Beauty

"She dancin', she dance, she dance for them

Her body move but her mind was menacing

Thinking I don't know where they hands has been

Relationships with men have been so damaging." -Common

I am not a thin, fair skinned Asian girl. Even at my thinnest, I am thick compared to Vietnamese women. Whether I'm chubby, acceptable, or "prettier" now that I'm thin..., my weight is a popular topic of discussion amongst older Vietnamese women so...

Maybe it is time to refocus this blog around the issues that affect girls and women. Most notably around the issues of desirability in patriarchical societies and further around the interconnections between race, femininity, and desirability. It is one that is extremely troubling and which I've been passionate about because of the experiences of girls around me, what I've heard men say, and my own experiences.

It's a contradiction because, to some extent, I know who I am. Today was my last day working as an assistant teacher at the elementary school. And compared to arbitrary/ subjective concepts like weight or beauty, helping minority kids and kids struggling with poverty is so much more important. And I love the kids, I see that some struggle, and some feel dumb at times just like I did and do. At 8 years old, they are honest and introspective, and they look up to me as an all knowing young adult. Only, I see myself in them, so I am starting to address my insecurities as an Asian/African American woman.

Pressures are ingrained from birth. "Beautiful Asian" women are light skinned, feminine, thin, with long straight black hair. Hips, thighs, and lips, when they are seen as desirable are seen more as exotic beauty, dancers and video girls, va-va-voom girls from where I come from, both being Viet Nam and the Vietnamese American community, but not beautiful girls.

And I think, that perhaps, that kind of thinking is a trend that extends beyond the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian cultures. Finding traits that belong to women of color exotic and sexual while traits which belong to fairer women, more passive traits, as beautiful.

If there is an equivalent to the term nigger in Vietnamese, I was called that by a child when I visited the countryside as a child myself. And it stuck with me. From there on, I think my rebellious ass wanted to own a reality which no one else I knew acknowledges, and that is, no matter how successful or intelligent or strong a dark skinned person is, unfounded biases are leveled on them even by fellow people of color. I identify not as Vietnamese but as a woman of color.

But as resilient as I am, as many girls and women of color are, the messages, beauty standards, and particularly expectations that we've grown up with hasn't shifted. The most successful black actresses are: Halle Berry, Elise Neal, Thandie Newton and now Zoe Saldana and Joy Bryant... feminine, light skinned, slender, beautiful and intelligent but not dominating. Other black actresses with the exception of Tariji P. Henson and maybe Keri Washington are, in my opinion, stuck playing dramatic, type-cast roles, or like Meagan Good, who is gorgeous, but has thick lips and an hourglass figure, plays the girlfriend or the pretty sexpot in all of her movies. It's a question of what society values, what messages they send. Similar to black women, Amer-Asian black Vietnamese women are relaxing their hair or dying it all types of unnatural colors to look like white girls.

And as a woman of color who wishes to be respected, that's where weight and body image comes to play. If I were to generalize, I would say, no woman wants to be the girl Ludacris and Lil Wayne describe in their videos... as measurements, sex pots, with a fat booty, huge boobs, and thighs that look and taste like chicken. No woman wants to be that kind of object. So girls, if they don't God forbid bleach or lighten their skin, they can aim to look like pretty but respectable cover girls like Zoe Saldana or Paula Patton and I think that's what me and girls like myself have always subconsciously aimmed for.

I struggle with this. Dark skinned black women are beautiful. I would like to be darker. And full figured women of every color are beautiful. Yet and still I set myself against a standard of thin, light-skinned women. It's a contradiction. They do not possess any superior trait, but men, older generations, and the media seem to suggest so.

Because of all the stereotypes that entails being a colored women, particularly concerning our personalities, there is pressure to tone down the revolutionary, passionate, opinionated sides of us to compete with the presumably sweet and understanding white woman or light skinned Asian woman who holds no bitterness in her heart and knows how to please and sooth men.

Melyssa Ford/ Meagan Good

Zoe Saldana/ Paula Patton

ME

There's also pressure to be beautiful and respectable to compete with the slender light skinned women which educated men of color seem to be running rampantly around with (at least this is my opinion). What do educated men of color (or men of color who are in contact with light skinned women in general) want and why doesn't she resemble me or Michelle Obama much? I've always believed in integration but I've also always considered its connotations. I don't think it's innate so I'll say it's structural. But because of this, I see girls as young as middle school pushing themselves toward a certain image, young Asian, African American and African girls wearing Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus shirts. It lasts until College or after, eating disorders, hair dye, diet pills, pressure to speak "White." I see me pushing myself toward a certain image that, at times, has stemmed from believing that desirability is something other than what I am.

It is unhealthy.

It's real but it's also hypocritical and insecure of me. I've had black men tell me that I have good hair and I don't have an attitude... And I've had black women tell me that black men go after me because I'm part Asian, and I'm small (this is highly arguable), and light skinned. There hasn't been a black man I've talked to who hasn't expressed their attraction toward Asian women...

It's not a "gain." It's unfortunate.

So technically, I don't have anything to worry about if I were to just tune down my revolutionary social scientist side a bit.... except I still don't have pink nipples and vanilla skin and "proportional" measurements.

AND I could never imagine myself as a commodity to a white or Asian man. I don't think they could understand me and join me in what I'm passionate about.

Laws can change but mindsets are harder.

I want men to see me for my heart (and passion and love) and not for my ass and titties.

I want it to be ok to have a heart and to have opinions without it being attributed to the negative stereotypes of my race in combination with my gender. It's a new year, so I have to be honest, it's a constant struggle. American society doesn't make it easy for women of color who want to succeed. Men, and particularly beautiful, strong, intelligent men of color, ironically don't make it easy either.

So girls make it hard on themselves.

Everyday in College I hear about weight 2,3, 5 pounds, gyms, cup size, food, and highly intelligent girls critiquing their friends... as if they were not worth more or as if there weren't other "real problems" so to speak. At 20, 21, 22, 23 years of age... women of color have not learned to accept themselves yet and although I am working hard toward that goal, I heavily include myself here.

So I sat back one night and purged out this really, really terrible poem. I've lost a touch but at least, it's honest.

Insecure

I want to write a masterpiece on still nights

when my soul hurts and no one listens

I think

my brown skin is beautiful

but it cannot compete with vanilla sweetness

and light pink nipples and ocean eyes

Even when

my round flesh always gives you refuge

and the crevices residing beneath my eyes are

from loving you

and for

pleading for

our for

ever-afters

I love you

hard

and give you sensations

that make my womb tremble

but

you're here for now and

I am forever

dark

you cannot see a woman like me

I am strong, you cannot conquer

my inhibitions

shake, shiver, quiver

but won't concede pleasure

to a man like you... is hard,

I cannot break through and write our masterpiece