beautiful...I just want you to know....

Hey there everybody, I know it has been a long time since I have written anything BUT HEY I'm here now eh?


I just want to pay homage to a certain black French actress and in doing so give some props to some other beautiful and talented black ladies.
The actress' name is Aissa Maiga, she hails originally from Senegal and has mixed African parentage (Malian, Senegalese and Gambian) I have seen her in French television and a few films before and after watching a recent film with her in it 'Ensemble c'est trop' I just can't get over how beautiful I find her. This is the backdrop to my appreciation of this lady, I have just returned form a short holiday in a Caribbean country and there were SO many pretty girls, they all had long hair that curled, waved and flowed, or greeny blue eyes or cocoa butter/ tinned-milk-tea skin, in short they were just the perfect ti chabins (creole for mixed race looking girls with light coloured skin) and the whole time I just found it amazing that these were fully black women. They hadn't done much to themselves but the usual Caribbean mixtures inherited from slavery and colonialism just presented themselves as various shades of beautiful. WoW! From the young girls to the old women they were the epitome of what many other black girls would spend hours in the salon/gym/Yinka Bodyline trying to achieve and they just have IT, naturally! So, anyway this all left me feeling very short, dark and hairy (I am currently growing out my eyebrows) -and it doesn't help that my son (being light and quite frankly a bit coolie) fits in very nicely with the general look of the island, and resembled about 50 other women more than myself.
So when I got onto the plane and the little one finally fell asleep, I decided by chance to watch a French film, and there she was, dark, hairy (maybe even short, I can't really tell) but BE-YOOT-I-FUL, and although I don't look anything like her it was just very good to have confirmation that dark is lovely (all shades) so YaY to:

all u creole boté (beauties)

and to Aissa Maiga,

Rama Yade,


Alek Wek,


Lanisha Cole (the dark girl in Pharrell's 'Frontin' Video)




and to my main girls Sankofa, Nsoromma, Afrocentric and, bien sur ... Me!


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9 opinionated people have something to say:

Unknown said...

Afro, who's standard of beauty do you subscribe to? Your own or one that has been sold by someone else/other people?
I believe we're all individually entitled to define our own standards of beauty. That you lose your esteem the moment you allow someone else's standard(s) to supercede yours. I have my own criteria for what I consider beautiful and handsome. And NO ONE can persuade me to shed my own in favor of theirs.

From what I read, you appear to be conscious of a certain beauty standard not your own.

Friday's Afro said...

@nanasei, interestimg comment. I'm not sure that the standard of beauty I am conscious of has been sold to me by others, I just happen to think that long hair, greeny blue eyes and fair skin is nice BUT This doesn't stop me from seeing dark skin and afro hair as beautiful either, nor does it stop me from seeing white people as beautiful or anyone for that matter. I don't think I have only appreciated Aissa's beauty as a rebellion against mainstream thought, she's just pretty and after seeing nothing but martinican girls for 10 days it was nice to be reminded that there is more to see. I think it's just narrow-minded to say all light-skinned girls are this, all dark-skinned girls are that but I know what I think is beautiful and sorry but sometimes that does correlate with 'mainstream' views

Sankofa said...

I really liked this post love. It's weird because I've never really allowed myself to be affected by colourism. Every time I start to feel insecure about anything, I make a concerted effort to push the negativity out of my life and it's worked for me thus far.

Beauty really does come in all packages and so what if other twats don't recognise that? For me as long as my God, my man, and myself think I'm beautiful who cares about anybody else?!

Afrocentric said...

Wow Friday! It's been a minute hasn't it?

Anyway, Aissa Maiga is gorgeous!

You know what? For me, I think it is less about black coffee skin is this and mocha coloured skin is that because at the end of the day, a beautiful woman is a beautiful woman.

It is more to do with the fact that certain ideals are upheld more as beautiful by mainstream society than others, and that is how it works, they attempt to get you to think "this is beauty and this is not". And in an attempt to kick back against the mainstream, light skinned women or "les metisses" generally get a bashing for it - which is also unfair.

I think it is important to recognise beauty when you see it. No matter the shape, size or colour it comes in. And as Sankofa said, I only need approval from three people: God, my man and I.

Nsoromma...Child of the Heavens said...

Friday's Fro - We've miss ya girl! Love the post. One of the things I love is that you see beauty whether it is mainstream or not. I think too often that people rebel against mainstream beauty in a negative manner. Just cuz certain looks are mainstream doesn't mean they are not beautiful too.

Friday's Afro said...

Ta girlies, I thought that I didn't care about skin colour until I heard myself saying 'wait a minute these charbins ARE pretty' in the same way that some might say 'oh dark girls CAN be pretty', that gave me a slap back into reality. I've been listening so much to cries for recognition of non-mainstream ideals that it was the alterrnative that was actually brainwashing me! haha! anyway Pretty is Pretty so there! lol

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Anonymous said...

We are talking about references to colonialism que sont tres ancienne. "From a distance," in time or space affords much redemption. Laugh it or hate it, but now we can afford to admit "colonialists were the first (rudimentary) integrationists."

These ladies are proof good wins over bad...and that some roaming fellows, long ago, searched and found. C'est bon pour les Francophones, et autres aussi.

Alec

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