Sound-Off: Sammy Sosa's Pretty White Skin

Sammy Sosa showed up at the Rut vs. Bulls game Lord's day night, and my Twitter timeline went wild! Again. This has happened every fourth dimension Sosa has made an advent in the terminal yr.

His current conk, light-green contacts and continued use of skin lightening foam is a far departure from the Sammy Sosa of old — a robustly chocolate-brown-hued human being with textured hair and night eyes, i.east., he actually looked Blackness.

What does he look similar now? Let's put it this fashion… or amend, let's put it the way (in 140 words or less) cultural critic and Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill did: "WHAT THE F—- IS WRONG WITH SAMMY SOSA?… Sadly, too many of us think white people's ice is colder." Another gent in my timeline said, "Sosa looks like Bob from Marketing on Martin." *dead*

Continuous disbelief and witty punchlines aside, I find the outrage over Sosa's appearance a picayune troubling. Information technology seems to exist commonly accepted practice that Blackness women alter their hair texture, or even add hair to stone styles unachievable by most Black-girl follicles. There'due south a million reasons why Blackness women practice this en masse like, I dunnno, living in a country where the dazzler standard is White and blond (and directly), and that definition of dazzler is and then unremarkably accustomed that (a once) apparent mag like Psychology Today could publish an article explaining why Black women aren't attractive. That could be it. And hence, you'll hear no judgment from me on perms and weaves. But what exactly makes those so okay that "good pilus" is revered as a luxury detail, and peel bleaching, not so much?

Back in Jan, I wrote about Sosa's switcheroo hue on my personal blog in a two-office serial, "The Napoleon Circuitous of Complexion" and "Skin Bleaching, Straight Pilus, and Black Cocky-Hate." In response to both posts, most comments blasted Sosa. But there was one regular contributor who but could not bring herself to do so. She wrote, "When I think about the BILLIONS of dollars that Blackness women spend to chemically process, heat straighten, weave and wig their hair, to imitate the hairstyles that are more than compatible with straight [white] hair, it of a sudden dawns on me how much HYPOCRISY is in the Black culture. For some reason, nosotros see peel whitening as some form of BLASPHEMY against blackness, but detect hair straightening to be a PERFECTLY Adequate exercise… fifty-fifty as a rite of passage for Black female person children, into adulthood."

Hmm…

We tin can't be naïve enough to think that women are the only ones afflicted by being bombarded with messages like "white is better, platonic, or ice-common cold." Clearly, Sammy has been hit too, hence the new skin, hair and eyes. However, for all the essays written on why Black women exercise _________ to alter their advent and how it boils down to existence under some sort of psychological warfare, we rarely talk about the way Black men internalize that "White is right image." That is, unless we're talking about why xx per centum of them ally non-Blackness women. Merely how about how they internalize those messages almost what makes themselves bonny — or not? I've only heard that discussion one time — when Rachel from School Stupor told Dap Dunlap, "I remember you have a problem with low-cal-skinned Blacks." (Which, of course, he denied.)

I'd similar to hear a conversation for men and past men that addresses their cocky-esteem earlier we go more than extreme alterations like Sosa's. And no, that concept isn't that far-fetched. Our favorite American dazzler brands similar Nivea, Vaseline, Garnier and L'Oreal all create peel-bleaching creams for men (they're currently sold overseas). And a piffling closer to abode, we've got Jamaican reggae artist Vybz Kartel, who also came under fire earlier this year for lightening his skin from dark and lovely, to pale and ghastly. His rebuttal to the criticism? Poignant and ultimately, classic:

"When Black women terminate straightening their pilus and wearing wigs and weaves… and then I'll stop using the 'cakesoap' and we'll all live naturally e'er after. Until then, f—- you lot all."

Discuss.

Demetria Fifty. Lucas is the Relationships Editor at Essence Magazine and the author of A Belle in Brooklyn: Your Get-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life & Enjoying Mr. Right At present (Atria.)  Follow her on Twitter at @abelleinbk