Son's girlfriend thinks suntans are racist

[DollyDaydream70]

I could be opening a real can of worms here, but I'm genuinely gobsmacked by a few things my Son's 18yr old girlfriend said to me last night..

First of all she asked me did I think it's racist for white girls to copy black girl's style. I had no clue what she was referring to as 'black girl's style' so asked her to elaborate. She then referred to a singer called Ariane Grande (who I know literally 0 about) and said that she tans herself until she's almost black and 'dresses like a black girl'.

I've Googled said singer and all I can find is a pic of her with Nikki Minaj where, yes, she looks dark, but so what? We've been tanning since Coco Chanel made it stylish in the 1920's, and probably long before that! What are we supposed to do? Stay indoors when the sun shines ffs?!!

Son's GF also stated that it's racist for a white person to wear corn rows in their hair. I told her that my friends and I used to corn row our hair a lot in the mid to late 80's, we used to stick wooden or plastic beads on the ends of our plaits, it was quite the fashion at the time!

What do you all think about this? Please tell me this is all going too far. I'm genuinely quite perplexed that tanning and corn rows could be deemed to be racist!

Have people with pale skin faced generations of abuse for having pale skin?
Have people with pale hair faced generations of abuse for having pale hair?
Have people with straight hair faced generations of abuse for having straight hair?
Has straight hair been banned by any schools in the UK?
@simonjt
Clearly you have no idea what it's like to be pale and ginger

Have people with pale skin faced generations of abuse for having pale skin?
Have people with pale hair faced generations of abuse for having pale hair?
Have people with straight hair faced generations of abuse for having straight hair?
Has straight hair been banned by any schools in the UK?
@simonjt
Clearly you have no idea what it's like to be pale and ginger

Who are the same people? The people who would wear their hair in cornrows are the same people who would say something racist and pretend they were just joking? tbh I get how that would piss you off if you felt that someone was wearing a style that you feel belongs in some way to black people, but they are racist.

I don't think I agree with you that they're the same people, though - some of them will be but a lot will just really like that style and think it suits them and it's what their friends are wearing etc.

@whereorwhere

Have people with pale skin faced generations of abuse for having pale skin? Have people with pale hair faced generations of abuse for having pale hair? Have people with straight hair faced generations of abuse for having straight hair? Has straight hair been banned by any schools in the UK? *@simonjt* Clearly you have no idea what it's like to be pale and ginger

I do take issue with everybody talking about white skin being a exalted characteristic when my pale face has caused me nothing but misery. Rosacea from the age of 17 makes my life absolutely miserable and I would give anything to be black skinned.

Incidentally I also thought Rita was mixed race but that's more to do with her facial features than what she wears

Rosacea from the age of 17 makes my life absolutely miserable and I would give anything to be black skinned.

Black Brown skin gets rosacea too. It's not a white only issue.

Being ginger and really pale seems to be the last socially acceptable thing to take the piss out if. I have never met someone with ginger hair who hasn't been ridiculed through most of their life. Most of them take it in their stride but it's not nice and it's incredibly dismissive of people not to appreciate this fact

Very true Walkaround and SchrodingersImmigrant.

Most people will just quietly crack on with their own style and preferences.

Never once when fake tanning have I worked it back to cultural appropriation, it’s because I don’t want sun damaged skin and the associated risks of cancer 🤷‍♀️

The world is tying itself up in knots being perpetually offended by everything and anything, we’re all different with different opinions, likes and preferences, that doesn’t mean we can’t all get on or should be divided because we embrace different styles.

Yes racism/discrimination is wrong but fake tan is just a beauty product.

My DH is ginger & also Australian, h’d never heard a bad word about ginger hair until he came here. He’s always very bemused when a car full of arseholes feel the need to shout ‘ginger cunt’ or similar at him whilst driving past.

Your argument that the Arabs (it was the Fatimids actually) only ruled Sicily for 200 years and therefore AG couldn't possibly have naturally dark skin doesn't hold water.

