Beyoncé - Brown Skin Girl Video on Youtube

[StrawberryBlond 14,965]

3 minutes ago, Jose P said:

One thing is having an opinion, and another thing is being inherently racist. You are on EVERY Beyoncé thread saying how her expressing her pride on being a black woman and empowering other black women is somehow problematic. Don’t tell me “it’s not racist just an opinion and I’m educated and did my research” to try to make your statement look smart and correct when it’s just a well-written and pretentious racist comment.

What about my post was inherently racist? It was quite the opposite. I said being proud of your race is all very well as long as you aren't doing it in a way that suggests your race is the best and make it into a competition. That's problematic no matter which way you look at it. I point out this stuff in the hope it opens other people's eyes to the problematic ways in which race relations are dealt with. There are many better race emancipation anthems out there. Beyonce herself wrote one (it's called Freedom). A good race anthem speaks about one's race without subtely putting another race down. I really think many of you are twisting what I say and blatantly not reading it because I couldn't be any more respectful if I tried. Disagreeing with the way a message is put across in a song does not mean that I dislike the message. There should be no place for statements like your skin colour is the best thing in the world and that your skin colour should win you an Oscar in the modern world.

3 minutes ago, Gimme More said:

You're forcing your opinion on everyone else, so why can't I give mine? 

I may not have been 'bothered' with those topics, however I am bothered in topics like these where your remarks are extremely different and can cause offence. Would you prefer I was negative in every topic I came across you? 

I don't think this forum was intended for racism 

You claim I "force" my opinion on others. You've said this before. How am I forcing anything? I'm just responding to a topic in the same medium you are. You post about certain celebrities all the time, does that mean you're forcing your opinion too? It's up to someone if they want to read what I say and take it in. All I ask is for the basic respect of allowing me to speak.

Point out which part of my comment is extremely offensive. I never speak with hatred toward any race. And no one is immune to criticism and there's no such thing as perfection, so there's criticism to be found in everything. I'm pointing out that if you truly had a problem with me, you would hate on me every time you see me. The fact you reserve your derision for very specific moments that you disagree with is such a double standard. Free speech isn't free speech if it's just speech you like. Just avoid my comments you don't like.

I'm not racist and you know that's not what I was referring to anyway. You have no authority to tell me to stop writing my opinion and it blows my mind how you think writing that is in any way acceptable.

[Gimme More 35,424]

I think it may be time for this thread to be locked 

[PunkTheFunk 124,655]

18 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

A good race anthem speaks about one's race without subtely putting another race down.

Beyonce, or any POC for that matter, has no obligation to make you, a white person, feel comfortable and validated. Period.

What do you know about the black experience? What do you know about being oppressed on the basis of your skin color? NOTHING. So I don't want to hear this "well I think she shouldn't have said X Y and Z" BS. You are in no place to tell a person of color how they should express themselves, or police their art.

If you think a black person being proud of their skin color and trying to lift others up through their art is problematic and racist, then take a good look in the mirror because I think you're pointing your finger at the wrong person.

Don't come in here with your "analysis" and your 1000-word essays and expect us to look past the prejudice you spew. We weren't born yesterday.

[StrawberryBlond 14,965]

17 minutes ago, PunkTheFunk said:

Beyonce, or any POC for that matter, has no obligation to make you, a white person, feel comfortable and validated. Period.

What do you know about the black experience? What do you know about being oppressed on the basis of your skin color? NOTHING. So I don't want to hear this "well I think she shouldn't have said X Y and Z" BS. You are in no place to tell a person of color how they should express themselves, or police their art.

If you think a black person being proud of their skin color and trying to lift others up through their art is problematic and racist, then take a good look in the mirror because I think you're pointing your finger at the wrong person.

Don't come in here with your "analysis" and your 1000-word essays and expect us to look past the prejudice you spew. We weren't born yesterday.

It's not about making white people feel validated and comfortable, it's about making sure that all races don't get ideas that some form of racial supremacy is ok. Also, how about non-black POC? They can't exactly relate to this, even though some of them call themselves brown too. I've said there's a reason why Beyonce hasn't toured in Asia since 2010. She simply doesn't connect with that market anymore as her music is so squarely aimed at the black community now. Shouldn't all POC be uplifted, not just black people?

All art should be free to be critiqued, regardless of the subject matter. No topic should be off-limits to be discussed. End of. If someone can't handle their art being criticised, they shouldn't be putting it out for public consumption. It's far too convenient that some things shouldn't be up for discussion. It speaks to a high sense of entitlement if someone thinks what they put out into the world should be spoken of with nothing but praise but that person's a bigot.

I never said black people uplifting each other was problematic and racist. I'm all for it. I just didn't agree with the way the message was put out there. What was wrong with simply saying stuff about your skin being beautiful, not changing it, having the right to have everyone see your inner beauty, and so on? What's all this about black skin being the best thing in the world, black skin making you worthy of Oscar? I shouldn't have to go into why such things are ridiculous to say. No one should view their race with such a superiority complex as that. I mean, come on, the Oscars are about talent, winning for your skin colour is counter-productive, surely! Why aren't we calling out these blatant problems in the lyrics?

