quote to consider: the idolization of beauty?
This quote was written on the blog Racialicious by a commenter called truthpoet.
“However, in an effort towards thinking about solutions, I will leave you with this quote from Toni Morrison:“The concept of physical beauty as a virtue is one of the dumbest, most pernicious and destructive ideas of the western world, and we should have nothing to do with it.” Black is Beautiful is a “white idea turned inside out…Concentrating on whether we are beautiful is a way of measuring worth that is wholly trivial… and preoccupation with it is an irrevocable slavery of the senses.”
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I like this
lovely
Tru dat.
That is the most powerful quote i've EVER READ!! Possibly ever read!!
I love Toni…she is so intelligent and insightful.
nice will bee using that in the future
damn… toni morrison is one deep woman.
I agree that focusing on beauty for beauty's sake is trivial. But I don't think that is the intention behind the "Black is beautiful" phrase. It is simply a reflection of the times in which people were living under oppressed conditions which hampered their success based on skin color and ancestry. I think it was not a White idea turned inside out per se, but rather an affirmation of self in an attempt to free the ability to define Blackness (and thus Black beauty) from the grip of White oppressors and put it back into the hands of the people who were being defined. I do feel, though, that Black people spend too much time trying to "show" how we can be as good as, as pretty as, as smart as, as (fill in the blank with any positive attribute) as White people in an attempt to humanize ourselves in a society which does not tend to want to always think of us as equally human. Black is Beautiful,not because it is AS beautiful or more beautiful than White beauty, but simply because it IS, period.
Well said, Leslie.
I agree up until her misinterpretation of the "black is beautiful" quotation.
I think it's just one way of saying that black people as a whole should not be seen as ugly and rejected from society.
I'm sure people definitely abused it and here we are at good hair/bad hair arguments or you're not "black enough" so you don't deserve to be considered black, etc.
Just my two cents.
@Naturally Leslie.. I can see where your coming from. I think all black people need to do is be themselves. People will see who you are by what you do and how well you do it.
Toni Morrison is the woman. I have read a few of her books and her understanding of the history of our people is amazing.
I agree with Toni Morrison including her interpretation of "Black is Beautiful" as, essentially reactive in nature to Western society. Having been born and lived in a black (West African) country. I can't think of an instance where someone felt the need to say "black is beautiful." In a black society, I guess you could say that is a given. There wasn't a question, in my mind of beautiful black people and ugly black people–there were just people and some were more attractive than others. LOL But in a society where you are born the minority, you're going to feel the need to self-reassure…whether you're conscious of it or not.
Yes I was trying to find words to articulate my concern about this quote. I typed a little bit of vitriole which thankfully for the reading public got lost in cyberspace.
I am glad Leslie contributed, your response was much better crafted than my rant. I completely agree.
That's all good and la-di-la but at the end of the day humans focus on all the petty meaningless things we do in life because without them we would have nothing to contemplate other than the fact that we are all destined to die and nobody wants to think about that.
That is why we fill our time with meaningless things, do meaningless work and go to school and stuff.
I'm not saying all these things are without value but in the much bigger picture of things (in universal terms) humans don't mean much. Yeah so we have buildings, jobs, etc, etc. We are intelligent life. Sure, that's all good. But at the end of the day, for all our supposed intelligence there's not really much that we have been able to do to change our collective fate.
We are STILL pretty much born to die. Our intelligence hasn't helped us to escape death. And it's not as if any of the things we do here on Earth are really a lasting testament to our memory or existence. If all the humans disappeared from this planet, in just under a thousand years all trace that we ever existed would disappear from Earth.
So, while people bitch about how dumb it is for humans to focus on stupid things like beauty (a classic argument that lots of people make when they argue against Black women demanding better representation (and more natural haired representation) of themselves in the media by saying asking why we should be looking to the media to define beauty for us or asking even why we should be concerned about beauty at all, the reality is at the end of the day, as dumb and inane as they are, we need these things to occupy us while we wait here on Earth because the alternative is obsessing and worrying and living in permanent terror of the reality of the irrelevance of our existence in the grand scheme of things.
The short version of my comment is: Superficiality has its uses too.
To each his own. While I think that Toni Morrison is intelligent and thoughtful and I agree that "Black is beautiful" was a reaction to the dominant white culture, I don't completely agree with her interpretation. Like others who have commented here, I never took the phrase to be limited to superficialities of physical appearance. To me it encompassed that and so much more: spirit and perseverance and, for want of a better expression, the souls of black people. So, I continue to embrace "Black is beautiful".
We tend to limit beauty to looks only as well. We lock it in a stuffy room and forget that it's much more than what we see with our eyes.
Although I agree with much of the quote, we need to stop limiting beauty.
