The hue and cry came swiftly and from almost every corner of the web. Black women, white women, Asian and Latino women all blasted evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa for his controversial article that claimed black women were scientifically less attractive than women of other races.
Petitions were circulated. Anger was fomented. Even white guys in his field came out of the woodwork denouncing his flawed science. And soon Kanazawa's article, "Why Are African-American Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" was pulled from the 'Psychology Today' website where it was originally published, and he was fired from his blogging gig there and booted from his teaching job at the London School of Economics.
The dust has since settled and the balance of the galaxy seems to have been restored.
But there's one thing that continues to nag. As all heck was breaking loose, one group stayed largely out of the fray: Black Men.
Perhaps it's because the clearly insane and indefensibly racist report Kanazawa attempted to cloak in "science" was so ridiculous that it didn't even warrant a response en masse from the fellas. Or, in some sadly self-loathing way, black men weren't overly riled because many might harbor a deeply internalized belief that black women are indeed universally less attractive.
The even sadder reality is that our women's femininity, no less their beauty, has been attacked since way back. Long before the headscarf was a fashion accessory for the corner store set, slave owners and white gentry demanded that black women cover their heads because their hair was said to be so repulsive. And no offense to black women who prefer a weave or a relaxer to their own natural hair, but whole industries, billion dollar industries, have been built solely on providing ways for black women to appear other than their natural selves.
There are countless anecdotes of assaults on black beauty - from the fetishization of Latin-Asian-Mediterranean-looking-light-skinned video models with the long hair and less than African features (as beautiful as these women might actually be), to the brothers who will only sport a white girl on their arm or the lingering vestiges of our colonial-inspired color complexes (re: Bill Duke's forthcoming documentary Dark Girls).
But going back to the original premise, we spoke with three black men about Kanazawa's theory, the fallout and why black men didn't rise up en (virtual) masse in support of beautiful black women.
First up, the Rev. Nicholas Richards, a single, 27-year-old assistant minister at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Richards said there was no major outcry from black men because of unresolved issues between black men and women, and an internalized perception of beauty driven by media and white society.
"Black women to me are the most beautiful creatures in existence," Richards said. "However, I do believe there are tremendous strains on black male and female relationships and perceptions of each other."
He continued: "We have a lot of work to do to change the perception that we have of our women and to reclaim the glorious image that we once held. When you see a black woman you see her as God saw her in Genesis 1:26, you see her as good, you don't see her as someone outside the normal, not someone that you're trying to make more normal.
"The issue for us is that white is normal and anything other than white is not normal. And we live trying to be more normal. I think what black men have to do is really begin to see black women as normal and good and beautiful in themselves, not against the backdrop of any other race or identity, but that black women are good."
Bob Meadows, 44 (pictured below), a deputy editor at 'Essence,' who has been married for nearly seven years to a black woman, said, "when you hear something so ridiculous there shouldn't be a response," and that "black women are very strong, they know ridiculousness when they see it."
"I think that black men love black women," added Meadows. "Your mother is your first standard of beauty, not the white woman on TV." Datwon Thomas, 36, (pictured below) the editorial director of 'Vibe' and the founder of 'King' magazine (something of a 'Maxim' for black men), said that his initial response to the whole thing was, "this is some bull shit and I can't even give it my attention."
Part of the reason he started King was because mainstream publications never showed sexy black women in the same light as the Claudia Schiffers of the world. He didn't address the Kanazawa issue publicly, but said he does his best at home to reinforce to his daughters that they are beautiful.
"I just over love them," he said. "As long as they are going to know me, they're always going to know that my dad loves me no matter what, no mater how I look. They'll always have that."
The mess that Kanazawa put out there is hurtful, and complicated. There are issues of identity, color and concepts of beauty, issues that are complicated further by a difficult history of discrimination and hate, burdens of being black (and a woman) in America.
But as far as black men's response to a claim that black women are less attractive than other women, perhaps Datwon Thomas sums it up best: "I don't think it was for a lack of black men feeling the need to respond. There's no way you can feel like that if you are a black dude who grew up in a black household," said Thomas, who has been married to a black woman for 11 years and has "three beautiful black little girls" at home. "That's not something you think about. I don't think like that."
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