There is no prejudice intended in what I say. I just want everyone to be happy with their race but not to the point where they feel the need to have a sense of it being better than anyone else's. I don't understand how that could possibly be viewed as regressive thought.

[Glamourpuss 29,062]

It's one thing to critique art but critiquing the words a person of colour chooses to describe herself is not the way to go about it. Sure you can think something is not right based on the points of view you've learnt from other people of colour but to talk from a point of view like you know better when you haven't walked in their shoes and lived through the same things that they have just comes across as downright ignorant. 

You're not supposed to take certain lyrics at face value like the Oscar one. It's just a metaphor for how the skin colour is so beautiful it should win awards. It doesn't mean that it's better than others and should be held in a higher regard. The pearl one is used to describe it's natural radiant glow. She's using these metaphors to describe the beauty. I feel like anybody looking for flaws in the song and video is diminishing the message Beyonce is trying to put across. 

I don't believe she's trying to put it in anybody's heads that brown is better but that it's just as beautiful as any other skin colour. 

[DavidLuis198 1,187]

4 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

"Brown skin girl, skin just like pearls, best thing in the world."

A lot of people compare black skin to pearls cause melanin gives it a glow that looks a lot like a pearl glow

 

 

4 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

"She need an Oscar for that pretty dark skin."

That's just a way to say how beautiful this person and their skin are, you just reading too much on it. Gaga says "baby is so sexy that he should win an Oscar" on Video Phone, and she's not talking that this guys is superior just because he's sexy, just a poetic way to talk about how great someone looks...

 

4 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

"Melanin too dark to throw her shade."

Again, this song is about empowering girls with dark skin, if you know any girl who have really dark skin you could ask about their experience with it when they were children, maybe this way you can understand why this song has such an important message, especially for the young girls. A lot of PoC suffer a lot of racism because of how they look, and is specially damaging when you are a kid growing thinking you are ugly and worse than everybody just because of your skin tone. You could also read "The Bluest Eye" from Tony Morrison too, it's and amazing book about a little girl who suffers because of her skin color and not fitting in the mold of what is acceptable as beautiful (and even explain a little bit of the difference types of racism people within the various tones of black skin suffer).

Anyway, with this lyrics she's just saying that melanin, black is beautiful, so, there's no need to care about the mean stuff people say about it, cause you know you and your skin are beautiful.

 

4 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

"I love everything about you from your nappy curls."

I'm not from the US, so I don't really know the story with the word nappy and why the bad connotation, but, if PoC feel they can use within themselves (just like the N word and the F word within the gay community), there's nothing we can say.

 

4 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

"Same skin that was broken be the same skin taking over."

This only means that the same color of skin that were deemed inferior and ugly once, now it's being celebrated and becoming a new beauty standard. And it's long overdue that stuff like this are said and happens in our society, white skin has been the standard for too many centuries.

 

None of this lyrics or any black empowerment song/discourse means that white people will start being considered ugly and be slaved and all that... you could also read "Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race" by Reni Eddo-Lodge. It's a short but amazing book that could answer a lot of the questions about the concerns you left here, if you read with an open heart and reflect about the stuff the author says, some things are hard to white people like us to accept, but fight racism, even within ourselves, will never be easy.

[StrawberryBlond 14,965]

17 hours ago, Glamourpuss said:

It's one thing to critique art but critiquing the words a person of colour chooses to describe herself is not the way to go about it. Sure you can think something is not right based on the points of view you've learnt from other people of colour but to talk from a point of view like you know better when you haven't walked in their shoes and lived through the same things that they have just comes across as downright ignorant. 

You're not supposed to take certain lyrics at face value like the Oscar one. It's just a metaphor for how the skin colour is so beautiful it should win awards. It doesn't mean that it's better than others and should be held in a higher regard. The pearl one is used to describe it's natural radiant glow. She's using these metaphors to describe the beauty. I feel like anybody looking for flaws in the song and video is diminishing the message Beyonce is trying to put across. 

I don't believe she's trying to put it in anybody's heads that brown is better but that it's just as beautiful as any other skin colour. 

If there's problematic elements in the art, though? It's not like I'm telling POC what to do, just submitting my opinion on it and drawing on viewpoints of other races. I'm encouraging people to stop being ignorant if anything.

If you think skin colour is so pretty it should win awards, maybe compare it to an Olay award or something, but comparing to an Oscar in a song that's supposed to be serious just isn't the best path. I don't believe any song is beyond criticism. Good songs can contain bad lyrics. There shouldn't be songs that are off-limits to criticism as that's not the point of art. I didn't see anyone saying men have no right to point out that women don't actually run the world when she made Run The World.

I'm not saying she genuinely believes brown is the only good skin colour but if that's the case, she could have made a more inclusive anthem. Even if it's clear it's aimed at black girls but at the same time, substitute one word and it could be for anyone.

