>I'm not sure which time period
>you're talking about in Egypt...but
>before Columbus, in the trans
>saharan slave trade, a heavy
>Arabic influence became part of
>Egypt,as more Arabs moved into
>Egypt and did enslave Africans
>from other parts of the
>continent and from Europe, too.
> The women who
>closest fit the Arabic standard
>of beauty were the most
>prized..naturally, that standard of beauty
>was of people who looked
>most like them.

My point is this is a tendency when color variance is as apparent. it stands to demonstrate that the colorism condition is likely to occur in any community where there is color variance not necessarily that it is due to colonialism and racism.

The standard preceding the Arabic influence was that women who stayed indoors were the most revered and this is more directly attributed to paternal pathology which suggested men should hold positions of power, prestige, and labor- while women should stay indoors and achieve notions of leisure and beauty.

>It doesn't all amount to nothing,
>but it does amount to
>SOMETHING. Beauty, though it does
>affect what jobs you get,
>really has its greatest impact
>in the social sphere, in
>my opinion. You can be
>an esteemed actress like Whoopi
>Goldberg and STILL have people
>saying you are ugly because
>of your skin and your
>features. It won't affect everyone
>equally, because we're all different.
>What's water off one duck's
>back is cripping to another.

So should we ingratiate the honor, strength and pride that is also the colloquial context of dark skinned people or destroy the idea that claims that light skinned people are prettier? Do we tell people to stop thinking this way or do we tell people that they'll have to deal with it because people will think this way regardless?

Im not pretty- and i dont want to be pretty- certainly not by those standards; so should I insist that we change the standards?

>You're going a bit too far
>there. I'm saying, the institution
>of beauty should be eliminated
>because it is not very
>inclusive.

I dont think its fair to insist that all things be inclusive- its certainly not the natural order of things. How do you suggest that someone eliminate something that is very profitable for them on the grounds that its not so fair to you or in this case hardly involves you. It seems to me youd be better off telling the people not to be involved with the institution rather than trying to bring the insitution down.

>The elimination of it
>wouldn't solve insecurity, however, it
>would be a weight off
>of those people who are
>hindered by society's ideals of
>what's beautiful and what ain't.

If those are society's ideals then the institution is perfectly reasonable in pandering to it. Should the Hip Hop industry cater to a more multicultural audience- it would certainly be a weight of all those "white" people who are trying to fit in.

K