Nicole/Mikou, I concur. Black is beautiful, yes, was a response to being told otherwise. But it was also a reaffirmation of a certain truth, that we are, each one of us, a God crafted, limited edition piece of history. Our physical beauty is a tribute to our origins, as is our strength. I, too, continue to embrace "Black is Beautiful":)
I think the most potent component of Morrison's argument is that "the concept" of beauty as a "virtue" is pernicious. I say AMEN to that b/c it speaks to how inane we treat those who are deemed beautiful, pure, and good and how we behave towards those who are not perceived to be good-looking. The relationship to how one looks and his/her "goodness", and I do think Toni Morrison is speaking to the issue of "physical beauty," is absurd.
"Black is Beautiful" was necessary as an ideology when it emerged but it was a reactionary philosophy and clearly did not penetrate our people deeply enough. Three decades later black folk are still toting the demons of colorism and low self-esteem about our kinky hair, broad features, and fuller figures around like weighted anchors. I am in total agreement w/Toni Morrison's statement that the idea of equating of physical beauty with goodness has only damaged all human beings affected it.
To judge is human…its part of what makes us intelligent.
To mistreat someone based on that judgement is wrong. Black, White, fat, skinny, short etc. We are who we are, and beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.
I'm always the first one in my circle crying fowl when something seems awry, and I LOVE Ms. Toni Morrison but… I disagree with her quote entirely.
I don't think everyone really "got" what Lady Morrison was saying..and some may never truly get it. To those that do..kudos. She was not saying that we should all walk around with our eyes closed and only see people from the inside out..or that we should fight the natural tendency to form ideas based on what we see. The key words to me were "Concentrating" and "preoccupation". It should be the bane of your existence, or mine to measure the worth of other individuals based on what we have been taught is physically beautiful. It has indeed had a destructive effect on us as a society and on on our (black) culture as a whole. Yes we see in a physical sense when we look around, but that is far from the most important thing we need to focus on. Separating or classing one another based on who's "pretty" and who's not is incredibly stupid and only keeps the flame of a slave mentality burning ever so brightly.
Kaween you hit the nail on the head with your comment.
Does anyone know the original context of this quote? I would really like to understand more fully where she's coming from with this and how she backs it up
"Concentrating on whether we are beautiful is a way of measuring worth that is wholly trivial… and preoccupation with it is an irrevocable slavery of the senses.”
This excerpt painted a wide brush stroke.
Bad:
When it comes to stereotyping, beauty hierarchies, and the ways beauty is used politically to impair your self image..You can become a slave.
Good:
When it comes to shaking all this off, and embracing a natural sensory experience with the beauty your body provided, this statement does not apply at all.
When there's a "sense of lack" in relation to your place in the depiction of beauty..There's, also, the urge to throw the entire concept away, and become cold to senses and beauty that plays on them. But, it was the manipulation that caused us distress, not beauty itself or the senses which make you notice it.
Is there anybody that can look at a baby, or a sunset, or a forest, and fully experiencing what is it to be human, deny that it is beautiful? Why not yourself? If you miss that opportunity, you're missing the point of life.
You are supposed to love you, even the physical expression of you, no matter what that is..When we feel we do not have a place in that sensory experience of beauty, that is where the trouble comes in. But, a natural appreciation is a completely healthy concept.
Beauty is a part of our life. We have spirit and we have a physical expression of that spirit. There is math involved in our forms, in our hair, and in our flowers. This is beautiful. We react from that place.
And, if we become too entrenched with guarding against superficiality, we can end up denying ourselves the compliments we freely give to trees and flowers.
The concept of beauty has been twisted so much, that to come out of those twists, we may have to do some concentrating on the truth.
And, the truth is my black self is beautiful. If I can admire nature and have a sensory experience with it, I can do the same with this human animal which my spirit brings to life. No slavery here.
There is a slavery going on with our senses. But, I believe it comes from denying ourself a picture in a beauty we naturally notice
A sensory experience with our own image should not receive the broad brush stroke which covers self doubt and hierarchies. Appreciating both our distinctiveness and our beauty is part of our make up. It's part of what motivates us to protect, appreciate, & care for our world and each other.
If we become "pre-occupied," we can be slaves to that pre-occupation..not to our senses. Because if I was acting from my senses (my untampered with senses), I would already be fulfilled in who I am, all aspects of who I am- that includes this body. I would be riding the self-appreciation train, not the self doubting ("Do I look good enough today?") train.
Slavery means I'm being run by something, self-appreciation means I'm feeling the empowerment my senses were supposed to give me. Look at you, love what you see. It's a starting point for loving others.
Empathy, intuition, admiration,, self-love, appreciation for others- that is what we're about when our senses are on point.
We shouldn't need to concentrate on our beauty, we should just know it. But, if we want to play with it and enjoy it, there is no sin in concentrating . We are not a slave to our senses, we are reveling in them- a good thing. If we want to feel at a loss because what we are given naturally does not satisfy "beauty," then, and only then, are we are slaves.
And, in that case, we are slaves to a concept, not to our senses and not to the beauty which should have naturally excited our senses.
I woke up this morning, with no make up and was beautiful..I rolled around in my tub, and looked down, and knew I was a piece of art. That sounds healthy to me.