By Pearl Jr.
Author, Black Women Need Love, Too!
The brown paper bag test was for admittance to Black social societies and certain, so-called, upscale parties. If a WOMAN was darker than a brown paper bag, she was disallowed to join certain social groups. This can be verified by watching old Black movies (usually in black and white) and you’ll see that nearly ALL females are light-skinned. Diddy’s Dumb Deed let’s us see that, even though, some progress has been made, real CHANGE has not occurred.
Imagine the mental abuse Black women must be going through thinking well, if I wear light foundation or bleach my skin through the night, I might be able to pull off being light-skinned, or dang I’m too dark; leading to self-hatred. Then imagine the thought processes in the waiting room with all the White and Hispanic women feeling superior because they are NOT melanin enriched and Black women feeling less confident because they are in doubt about their beauty and worth because of the color of their skin.
Furthermore, what would Diddy and/or his staff do when a dark-skinned woman showed up? Would “they” be rude and angrily reiterate that the requirement was for light-skinned Black women ONLY, and then she’d be shamed and embarrassed in front of the crowd of other women because she was told she wasn’t good enough due to her dark-skin?
What would Diddy do if Haley Berry showed up? She is technically a dark-skinned bi-racial woman. What about the beautiful Gabrielle Union, or modeling pioneers Grace Jones, Beverly Johnson, or Imaan? Would they be turned away because their skin was too dark?
And the biggest slap in the face would be the denial of our First Lady, Michelle Obama! She would, too, be turned away because she is not light-skinned, White or Hispanic.
There are so many racist ways of Hollywood, and yes, Diddy qualifies as a part of “Hollywood” because he is a celebrity. The propaganda in movies that seems to always match a Black man (with any useful skills) with a non-Black woman in videos, TV shows, and even blockbuster movies be THE catalyst for the lack of Black love within the Black race family? This propaganda campaign is using the age-old trick of dividing in order to conquer. How long are we going to keep falling for the same old tricks???
The only solution is to boycott racism in all forms, which means that under the devastating circumstances of the high amount of single Black woman/mothers, Black women should NEVER support anyone, especially Black men, that want to keep that status quo unchanged. The media and marketing executives will soon learn that to continue to devalue Black women will NOT render them much sought after profits.
And please, no one use the “it’s all about the money” excuse. Hell, slavery was “all about the money” and how many of us condone that behavior? Racism is racism, even when it’s racism within the same group, now called self-hate.
Well let’s use their own motivation to our favor, “if it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense (cents)!” Don’t allow your hard-earned dollars to be used from anything that divides the Black race and weakens our already weaknesses.
There’s no acceptable denial for Diddy. In fact, he purposely omitted dark-skinned women and there’s proof. On the black and white TV ad for Diddy’s vodka already airing, it only includes light-skinned women. Diddy’s ignorance is astounding because his twin daughters are dark-skinned. He MUST not connect the dots that he is devaluing his own daughters and insulting his own momma!
Now, this falls right in line with the marketing of Diddy’s perfume too. As I was shopping in Macy’s over a year ago, I saw a large advertisement for Diddy’s perfume with Diddy in the middle of two non-Black women. I thought to myself, I guess my money isn’t good enough for him because that ad didn’t speak to me; as a matter of fact, it was insulting that he CHOSE NOT to use, AT LEAST, one Black woman in his ad.
Don’t these fools realize that Black women are their MAIN market and will support a Black male, especially one in the music industry, in a quick second IF THEY FELT CARED FOR? Well according to the US Census Bureau, there are about 112 million White females and only 20 million Black females, so if this marketing of Black men with non-Black women WORKED, then why is today’s Black music sales by Black men so dismal and declining fast and in a hurry? If non-Black women were truly ALL INTO BLACK MEN, then why are these types of marketing strategies NOT rendering much higher sales figures? There are about 130 million non-Black women and I just don’t see the omitting of Black women in the lives of Black men working and equating to 7X more sales. It seems MOST of “them” don’t realize Black women are Black men’s BIGGEST supporters. As a matter of fact, sales figures are doing the opposite, they are declining!
