We haven't had a good Sammy Sosa story in a while, so here's a new one with pictures of how the ex-Cubs slugger is only half as dark as he used to be. Some of the difference is probably just the lighting in the latest picture -- my passport photo, for example, is so overexposed that I look like Tilda Swinton's dad's ghost. Still, the article makes clear by the lengths to which Sosa's PR agent goes on, that something is going on.
Steve's Idea of the Day for Bored Reporters: show these pictures to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. Record his comments. (For readers unfamiliar with his personality, here's the video Ozzie Guillen Visits a Sick Child from the Chicago public access cable show We're Geniuses in France.)
And from the always reliable Daily Mail of London, the umpteenth confirmation of Sailer's Rule of Female Journalism:
You might think that with all the media interest in this question, journalists might occasionally look up on Google something about anthropologist Peter Frost's book Fair Women, Dark Men: The Forgotten Roots of Color Prejudice, which answers the question. But, nah, finding out the answer is hardly the point of asking, so Frost's book is almost unknown. Frost, by the way, explain why Sammy's new highly-contrasting-cheeks-and-lips look is not a good look for guys.
Steve's Idea of the Day for Bored Reporters: show these pictures to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. Record his comments. (For readers unfamiliar with his personality, here's the video Ozzie Guillen Visits a Sick Child from the Chicago public access cable show We're Geniuses in France.)
And from the always reliable Daily Mail of London, the umpteenth confirmation of Sailer's Rule of Female Journalism:
Why are so many black and Asian women desperate to be white?
By Yamin Alibhai-Brown
You might think that with all the media interest in this question, journalists might occasionally look up on Google something about anthropologist Peter Frost's book Fair Women, Dark Men: The Forgotten Roots of Color Prejudice, which answers the question. But, nah, finding out the answer is hardly the point of asking, so Frost's book is almost unknown. Frost, by the way, explain why Sammy's new highly-contrasting-cheeks-and-lips look is not a good look for guys.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
I know that's not what they mean when they say hideously white but it should be.
ReplyDeleteThat's just creepy.
ReplyDeleteAnd from the always reliable Daily Mail of London, the umpteenth confirmation of Sailer's Rule of Female Journalism:
ReplyDeleteMs. Alibhai-Brown is no looker, but she's not swarthy. She's very light for a South Asian, and pretty light generally.
I am old and have skin that tans easily. It is true that treatments lighten your skin temporarily at least until you go back into the sun. Probably most of the time the public saw him was during baseball season when he was at his darkest. A person with that kind of complexion can show a huge amount of variation. I know I can get surprisingly dark with constant exposure. That has only happened a couple of times in my life. I usually need the lightest shade of foundation makeup to match my skin, but I can get tanned to about 3 shades darker.
ReplyDeleteOstensibly straight men don't go to extremes like this.
ReplyDeleteSo I wonder if heavy steroid use might have permanently upset his hormonal balance or something. His estrogen levels might have been permanently raised.
the various news reports are also saying that he was wearing green contact lenses, as it appears in the pic.
ReplyDeleteOl' Sammy better steer clear of Tanzania.
ReplyDeleteOh right, in the UK "Asian" means Indian, Pakistani, or similar. When I saw the link-header, my first thought was "Orientals are about best looking women on earth, why do they want to lighten their skin?"
ReplyDeleteBTW, web advertising has really gotten sophisticated. The Daily Mail's URL has a "co.uk" extension, but the ad that popped up on my screen was for AirTran, which does business solely in the US and Caribbean.
Hmm. I'd always assumed that Hollywood's pairing pale women with "tall, dark and handsome" leading men reflected Jewish producers' fantasies: A mensch could land a beautiful shiksa.
ReplyDeleteWhy do white women sunbathe to get what glossy magazines call "that elusive tan"?
ReplyDeleteThe author misses the point entirely. Colorism, as it exists in black and Asian communities, is about status seeking, not race, and has an exact parallel in white communities.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair is to be a person who spends his/her time indoors and is not forced to labor in the fields or the streets. That is, a person of means. It is the same reason some men in these communities grow the nails long on their pinkies - to have an unbroken long and fragile fingernail shows you aren't a manual laborer.
