Beyonce “Sexiest Woman” Is Both Good and Bad

Beautiful indeed. But top of the heap? Maybe. Maybe not.

Yeah, this is not the way you want to go GQ.

GQ just released their “The 100 Sexiest Women of the Millennium” issue featuring Beyonce on the cover as “Miss Millennium.” Flip through it and you’ll find the obvious nods to Jessica Simpson, Kim Kardashian, and Katie Holmes. But this year, the lad mag has included some ethnic specific categories that have some people raising their eyebrows. Examples:

•    “Hottest Indian Chick”: Freida Pinto
•    “Hottest Pregnant Sri Lankan”: M.I.A
•    “Hottest Italian Chick”: Monica Belluci
•    “Hottest Chinese Chick”: Zhang Ziyi (sometimes credited as Ziyi Zhang)

While there may not be anything inherently wrong with saying someone is a “Hot Chinese woman” the seemingly arbitrary racial call-outs have people squirming. For example, why did the magazine deem Beyonce “Miss Millennium” but not “Miss African-American Millennium?” Mila Kunis was included in the top three hottie picks but the magazine didn’t mention her Ukranian roots. And why was Kim Kardashian lauded for her performance in her 2007 sex tape but not labeled “Hottest Armenian Porn Star”?

I have always squirmed when I heard someone give a compliment that is embedded in their color or ethnicity. I even heard my son one day say, Denzel Washington is one of the best black actors out there. I corrected him. One of the best actors period. Don’t hold his compliment to just his color or ethnicity.

On the rankings of the women, and while not having a problem looking at the women and enjoying their beauty, I have never liked these lists of hottest, sexiest or most beautiful. I don’t think you can rank beauty since it is in the eye of the beholder anyway. And in our culture the standard of beauty and sexy will certainly be tilted a certain way leaving out lots of other women and men who have a different kind of beauty or sexiness. And by the way I do think Beyonce is beautiful and I am a fan. I just wonder if she would be in the running if she had a short afro and dark skin.

We can all agree there are lots of beautiful and handsome men and women, and even gawk at them in magazines and on TV. But yeah, adding a ranking by ethnicity takes a bad idea, that of ranking good looks (I always wonder who is judging and what their biases are), and makes it even worse.

Now let me also applaud GQ for one aspect though. Putting an African-American and mixed woman on the cover and labeling her “The Sexiest Woman of the Millennium” is at least an acknowledgement that other women besides just white women are worthy. As I said, unfortunately Beyonce fits the light skin and long straight hair model, but it is still nice to see a woman of color recognized for being beautiful.

Full article  on the flap is here.

Don’t Think Light Skin Versus Dark Skin Issues Are Just An American Thing

None of them look dark to me.

Lest you think the whole light skin is better than dark skin silliness is just an American issue, here is an article about a controversy with the very popular Korean Pop group, Sistar. Seems some people think some of the girls in the group have tanned a bit too much. O.M.G.

What’s even more amazing about this controversy is when you see the girls they are talking about, they are hardly tanned at all. Wow now that is a serious emphasis on pale skin being good, dark skin being bad. Check out the photos on the link and the video.

Beyoncé Is “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman”

It is always good to see a woman of color recognized for being beautiful so little girls of color can know they don’t have to be White and blond (oh, wait, Beyoncé is rocking blond hair here, uh oh) to be considered the world’s most beautiful woman.

Kudos to People magazine for the selection.

Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive

Rihanna is definitely on a roll these days.

I am not a big fan of Rihanna myself, but it is good again to see that the mainstream does on occasion recognize that people of various skin colors are also beautiful. The pop star was recently names “The Sexiest Woman Alive” by Esquire magazine. To read an article on the honor, click here.

Hats Off To Miss Universe For Selecting Another Woman of Color

Miss Universe 2011!

Leila Lopes, Miss Angola, was crowned Miss Universe the other night, receiving the crown from last year’s winner, Miss Mexico. Glad to see the Miss Universe pageant recognizes that beauty comes in many skin tones and that the crown for the most beautiful woman in the world can also go to darker skinned women.

Using Science To “Prove” Bigotry

Attractive or unattractive? Uh this is a no-brainer.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I don’t know where I heard that before but it sure is true. The online conversation I had on this site last week with the guy who thought he could prove Blacks were less intelligent and statistically more prone to violence by simply being Black was one example. Then there was the brouhaha this week over the Psychology Today piece/blog by the psuedo-scientist who through the use of science could prove that Black women were less attractive and why.

How stupid. And yet the ignorant can’t celebrate this “study” too much because the same scientist concluded that Black men were the most attractiveness of all “races” due to the same “scientific” measurements.

How someone  who is a supposed scientist ignore cultural biases in how we perceive attractiveness is beyond me. It is just another indication that if you really want to believe something, you will find a way to justify it. Just amazing.

One of the best responses to this silliness was from a Black female writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer. She wrote:

A spokeswoman for the study Kanazawa bastardizes wants no parts of his craziness. Kathleen Mullan Harris told National Public Radio, “The empirical analysis does not account for the characteristics of the interviewers, which influence their observation.” (By that, she meant respondents’ race, ethnicity and such.)

To read her whole piece click here. Aw the madness of “race.”