17 hours ago, DavidLuis198 said:

A lot of people compare black skin to pearls cause melanin gives it a glow that looks a lot like a pearl glow

 

 

That's just a way to say how beautiful this person and their skin are, you just reading too much on it. Gaga says "baby is so sexy that he should win an Oscar" on Video Phone, and she's not talking that this guys is superior just because he's sexy, just a poetic way to talk about how great someone looks...

 

Again, this song is about empowering girls with dark skin, if you know any girl who have really dark skin you could ask about their experience with it when they were children, maybe this way you can understand why this song has such an important message, especially for the young girls. A lot of PoC suffer a lot of racism because of how they look, and is specially damaging when you are a kid growing thinking you are ugly and worse than everybody just because of your skin tone. You could also read "The Bluest Eye" from Tony Morrison too, it's and amazing book about a little girl who suffers because of her skin color and not fitting in the mold of what is acceptable as beautiful (and even explain a little bit of the difference types of racism people within the various tones of black skin suffer).

Anyway, with this lyrics she's just saying that melanin, black is beautiful, so, there's no need to care about the mean stuff people say about it, cause you know you and your skin are beautiful.

 

I'm not from the US, so I don't really know the story with the word nappy and why the bad connotation, but, if PoC feel they can use within themselves (just like the N word and the F word within the gay community), there's nothing we can say.

 

This only means that the same color of skin that were deemed inferior and ugly once, now it's being celebrated and becoming a new beauty standard. And it's long overdue that stuff like this are said and happens in our society, white skin has been the standard for too many centuries.

 

None of this lyrics or any black empowerment song/discourse means that white people will start being considered ugly and be slaved and all that... you could also read "Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race" by Reni Eddo-Lodge. It's a short but amazing book that could answer a lot of the questions about the concerns you left here, if you read with an open heart and reflect about the stuff the author says, some things are hard to white people like us to accept, but fight racism, even within ourselves, will never be easy.

I think lyrics about being deserving to win an Oscar based on a superficial factor are all very well if said in a fun song, which Video Phone is, but something like that should have no place in a serious song about uplifting race relations.

You speak all this as if I don't understand the concept of uplifting brown skin. I do. I just would've preferred it got put down in a different way and I shouldn't be painted as ignorant for thinking that. I've pointed out that there are many race emancipation songs that are much better that didn't feel the need to mention that black skin is best.

Never did I say that I feared this song or discourse would cause whites to be considered ugly or for us to be enslaved. Why is that conclusion always the one immediately jumped to whenever there's the merest criticism? And actually, I've got a copy of that book, it's in my room right now. I certainly thought the History section wasn't the least bit short and instead of just reeling off paragraphs that could easily have been plucked from a history book, she could have offered her own opinion on them. I get her point of view but I don't agree with her method of dealing with it. She said herself that she's had this same criticism from black people too. I just think we need to stop sectioning ourselves off from other races, we should be aiming to work together now more than ever. A phrase that keeps getting said in regards to topics like this is: "If this offends you or angers you in any way, you have to ask yourself why and if that's rooted in fear and ignorance." It assumes that we're too stupid to have already done that ourselves. And my answer is: I don't believe in racial segregation or racial superiority politics. I want all races to be treated equally and to have equal standards for each other. If a white person can't say how their white skin is the best thing in the world, then a black person shouldn't either. You can be happy with your skin colour, but pride should be for something you've earned, not what you were born with. Everyone should think their skin colour is beautiful and worthy of acceptance but overblowing the nature of it to the point where it evokes racial superiority ideals doesn't sit right with me.

[GagaSine 7,464]

White supremacy daily strikes again 

just let black people love themselves, no one asked or forced you to watch it

[Roxanne 591]

23 hours ago, lego said:

 

joined March... are you trolling or is this just pure ignorance? quote those “racist messages” from her songs. 

have you met one black person in Georgia? have you talked to them? it’s always from the least diverse places on this planet yt people talking ****. 

many black people lives here, they have familes here  or just visit Georgia as a tourist (many times). some of them are also famous for participating in local Comedy Shows, Movies, Fashion Shows and Talk Shows. A weather presenter on the most popular Television is black girl (half Georgian). also  Medical University of Georgia  has 50-60 black students in each year and they are studying here with Georgian and Indian students 

so... just don't talk about something when you don't have information about it. (it's easy)

[lego 44,165]

1 hour ago, Roxanne said:

so... just don't talk about something when you don't have information about it. (it's easy)

 

umm I didn’t ask about black people you saw on TV (and those you mentioned are not many to call your country diverse); I asked how many you personally know and interact with on daily basis? have you witnessed racism against them? have you talked to them about racism? Do you know about history of USA and present day race relations? The way you talk about Beyonce and her “racist messages” just sounds so ignorant. You didn’t elaborate on that, you’re just bothered she has black dancers?? Doesn’t that say something about you?