The parallel, though reversed, in white communities, is the tan. The tan denotes someone who doesn't have to work much at all, who has leisure time to play tennis and golf and go yachting or skiing.
Lighter skin among the dark races and darker skin among the pale races are designators of status. The dark people who lighten their skin are not expressing a longing to be of the white race, any more than white people going to a tanning salon are trying to become black.
Yasmin Alibhai Brown has an enormous chip on her shoulder about race, going back to the Asians being expelled from Uganda.
I was going to make a comment on Sosa's jawline and HGH but from the pics it looks like it's the one that he was born with.
ReplyDeleteHere's one field of employment where lighter skin is definitely an advantage:
"If it wasn't for race mixing there'd be no video girls," Kanye concluded, before revealing that, "Me and most of our friends like mutts a lot. Yeah, in the hood they call 'em mutts".
Link
Why do white women sunbathe to get what glossy magazines call "that elusive tan"?
ReplyDeleteLower class women can't compete with high class girls on such class signifiers as physical beauty or intelligence so they try to dupe rich men into thinking they are already part of the elite and enjoy the wealthy lifestyle.
The just-returned-from-a-tropical-beach-holiday appearance is meant to make them more attractive to rich, higher class men. In doing this they risk getting skin cancer, and, being darker, become less attractive to the lower class men amongst whom they have more realistic marriage prospects.
Steve, in the Black community here in America, and in Latin America, men with lighter pigmentation and more European features are considered more attractive by women. It has always been that way. This isn't just about the social status implications of light skin, as one commenter claims, because straight hair and Caucasian facial structure are highly prized too.
ReplyDeleteThe parallel, though reversed, in white communities, is the tan. The tan denotes someone who doesn't have to work much at all, who has leisure time to play tennis and golf and go yachting or skiing.
ReplyDeleteRegan, that used to be true for Europeans as well, until the 1920's I guess. Also keep in mind that some fair skins do not tan at all and that sun exposure doesn't look well on them. For instance, my aunties used to steer clear from the sun, both for aesthetic and health considerations. They came of age in the twenties, so go figure.
As for Sammy Sosa, remember that Dominicans have a colour hierarchy; the lighter you are, the higher on the societal scale. Making millions playing baseball is not enough to make it to the upper class in his mind. He needed the proper tone of skin to go along.
White is beautiful south of the Rio Grande and throughout the Hispanic Americas.
We spell it "Alibi-Braun" in our house.
ReplyDeleteAlibhai-Brown is a genocidal racist. she wants white people, or more specifically white men, to become a 'lost species.'
ReplyDeleteShe is married to a rich white man but now writes for the Daily Mail because The Independent is about to go bust. She also writes for the London Evening Standard which is now a free paper, after 100 years, which will also go bust soon.
BTW. If Local councils and Government Agencies start advertising jobs etc on online web-sites only then The Guardian will also go bust!!!
And then The BBC which should be funded by subscription only instead of by an enforced tax.
"Orientals are about best looking women on earth, why do they want to lighten their skin?"
ReplyDeleteNonsense, I'm all on board with the blondes.
"Sammy Sosa is Michael Jacksonizing his own skin"
ReplyDelete$10 Steve put it in quotes because there is a totally logical explanation to explain the colour difference.
The very dark skin tone was the deviation - Sosa's genetics enable him to tan easily and dark in the sun.
The picture on the left was taken when Sosa was young and practiced a lot outdoors in the sun.
The middle photo of Sosa looking a bit lighter was taken later in his career when he had figured out steroids and a corked-bat could improve his performance better than practice. He spent less time outdoors, more time in the gym, and didn't get quite so well tanned.
Sosa has now almost completely lost his tan because he has retired from baseball and spends most of his time indoors.
Sorry, the title is only in quotation marks on the comment page. Steve may genuinely be wrong on this, but that rarely happens so maybe I've missed something.
ReplyDeleteWhat would Heavy D think of all this ...
