You're Beautiful (It's True!)

4.26.2010

You're Beautiful (It's True!)

It's not that I hate you Allure, it's just that you have some shallow qualities that need to be worked out; especially if you plan to empower women in the 21st century.  For now, let's just call it a 'growing distaste'. 

Perhaps it's just in my mind, but something in a recent article titled 'What Makes a Person Beautiful' rang off an alarm.  Perhaps I read too much (is there such a thing?) but I just finished reading an article titled Racial Disparities Threaten Economic Vitality in my Latin America course yesterday, and it talked about "racial conditioning".

You see, "when Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, the ensuing panic by a minority, white elite, gave birth to a whitening program...Brazil encouraged and subsidized massive immigration of Eurpeans, whose "superior" blood would prevail in race mixture and slowly eliminate the "inferior" black component.

In other words, instead of seperating the races and protecting their 'purity', the elite opted to eliminate Africans by means of race mixture itself."

Those white elites are still at it today, using poverty as their weapon.  The whole thing is disgusting.  But what does that have to do with Allure? 

"a new study from Cardiff University in Wales shows that people may find mixed-race faces the most attractive—and this may be a deeper, more lasting kind of appreciation. In the largest study of its kind, Michael Lewis of Cardiff's School of Psychology, collected a random sample of 1205 black, white, and mixed-race faces. Each face was then rated by a panel of participants for its perceived attractiveness to others. In a similar earlier study, a psychologist at the University of Western Australia found that when Caucasian and Japanese volunteers looked at photos of Caucasian, Japanese, and Eurasian faces, both groups rated the Eurasian faces as most attractive. Scientists do have a hypothesis for why people might prefer a melting-pot ideal—and it isn't because of a passing beauty trend. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that it's because humans may be hard-wired to seek out mates who clearly have genetic diversity and are therefore likely to be healthier."

Is it hard-wiring?  Or is it something else?  The fact is, throughout history the mixing of races has been used both for integration and 'ethnic cleansing'.  The following qoutes were taken right out of my Psychology textbook, Our Sexuality (it's a human sexuality course, and one I believe everyone should take).

"In wars instigated by ethnic conflict, as in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Darfur, mass rape is used as a military strategy to terrorize and demoralize a whole population, to destroy it's cultural integrity...thereby acheiving the goal of 'ethic cleansing'."

There is always a dark element to humanity, ones that need not ever be.  This makes me sad in so many ways.  I don't think 'race mixing' is a horrible thing in itself.  If two people come together, in mutual love and create a child, well that's one of the great joys in life, no matter what your ethnicity.

But what about when it comes about through obvious force or subtle social conditioning?  Allure, I'm sure you meant well, but please remember.  We are ALL beautiful, and should take pride in who we are, whether that's Caucasion, African, Asian Hispanic, Mestizo, Native American, Eskimo, Greek, Italian, etc. or a mix of these.  Beauty is not only skin deep, it comes from the inside.

After all, what's beauty without brains?



Above quotes taken from the following texts;
Global Studies:  Latin America, Paul B. Goodwin, 13th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2009
Our Sexuality, Robert Crooks and Karla Baur, 10th edition, Cengage Advantage Books, 2008