←
→
eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (cyhmn)
Add MemoryShare This Entry

QotD

posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 05:24am on 2017-11-26

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2017-07-20:

"I'm so fucking tired of black women always being described by their skin tones! Honey-colored this! Dark-chocolate that! My paternal grandmother was mocha-tinged, cafe-au-lait, graham-fucking-cracker brown! How come they never describe the white characters in relation to foodstuffs and hot liquids? Why aren't there any yogurt-colored, egg-shell-toned, string-cheese-skinned, low-fat-milk white protagonists in these racist, no-third-act-having books? That's why black literature sucks!" -- Paul Beatty, from his novel The Sellout.

(submitted to the mailing list by Mike Krawchuk)

←
→
There are 7 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
gale_storm: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] gale_storm at 04:36pm on 2017-11-26
*laugh!* (Ummm... I guess I’d be some kinda peach, like the Hostess peach pie, which I can never again eat because I once threw it up, making it something to which my mouth will never again play hostess!) (Oh, to continue the ‘Ummm...’ from above, I know I’ve heard some black women talking about others’ skin tone, and not only in tv like ‘Aquarius,’ in which the black grandmother talked about her interracial granddaughter’s skin tone as “high yellow.” That sprang to mind because I saw it a few months ago, although I’ve not asked anyone whether that’s common to do or not.)
[link] [reply]
minoanmiss: Maiden holding a quince (Quince Maiden)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] minoanmiss at 06:21pm on 2017-11-26
It's pretty common.

[link] [parent] [reply]
minoanmiss: Nubian Minoan Lady (Nubian Minoan Lady)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] minoanmiss at 06:22pm on 2017-11-26
We talk about this a lot in fandom, how to describe Black characters without resorting to food, and how to satirically describe White characters while using food. ;) Underlying all of this is the idea of White as 'normal' and Black as 'other', and it's good to get away from that assumption in describing the spectrum of humanity.
[link] [reply]
conuly: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] conuly at 09:17pm on 2017-11-26
You do sometimes hear "peaches and cream" as a descriptor, but yeah.
[link] [reply]
cellio: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] cellio at 10:08pm on 2017-11-26
Yeah, aside from "olive-skinned", I haven't heard this applied to whites. There are as many kinds of white as there are black; where's the vocabulary for 'em?
[link] [reply]
marahmarie: (M In M Forever) (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] marahmarie at 07:18am on 2017-11-27
Not entirely accurate re: "skin tones" (as opposed to just "foodstuffs"). I've heard/read "olive-toned/complexioned", "peaches and cream", "rosy pink", "pasty white", "doughy colored"....there might be few more, but if so, they're slipping my mind, an I'll be as far away from a keyboard as possible without actually teleporting into outer space when they do finally occur to me.

White people are never dark; they're "tan" or "olive" or "leathery". Being compared to an animal skin is possibly worse than food comparisons (it just squicks me bad)!
[link] [reply]
selki: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] selki at 11:43am on 2017-11-28
"sallow" and "swarthy" are also sometimes applied to whitish skin, and of course "tan" which reminds me of "bronzed"
[link] [parent] [reply]

Links

January

SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
1
1
 2
1
 3
1
 4
1
 5
1
 6
1
 7
1
8
1
 9
1
 10
1
 11
1
 12
1
 13
1
 14
1
15
1
 16
1
 17
1
 18
1
 19
1
 20
1
 21
1
22
1
 23
1
 24
 
 25
 
 26
 
 27
 
 28
 
29
 
 30
 
 31