ReplyDeleteBlack coffee, the African Queen,
Part of the Afro-American Dream...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1o80y_heavy-d-black-coffee_music
http://mjsbigidolblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/jguarini.jpg
ReplyDeleteLooks a bit like Justin Guarini
East Asian women are no exception to the rule about nonwhite women wanting to look more white. Hence, the ubiquitousness of dyed hair, high heels (to make themselves taller), plastic surgery, and so on. Whereas I can't think of any examples of white women wanting to look more Asian.
ReplyDeleteSteve Sailer's strange Peter Frost influenced obsession with fair women/dark men is perhaps even more disturbing than his fetish for miscegenation. It has become a regular theme in his writings. Apparently, the only thing that excites Steve more than an interracial couple is a man with a swarthy complexion!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Steve, even Frost says that women prefer lighter-skinned men. He only says that the preference for light skin isn't as extreme with them and that they are a little more ambivalent about skin color.
It is not just skin color that Latin Americans would like to shed. I remember reading a story about a Brazilian plastic surgeon,90% of whose practice was altering Negroid or Indian facial features to make his clients look more Caucasian. The Indonesian dictator Sukarno's main squeeze (Dewi Sukarno)had her monolids altered to look Caucasian. Moral of the story: It's hard to be humble when you're the finest (with apologies to the USMC).
ReplyDeleteSteve:
ReplyDeleteYour Rule of Female Journalism is remarkably similar to Rush's undeniable truth of life (number....?): feminism was established to give ugly women greater access to the mainstream (or words close to those).
Care to acknowedge this? Maybe just a coincidence?
White is beautiful south of the Rio Grande and throughout the Hispanic Americas.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've noticed the ratio of blonde women to squat Aztec chicas on Telemundo is pretty high.
I usually need the lightest shade of foundation makeup to match my skin, but I can get tanned to about 3 shades darker.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to introduce you to this tool called ImageShack, and its friends, Photobucket, TinyPic, and Flickr.
We here in the iSteve-verse would be most interested in the resulting URLs.
That reminds me of what the Yazzmonster said during the 4 June 2006 edition of Dateline London. Gavin Essler asked her:
ReplyDelete"What's wrong with white guys, by the way?"
To which she replied:
"I DON'T LIKE THEM. I WANT THEM TO BE THE LOST SPECIES IN 100 YEARS".
http://www.iamanenglishman.com/page.php?iCategoryId=1118&iParentId=1097
BTW, web advertising has really gotten sophisticated.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they've got pretty good databases now which match up the incoming IP address with the physical location at which that IP address probably lives.
For instance, the folks at Google [who own Blogger/Blogspot] know each of our physical locations probably to about a 15 or 20 mile radius [maybe a little more in sparsely populated rural ares, but probably much, much less in densely populated urban areas].
Yikes....he looks like a gay blade.
ReplyDeleteWhy do white women sunbathe to get what glossy magazines call "that elusive tan"?
ReplyDeleteGood question.
One of the most stunningly beautiful women who has ever crossed paths with me was sitting at a table one morning in a bookstore/coffee shop in Palo Alto, sipping on a latte [or whatever it is that those kinds of people sip on], with the palest white-alabaster skin that I have ever seen [and deep, dark brown hair, maybe even black] - almost like how Snow White might look if she were to come to life, only about 10X more beautiful.
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to "cheat" on my girlfriend and sit down and start hitting on that chick right then and there - I can still remember the fury of the adrenaline rush to this day.
Of course, that was back when I was trying to be Mister Nice Guy and remain loyal to my evil witch of a [now ex-] girlfriend.
Stupid me.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
<OTHER, MORE SALACIOUS TALES EXCISED IN THE INTEREST OF GETTING THIS POST THROUGH KOMMENT KONTROL>
PS: As I get older, I find that pale chicks like Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet and Kelly Macdonald and Tilda Swinton - heck, even Rachel Weisz - really do it for me.
The reason white populations love to tan has nothing to do with social status seeking, it has to do with the fact that a "healthy glow" is attractive - being too pale looks sickly.
ReplyDelete"Orientals are about best looking women on earth, why do they want to lighten their skin?"
ReplyDeleteThat's not necessarily true. A lot of Mongoloid women try to get their epicanthic folds removed from their eyes. And personally I do not find Oriental women good looking. The epicanthic fold does produce a kind of odd look imo.
