The other day some magazine called Psychology Today put out an article called Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women? | Psychology Today. In this piece they ran down all sorts of backwards pseudo science ranging from Black women having higher testosterone levels on down to having mutant genes.. It was a sad day in journalism, but I guess one shouldn’t be surprised. After all, in 2011 far too many mainstream media outlets have been pulling out all the stops to marginalize and out right ‘dis’ various communities.

Here’s some of the outlandish claims made in the article…

I can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level
of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone .
Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other
races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the
physical attractiveness of men and women differently. Men with higher
levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore
more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of
testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less
physically attractive. The race differences in the level of
testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less
physically attractive than women of other races, while (net of
intelligence) black men are more physically attractive than men of other
races.

If you want you can peep the entire article on this site HERE.

Needless to say the article set off a firestorm as angry folks descended on the magazine’s website and flooded its phone lines. Before the day was out the article which we linked to, was pulled off the site, but the conversation is still raging.

What stands out foremost in people’s minds is why the continued efforts to show hatred toward those who are Black especially the Black women?  The Psychology Today article was not the first time in this country’s sordid history that we’ve attempted to demonize Black women. No need to list the media assaults that are constantly being thrown at our mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties,wives, girlfriends and loved ones…

While we cant always control the insidious behavior of those outside the community, perhaps we should use the discussion that arisen from the PT article and pledge to do better in the way we public depict and treat the women in our community. Perhaps we should take along hard look at the psychological damage being levied on our daughters who may grow up suffering from self esteem issues, because we allow too much public pimping and don’t highlight enough public loving…Part of looking good is feeling good….Beauty starts inward and radiates outward for the world to see…

Below are a couple of videos that speak to this eloquently. The first comes from rapper NY Oil who did a song several years ago called ‘You’re a Queen‘. NY did the song on the heels of his controversial song called ‘Y’all Need to Be Lynched‘ where he took artist to task for continuously raising stereotypes and maligning women in their music. He felt like sisters including his wife and daughter needed to hear affirming messages from artists who appreciated them on all levels and recognized their beauty beyond the two dimensional shallow depictions in videos..He also wanted to remind the world that sistas set the standard for beauty..  The video to the song is below…We also put a link to the live performance of the song which is also good..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhhSjRbwe4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgt-oEi9ooQ Live Performance..

The other video which hits home is a reading from author/scholar Adisa Banjoko of the Hip Hop Chess Federation. He is the co-author of the book ‘Be A father to Your Child‘ . here Adisa talks about what he needed to do to raise his daughters self esteem, after realizing the dramatic impact daily media assaults was having on how she saw her self the world around her.. The title of his essay which he’s reading is called ‘How Jada Pinket Helped Raise His Daughter’s Self Esteem‘…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXU60VkDq6c

As for Black women being unattractive as asserted by the article… Moms, Grandma, my aunties and all the sistas who live in my hood who may not be famous from around the way who got it going on along with some of our more visible icons like Michelle Obama, Angela Basset, Jada Pinket Smith, Saana Lathan, Joan Morgan, Dawn-Ellisa Fischer, Imani Perry, Tamron Hall, Sarah Jones,  Serena Williams, Ferai Chidaya, Gabrielle Union, Thandie Newton, Skyy Brewer, Erykah Badu, Rha Goddess, Vanessa Williams, Jill Scott, Pam Grier, Tariji P Henson, Hallie Berry etc.. ..Nuff said..