Beyoncé is caught up in another 'white-skin row'. But, like most other people on earth, black people's skin tone changes with the seasons
Beyoncé must be exhausted. She has just had a baby girl, who has probably been keeping her up all night, has been dealing with press reports about the heavy-handedness of her security detail while in hospital and now, according to the Daily Mail, she is caught in another "white-skin row". Photographs taken before her pregnancy to promote her new album, 4, have come out, and the singer is "looking much paler than her usual colour", says the Mail.
But what exactly is Beyoncé's "usual colour"? She is a fair-skinned black woman. And, like most other people on earth, her skin tone changes with the seasons. For example, I – a dark-skinned black woman – am a lot darker in summer. At the risk of sounding condescending, black people tan too. Personally, I tan quickly and deeply. And in the winter, I get as "pale" as my dark-brown skin gets; enough to see the green veins at my wrists. And then let's add in the other pertinent factors: makeup, studio lighting, airbrushing. I'm fairly certain everybody in the business with any kind of promotional budget gets sculpted, "smoothed out" and tightened in post-production.
Yes, there's no denying that shadism or colourism still exists. Is there a noticeable bias towards a certain aesthetic – fair skin, light-coloured hair, skinny, but with a (proportionally) large bottom? Definitely. And is there a correspondingly high number of fair-skinned black women in the public eye? Again, yes. Is Beyoncé looking lighter than "normal"? Perhaps. But she was hardly of an Alek Wek complexion beforehand. People will have to troll harder on this one.