He looks vaguely Egyptian in the last pic.
ReplyDeletebecause straight hair and Caucasian facial structure
ReplyDeleteIn the rightmost/whitest picture, Sosa appears to have done something to his hair as well. Perhaps he has always done this when not playing, but he's definitely either straightening it or plastering it down with gunk to make it look straighter and shinier.
It is me, or are Dominicans just generally not very attractive people, male or female? I'm sure there are beautiful Dom women and handsome Dom men, but the prevailing average seems at a lower level than among Puerto Ricans, who I would think would be similar. Is it a greater admixture of Taino blood? (The best-looking people of the Greater Antilles are, of course, the Cubans, but they are so much more European than the others that it's not really a fair comparison.)
ReplyDelete"Oh right, in the UK "Asian" means Indian, Pakistani, or similar. When I saw the link-header, my first thought was "Orientals are about best looking women on earth, why do they want to lighten their skin?""
ReplyDeleteeast asian women spend billions of dollars a year on skin whitening and get plastic surgery on their eyelids like American women use Botox. As for Edward's insane comment, sosa has always been that dark. The middle picture is the misleadingly light one. Sosa was on camera from February to October. Cubs fans know what he looked like
"It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to "cheat" on my girlfriend and sit down and start hitting on that chick right then and there - I can still remember the fury of the adrenaline rush to this day."
ReplyDeleteLet it go. So you didn't have the guts to approach her.
"It is me, or are Dominicans just generally not very attractive people, male or female?"
ReplyDeleteOn average Dominicans are more African than Puerto Ricans. By the way, at least here in NYC, Puerto Ricans who are nearly white often behave as if they were at least half a SD of IQ below what their skin tones would suggest. The same cannot be said about Cubans.
"It is me, or are Dominicans just generally not very attractive people, male or female? I'm sure there are beautiful Dom women and handsome Dom men, but the prevailing average seems at a lower level than among Puerto Ricans, who I would think would be similar."
ReplyDeleteI notice the same thing, but then again, most people including blacks and mulattoes themselves don't associate black features with attractiveness. Puerto Ricans tend to be much whiter, on average compared to Dominicans. There are many Puerto Rican mulattoes, and some blacks, but the people are mostly white in Puerto Rico. It's difficult to put an exact figure on this number, but it may be at least 50% white. Some Puerto Rican women have won the Miss Universe competition a few times if this means anything. Not sure about Dominicans though.
It's even more difficult to get exact figures on the racial make up of Cuba, although they are obviously not as black as Dominicans. That said, there are many black and mulatto Cubans. The Cuban exile community in south Florida is almost exclusively white, some even boasting of their pure Spanish lineage. Some blue-eyed Cubans I've met even boast of being descended from the Germanic Visigoths(Visigoda) who conquered Spain in the early Middle Ages and whose descendants led the Reconquista.
We have a right to choose our race, just as we have a right to choose our gender.
ReplyDeleteThe dark people who lighten their skin are not expressing a longing to be of the white race,
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ on this point. As a black, from what I have seen of the Sosa types, I believe the "longing" is to be white, but this is for the imagined goodies that supposedly come with that lightness, beginning with access to white mates.
I agree with the other poster that this extreme action is more given to homosexuals than to straight men. Straight black men have enough public examples of the darkest men seducing and even marrying white women. If anything, they might look upon their darker skin as a proof of greater conquest, when winning a white woman -- as an extra-special In-Your-Face to Whitey.
... any more than white people going to a tanning salon are trying to become black.
I don't think this is a parallel. It appears to me that whites tan for completely different and superficial reasons. Notice how they do not go to the extreme of trying to make dark skin permanent.
In Sosa's case, he is already married to his "light-skinned" woman. I wonder if he plans to divorce her for a lighter-skinned one, now that he's so white.
Ms. Alibhai-Brown is no looker, but she's not swarthy. She's very light for a South Asian, and pretty light generally.
ReplyDeleteShe's married to a white man. It's ironic that somebody who is so anti-white gets (expletive deleted) a couple times a week by one of the evil racist oppressors who can do no right.
