The Underrated Black Woman

September 18, 2010 xenlogic 35 comments

…a beautiful woman is often a happy woman, even though happy women are rarely beautiful.

– Xenocrates

“You’re pretty – for a black girl”. This is back handed a compliment I hear all too often in the black community. Apparently it’s not good enough to just be a pretty girl, since being black seems to make the whole idea an oxymoron. The expression automatically implies that black girls do not carry the genetic capacity to be pretty. It suggests that in the hierarchy of beauty, black women rank dead last. Is this even remotely true? Are black women intrinsically ugly? There is hypocrisy at work here, and not surprisingly, it isn’t being largely propagated by men.

Do Black Men Prefer White Women?

June 6, 2009 xenlogic 291 comments

“While everyone is entitled to their preferences, true love has no colour…”

– Xenocrates

Obsessed (2009) still
In the film Obsessed (2009), a deranged white woman (played by Ali Larter) comes on rather strongly to a powerful black executive (played by Idris Elba). Thereafter, the film becomes a setup for the ultimate cat fight between the white woman and the black man’s wife (played by Beyoncé Knowles). The plot reverses the black man pursues white woman stereotype.

While it is obvious that the film’s ludicrous plot is nothing more than a visualization of the revenge fantasy of every black woman who has ever lost a lover to a white woman, it does beg the question: Do black men prefer white women? Is there any truth to this stereotype? I explore this and other related issues in this thought provoking piece on sex and racial politics.

Breaking The Stereotypes

July 28, 2008 xenlogic 66 comments

“The colour of a man’s skin should not determine the colour of his mind.”

– Xenocrates

hy is it so common for black people to be associated with negativity? I bet most people looking at the photo above will automatically think that it’s a depiction of black men in a prison. You wouldn’t be too far off if that’s the first interpretation you had – but you’d still be wrong. It goes to show that your mind is automatically trained to think of black people in a negative way. But that aside, even within the race itself, there seems to be a destructive propensity that drives the collective. It’s not limited to blacks in America, but blacks everywhere. Because of this and the civil rights upheavals which have occurred over the decades, almost everywhere you go in non black cultures, people walk on eggshells whenever a black man walks in through the door. Those who don’t are immediately labelled as being “racist” or “bigots”, whether or not it’s true. In fact, black people have made so many people of other ethinicities, races and cultures so uncomfortable around them, that it has made many people who were not even racist to begin with, start to develop a strong dislike for people of African descent. For some people, it’s easier to just be racist, simply because they don’t have the patience to put up with the hypocritical B.S. But it’s not just non blacks who’ve become frustrated with their culture being hijacked by this hypocrisy. Even people within this ethnic demarcation have expressed such misgivings. This post is dedicated exposing the fallacy of the ignorant mindset that people of African descent like to call “black culture”. Black people, pay attention. This is going to hurt, but it will challenge you to think about the way you think and how you perceive yourselves.