BlackMediaReview.com has been reviewing and tracing the sales figures of so-called Black movies and record sales for the past two and a half years religiously every week. Spike Lee, who is usually a shoe-in for making a profitable movie, failed miserable with his Miracle at St. Anna’s, where he promotes the heck out of Black men swooning over White women; so much so that I simply walked out the movie in disgust. The movie is his biggest loser to date.
Then examine the careers of Taye Diggs, Cedric the Entertainer and many others after they made shows/movies featuring non-Black women. They, too, are huge flops! Terrence Howard, who in an interview in Essence Magazine, a Black female publication, dissed Black women. Then when he released his debut album, his record sales were so low that many didn’t even check to see if he could sing or not. Black women just didn’t care and apparently, neither did non-Black women. His sales didn’t reach 60,000.
And since many people failed to realize that Michael Jackson suffers from the skin depigmenting disease, vitiligo, and seemed to have few Black friends, his sales have been declining for decades. And since he hired the Nation of Islam bodyguards during his trial, had a Black female publicist, was rumored to marry a Black African female, attended James Brown’s funeral and Jesse Jackson’s birthday party, he sold out nearly a million tickets in the United Kingdom in a matter of hours.
It seems even Whites respect people who respect themselves. Check out who Americans elected the President with the most votes in Presidential history? It’s a Black couple named Barack and Michelle Obama. The “sell-out” doesn’t work well for Black folks! Damn it, even proud sell-out Larry Elder, got cancelled due to his low TV and radio ratings.
Yes, people watched Will Smith’s movie, Hancock in large numbers, but he didn’t end up with that White girl at the end of the movie; besides the special effects and the magic of Will Smith’s charm works under nearly every circumstance, except for the movie, SEVEN POUNDS, where he is matched up with self-proclaimed Latina, Rosario Dawson (her last name sounds Black American and she’s quite dark-skinned as well). SEVEN POUNDS is one of his weakest films in recent history!
My “sistas” are finally waking up and no longer making excuses for self-haters. Black women have always purchased Black music, jerseys, and tennis shoes for their sons. Ladies, the proverbial “they” obviously believe we don’t have value, so we can keep our value in our purses. Why give money and power to those who don’t have value for you or, worse yet, don’t like you?
Well, the time has come to make a loud strong statement to celebrities, athletes, executive decision-makers, and anyone else NEEDING to please loads of people, that if you don’t like us, we don’t like you, or better yet, we’ll spend it on people that are showing some signs of support for our community and we’ll pay their bills.
We can forgive, but only with ACTIONS!
So last night a talent management company for Ciroc–Imperative Talent Management–sent out a casting call notice to their mailing list. Ciroc is taping a new commercial on Friday with Diddy and they listed their requirements. And if you fail the paper bag test, you need not apply:
From: info@imperativemgt.com
Subject: Promo girls needed!!!
To:
Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 9:49 PMCiroc Promotion
Ciroc promo is this Friday, March 27, 2009
Time: 3:00pm – 7:00pm and 12:00am – 3:00amRequirements:
Race: White, hispanic or light skinned african american
Height: At least 5’6 or taller
Size 7 or smaller.This is a cash @ wrap job and the booking will be thru our partner. Please submit asap. Talent will only be contacted if the client is interested in booking you!!!
Compensation: $35.00 per hour
Imperative Talent Management
3500 Lenox Road, Suite 1500
Atlanta, GA 30326
info@imperativemgt.com
www.imperativemgt.com
404-419-2565 Office
404-419-2564 OfficeSadly enough, I’m not even surprised. Let the sh*tstorm ensue. Expecting a PTwitty response in 5…4…3…
UPDATE: Ciroc’s PR folks tell TheYBF.com the following:
representative of the company called and sent me two statements that were issued 3/26/09. Ciroc stated:
CIROC Vodka has nothing whatsoever to do with this inappropriate and offensive casting call, which was done without the brand’s knowledge or consent. We are taking action in response to this issue as CIROC has never worked with the company in question. We find this particularly deplorable and outrageous because it goes against everything we stand for as a brand and a company and everything our campaign has been about. CIROC Vodka has created a brand that defines sophisticated celebration for all consumers, and in no way condones this despicable practice.
