Published 1951
Beyoncé Stirs Whitewash Controversy
Beyoncé Knowles has been lambasted for looking Caucasian.
The singer has just released her newest promotional ad for her album 4.
Beyoncé’s bright blond hair and bleached eyebrows in the promo are simply too blanch for some critics.
“I think in a lot of ways [Beyoncé is] culpable because there’s history there,” founder of blog ThisIsYourConscience.com Lincoln Anthony Blades told the Daily News. “She’s not saying explicitly you have to lighten your skin, but it does carry that inherent message.”
Beyoncé has been criticized before for looking like a white girl. In a 2008 ad for cosmetics company L’Oréal, the singer’s skin appeared abnormally light.
Filmmaker D. Channsin Berry who helmed Dark Girls, a documentary exploring discrimination faced by dark-skinned black women, thinks the singer’s neutralized ethnicity is a requisite for successful marketing.
“[Beyoncé is] doing what she needs to do to be accepted worldwide and keep those sponsors happy,” D. contends.
Skin color in the black American community has been a contentious issue since early members of the African diaspora crunched their feet in the dirt of the state of Virginia in the 17th century.
Mixed race house Negroes got to serve the master in the comfort of his Deep South Confederate mansion while the plantation’s darkies were bloodying their hands picking cotton in the grueling heat outside.
An obsolete dialogue that still rages without addressing the issue.
Who are black Americans?
The descendants of African tribesman, Native American tribesman, European slave owners. Partially, in between and wholly all of these.
What is being whitewashed? Were the first members of the African diaspora not sanitized of their heritage when slave owners ripped tongues from the mouth at the sound of a native utterance?
America has been bleached since the Indians dwindled from small pox.
Now, with tanning beds at the peak of popularity, there is an opportunity to change the hue of pop culture.
Blackwash: bust out the Sharpie.
BCTV X BC TUMBLR
What if your tumblr archive was a video? This is what the @BroccoliCity Tumblr would look like.
Rihanna for Emporio Armani 2011 Fall/Winter Campaign
Meet the new face of Emporio Armani 2011 Fall/Winter Campaign [Read more...]
Purse Blog: Lanvin Clutch
If I saw this clutch in someone’s hands and didn’t know any better, I’d assume it was the vintage find of a lifetime. The dusty teal lizard accented with tortoise shell gussets and weathered brass hardware looks like nothing else on the market right now, and the combination is beautiful in a subtle, restrained, well-edited way that’s genuinely hard to come by.
Lizard Box Clutch, $2127 via Matches
‘Fuck” Rug by Supreme x G1950
Inspired by Robert Indiana’s LOVE artwork, Supreme presents in collaboration with Japanese brand Gallery 1950, the ‘FUCK’ rug. Measuring 32′ x 32′, the rug will be released along with their Fall/Winter 2011 Collection this coming weekend.
Via: Link
“True Blood” Star Janina Gavankar’s Shapeshifting Fantasies (complex)
to view video [Read more...]
America’s Fittest Cities: LA is not in the top 10

Despite its typical portrayal in the media as a city of health conscious, yoga obsessed, soy-milk sippers, a new study released by American College of Sports Medicine finds the City of Angels near rock-bottom in its survey of the country’s most fit cities. Finishing a dismal 41 out of 50, LA barely manages to edge out Houston and Las Vegas, with Oklahoma City residing at the bottom of the list.
According to the report, the American Fitness Index “reflects a composite of preventive health behaviors, levels of chronic disease conditions, health care access, as well as community resources and policies that support physical activity. In addition, demographic diversity, economic diversity and violent crime levels are included for each metropolitan area to illustrate the unique attributes of each city.”
Despite some relative advantages over other cities on the list, including higher percentages walking or cycling to work and a lower percentage of current smokers, LA was unable to overcome challenges like a higher population percentage below the poverty line and a dearth of parklands and playgrounds.
The survey found the following to be the fittest cities in the country:
1. Minneapolis, MN
2. Washington, DC
3. Boston, MA
4. Portland, OR
5 Denver, CO
6. San Francisco, CA
7. Hartford, CT
8. Seattle, WA
9. Virginia Beach, VA
10.Sacramento, CA
And the bottom 10
41. Los Angeles, CA
42. Houston, TX
43. Las Vegas, NV
44. Riverside, CA
45. Indianapolis, IN
46. Detroit, MI
47 Birmingham, AL
48. Memphis, TN
49. Louisville, KY
50. Oklahoma City, OK
Scarlett Johansson for MANGO Spring/Summer 2011
To view behind the scenes video [Read more...]

























