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!

@PlanDeRaccordement, I know a lot of Sicilian-Americans and people descended from people who recently emigrated from Sicily, and second and third generation Sicilians. They all have a tendency to tan really, really dark.

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)

This ^^ is nonsense.

Do you believe all the north Africans simply packed their bags and left in 1091? And nobody from north Africa or any other part of Africa ever set foot in a Sicilian port since?

@HeLa1 this is exactly what I mean - of course Black people can be disabled but proportionately of course more white people are and ableism is easily as rife as racism. A black girl can not be an Essex girl - they can come from Essex but they can't fall into the stereotypical Essex girl camp. In the same way as I can't truly understand what it's like to be black you have never experienced these things and therefore it's a massive double standard for you to say it's any better than what you have to deal with

Non native DNA can very obviously manifest itself in the population hundreds of years after the fact.

In the south of Ireland, for example, we still see people born with very dark eyes, hair, skin (by irish standards) due to various groups of Spanish sailors landing hundreds of years ago.

Biancadelrioisback
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... 

I honestly can not believe that. taking the piss out of redheads is rife in everyday life and in the media. When redheads have kids they will often say thank god he's not ginger because of what they went through at school. And they do get shouted at from cars as do overweight people - my mate even had someone shout baldy at him the other day. Where do you live that your DH never had the mickey taken out of him - it can't be the U.K.

At the school I went to (UK) ginger kids were bullied constantly and brutally, sometimes even by teachers.

@NKFell

vodka said “LA Gangsta” not gangsters in general. The point to me was clear, why are women getting called out for blackfishing and appropriation but white men who dress like Bloods and Crips don’t.

Don't know much about specific gangs but I believe men are also called out for any "appropriation" - perceived or otherwise.

That said, the reason blackfishing is worse or a bigger deal than the general calling people out is that 'non-black' people use this to gain what is meant for black people or as a deceptive strategy to appear as what one isn't in order to infiltrate a booming market and come out ahead or gain a wider reach. I already wrote something similar a bit more earlier on the thread.

To give an opposite example: Some black people tan - anyone can tan if they wish, their choice - but it would be "white fishing" if a black person who tans decides to pretend to be a tan white person, build a brand on social media and become the face of "the perfect tan", go into business with beauty industries that are targeted to mainly white demographic as a "white person with the beautifully tan look we're going for and marketing to other white people", etc.

So it's deceptive at best.

That's completely different from recreational or casual imitation of wanting to 'look black' simply because you like the way it looks. Nothing wrong with that.

@MiniMum97

Great point - multiculturalism is now considered bad and cultural segregation is trendy. It's exclusionary and regressive to limit our experiences and tastes to only those of our own culture. Black people should be free to straighten their hair and white people should be free to wear cornrows. Does anybody here remember Martin Luther King's dream where people might be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character?

This

As Malcom X predicted....we need to stop concerning ourselves with fucking hairstyles and whether or not we can use the word "Master" and actually ensure black people have equality. All this ridiculous debate is just a way of avoiding dealing with the real issues.

I am sure we have companies out there at the moment amending the odd fucking word in their procedures and instruction manuals but they will be doing fuck all to make sure there are equal numbers for black people in their senior management and in their board rooms.

Hear hear

@NKFell

vodka said “LA Gangsta” not gangsters in general. The point to me was clear, why are women getting called out for blackfishing and appropriation but white men who dress like Bloods and Crips don’t.

My list was of WHITE LA GANGS

Not white gangs in general. And anyone in a gang in LA is an “LA gangsta”

@LaurieMarlow

Non native DNA can very obviously manifest itself in the population hundreds of years after the fact.

In the south of Ireland, for example, we still see people born with very dark eyes, hair, skin (by irish standards) due to various groups of Spanish sailors landing hundreds of years ago.

Big difference between 1600 and 900 AD. We twice as close in time to those Spanish sailors shipwrecked from the Spanish Armada 400yrs ago than any Berber in Sicily 1,100 years ago.