The city of Paris just launched a campaign warning about the health hazards of skin whitening. 20% of Parisian women of Afro-Caribbean women descent apparently whiten their skin.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the world today isn't what it was 50 or even 30 yrs ago. There was indeed a time when Hollywood and European metropoles dominated the global entertainment and industry, and the great movie, music, and sports stars were white. But, much has changed since then, and non-white worlds have their own media conglomerates promoting their own stuff. Most Japanese pop is filled with Japanese stars.
ReplyDeleteAnd, even in old white dominated Hollywood, not all white people in movies were good looking. Indeed, for every glamorous white guy on screen, there were many more ugly white guys. For every Cary Grant, there was Red Buttons. Also, some of the biggest stars weren't really good looking but appealing for their style or personality--John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart. (And in much of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s, non-glamorous people were cast in popular shows like Kojack, Columbo, Barreta, etc. If beauty is a matter of who gets positive exposure, we'd all think Roseanne Barr, Barbara Streisand, or Jimmy Walker are beautiful people since they were all over TV. And, we'd think Oprah is the most beautiful woman in the world because she's been on more magazine covers than anyone else. By the same logic, we'd all think William Hung is the greatest singer in the world if SONY spent 100 million promoting him and put his music on MTV everyday for a full year. Dream on.)
Men have been liked for their manliness and not necessarily for their good looks--consider Ben Johnson or Charles Bronson. And, many women were admired for their unique style than beauty. There were countless Hollywood starlets more beautiful(in a conventional sense) than Lauren Bacall or Marlene Dietrich, but they lacked the X-factor allure of Lauren and Marlene. And, the success of people like Naomi Campbell proves that one doesn't have to have classic white features to be admired, approved, and adulated.
There are probably certain aspects of whiteness that are appealing for biological than cultural reasons. Same could be true of certain black traits. Regardless of culture or politics, people have admired strength and magnetism in men. In this area, blacks have natural advantage. In the area of looks, people like a well-structured face, and white angularity has more of this than black 'brutishness' or Asian roundness.
Indeed, the notion that white looks are preferred ONLY or PRIMARILY because of Western domination in the past few centuries can be disproven by studying history. Ibn Fadlan, a well-educated Arab, came upon the Germanic Rus peoples during the Middle Ages. He was of a great civilization whereas the Rus people were barbaric--they washed their faces in the same water basin and didn't wipe their butts. Even so, Fadlan described the Rus as the most beautiful people he'd seen; he never saw Hollywood movies. Romans looked down on Germanic peoples culturally but admired their strength and beauty. Romans also admired black muscularity and strength--and often pitted the black African against the Germanic beast in the gladiatorial ring. Most Asian movies have Asian people, Asian News are all Asian(or I would assume that's the case), and etc, but even so, Asians prefer the 'white' look. During the Mao yrs, China was shut off from the entire world, but if you look at most communist posters from that era, the heroic figures tend to be somewhat white-ish.
"He's not trying to be Michael Jackson," former Cubs employee Rebecca Polihronis, who talks frequently with Sosa, told the Tribune.
ReplyDelete"He is going through a rejuvenation process for his skin. Women have it all of the time. He was surprised he came out looking so white. I thought it was a body double. Part of (the photo appearance) is just the lighting.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sammy_sosa_turning_white_qnOPqFSGejI8UV3AXOSrTI#ixzz0WJnoilOX
The reason white populations love to tan has nothing to do with social status seeking, it has to do with the fact that a "healthy glow" is attractive - being too pale looks sickly.
ReplyDeleteAnd health is a sign of status, so...
Also, the idea that pale skin looks "sickly" is, as others may have pointed out, a very recent development, historically speaking.
Are we certain that he purposely is lightening his skin?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it quite possible that skin color may not only be determined by the set in stone hereditary factors but by other factors as well?
as a side note, no one even knows if the genetic model and darwinian evolution is fully correct.
It's assumed that you have a set of genes and that throughout your life they remain virtually constant. Only when there is an error in transcription from one cell line generation to the next could dna alter itself( by errors).
Isn't it possible that there could be a mechanism by which genes can alter themselves not via simple errors but by some intelligence and design?