The talent agency that forwarded the casting call states:Imperative Talent Management would like publicly clear any confusion that was caused by an email that was sent out to our talent that might have been forwarded outside of our database. We are a management company that books talent for promotional opportunities, and our booking agents aggressively search the net daily for modeling jobs. The promo job in question was found at <http://www.ethnicitytalent.com/castings_search.php> http://www.ethnicitytalent.com/castings_search.php and we forwarded to our talent. We have since learned that this posting was in no way authorized, supported, or endorsed by CIROC or Diddy. It wasn’t our intention to discredit CIROC Vodka in any way, and since learning of the postings inaccuracies, have revised it on our database and alerted everyone in our database to the error.
All of us can see the problem with these two statements: no one at Ciroc or Imperative is taking responsibility for the misconduct. Someone either authorized the casting call or failed to supervise the person(s) who issued the casting call, and those person(s) were not fired. Usually, in these kinds of incidents, a junior person is sacrificed, but even that step wasn’t taken here. No one was held responsible.As we know, this kind of discrimination happens all the time, but this time someone put it in writing, albeit without Ciroc’s or Sean Combs’ consent.
The talent agency characterized this written posting as containing “inaccuracies” when, in fact, race and color discrimination in employment has been unlawful in New York State since 1962 and nationally since 1964.
Thus, it’s hard to credit statements that appear to:
blame persons unknown
hold nobody accountable, and
do nothing to prevent recurrences.MMTC is not going to get involved in the matter – it’s not what we do – but I did want to be responsive to our many wonderful and alert members who’ve called and e-mailed today asking for a civil rights analysis of the matter. The bottom line is that this is unlawful. Those who didn’t exercise adequate supervision should be fired, and both the sponsor and the agency should take aggressive steps to ensure that there can be no recurrences.
Regardless of who authorized it or who knows who, this memo from Ciroc was still sent out by this agency as well as many others. And it’s still a mess
This is racist
Diddy should commercially target his liquor at dark skinned women and turn them into alcoholics like he does everyone else.
See – this is EXACTLY why I don’t even listen to P-Diddy, or anything that he has to say. I saw this coming YEARS AGO and I have NO respect for him, Jay Z, or any of these other HipHop IMPOSTORS that are basically parrots for Mr. Charlie’s mentality. The hell with them!!!!! I’m gonna put a call in to the DROP SQUAD!
Yeah, this isn’t FAIR.
There are plenty of rappers that do stuff besides play video games and smoke weed …. and they don’t get half of the notoriety that Diddy gets.
I saw this coming years ago too.
I am very much into seeing things.
And THIS is why I don’t date Black men. Whats the point? Their ignorance and self hatred is a badge of honor these days and they are not even ashamed to shout their so called “preference” from the rooftops anymore. I just can’t deal with it. Men of other races actually like Black women that look Black more than Black men. So for a Black woman like me its like, why waste my time with a guy who I know I’m going to be second best in his eyes when I can spend time with a guy who loves the skin I’m in? All I can hope is that other dark skinned Black women do the same.
Just a note, models are usually hired by 3rd party agencies. This is usually the case for many advertising firms.
I really find that it is crazy how the news item is presented and sensationalized without clarity. Let’s ignore his mother, his childrens’ mother, his daughters, and the numerous artist careers he helped jumpstart like Missy Elliot.
@Davey D,
A while back when Essence ran a series about the negative images throughout hip-hop and R&B. At that time there were many complaints that dark skinned women were not being hired for jobs in rap videos. I’m talking about the many videos with scantily clad women dancing for hip hop acts.
Diddy should commercially target his liquor at dark skinned women and turn them into alcoholics like he does everyone else. — COSIGN.
Or did we forget the heavy malt liquor ads and Billie Dee Williams selling Colt 45? It works every time.
While I understand the sentiment, some of those examples presented in the article does not paint an accurate picture. For instance, Seven Pounds failed before it entered the theaters.
