You got that right, I’m confused and you might be too. Why? Let me offer you a bit of backstory. My older daughter, Leara loves fashion magazines. She would sit there all day and flip through page after page of Gucci and Juicy Couture perfume ads if I let her. I often wonder what’s going on in her little head while staring at the pictures. Sometimes she even strikes up a conversation about what she sees. She’ll point out the eyes, mouth, hair, and anything else about the usually white model. Today it dawned on me. Am I setting her up to adhere to Eurocentric standards of beauty? This particular magazine wasn’t mine and I don’t buy them anymore since I depend on the internet. But I did wonder if I should purchase a black fashion magazine so that she will see images of black beauty. I could very well do that but there is still a major problem. She doesn’t look like the women in black magazines. Either way I look at it, she will be engrossed with images that don’t represent her beauty. To the white magazine’s credit, they did have pics of Paula Patton and Rosario Dawson. I made it a point to focus her attention on those women and the Latinas featured since they look the most like my daughter.

So what’s the point? The very nature of this blog is to show black women that we should place character above color. It is a safe place for black women to talk about and celebrate interracial relationships. From those relationships come children. These children, the girls especially, are the subjects many of us lament over because their beauty is celebrated at the expense of African beauty. When we have mixed children, we cannot solely celebrate natural hair, dark skin, and other African features, We must also help our daughters feel good about themselves. How will we handle boosting our light-skinned mixed daughters’ self-esteem while being honest about their privileged status?