Of course, this is idea isn't new. It was quite prevalent in the 1800's.
@Tom Regan
ReplyDelete"I've never been attracted to a black women unless she had some white blood in her."
~Muhammad Ali
"The Ghosts of Manila"
Speaking of Muhammad Ali, his great-grandfather was an Irishman named Abe Grady which obviously explains his boxing talent.
ReplyDeleteYamin Alibhai-Brown comes from a caste in India with relatively recent roots in Syria and Iran, which is why she mostly looks like an old native European lady. This is what upper class Syrians look like:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.j-net.com.au/hagshama/the-syrian-bride.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/190/472485540_eed3bf44a6_o.jpg
While it is a shame that some take it to extremes like Jackson and arguably Sosa, I generally think it is good that other groups try to emulate whites.
Rebecca said, "He's not trying to be Michael Jackson. He is going through a rejuvenation process for his skin. Women have it all of the time. He was surprised he came out looking so white. I thought it was a body double. Part of (the photo appearance) is just the lighting. He is in the middle of doing a cleansing process to his skin. The picture is deceiving. He said, 'If you saw me in person, you would be surprised. When you see me in person, it is not going to seem like the picture.' People who saw him in person did not react the same way. He can't believe it is such a big deal. He has always been concerned with the way he looks. Probably just bad timing going to an awards show."
ReplyDeleteThe PR flackette doth protest too much.
ReplyDeleteDuring the Mao yrs, China was shut off from the entire world, but if you look at most communist posters from that era, the heroic figures tend to be somewhat white-ish.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I looked through this site of Chinese propaganda posters, and I'm not really seeing it. They look pretty oriental to me.
ReplyDeleteIt took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to "cheat" on my girlfriend and sit down and start hitting on that chick right then and there - I can still remember the fury of the adrenaline rush to this day.
That was a testosterone rush, my dear boy. And damn do I love it!
"Speaking of Muhammad Ali, his great-grandfather was an Irishman named Abe Grady which obviously explains his boxing talent."
ReplyDeleteObviously.
"East Asian women are no exception to the rule about nonwhite women wanting to look more white. Hence, the ubiquitousness of dyed hair, high heels (to make themselves taller), plastic surgery, and so on. Whereas I can't think of any examples of white women wanting to look more Asian."
ReplyDeleteHarajuku.
It could be Sosa's white-izing is more a reflection of Dominican Republican culture than American black culture. In the past, there was a racial purity ideology among white Dominicans. Even so, as blacks were(or became)the majority of people in Dominican republic, there was a good deal of race mixing and racial gradations. In the US, blacks remained a decisive minority, so there developed a stronger (defensive) sense of black identity. In a place like Jamaica, Haiti, or Dominican Republics, blacks became the comfortable majority, so the main issue was no longer 'oppressed minority blacks' vs 'evil powerful whites'. Instead of simple white vs black, it's a game of gradations of blackness. So, Sosa may not see it as becoming more white but becoming more light(within blackness).
ReplyDeleteAlso, US was a very progressive and moral nation where values and ideas took precedence. Thanks to protestant New England roots, Americans have traditionally favored morality over sensuality, character over image, meat over the sauce, bread over jam. So, American blacks tended to respect the likes of Booker T. Washington, Dubois, and Martin Luther King. These men preached morality, values, and meaning over style, pizzazz, and image. There was a sense that what was best for society was not what made you feel good; one had to THINK about why one preferred A over B, and root out wickedness based on greed or vanity. Of course, there was Hollywood and Jazz in American history, and American culture has indeed changed a lot since the 60s. Even so, there remained a powerful strain of moral puritanism in American politics and culture which manifests itself today in the form of political correctness. So, even as American blacks may desire certain white features, it's far more understated--and even an object of shame--in the black community. Also, an entire black ideology since the 60s has grown up around black identity. Think of Malcolm X.
But, Latin American culture tended to be more sensual, shallower, image- and style-oriented. Just compare the elites of the two spheres. Even the 'robber barons' of the 19th century America believed in redeeming their reputation through philanthropy. They loved money but also wanted to be respected. Not so with the Latin elites who just wanted to buy bigger mansions, more jewelry, and etc.
