Are Black Americans programmed to hate themselves?

Your thoughts have a lot of merit, but I think the predisposition can always be altered or reprogrammed if you don't allow society to dictate what constitutes a beautiful person.

 

this must be funny to people in other cultures who don't have these issues.

yeah. my step father is actually a dark skinned man and i now in 2010 take back what i used to say about his color. i feel very very bad.

i mean yes he has a sad excuse for a personality. he is an asshole. but because of the divorce drama and so on and him being a step parent and being that my mother is fair skinned. people in my fathers family first attack his color.

i feel horrible about it now but i was a product of my environment as a kid. i'm not dark nor light. i'm in the middle.

but it must be comical to other people in other cultures

 

Here here...you're making too much sense.

 

Other cultures are worse they can't laugh at shit...look at the people of India.

They still think the sun rises and sets in the wm's ass-crack.

Mexican TV imports light-skinned Argentines to star in their Novellas.

Asians get their eyes done on the regular...and worship whiteness.

 

Using White society as the dominant standard, if you hold these standards, yet do not resemble them, there is a good chance you might hate yourself.

Now this is something different. do you believe this to be universally the case? In a Black dominated society, would White men be more attractive to Black women, then White women to Black men. Or is there a essentialist nature to the beauty of white skin, soft hair....that makes white women aesthetically/visually more appealing than Black women.

If one held the essentialist belief it would be problematic, using your words as an example, it's like saying Blacks do not have aesthetically/visually features, yet since these features are more highly esteemed in women, Black men have an easier acceptance when it comes to our looks, even representing the opposite of the feminine ideal, thus sometimes making us the masculine ideal.

I don't believe this, but I believe there are essentialist beauty standards that probably have to deal with facial proportions, The Gabby Unions of the world will always be beauties..irrespective of the dominant society. I've heard several people argue that muscular men have always been the standard, and I also agree with that.

 

I agree, Compared to other people, Black people seem fairly self confident when it comes to looks.

 

:smt023

 

No doubt

 

I'm not saying its not important I'm saying it doesn't seem to be as high on the list for women as it is for men. Truthfully I think height and muscle tone is more important for women. Think of it this way take a man you find attractive and drop his height by six inches fcor most women that man wouldn't be as attractive for many men the opposite wouldn't be true.

 

Depends on how tall he is in the first place I would figure. If a guy is 6'6 and you knock '6 off, he still is 6'0 lol.

 

I gotta cosign this

 

Haha...exactly what I was thinking.

 

But if he were 6'2 which a lot of women I know feel is ideal and drop him down 5'8 he won't be as attractive as he once was at 6'2. Now take a girl who is 5'9 and drop her down to 5'3 ( think lead singer of the pussy cat dolls to Kim Kardashian) she would still be considered hot by most dudes.

 

When you say society, are you referring to a global scale, a single country, a continent, etc?

 

I guess the best sollution I can think of is for people to focus more on what matters than just the material and shallow indulgances of the world. Stop focusing on what others find to be hot and focus on improving yourself to your highest potential.

 

true but I'm seeing more and more BW give into botox, collagen injections, but lift's, face lifts.. you name it.

 

And is that black people have higher self esteem or is it that a large chunk of black Americans are poor. You won't see as many of them getting plastic surgery just because there are less of us here. So it might not be because of higher self esteem it can simply be economics.

 

I don't think we are "programmed" to hate ourselves. I do think the standard of beauty is different and is Dependant up the dominate culture that welds power.

In Japan for example for a very long time that standard of beauty was Europeans because Americans, after WWI controlled so much of the aspect of that country. You can see White Women used as the standard bearer for beauty all over the country, even in animation. Slowly that is changing as Japan has taken more and more control over its country.

In the United States Europeans are not only the dominate race, but also the dominate culture. So it takes not stretch of the imagination that those who are non-white would gravitate towards that standard.

We are alwas looking for the "scheme" or the "hook" for the reasons why are are, or why we think when sometimes there is no "Master" plan, and the reason is far far more simple.

Grace Jones was unattractive (to me) not because she was black black skinned, but because she simply is unattractive.

 

I think that many of us have a "just deal with it" attitude.

Black men 20 years and over who are overweight: ...........66%
Black women 20 years and over who are overweight: ......79%

With numbers so have we have a subconscious "it is what it is" mentality. We know full well what we need to do to change, but we don't Its fair better to "just deal" "just be happy"

And I believe most of it is superficial, a good many of us WANT to change, we WANT to make adjustments to our body and health (and I'm not talking about plastic surgery" we KNOW that we live unhealthy lifestyles and need to exercise, eat better...but we aren't (for one reason or another) up to the hard work we know it is going to take. And I am not talking about becoming a body builder, or even a fitness guru.

 

all very good points. i learned alot today.

i sorta feel sorry for myself and black men like myself because so much of our life is sometimes wasted on being inside of a african american shell or rather stuck inside it and the non-sense that goes on in it.

i'm 28 now and the 15 yrs that got wasted on non-sense is time that i can't have back. its really sad actually.

part of my life is over with now, and i have to look foward. This forum has played a role and helping me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Alot of us BM (this goes for BW too) learn to feel like we aren't good enough and we learn to hate ourselves.

i do agree all ethnic groups depending on who you're refering to (male & female) have their own unique brand of self hate.

with black people in US its mainly our color complexion and our facial features. then goes our body - our hair.

then our status/class.

then comes all the other drama that goes with it.

i feel like a my eyes are open now. And i feel like the grass is truly greener on the other side. all a BM has to do sometimes is reach out.

but getting over the fence to that other side is not always easy