To Jennifer,
Are u truly a black women that doesn’t date black men? I find that sad. Yes, there are color-struck men like Diddy who are obsessed w/ fair skinned black women (never mind the mother of his children, who is a beatiful dark brown skinned woman) but I assure you ever black man is NOT like that. Perhaps you are attracted to the superficial type, who knows? But u cannot downplay a whole entire race for the stupidity of a few. Shoot, I know a few black man who looove them a sistah, and NOTHIN else…
And as for Diddy, he, just like alotta black folks, probably are just not 100% proud of their beautiful dark brown skintone. It shouldnt even be about skin. But I’ve been thinking for years that Diddy is just one color struck man…I mean look at his momma, a beautiful black woman walkin around with a platinum blonde weave and grey contacts….smh…
But then again, everybody has their own opinion of beauty, right?
Shanti, no offense to you and your opinion at all, but you are only making the whole argument worst. You are even implying yourself that you believe light skin is more beautiful by commenting that the Black men who do have a “preference” for light skin women are superficial, meaning looks matter to them first and if they want looks they will automatically want someone light. As if the Black men who aren’t superficial are the ones who will accept us lowly dark skin women lol.
This thought process is prevalent throughout the community though so I’m not villain-izing Diddy, or any other singular Black male figure for that matter. As a matter of fact I happen to think Black women are also a big part of the problem because many of them not only downright ignore it and simply keeping hoping to find a Black man that will like their dark skin, some of them encourage and believe it too. Such as the woman who think the darker you are the more masculine and the lighter you are the more feminine.
All I’m saying is I don’t have to and don’t want to deal with it. If you do, go ahead, but the next time you turn on BET count how many dark skin women you see not even in the trashy videos but in the programs they run. Their most popular sitcom 106 and Park does not even currently employ a Black female host. The Black community has been promoting for years the image of the very dark, or at least obviously of African descent Black male as prototypical Black man and the light, very ambiguously featured light skinned Black female as the prototypical Black woman.
I don’t know if I’d be so quick to let diddy off of the hook and assume it to be the idea of the ad agency. No ad agency in their right mind would put this kind of casting call out, on their own. They would describe skin color, hair color, body type, and even style of clothes, but they would carefully avoid using race specific terms like “black”, or “light skinned black”, especially discriminating against darker skinned women. No f’n way, no how. Not that they’re saints, but they’re fully aware of the backlash such a controversial casting call could cause. They did this because P Diddy told them specifically he wants light skinned black women, and that he wants them to put that on the official casting call. This ad agency was too stupid to get it in writing from diddy, which leaves themselves wide open to be scapegoated. This is not P diddy’s first time doing something similar to this. Here’s a party flier the smokinggun.com got a hold of for his 29th bday party. It doesn’t get into race, but, it’s about as pretentious as a party flier can be without going there.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/puffymtv.html
Jennifer,
You mean to say that you don’t date Black men because of the actions of this one Black man? Also, do you really think dating non-Black men will make things better just because they’re not Black? Plus, do you have evidence or research information that supports your claims mentioned? Where do you think this ignorance and self-hatred came from, and why does it only apply to Black men?
Lastly, are you speaking from research, data and unbiased information, or are you speaking out of anger?
I’m not speaking out of anger. I would have to feel as if I was missing out on something by not dating Black men in order to feel anger. And of course I don’t have any research or data or anything like that. But then again I don’t need to. Life experience and Black men saying it openly is quite enough for me. Listen to any southern rapper’s song and they’ll tell you how they want a yellowbone. Listen to any up east coast rapper and they’ll talk about wavy light skins and Puerto Ricans. Not to mention that is specifically what you see and the type of women they ask for in their videos. And everyday Black men are just the same. Hell they are the reason why it became common place for a Black rapper’s videos to have 0 dark skinned women or women that even looked fully Black. Its supply and demand. Thats what most Black men want to see and its the type of women they most desire to be with.
And no, this is not just the actions of one Black man. I really don’t see the reason why so many Black men deny this lol. Its not as if its not a well known fact that Black men put lighter skin on a pedestal. We are from the same community, you can’t lie to me and say “its not that way” and I’ll just be fooled. It is what it is and if it makes you feel any better I don’t really care if Black men change their opinions about dark skinned women. At all. Keep doing what you do I’ll keep doing me.