In the American(and Northern European)ideal, it's good to be rich, but being wealth means being responsible and doing good work. In Latin and Slavic cultures, being rich just means being rich. Just look at shameless rich folks in Italy, Russia, and Argentina. Dominican Republic is a poor country, but the the few rich just act like playboys, pimps, kings, and celebrities. This was the formative influence on Sosa.
While it's true that American blacks have also increasingly grown up with trashy rich role models, they still have some sense of racial-moral ideology. Also, black Americans are far more mindful of the history of slavery. White liberals bring it up over and over, and American blacks have forged a moral-racial identity around it--white progressive influence rubbed off on American blacks. But, this isn't the case in Latin America. There's less of a progressive mentality among Latin whites, and most Latin blacks don't give a crap about history or black ideology. They just wanna be rich and famous. Even in leftist Cuba, the white elite told Cuban blacks that there's no more racial strife in that country since Uncle Fidel fixed all the problems. Also, Spanish did a lot more race mixing than Anglos. As a result, there developed many gradations of racial identity in Latin America. Though a light-skinned black did better in the US, there was an idea that he too was 'just a nigger'. So, a black American didn't necessarily feel better by becoming light-skinned. In Latin countries, however, being light-skinned was OFFICIALLY accepted as better. You weren't as good as white but you were NOT a 'nigger'. There used to be a saying in Brazil "If you're white, you're alright. If you're brown, hang around. If you're black, step back."
The preference for pale ladies exist in almost every culture. It was the case before European dominance. Maybe it was developed through evolution. Light skin is a sign of youth. And youth is feminine beauty.
ReplyDeleteObjectively speaking there are white features that are unattractive. Whites tend to have large noses. Smaller noses add youthfulness to a face. So when a white girl gets a nose job to reduce size, is she trying to look Japanese or following a universal standard?
I wonder about the few people here who are overboard cheerleaders for white appearance. Are you trying to gain sex appeal by association?
"Hmm. I'd always assumed that Hollywood's pairing pale women with "tall, dark and handsome" leading men reflected Jewish producers' fantasies: A mensch could land a beautiful shiksa."
ReplyDeleteI noticed that in "Julia and Julie", Julia Child's uber-anglo husband, Paul Childs, was acted by a quite swarthy actor while, of course, Julia was acted by Merle Streep.
Well, I'm surprised a black athlete would feel this way, given this dominance, pride, and confidence you see on display every day on ESPN.
ReplyDeleteThen again, there is a difference between being black (in the American sense) and being Latin. You've written about multiculturalism and maybe this is yet another black vs brown divide.
As far as "status" I've read a little into cultural history and it seems there are factors other than race that signify class more so than skin color or ethnic background, such as temperment, and equipose.
Instead of seeing his plastic surgeon, maybe Sammy Sosa should read Emerson's "English Traits" instead.
So when a white girl gets a nose job to reduce size, is she trying to look Japanese or following a universal standard?
ReplyDeleteIn the main though non-whites, after cosmetic surgey, tend to look more white afterwards. And that includes Japanese girls as far as I can tell.
Ive seen various sites where Indian and Chinese sing the praises of their prettiets girls and the general impression I get is that the more white they look, the prettier they are deemed to be.
One way or another white features seem to coincide with universal standards of beauty.
Physical beauty is the only trait I can think of that doesn't conform to Rushton's "Rule of Three" as named by Steve.
ReplyDelete-----
Here are two related articles that conform to Sailer's rule on female journalism. Both discuss why Jewish men prefer blonde and redheaded Gentile women:
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"
http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/18711/gentlemen-prefer-blondes/
"Why Hollywood's Jewish Guys Fall in Love with Shiksas"
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2009/10/why-hollywoods-jewish-guys-fall-in-love-with-shiksas-.html
Perhaps the first exponents of this tradition were the Minsky Brothers, the influential proprietors of a popular New York City burlesque empire in the first decades of the last century. “If you were a burlesque stripper, you had to be a blonde or a redhead, never a brunette,” Rachel Shteir, author of Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show told me. The brothers, she added, had a readymade explanation for their proclivities: Jewish women, they argued, were simply too pure to lust after. “They would say, ‘we’re not stealing your mothers and sisters and aunts and putting them on stage and taking away their honor,’” Shteir said. “They would say that they were only putting the shiksas on stage. As heinous as it is, that was their reasoning.”
