Greetings, From a "Scientifically Proven" Unattractive Black Girl

I have heard waaaay too much talk this week about how I, my black mom, sister, aunts, grandma, great aunts, great great grandma and ALL my sistagirlfriends aren't attractive. I guess I was supposed to believe this because some psychologist named Satoshi Kanazawa decided to subjectively interpret some data and then write an article titled, "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?"

Kanazawa managed to make his article look legit by getting it posted on the Psychology Today website--which, I might add, was happy to provide Kanazawa a platform for his racism until black folks got mad and wrote themselves a storm of you better check yourself before you wreck yourself blog posts and Twitter updates.

OK, keep it real. Psychology Today probably only really started caring enough to take Kanazawa's post down when some non-black folks got wind of the kerfluffle and also decided that the article wasn't cool. After all, does America EVER care if it's just black people complaining? We're just some super unattractive, lazy people with scientifically proven smaller brains and bigger penises.

Hmm... big penises...that's probably why Kanazawa said the research results indicate black men are attractive... Dangit, black women! We can't even get THAT right! Unattractive AND without big penises.

Seriously, now that we know penises are everything...

I've spent my entire life not having the right skin color, hair texture, nose or lips. I've refused to starve myself into some wack Eurocentric ideal. Most women's and fashion magazines don't have ladies who look like me on the cover. Or inside. Or in ads. Or on the back cover. Thank God my understanding of who I am doesn't come from the opinions of a society steeped to it's core in racism. If it did, I might believe some trumped up, completely subjective research about my alleged unattractiveness.

I don't even need to read that other experts are now taking the SAME data set Kanazawa used and finding that, shocker, it actually doesn't reveal that black women are less attractive. Kanazawa obviously wanted to interpret it in the way he did. I'd maybe feel a tiny bit sorry for him, since he spends his time researching and writing things that are so patently untrue, but then I think of all the black women who read the headline on that piece and felt like they'd been punched in the gut.

Kanazawa isn't the first person to try to pull this black women are unattractive schtick, and he certainly won't be the last. And now I'm going to go find a mirror, stare in it and admire just how beautiful, gorgeous, fine, fly, hot, and delovely I am with my supremely attractive black self.

Comments

All I have to say is, PREACH!
nick said…
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To dismiss millions of women at one sweep as unattractive is just sheer imbecility, never mind bad research. So many supposedly definitive research studies turn out to be shite once you start looking more closely at the way they were carried out. Pure racism indeed.

And as you know, this here honky already thinks you're beautiful, gorgeous, fine, fly, hot, lovely and supremely attractive.
alexia2happy said…
Thanks for posting on this subject. God didn't make any mistakes on us. We have beautiful brown skin, full lips, nice hips, curly hair. I have no complaints, I am really really HOT!
Liz Dwyer said…
NYC/CR,
I had been meaning to write about this all week and never had the time. His whole thesis is so ridiculous and racist. It would be funny if he hadn't actually been given a platform from which to spew it to the masses.

Nick,
Well thank you for agreeing with my saying I'm beautiful. Gosh, folks are gonna think I have a massive ego, but really, I think if we don't each individually recognize the inherent nobility that makes us truly beautiful, no matter what we physically look like, we're lost. And OMG, don't call yourself a honky! That's such a terrible term here in the States. Not sure if that's the case in the UK.

Alexia,
I absolutely agree. We are not mistakes at all. Not at all.
sweatpantsmom said…
WTH? Haven't read the study but I will now. The dude sounds not only racist but delusional - shame on Psychology Today for even posting it.
nick said…
I was just joking of course. I had no idea honky was a really nasty term in the States. As far as I know it's virtually unheard-of in Britain.
Sarah Auerswald said…
That is so hateful - I am so upset that someone even funded that study! How ridiculous!

And I am very happy to be "greeted" by such an incredibly beautiful woman!! Both inside and out!!
Look 2 beauty said…
thanks for this post :)
Daniel said…
Los Angelista,
Hummmm ....
Guess you already 'NO' where I'm gonna fall on this one.

(Wonder what dude would say about my psychology then, lol!)
Sundry said…
AbsoFreakinLutely shocking, heartbreaking, infuriating...I can't stand it. Just the other day I was watching the wonderful diversity on display in the line at Porto's Bakery in Burbank and feeling joy about all the ways there are to be beautiful.

Apparently there are a lot of ways to be ugly in one's pursuits, and Kanazawa is showing us one. Looking for a way to explain away his own shallowness, I'd say. WTF good is this sort of nastiness supposed to do in the world?

Thanks for posting. You rock on so many levels.
Tracy said…
You know, I always find it odd, that we black women are supposed to be sooooo ugly and unfeminine and beastly, and yet it seems everyone is fucking obsessed with us. We are studied and prodded like cattle via articles and tv news programs. Steve Harvey even write books to help us ball busting negresses catch a man.

Anyway, all this hate tell me they know we're the shit. We've been on display in the western world since Venus Hottentot, God rest her soul, and they STILL can't get over us!
Liz Dwyer said…
Sweatpantsmom,
Racist AND delusional, methinks.

Nick,
That's good that it's unheard of in your neck of the woods. I feel like I heard it more when I was younger. Maybe it's just not common in LA.

Sarah,
Yep, it's pretty hateful, but the site agreed to post it. And, uh, I don't feel so lovely today. Feel like just calling it a wrap and going back to bed. (where's my concealer!)


Look 2 beauty,
Thanks for saying thank you! Glad to write it. ;)

Daniel,
Oh yes, I already know. I'd love to see him get stuck in a room with you so you could school him. Heh!

Sundry,
Yum, Portos! Now I want to go eat there. I often feel that way too when I'm walking around LA. The diversity is so gorgeous. And people like Kanazawa are trying to hold on to attitudes that belong in the past.

Tracy,
Yeah, isn't that odd? And ugh, Steve Harvey. I still can't believe ANYBODY buys his books!
Anonymous said…
ROCK ON, Sistah Girl! Rock on. It's so funny, when I read the headlines about the guy's article, I thought about YOU and almost e-mailed you the info but figured you, being all up with the times, would find out about it (and later blog about it).
I thought of you b/c you write about this kind of stuff so often.

LOVE YOUR POST!
From Washington, D.C.,
Jennifer
Dirty Red said…
I have to say that if you need someone else to stare at you with your "beautiful, gorgeous, fine, fly, hot, and delovely supremely attractive black self"..I am the Black man you are looking for... Although when I said "stare" I do not mean that in a stalker, molester wierd kind of way...lol

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