.
* 79% agree that being perceived as beautiful or handsome increases self-confidence.
* “The regal, elegantly varnished blonde has been effectively dethroned. Not demolished, mind you–she still has access to a pedestal; it’s just not hers exclusively, and it’s come down a few inches.”
* 46 percent of all women (especially white women) find fair hair beautiful
* Of those respondents who said they wished to change their skin color, 70 percent reported that they wanted it to be darker. Among women, the desire to deepen their skin tone is especially pronounced.
* 86 percent of everyone surveyed think that middle-aged women today are perceived as more attractive than they were two decades ago.
* Members of both sexes say that, most of all, they want their stomachs to be flatter.
* African-Americans of both genders are more likely than anyone else to say beauty isn’t simply a matter of good looks, that wealth and power enhance appeal.
* Middle-aged women, 40 percent of them in fact, worry about aging.
* Hispanic men–55 percent of them–tend to believe that a female stranger would consider them attractive, and they are also the most likely among all respondents to say they use that appeal to attain stature and ascendancy in the workplace.
* Caucasian men aren’t so sure about their general appeal (a mere 29 percent think a stranger’s verdict would prove positive).
* “Black and Hispanic men are nearly twice as likely as Caucasian men to view the derriere with the kind of special fondness and rapt absorption once devoted exclusively to D-cup breasts.”
* 45 percent of black and Hispanic men think a prominent butt is among a woman’s most attractive features (28 percent of white males agree with that)
* 74% believe that a curvier body type is more appealing now than it has been over the past ten years.
* “[T]he highest rates of aesthetic self-confidence and pleasure in one’s own body exist among African-American women, and they are the most likely among all respondents to embrace and aspire to curvy hips, as well as a larger, rounder butt. They are also the least likely to be on a diet or worry about weight (Caucasian women are the most likely to focus on weight).
* [H]ere’s what a third of all black women predict they’ll do to decrease signs of aging: nothing at all. (Just so you know: This kind of attitude isn’t exactly catching on across the spectrum. About 85 percent of all Caucasian and Hispanic women report that they are definitely going to do something to fight signs of aging.)

Interestingly, other outlets have really distilled down the study to “mixed race people are beautiful” which really leaves out a lot of what Allure is saying about the changing face of beauty in America. For example, the “top model” selection contained some major distinctions:

“When shown photos of various races and ethnicities, women found that the handsomest man in the group happened to be of Indian descent. The most attractive female, in the view of both sexes, was the Latina model (54 percent of all women preferred her looks), followed closely by a model of mixed race. (African American men considered the black female model the most beautiful.)”

Asian Americans did not appear to make up a large group for the study and were not broken out specifically. Indigenous folks and anyone else that does not fit the Caucasian-Black-Hispanic categorization were also excluded.

The findings have begun to show a clear shift in what Americans consider beautiful, leaning toward browner faces and “dethroning” the blond ideal. However, some things have remained frustratingly the same.

Allure doesn’t really talk about a major issue – the violence of revulsion. While it may appear as those certain types of features (fuller lips, darker skin, rounder behinds) are becoming more mainstream and accepted, the folks who possess these features have not gained the same level of acceptance. Minh-ha T. Pham breaks down the concept for us over at Threadbared, while discussing yet another blackface focused fashion editorial:

But what is on display in French Vogue and on Diez’s runway is not beautiful black bodies, but what Nirmal Puwar describes as “the universal empty point” that white female bodies are able to occupy precisely because their bodies are racially unmarked: “[Thus] they can play with the assigned particularity of ethnicized dress without suffering the ‘violence of revulsion.’”

The “violence of revulsion” that women of color generally, and black women particularly in the cases of this issue of French Vogue and Diez’s show, experience is not mediated by these “edgy” acts of “postracialism”. In fact, the violence of revulsion is redoubled here. Blackface highlights the privileged universal empty point that white bodies continue to occupy even in this so-called postracial moment, and in so doing, it positions racial difference against whiteness, as the other to whiteness.

Society, despite the changes in individual preference, still posits whiteness as the most aspirational part of beauty. For decades, Asian Americans were not represented in leading roles on television. Even now, in a television season full of Asian American characters, no one comes to mind as a dashing lead – most are sidekicks, and relatively few are allowed to even compete with white leads for lines or status. The runways still default back to a white version of beauty every couple of years – after they promoted some new group as flavor of the month. African American entrants to the Hollywood elite have stayed at the same levels for decades (one in one out…), and the Oscars remains an overwhelmingly white event.

Allure’s next photo shoot reveals how this type of acceptance plays out, featuring a variety of models from various races and ethnicities…but who all have the same essential look.