I understand that there is black on black racism regarding skin tone. I also understand that dark women are underrepresented in so called “black” media. However, it is largely overplayed when it comes to everyday life. You will not find one single instance where an attractive chocolate or dark skinned woman gets no play due to her skin tone. The key word is attractive. Not to be mean, but most of the time it’s just a plain-jane who happens to be dark but mistakenly blames her complexion for not being desired. Dark skin beauties got no problems.
With that said, Didddy is a joke and I have been saying that since the late nineties. Hopefully, his big mouth and his ignorace will get more people to see him for the self hating buffoon he is.
Jennifer, (Yeah, you will always get picked on when you talk about not liking brothas!)
It seems you are making the same types of generalizations that have created the various myths that plague our community already. White folks take that myth and create problems like the one in the above article. You only encourage this type of behavior by stating it as fact instead of your own opinion. I guarantee you, most brothers I know don’t care if it’s a beautiful red bone, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate sister, as long as he is attracted to her. I’ve never met a brother who didn’t think Gabrielle Union, or Megan Goode, or Ciara, or the sisters from En Vogue, or First Lady Michelle were all gorgeous!
And basing what you think brothers want in a woman off of what you see on BET, one of the most powerful weapons against Blacks in this country, is kind of ridiculous. If it is from personal experience you speak, realize that you may just be attracted to wrong kinds of brothas.
My theory of why brothers are attracted to light skinned women is simple. As humans, we are attracted to things that are different and seemingly exotic. As brown/dark skinned people, we are used to seeing and being around people our own complexion. Lighter skinned women typically don’t carry all of the traits we’re used to seeing in darker skinned people, therefore they become more exotic by definition. This also explains the reason you stated your northeastern brothers are attracted Latinas.
Anyway, I hope you heal. Eitherway, I love you sistah.
Wow. We gotta get it together. Why don’t we do our own thing like in the 60’s and 70’s. We’re just as intelligent as any other ethnicity.
Peace
It’s a sad state of affairs. I’m a brown skin Black male and I’ve noticed this all too often, but I didn’t know it was done in writing. The urban modeling market has replaced Black women with Latina and White women with “Black” features like a big butt. And it’s like Black women aren’t needed anymore.
SMH
Interesting reading. I always thought Diddy was a tool and this just reinforces this view.
As a black male though, I have to say that I am disgusted by Jennifer’s comments. Instead of making broad generalisations about what you think ALL black men want, why don’t you just be honest and admit that YOU don’t date black men because YOU don’t like them? It is a total fallacy to say we’re not interested in darker skinned black women so stop trying to project your own self-hate. I myself couldn’t care less about skin tone or “race” for that matter (I either like you or I don’t) and I’ve never had any issues dating dark skinned black women in the past. I also find it incredibly hard to believe that you haven’t met a single black man in your entire life who has been interested in you. In short, I call bullshit on everything you’ve said.
Jennifer:
As a PROUD Black Man, while I do feel anger at your comments, I do actually agree with the reality of SOME of what you say: yes, there are tons of “Hip Hop” artists (to me, they are IMPOSTERS, cause if you ask them about the origins of Hip Hop they don’t know anything except for what their slavemaster record execs and overseer producers have taught them) who always rhyme about the “virtues” of pursuing lighter-skinned Sistas, and while there are Brothas stuck with that same Willy Lynch self-hate lighter(white)-is-right mentality, there is also another reality: there are Sistas with that same self-hate mentality as well.
When I was a young Boy, I always marvelled and was amazed by the natural beauty and strength of BLACK WOMEN. When I was a young Man and started dating, I dated ALL SHADES of BLACK WOMEN. At the age of 28, I married a beautiful BLACK WOMAN who is a beautiful, wonderful, chocolate fudge-toned Nubian Queen. I also find it disgusting how my own people still fall for that whole, “good hair/bad hair”, light vs. dark bullshit, and I’ve actually had some pretty tense verbal conflicts with other Black people over it.
