Something about Lupita?
Iniko Ujaama:
Hi Makini
Quote
I don’t know what you mean when you speak about her “sensitivity”, but her confidence while definitely attractive should be considered in context to her background. I don’t know who is the ‘black girl next door’ but she is not it despite the media subtly trying to bring her across as this.
It’s either we have a Precious or a Rachel Jeantel who has been abused or disenfranchised in numerous ways and we should pity her or praise her while simultaneously drowning her in condescension.
I initially thought to put sensitivity in inverted commas. This was based on an interview in which she was talking about how she was affected by movie and began to well up in tears.
When I said that persons like her would be passed over easily was based on her complexion and features(not so much her family background) but I do agree with that "A Precious or a Rachel Jeantel" would be considered even less desirable by mainstream standards.
I often see cases where some or other black person is highlighted for being beautiful or attractive because they supposedly have "exotic" look or after they have stood out in some way for some feat their attractiveness then becomes apparent.
Nakandi:
"...there is an air of exceptionalism about the Lupita Nyong’o that the media is feeding us. As if to suggest that she is the exception, and not the rule. And that is what makes me uncomfortable with her image though I love it so.
...
I see Lupita every day. I see her as often on the streets of Philadelphia as I do on the streets of Accra. I see her in my classroom. I see her at the corner store. I see her at the mall. I see her everywhere.
And so do you. Only you don’t know it. If it took the media’s fixation on Lupita’s Otherness to introduce you to the beauty of dark skin, then you don’t know what you’re seeing when you look at dark-skinned women. Or maybe you don’t even see us. That is, if you rely on the media to tell you what to see and how to see it.
Yes, Lupita is beautiful, but please believe, Black BEEN beautiful."
Full article: http://prettyperiod.me/post/75149081609/lupita-is-beautiful-but-black-been-beautiful
Iniko Ujaama:
Lupita Nyong'o was awarded Best Breakthrough Performance for her work in 12 Years a Slave at yesterday's ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon. Just like at the Critics Choice Awards, her acceptance speech was sad and inspiring and beautiful — all at the same time. Here it is...:
excerpt:
...I want to take this opportunity to talk about beauty, black beauty, dark beauty. I received a letter from a girl and I’d like to share just a small part of it with you: "Dear Lupita," it reads, "I think you’re really lucky to be this black but yet this successful in Hollywood overnight. I was just about to buy Dencia’s Whitenicious cream to lighten my skin when you appeared on the world map and saved me."
My heart bled a little when I read those words, I could never have guessed that my first job out of school would be so powerful in and of itself and that it would propel me to be such an image of hope in the same way that the women of The Color Purple were to me.
I remember a time when I too felt unbeautiful. I put on the TV and only saw pale skin, I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin. And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first. And every day I experienced the same disappointment of being just as dark as I was the day before. I tried to negotiate with God, I told him I would stop stealing sugar cubes at night if he gave me what I wanted, I would listen to my mother's every word and never lose my school sweater again if he just made me a little lighter. But I guess God was unimpressed with my bargaining chips because He never listened.
And when I was a teenager my self-hate grew worse, as you can imagine happens with adolescence. My mother reminded me often that she thought that I was beautiful but that was no conservation, she’s my mother, of course she’s supposed to think I am beautiful. And then … Alek Wek. A celebrated model, she was dark as night, she was on all of the runways and in every magazine and everyone was talking about how beautiful she was. Even Oprah called her beautiful and that made it a fact. I couldn’t believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me, as beautiful. My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome and all of a sudden Oprah was telling me it wasn’t. It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn’t help but bloom inside of me, when I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny. Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far away gatekeepers of beauty. But around me, the preference for my skin prevailed, to the courters that I thought mattered I was still unbeautiful. And my mother again would say to me you can’t eat beauty, it doesn’t feed you and these words plagued and bothered me; I didn’t really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.
And what my mother meant when she said you can’t eat beauty was that you can’t rely on how you look to sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty enflames the heart and enchants the soul. It is what got Patsey in so much trouble with her master, but it is also what has kept her story alive to this day. We remember the beauty of her spirit even after the beauty of her body has faded away.
And so I hope that my presence on your screens and in the magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside.
There is no shade to that beauty.
http://www.vulture.com/2014/02/read-lupita-nyongs-moving-essence-speech.html
News:
Lupita two days after her Oscar victory
Zaynab:
I am always wary when persons speak about ‘natural’ in relation to hair.
“Adding hair, even to shorter hair, can be fun and sexy! I added hair extensions to Lupita’s natural hairstyle for Letterman, which is something any woman can create at home! All you need is a strong holding gel and loose, textured hair extensions.”
Celebrity hairstlist, Ted Gibson, who worked on Lupita Nyong’o’s hair made the comment above during an interview with DuJour Magazine. (http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/02/20/lupita-nyongo-dujour-lunch-david-letterman-beauty-hair-how-to/)
The consensus among many in the U.S. and other European countries seems to be that ‘natural hair’ is hair without extensions or hair that can be made to look ‘natural’ when modified whether that be by relaxers, braids, extensions or weaves. However, this is not how I would define natural hair.
Natural hair to me is the state of the hair growing in its genuine (natural) state, whether that is kinky, straight, curly or otherwise. Braids, weaves, extensions or relaxed hair just don’t fit into this category.
The phrase ‘real hair’ too has little to do with natural hair. It is only used in relation to natural hair when convincing persons that your hair has no ‘textured’ extensions.
We need to give some meaning back to the words natural and real. They should not include cosmetic alterations.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page