Embracing Black Beauty in a Eurocentric world

The Tuesday Talking Points!

"Image is Everything..." Andre Agassi, tennis star, circa 1989

When I opened my social media apps several times yesterday, one of the hottest trending topics was the disapproval that posters shared about Academy Award winning actress Viola Davis's portrayal of Michelle Obama in the new Showtime series The First Lady. As I read hundreds of comments before resting last night, it became quite clear that the posters were roasting Davis for "pursing her lips" into a "duck-mouthed" visage that they deemed unbecoming of the former FLOTUS.

Viola Davis (left) as Michelle Obama on Showtime's The First Lady…

In analyzing this matter, I first begin with a confession: When I was in pre-school, I truly thought that Jesus Christ was a white man! For those wondering "huh" or thinking that I'm breaking essay convention by switching subjects, stay with me—this confession will soon make sense!

Now, if you chuckled at the thoughts of a 4-year-old Chuckie Hobbs believing that his "Lord and Savior" was white, consider for a moment that back in 1976-77, 97.999 % of children's bibles depicted Jesus looking something like this guy:

As an Army brat, when our family attended church services on (or off) Post, I remember staring up at the stained glass windows and seeing Jesus and His Disciples looking something like these guys:

I also remember those early church school lessons about the Creation story, and how “God made man in His image;” but the toddler Hobbs couldn't quite square the fact that none of those drawings or paintings depicted God looking like anyone in my family. 

Further clouding my then limited understanding of imagery was the seminal event of my Kindergarten year when the original "Star Wars" took the world by storm in May of 1977. When I watched that film, it did not even occur to me at the time that no one on that big screen shared my same complexion, wide nose, or big Afro!

Star Wars: A New Hope, which premiered in 1977, had NO Black stars in the Blockbuster film! Nota Bene—while Black acting legend James Earl Jones voiced the iconic Darth Vader, his name was not even originally listed in the credits…

The next year, when "Superman" was all the rage, there were NO Black major or minor characters on the big screen:

The small screen was no better, what with Lee Majors playing the Six Million Dollar Man, Bill Bixby playing Bruce Banner and the Hulk, and lest we forget the wildly popular Dukes of Hazzard, the CBS show that featured Confederate regalia and a stock car called the General (Robert E.) Lee—replete with a horn that played the racist tune "Dixie!" With these few examples (trust, there are more), you can see how the fictional images of 'heroic' action figures that a little Hobbs and all of his Black friends saw in the media were no different than the images we often saw at church and in children's bibles—images that rendered Black people virtually invisible in popular culture!

Luke, Bo, and Daisy Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard circa ‘79

While such comprises only one aspect of the Black experience in America, I do note that how Black descendants of the enslaved have perceived ourselves through the centuries has been colored by the off-color (and oft racist) projections by European enslavers! Consider for a moment that the crude intra-racial idea that thin or loosely curled Black hair is "good" due to miscegenation, and that coarse or tightly curled Black hair is "bad," comes straight out of the colonization playbook—one that pits lighter skinned Blacks against darker skinned Blacks for the quixotic approval of the majority white culture.  

Regrettably, for several centuries now, far too many Black people have lived their entire lives despising their thick lips, wide noses, and darker skin tones—a form of self-loathing that has compelled some to go great lengths to erase their beautiful African features: 

Baseball legend Sammy Sosa

Rap star Lil’ Kim

The King of Pop—Michael Jackson. While MJ had vitiligo, a skin disease that led him to bleach his skin, vitiligo had nothing to do with his surgical cuts on his African nose and lips…

On a personal note, I cannot help but remember that during my 6th grade year at FAMU High, a 99% Black school, how a girl that I had a crush on told me that she would be my Valentine if I could make myself look like El Debarge or Michael Jackson. 

The Debarges (El is in front with sister Bunny)

As most of my readers well know, middle school is usually when most children feel awkward and not all that attractive, so when my 11-year-old self considered my would be beloved's love for Michael and El, I didn't take it as her girlhood crush on two of the most famous singers of the early 80's, rather, I wondered what I could possibly do to look like they looked!

So, I thought that meant that I needed to get a drippy jheri curl (similar to Akeem in "Coming to America.") Fortunately, when I went home and discussed my concerns (and love unrequited) with my dark skinned, wide nosed, and kinky haired father, he laughed a hearty laugh—one that did not make me more insecure—but one that made me laugh and, oddly, secure! When Pop stopped laughing, he assured me that if I kept "getting that lesson" and growing stronger, he predicted (correctly) that I would have no problem at all attracting girls!

Charlie and Chuckie Hobbs from a 1983 portrait sitting—the same year my would be Valentine dissed my idylls of affection…

My personal memories with color and hair are what render me perplexed by the fact that so many whites spend their entire lives on beaches and at tanning salons trying to get darker—or at clinics injecting their lips and behinds with substances to "look" like Black folks while, at the same time, so many Black folks are still uncomfortable with our natural features and mannerisms!

I sincerely believe that both Michelle Obama and Viola Davis (above) are beautiful Black women! But as one who loves watching all sorts of biopics, I find it rather curious that so many of us will laud Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx for nailing the late Ray Charles's looks and mannerisms in the movie Ray, while cringing at Viola Davis's ability to nail Michelle Obama's looks and some of her mannerisms in The First Lady? A cringing that makes me wonder whether the issue is Davis's performance, or those deeply entrenched issues about the Africanity of modern Black Americans—even when said Black American is the former First Lady of the United States?

Feel free to drop a comment or send me an e-mail with your thoughts!

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