What would you do if a Brotha who: 1)actually has his stuff together, 2)loves ALL SHADES of Black Women, 3)realizes this whole racist light vs. dark color dynamic is wrong, 4)loves Black people, and 5)actually may be a good catch, comes into your life? Would you shut him down with a quickness, or would you take time to get to know him? I feel sorry if you wouldn’t give him a chance.
In closing, let me ask you two questions: 1)Even though many of us have become experts at our own demise with this self-hate mentality, did the thing causing our demise originate with us in a vacuum or OUTSIDE OF US? 2)Is swearing off all Black Men indicative of said self-hate? Now, I know you’re a grown Woman, and you do as you please, but it is logically impossible for any Black Man or Black Women to say that All Sistas and Brothas are like that, when you can’t date every single Brotha and Sista on the planet. We ALL need to get our stuff together and stop thinking that someone else’s ice is colder than ours. Think on that. Peace and enlightenment.
A dark skinned woman who chooses not to date black men because of how she perceives black men to be is no different than the type of black men who choose to persue light skinned women for the very same reason. They are no different than anyone who says that they only date a certain type of person. Because at the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that we all have criteria for who we will and will not date. Is a black woman who says she doesn’t date black men, for whatever reason(s), any different than a tall woman who doesn’t date short men, or a corporate person who won’t date a blue collar worker, or a single guy with no kids who won’t give a woman with kids the time of day, etc? You’d be hard pressed to find someone who will date anybody regardless of who and how they are, or where they ‘re from.
All I’m saying is that people are gong to date whoever they want to date. It’s just that some people have dated enough and/or are in tune enough with themselves to be able to state up front what types they will and will not date. If that makes them racist, presumptuous, discrimatory, or anything like that, then we all are!!!!
As far as Sean Combs goes, this is about economics, not race. Race is just one of the many tools used to help set up and maintain the econmics. The reason we all know that Combs and others traditionally cast certain types of blacks is because no matter what we say, we still support the products. And often, blacks aren’t even the target audience of these products we suppert (ie: commercial rap). We (collectively) don’t turn off or change the tv, radio, computer, etc. when these images and lifesyles are aired. We either buy into it (like a lot of us) or watch and complain. And business people like Combs know this. He’ll target a larger non black audience for his products knowing that a large percentage of blacks will automatically support the products (even if the products and their ads are questionable). That’s why many of the images are what they are. We Are Not The Target Audience!!!!
Just because Combs is a black business man who rose to his position largely due to black support doesn’t mean that we should make the mistake of thinking that all his products have a black target audience. Many don’t. Our support is like the gravy at Thanksgiving dinner. Though not necessary for the preparation, presentation, and consumption of the meal, it significantly enhances it, and is immediately noticed and addressed if it’s not there or runs out.
When and if he has a fully funded product that’s targeting spacifically black people from it’s inception, then we’ll see different images aired. It’s all about the money, not the race. That’s just business!!!!
As a darkskinned black female I must say that I am dissapointed about this situation with the casting call of a certain type of black woman”lightskinned only”, but I am not surprised. It’s sad. Most people just don’t seem to get it-this shows the world that even black men (not all), but the one’s in the media, and some in general population do not find darkskinned women worthy. It sends negative messages to darkskinned little girls, and women too.It’s bad enought that there is actually articles out there suggesting that black women are the least attractive/ least desired. I don’t see how anyone will defend this. Yes, I understand that everyone has a preference, but to be so arrogant about it. Black men like P. Diddy is no different from some of the “racist white people”- and no, not all whites are racists, I’m only referring to the ones who are. He is no different. He seem to forget that there was a time that he would not be able to express his talent to the world like he does, and black men AND BLACK WOMEN fought, and died so he could. He came from a black woman-and this is the thanks that black women get-a slap in the face. It’s amazing, so dissapointing.
Doh! I was domain shopping at namecheap.com and went to type in the domain
name: http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/329/ and guess who
already acquired it? You did! lol j/k. I was about to buy this domain name but noticed it
was taken so I decided I’d come check it out. Awesome blog!
Puff Daddy also hates himself as a Black man, yet is too arrogant to admit it. His Black female followers he ignores, and refuses to add to Snapchat. Cassie is a fucking slut whore who will eventually leave him for a White man. LOL