Comments on: What Do Straight Man Mag Maxim and Lesbian Website AfterEllen Have In Common?

By: Bruce Godfrey

Bruce Godfrey — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:50:00 +0000

Not to carney-bark my own blog, but I got into a somewhat similar theme on the topic of Baltimore Magazine two weeks ago. Baltimore Magazine is a magazine primarily for non-Baltimore City-resident affluent white suburbanites. Its recent spread on Baltimore Women in Business featured photo spreads on 1 or at most 2 African-American women out of about 63, which would be pretty fair if Baltimore were the largest city in Iceland, not Maryland’s 2/3 African-American largest city. Even the suburban counties are 13-25% African-American, but this magazine’s demographic really wants to see white faces only, I guess.

By: Homeland Colors

Homeland Colors — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:39:00 +0000

i just think that white girls sell more magazines to white guys so they put more white girls in it to make more money. I don’t think they’re doing it on purpose or with ill intent, i just think they’re trying to make a profit. I just figure, buy a black magazine, there are black girls in it and i’ll be supporting a black business.

By: Dale

Dale — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:01:00 +0000

Don't really see how one can find racism in this.

Tell me how you have proof that there is racism involved with the decisions, and if you can't, tell me how this would be racist?

I would put one woman in my 10 favorite athletes, does that make me sexist?

By: Ronnie B

Ronnie B — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:24:00 +0000

Good gawd, why are people still trippin on this?

It's not like light-complected Black folk are actually oppressing, holding down or otherwise discriminating against darker complected Black folk.

This subject matter is as old as negroes in America. You mean to tell me that in 2007, people still harbor such petty jealousies?

Unreal.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:12:00 +0000

Yeah, rikyrah…`sigh` here, too. Frankly, I don’t especially care about Maxim’s and AfterEllen’s standards of black beauty, but I am concerned about the infromation in the study you linked to.

By: Symphony

Symphony — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:37:00 +0000

Doug the problem isn’t that Rihanna and Jennifer are in the top 10 on the lists.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:27:00 +0000

All the Blacks folks I know knew she was one of us since Flashdance. Nothing new. However, I am sad that this skin tone discrimination is still so strong among us. We tell our young ones that they are beautiful/handsome no matter what, but when they see stats like the article rikyrah linked, it’s like nothing has changed. This is not only hurtful because of what it does to us all, but my daughter and I are of drastically different skin tones and are subject to insensitive comments all the time. People think they are being inquisitive and nice, but it’s just insulting. I have taken to answering inquiries with a simple “Have you heard of genetics?” What can we do that we haven’t been doing to make this go away?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:00:00 +0000

almost all lesbians know j. Beals is black b/c it’s written into the “l word”. It’s only straight people who don’t know she’s black.

By: rikyrah

rikyrah — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:25:00 +0000

Here's a sad commentary:

Black Students Still Favor Lighter Skin, Study Finds

A money quote:

The Ross study indicated that only 16.4 percent of women would prefer to date a person of a lighter complexion and 16.8 percent of women would want to marry a person with light skin. The study showed that 33.3 percent of men preferred to date a person of a lighter complexion and 38.3 would prefer lighter skin in a marriage partner.

All I can do is go, 'Sigh'

STILL?

By: dougk

dougk — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:15:00 +0000

i’m sorry, but both women are beautiful, talented and making money..that’s a problem? have you never heard the adage “any publicity is good publicity”?

By: mike in dc

mike in dc — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:55:00 +0000

well, it’s a fair and legitimate criticism. It occurs to me that there are now a few FHM/maxim type men’s mags which cater to a black readership, have any of them published a “top 100″ list of this sort?

I would note that askmen.com has several women of color in their top 99 list, and the current #1 is Beyonce.