Skin tones range from pale to mid brown, lips are uniformly full, features are uniformly keen, bodies are still uniformly thin, and hair is from straight to loosely curled. In this way, we acknowledge the world has changed – but swap an old, exclusive beauty standard for a new one.

Democrat says racism played role in election losses

USA Today

By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY
733 Comments

11 Recommend

Updated at 12:48 p.m. ET

Democratic congressman Jim Moran said racism was one factor in his party's losses in the 2010 midterm elections, invoking President Obama's race, slavery and the Civil War in a TV interview.

Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., on right, has blamed racism for Democratic election losses in 2010. He's pictured here with former congressman Tom Davis, R-Va.
CAPTION
By Charles Dharapak, AP
Moran, a Virginia lawmaker, told Arab network Alhurra after Obama's State of the Union Address earlier this week that "a lot of people in this country ... don't want to be governed by an African-American."

He went on to say that Democrats essentially lost the majority in the U.S. House for "the same reason the Civil War happened in the United States...the Southern states, particularly the slaveholding states, didn't want to see a president who was opposed to slavery."'

His comments were part of a larger interview, in which he discussed foreign policy, the economy and other issues. Moran has said that he believes concerns about jobs and the economy were the primary reasons Democrats took a drubbing at the polls.

In the biggest midterm election change since 1938, the GOP won 63 House seats -- easily eclipsing the Republican Revolution of 1994 that put Newt Gingrich in the speaker's chair.

Moran's remarks were first reported by The Weekly Standard and picked up by other news outlets.

Anne Hughes, a spokeswoman for Moran, said the congressman "was expressing his frustration" about the nation's struggle with racial equality. "Rather than ignore this issue or pretend it isn't there, the congressman believes we are better off discussing it in order to overcome it," she said in a statement.

Moran, first elected in 1990, has a history of making controversial remarks and is known for his combative personality. For example, he angered Jewish groups in 2007 by suggesting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pushed the United States to go to war with Iraq. In the mid-1990s, Moran got into a shoving match with a Republican congressman.

The National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a news release entitled "Civility," highlighting Moran's comments.

The GOP campaign committee mentioned remarks made earlier this month by Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who apologized for invoking Nazis and the Holocaust during a speech about GOP efforts to repeal the health care law, and by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who suggested overturning the law would end up "killing Americans."

'Oldest form of racism' rears head as attacks against Jews rise

Published Date:
03 February 2011
By Chris Bond
Yorkshire Post

Last year there were 639 reports of bigoted violence and abuse against the Jewish community.

It is the second highest number of anti-Semitic incidents ever recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST). The charity, which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, said these included street attacks, hate mail, threats, and the vandalism and desecration of Jewish property.

Although the figures were significantly lower than 2009, when 926 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded, fuelled by the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces, researchers say they reflect a continuing long-term trend.

The number of physical and verbal attacks against Jews has doubled over the past decade and John Mann, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, said the figures were a "sad and timely reminder", adding: "Our focus is absolute and we will continue to do all we can to ensure these numbers go down over the coming years."

The CST said the raid on the Gaza aid flotilla in May and prominent Jewish festivals in September led to two spikes in the number of incidents. There were 114 violent anti-Semitic attacks in the UK last year, down from 124 in 2009. But worryingly, the number of violent assaults rose as a proportion of the overall total, from 13 per cent in 2009 to 18 per cent last year.

London (219), Manchester (216), Hertfordshire (40) and Leeds (21) had the highest number of recorded anti-Semitic incidents in the country. It's no coincidence that these areas are home to four of the country's largest Jewish communities, but nevertheless the rising trend is cause for concern.

"We have this pattern that whenever there's a crisis in the Middle East involving Israel we see a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Britain," says CST spokesman, Dave Rich. "But what I think is worrying is after 2009 we expected a big fall last year and although the number of incidents did fall by a third, the trend over the past 10 years is heading upwards and what we are seeing is street racism that is becoming more embedded."

Among the incidents reported was an assault on a Jewish man in Leeds who was standing at a cash machine when a car containing three or four men drove past. One of the occupants shouted "Jude" before they pelted him with eggs. In January last year, the words "F*** the Jews" with a swastika were drawn on a desk at Leeds University, while in Manchester a Jewish-looking man was about to get into his car when a large group of children shouted, "Hitler is coming" at him and threw a brick through his rear window.Such shocking behaviour will rightly upset people, but does the increase in the number of incidents being reported mean racial tension is rising?

