FRANCESCA RAMSEY: People have actually said to me,
“Are you mixed with something?”
>> You don’t even look black!”
>> “You have pretty big eyes for an Asian person.”
>> “Is that really your nose?” What?
>> White beauty standards are when whiteness is the default
and it becomes the cultural ideal for beauty.
FRANCESCA: It’s usually a slim nose.
>> Having light skin.
>> Big eyes, long lashes.
>> And hair that is the absolute opposite of mine.
>> What’s wild is that if you’re white,
you might not even see it because it’s so pervasive.
FRANCESCA: So this shade is nude.
Spoiler alert:
not all of us look like this when we’re naked.
>> Oo, nude colored stockings!
I mean, not for me but for somebody, for sure.
>> So this is eyelid tape, or “Eye Charm”.
Charming because you can finally get those Western eyes you’ve always wanted.
>> This is Fair and Lovely skin lightening cream.
>> Look how sad this lady is in the back,
she’s so sad that she’s brown.
>> At first she was sad and dark-skinned.
Now she’s scientifically more marketable.
>> Oh, what the f*¢# is this?
FRANCESCA: Apparently if you use this, you can change your race.
>> Like, this is not a before and after.
FRANCESCA: It really starts to make you feel like you don’t belong,
like who you are is different and not acceptable.
>> There’s even a phrase
within black communities called “good hair”,
and good hair is hair that is not kinky,
not difficult to comb,
and more closely mirrors the silky or soft hair of a white person.
FRANCISCA: There is absolutely nothing wrong with my natural hair,
and I remember when I was in college
and I started my locks,
my uncle told me that there was no way
I was going to get a job with my nappy hair.
What’s really messed up is I’m pretty sure
he was trying to help me.
>> When I would interview, I’d always pull my hair back
and then show up on my first day like this,
so then I’d be like,
“Take a picture of me just like this so this can be on my I.D.”
>> Even globally, white beauty standards are a huge thing.
>> If you travel to China, there’s also just,
like, white people on the billboards
for like Chinese clothing lines,
which is very weird.
>> Even in my own family people would point out
that my brother is like a little bit darker skinned than me.
Why does that matter? If it was like a white family
and one of the other kids was tanner,
no one would give a crap about that.
>> I have a family photo where it looks
like they put the worst Instagram whitening filter
on us and just turned it whiter
and weirdly blurry.
FRANCESCA: Alright, now if you don’t believe me
that white beauty standards are a thing, let’s play a little game.
Do a Google image search for “beautiful woman”.
>> White woman, white woman behind a wall.
>> We got blondes, we got brunettes, takes a while
but you finally see a redhead.
>> There really is still nobody, this is crazy.
>> I see Jennifer Lopez, does she count?
FRANCESCA: Now Google image search “unprofessional hair style”.
Oo! A significantly larger percentage of black ladies!
>> I like that one.
I’ve had that one.
>> Another black woman, black woman, black woman, black woman.
FRANCESCA: This girl’s hair is really cute!
>> The problem is that all of these social messages
that you get about what is
and who is beautiful influences
who you think is beautiful.
Representation matters,
and it matters because we can raise
an entire generation of people
who don’t carry this cultural baggage with them.
>> Without representation,
on a subconscious level
you don’t think you matter as much.
FRANCESCA: So we have to see different representations
of beauty and women of color and womanhood
so that we can know that who we are is just fine.
>> Like, legit two different people’s legs.
That’s crazy.
>>Let’s search “beautiful woman”
on Baidu, which is Chinese Google.
Um…you know, it’s still a lot of white women.