Mathanxiety. That wasn’t my argument? My argument was in response to the poster that said AG was descended from Arabs. I responded that since the Arabs only ruled Sicily for 200yrs and that was over a thousand years ago that it is highly unlikely that AG has any Berber DNA in her and certainly not enough to effect her skin colour.

I never said “she couldn’t possibly have naturally darker skin” you are making that up.

I have also said white people can through natural tanning end up with darker skin than black people.

My point is that skin colour doesn’t determine your race. You can tan as dark as you want, but youre not black and reaching back over a thousand years for a possible mythical North African Berber ancestor to explain dark skin is too far back to have any impact on your skin colour. Because their contribution to your DNA would be 0.0001% (30 generations, approx 1 million ancestors)

@Andthewinnerislucky

Rosacea from the age of 17 makes my life absolutely miserable and I would give anything to be black skinned.

Black Brown skin gets rosacea too. It's not a white only issue.

The darker you are the less visible the redness. I would happily be very very dark skinned and not shine like a baboons arsehole.

whereorwhere I’m really pale too, kids used to call me Casper at school, kids can be so cruel. Sending you hugs 🤗

Never once when fake tanning have I worked it back to cultural appropriation

This is ridiculous. White women tan yes but tanning to be extra dark (is it even possible to do that safely or without adding extra makeup?) sporting cane rows, and changing accent - It's not a norm is it, for white women when tanning? I mean unless you do all mentioned, what does this have to do with not seeing fake tanning as cultural appropriation?

The darker you are the less visible the redness

True.

@nancy75 me too! I'm not even a natural redhead, but the abuse I got for my (fake) ginger hair when I lived in Britain was enough to make me stop dyeing it.

I also wanted to say: this has been a very interesting discussion, but please, please, stop the suntanning! Skin cancer is a scourge in my part of the world, and I always wince when a British person says "I love a tan!" If you tan, you are damaging your skin and may not see the full effects of this for years to come. Please look after yourselves!

OK, sorry, didn't mean to lecture. Both my parents have had skin cancers removed over the years. It's a nasty process but they were very lucky it wasn't worse.

Have people with pale skin faced generations of abuse for having pale skin? Have people with pale hair faced generations of abuse for having pale hair? Etc.

Yes. Look up the history of the Slavs. They were Eastern Europeans and in the Middle Eastern and North African slave markets for four centuries they sold like hot cakes because their pale skin and blonde hair was much desired by the Islamic empire rulers and elite. They were deliberately attacked by Germanic tribes and the young girls and boys shipped off to be slaves. The older women, men and very young children were simply killed.

Straight hair makes no sense though because no type of hair is unique to any ethnicity.

I've Googled said singer and all I can find is a pic of her with Nikki Minaj

So you googled a well know singer and only one photo came up....

That should have been some black people on this thread - not all just to clarify

Ariana with her brother and parents.

There's some make up and fake tan but it's not blackfishing like this influencer called Emma Hallberg

whereorwere, you do realise that black people can also be disabled, be “Essex girls”, be ginger, be older parents , be gay and are even more likely to be poor.

Oppression is intersectional and black people have to contend with racism as well as classism, ageism, homophobia etc

Institutional racism is a different order of magnitude to prejudice & abuse based on the appearance of an individual, like being ginger.

Where do some of you live where you get the piss taken out of you by people driving round in cars?
DH and his whole family are red heads and I've got very, very pale ginger hair too. Never once had someone about anything out of a car window or bully any of DHs lot for their hair...

@dobbtssoc it was the only pic I could find where her skin looked dark. Maybe I should've explained better, this being mumsnet and all......

I find the whole “cultural appropriation!” thing really annoying. Let people borrow from whatever culture they like. A white woman can have corn rows. A black woman can dye her hair blond. A Japanese woman can wear a Western style suit. A Western woman can wear a kimono.

To say that someone can’t do something because of their race, is racial discrimination.