"The numbers are a lot higher now and that is partly because we have become more integrated within the Jewish community, so we expected the report rate would increase. But that alone can't explain the year-on-year rise we are seeing," says Mr Rich.

"It could be because we get these spikes and the figures never quite go back to where they were before. There are different types of anti-Semitism and sometimes it relates to anti-social behaviour. It doesn't define Jewish life in this country, but it's a problem that is present for people and the more Jewish you look the more likely you are to be targeted."

Labour's Rotherham MP Denis MacShane, author of Globalising Hatred: The New Anti-Semitism, is concerned by what is happening. "Anti-Semitism has resurfaced recently in a very worrying way, so that people are attacked simply because they are Jewish, not because of the views that they hold. People are forgetting where anti-Semitism can lead, it's the oldest form of racism," he says. "It has moved away from the anti-Semitism of the 30s, but it's back out there in a way that it wasn't 25 or 30 years ago."

Which is why it still needs to be tackled. "We expose it, we report it and we don't allow it to resurface. I would like to see one of the big universities in our region starting a course dedicated to the study of anti-Semitism that looks at it in both historical and contemporary terms."

Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East (Lab), says although we are a much more tolerant and accepting society these days, there are still small pockets of communities that feed on ignorance and prejudice.

"If I talk to Jewish people about anti-Semitic crime they will say it was ever thus and ask if it is happening to others, and sadly the answer is 'yes'."

OH Gov Kasich Faces Racism Charges: Hires All-White Cabinet

February 4, 2011 by Desiree Washington
from Popdecay

Ohio’s newly elected Republican Governor John Kasich came under heavy fire this week for hiring an all White cabinet. When confronted with his failure to hire any persons of color to do the “people’s work,” the Republican said “I don’t need your people.” By “you people,” he was referring to African-Americans, according to Democratic State Sen. Nina Turner, who witnessed the statement first hand.

But Kasich’s spokesperson said the Governor has been misquoted and that the comment at issue was merely intended as a partisan attack. Kasich meant to say: ”‘Your people are Democrats, we don’t need them on our cabinet, ” says Kasich’s representative. Even if this defensive statement is true, Kasich’s explanation does not settle why he has no people of color in his cabinet. After all, the former Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele, is Republican.

The governor was a commentator on Fox News Channel, hosting “Heartland with John Kasich,” from 2001 to 2007. In the 2010 Ohio gubernatorial election, Kasich helped Republicans give Democrats a “shellacking,” narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland.

It’s the Dog That’s Racist: Discovering the Legend of White Dog

By Sexual Correspondent Andrea (AJ) Plaid

I’m glad I saw the legend, at least.

I had heard about Samuel Fuller’s film White Dog in whispers, like a deeper-than-the-FBI-and-the-Illuminati-plotting-in-Area-51 conspiracy theory among my more “conscious” Black acquaintances — mostly because the film was banned, though no one ever said exactly why.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I attended a screening of the film at the the Maysles Cinema in Harlem, hosted by the the Ego Trip hip hop collective – who are, in full disclosure, the R editrix’s heroes – as part of the movie’s house series, “I See White People,” billed in the theater’s program as a “quarterly series on the visibility of white racism, white privilege, and unacknowledged white culture.” Ego Trip’s Chairman Jefferson Mao added, deadpan, that the film was chosen because “we’re fans of the racist dog horror genre.”

To say the film’s history is “complex” should qualify it as one of the word’s understated synonyms. The history of the book upon which it’s based would qualify as another synonym. Spoilers and highlights from a Q&A discussion Ego Trip hosted after the screening are under the cut. (If you have a slightly deeper quick-and-dirty curiosity, read here.)

SPOILERS AHEAD

The plot is rather simple: Julie, a young white actor (played by 80s teen star Kristy McNichol) decides to adopt a white German shepherd she hit during a nighttime drive. She thinks the dog is the perfect pet. However, other people suss something’s wrong with it, starting with the actor’s white boyfriend (Jameson Parker). What’s wrong is the white dog is a “white dog,” a canine trained to lethally attack Black people, from the sanitation worker to the actor’s Black co-star to a random pedestrian.

When Julie finally recognizes this, she sends the dog to a wild-animal training refuge for re-education. The refuge’s owners are divided on what to do with it: Carruthers (Burl Ives), a white man, tells her the dog is a lost cause; Keys (Paul Winfield), a black man, reluctantly, then determinedly, tries to reform it.

Keys also explains to Julie that the dog’s behavior was probably the result of conditioning: the original owner paid homeless and/or drug-addicted Black people to abuse the dog when it was younger, to the point that the dog was conditioned to associate Black people and being attacked. This is underscored by an encounter between Julie and the owner, an older white man and his two granddaughters. Later, the dog, retrained to not attack Black people, hesitates about attacking Julie, then turns and runs towards Carruthers in teeth-baring mode. The dog leaps, and Keys shoots.