I yried to google LA Gangsta, but it comes with a song🤷🏻 So I assume from discussion in here that poster meant gangsters? As in the black gangs wearing certain clothes?
In that case, I really have to ask... Are we saying there is a cultural appropriation of a crime attire? Is crime a black culture then?
I wouldn't think so

@dollyDaydream70.
Please let me reassure you about something...
I'm mixed race (just for context) and there's a lot about racism that even I didn't know.. Why because a white person has taken offence on my behalf. Wear corn rows if you want, tan if you want etc, cook black food if you like it and listen to black music.
Do pay us the same wage for the same work. Don't make us feel bad for having a different body shape. Do give us the same opportunities in the work place AND Do accept that at sometime in our lives, probably on a daily basis, we have been racially abused or faced prejudice simply for the way we look.
Do tell Yr sons gf that if she feels that strongly about it than when she hears someone being racist.. Don't laugh, make it unacceptable. Call people out on their bullshit, refuse to be party to it, be disgusted with their attitude, make them feel uncomfortable voicing it and be vocal about it.
The only time I've had issues with tanning was at school. Kids would call me dirty or a soap dodger(they are the polite things I can repeat) but as soon as the sun came out they'd be roasting themselves on the school field at lunch time to get a tan. The irony wasn't lost on me. 🤦‍♀️
She means well but her aim is off.
FYI I don't watch the news either and I can't be bothered to jump on every celebrity bandwagon either.
Take care and please don't feel bad.. She has the self righteousness of youth 😂

white men who dress like Bloods and Crips don’t.

Well you can be white and a blood or a Crip. They are neighbourhood gangs. So although they are based in majority black neighbourhoods they aren’t racist and have a few white, Latino and Asian members who are from that neighbourhood.

But just keep digging that hole. Her point was clear but her example was a racist stereotype.

I have no issue with people getting a tan, cornrows etc or black woken using wigs from white hair or white looking hair. Freedom to wear and do as you please

*women

Agree @SchrodingersImmigrant
That was what I got from the poster as well.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Agree *@SchrodingersImmigrant* That was what I got from the poster as well.

So weird isn't it. Putting crime up there like this. I always assumed street gangs wore free clothes to hide weapons rather than it being a "cultural" thing.

Maybe the poster will eventually explain why she thinks crime fashion falls under black culture? Or why it should?

why she thinks crime fashion falls under black culture? Or why it should?

Maybe she’s a police officer? Would explain the stop and search statistics....

Ha!

The article linked to several times On this thread says AG is black fishing because one of her videos uses a ‘trap house’ (Illegal drug house) which suggests ‘trap houses’ are just a black thing - I find that kind of stereotyping far more problematic than a hair do.

For PP talking about gangsta style - I do not think it's a crime fashion. I actually don't care. I am not deeply familiar with LA gangs and my information comes from Dr Dre (who I adore - 2001 is still perhaps the best album ever, who is black and talks about west coast/LA gangs. Is also one of the smartest men in the music industry). I am making no link between crime and black culture - its a music link.

What I do think is a crime is CONSTANTLY USING EXAMPLES OF WOMEN TO ILLUSTRATE EVERY KIND OF -ISM INSTEAD OF USING MALE EXAMPLES.

Why is it always women who are wrong? That's my point. The gf is talking about AG and women's hairstyles and she needs to stop aiming at other women. Unfortunately a lot of women do this and then make it so easy for the misogynists. But a brief 101 in feminism for her might help.

And to the poster that explained blackfishing - I've heard the expression before but wasn't sure exactly what it meant. So thank you! Yet another cynical marketing ploy in a sea of cynical marketing ploys.

Let's keep on topic shall we? @Queenofeverything44 has it nailed. Don't be a fucking racist. Being a self righteous prig won't change lives. Living your own life without racism and stopping other people from displaying it (while also pointing out what bs it is) will.

It's wide knowledge that part of black culture - old rap music-wise (don't know about now) was being a proud 'gangsta'.

2pac, Dre, Snoop, Biggie, DMX and many more all were into it, made it popular and it was the schtick. Some were actual gangsters irl, others not.

Gangsta lean - a type of pose while sitting/standing/walking/driving.
Gangsta's paradise - song

Other gangsta related widely known phrases and songs.

So the PP mentioning music gangsta culture isn't wrong.

Gangsta lean is also a song. The 'lean' pose came from there I think.

whereorwere Black girls can and are called Essex girls often mixed with insults like coconut or malteaser as they’re acting stereotypically “white”.
Also, an Essex girl is just an exaggerated version of the “women are stupid and sex crazed bimbos” stereotype, which is how black women are still seen in society; stupid and sex crazed.

Gangsta party - song.

Another one is being a proud "thug" and there's thug life, thug clothing and thug culture.

All these perpetuated by adored black rappers, etc.

This is actually really interesting debate.

And kudos to all of us for remaining calm to be able to debate!😁