Eurocentrism: the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the superiority of European culture - "Courageous Conversations by Glenn Singleton & Curtis Wallace"
With this framework, something is always going to be deemed more valuable than the other.
High vs Low culture
EUROCENTRIC FRAMEWORK TEACHES...
Essentialism: the belief that something at its core is and can only be ONE thing or something being primitive.
example: All light skin girls are born with curly hair. or All black people can dance; they were born with that trait.
Essentialism leads to representations.
Representations do not capture everything. Something always gets left out of the box.
example: All black people have brown skin. or Hip-hop being the representation of black people.
Representations lead to stereotypes.
Stereotypes are the way to create "the other". They are NOT representations of the subject however they do represent the person that created them. They have to be repeated to seem "true".
example: Dark Skin girls have attitudes. or Light Skin girls care more about how they look.
What Can You Do?
- Believe in intersectionality and hybridity
- Don't rely on popular culture or dominant culture to represent you.
- Stop looking at beauty from a Eurocentric point of view.
- Don't put each other down and don't feed into the negativity of light skin versus dark skin.
- Don't value one more than the other. It's okay to have your preferences however do not put one skin tone on a pedestal while devaluing the other.
Cultural Assimilation in the Atlanta Area
When you go shopping for makeup in Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens, Kroger, etc. do you find it hard to find your shade?
Sometimes if a community does not have enough people of color, they do not sell shades to cover our spectrum.
However lines such as CoverGirl Queen most of the time are on a different aisle than it's parent company Cover Girl.
The same goes for our hair products which are placed under the sign "Ethnic Hair Products"
Once again that sense of "THE OTHER" is created.
Iman ~ Shea Moisture ~ Black Opal ~ Carol's Daughters ~ Ada Cosmetics ~ Black Up
Sources
"What is this 'Black' in Black Popular Culture?" an article by Stuart Hall
http://culturalstudiesresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/FrelloEssentialism.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/02/28/pharrell-responds-to-girl-album-cover-controversy/5898513/http://stateofthereunion.com/pike-county-oh-as-black-as-we-wish-to-be/#prettyPhoto
http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/09/black-in-america-its-not-just-about-the-color-of-your-skin/
"What is this 'Black' in Black Popular Culture?" an article by Stuart Hall
http://culturalstudiesresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/FrelloEssentialism.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/02/28/pharrell-responds-to-girl-album-cover-controversy/5898513/http://stateofthereunion.com/pike-county-oh-as-black-as-we-wish-to-be/#prettyPhoto
http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/09/black-in-america-its-not-just-about-the-color-of-your-skin/