Director Roman Polanski was hired to direct White Dog in 1975 before his being brought up on statutory rape charges led him to leave the U.S. Six years and several creative teams later, screenwriter Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), who was to have worked with Polanski, and director Samuel Fuller took on the project (with the encouragement, curiously, of ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner.)

At the time, the NAACP, along with other civil-right leaders and organizations, expressed concern that the film would spark racial violence, questioned using a book written by a white man (and a “pulpy” book at that), and criticized Paramount for hiring the mostly white film crew. The studio brought in two Black consultants to critique the Black characters. One, a vice-president at the local PBS station, said he found nothing wrong with the depictions; the other, an NAACP vice-president, thought the film would aggravate race relations in light of the Atlanta child murders occurring at the time.

Fearing a NAACP-threatened boycott, the studio shelved the project without telling Fuller. Infuriated by Paramount’s action, Fuller moved to France and “never directed another American film.” White Dog was theatrically released in France and the U.K. to positive reviews in 1982. The first time the movie appeared in wide release in the U.S. was as an edited-for-TV movie for cable in 1983. NBC planned to broadcast White Dog in 1984, but scrubbed the plan due to continued pressure from the NAACP. At best, some people may have caught the flick in the subsequent years in art-house movie houses and at film festivals. Finally, the Criterion Collection released White Dog on DVD in 2008.

The ensuing Q&A became a fascinating discussion of why the dog would have become such a trigger for the NAACP’s fear. As Ego Trip’s Gabriel Alvarez noted, “Using the dog to symbolize racism is interesting because the dog is seen as part of family.”

One audience member said that, because of the furor surrounding the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal, the pop consciousness around dogs and African-Americans, especially men, would drastically alter White Dog’s reception if released today — especially in light of Keys having to kill the dog at film’s end. Other audience contributions from that night:

* “The symbol of dog is ingrained into the consciousness of Black people with the civil rights movements with dogs and hoses.”
* “I remember hearing about an MLK park where some people wanted to have a dog park. But it became a big issue along racial lines. What I found out was Black people felt it was disrespectful to have a dog park in a park named after MLK due to the history of dogs and Blacks and violence.”
* “What the movie shows is that there’s a need to be truth and there needs to be reconciliation. What I’ve noticed is that young white people need to be aggressive with their parents regarding racism.”
* “I want to know from white people how can white people facilitate change….”
* “By creating such things as film. Yeah, the film is cheesy, but there’s also a film language that Fuller uses.”
* “What people need to do is to understand and deconstruct that the country has been founded on inequality.”

The discussion turned to how the film dealt with racism itself, a topic I engaged in with Jefferson:

Me: It was a very ’80s message film.
The moderator responded that White Dog was “straightforward” about white racism.
Me: It was straightforward because it was the ’80s. So the racism was (more) obvious, so the message was obvious. Now it’s morphed into Glenn Beckian ‘I can be racist, but don’t call me a racist.’
Jefferson: Stylistically, it’s very 80s. But it was ahead of its time. Fuller’s career was interesting. He was known for a lot of B movies but tried to sneak in social issues. Yes, it’s 80s exploitation, but there are powerful moments, like the child getting whisked away while the dog is hunting.
Me: But saying that it’s very 80s isn’t a slag, but a simple observation.

After the Q&A, I shared my opinion with Gabriel that every decade has a “message” film about racism that is reflective of not only of time period stylistically, but also where ideas about racism were and are. The 80s had White Dog and John Sayles’ Brother from Another Planet. The 90s had John Sayles’ Lone Star, Anthony Drazan’s Zebrahead, and Tony Kaye’s American History X. All of them were “race message films” that were very much of their time.

Exiting the theater that night, I noted the strange irony — and hope – of the series being housed in an indie theater located in the nexus of white-gentrifying Harlem. Perhaps this series is a good tonic, if not a great meeting point, for whites and the PoCs left in Harlem to gather to talk about the transitioning nabe and how well-off whites gentrifying it isn’t simply viewed as a “the neighborhood changing” so much as a blithe takeover, fortified by unaddressed white privilege, of a perceived spiritual and physical home of some Black people and our allies in the US and the world. However, considering that two white couples who came to watch the flick left as soon as the film was over—and, as a result, tipped the Q&A audience to majority people of color. We’ll see.

The Maysles Cinema crew wants to take their “I See White People” series on tour. Next stop: Brooklyn, NY.