And yet the Minskys’ aesthetic exclusions may have played a part in helping their patrons, many of whom were first-generation American Jewish men, adapt to their new society by becoming accustomed to its ideals of beauty, whether real or imagined. “I think one of the functions of striptease in that time period,” Shteir said, “was that it became a social space where men could be Americanized by watching these women who were nothing like their sisters and mothers. The Jewish women, however, would stay at home and in the community. They were not exposed.”
For the Minskys, American beauty was exclusively yellow- or red-haired, cute and perky, never dark, never familiar. And the same ideal of beauty they helped cement found its way into the mainstream of American culture through that much more influential maker of popular entertainment, Hollywood.
Correction:
ReplyDeleteIn articles on Jewish men and shiksas, both writers were men.
when I first saw his picture, i only vaguely recognized him... I had to read a caption to finally figure out that this is Sammy Sosa
ReplyDeleteObjectively speaking there are white features that are unattractive. Whites tend to have large noses. Smaller noses add youthfulness to a face. So when a white girl gets a nose job to reduce size, is she trying to look Japanese or following a universal standard?
ReplyDelete"White" girls who have their noses surgically restructured tend to have surnames starting with something like "Rose" or "Gold" and/or ending with "Baum", "Stein", "Berg" and so forth.
> So when a white girl gets a nose job to reduce size, is she trying to look Japanese or following a universal standard? <
ReplyDeleteI was always under the impression that many such girls are simply trying to look less Jewish.
How much money is spent annually in America by Jewish women trying to alter their natural looks and appear goyish? Blonding the hair, straightening the hair, getting blue or green contacts, bobbing the nose...I bet it isn't a trivial amount of money (relatively). Aren't nose jobs a sort of rite of passage for every girl in L.A. whose parent$ are of a certain $tation?
An enterprising reporter could write an edgy story on this. Probably one already has, but I rarely read "Jewcy" anymore and so wouldn't know.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is no different from any status seeking liberal. With her status secure in the British elite through her marriage with a rich white man, she can score points with her leftist friends by attacking white men and prove her distance from asian women by looking down on their attempt to improve their status by lightening their skin.
ReplyDelete""White" girls who have their noses surgically restructured tend to have surnames starting with something like "Rose" or "Gold" and/or ending with "Baum", "Stein", "Berg" and so forth."
ReplyDeleteYeah, and practically every actress, singer, and newscaster in America.
Yeah, and practically every actress, singer, and newscaster in America.
ReplyDeleteMethinks the lady doth protest too much.
"One way or another white features seem to coincide with universal standards of beauty."
ReplyDeleteThis is a conclusion that is extremely hard to honestly judge especially if its just based on feelings. There is a tendency to claim all good features and then label them white.
Speaking of light skin/ dark men pairings, if women really prefer dark skin why do the male celebrities from Bollywood look much fairer than the average desi (and more Caucasian too)?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bollywoodbilli.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/aamir-khan.jpg
http://www.rainbowskill.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/hrithik_roshan1.jpg
http://memsaabstory.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/shammi_yahoo3.jpg
http://www.desiclub.com/bollywood/bollywood_features/bolly_images/05rishi_kapoor_top25.jpg
http://www.topnews.in/files/Feroz-Khan_0.jpg
Because Desi women like fairer men. It is probably not that important for them as it is for their men, but everything being equal they will on average go for the fairer male.
Indeed throughout the brown Caucasian world from Latin America to North Africa to the Middle East to South Asia, the elites as well as the celebrities of both genders tend to be fairer and more Caucasian looking (more European looking then the mean) then the average person on the streets. One explanation could be that darker people can hide skin blemishes better and according to traditional medicine, skin blemishes are a sign of disease. Thus both men and women preferred fair people with no skin blemishes as this increased their chances that they are marrying a healthy specimen. Dark people were avoided as this visual method of disqualifying unhealthy partners did not work on them.