blackacrylic:

  

Black love is often political. Whilst there is consistent dialogue on the erosion of love between black men and black women we need more conversation about the self-love deficit that often rears its ugly head as a result of black women’s exclusion from the cult of beauty. I believe that self-love is a prerequisite to feel anything worth feeling so it’s important that we have honest conversations about black beauty (in its diverse, wondrous forms) in order to reclaim its worth. I never would have described the archetypal Western standard of beauty as a “cult” until I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum’s exhibition Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900. The exhibition consisted of artists, poets and designers who established ideas of taste through a diverse range of aesthetic statements. If we apply this to modern notions of female beauty, there are close similarities with pop culture’s obsession and glorification of white women through a diverse range of aesthetic statements. Defining beauty has been followed by commodifying beauty and women all over the world spend serious money to reach an artificial standard created by the media. Upholding this standard means that positive aesthetic affirmations of black women are as common as meteorites hitting earth. When black beauty is present it is usually in caricature - somewhere between the sexy light skinned sister and the angry dark skinned sister. Eager for anything that diverts from the script we gluttonously praise tokenism (e.g Tika Sumpter on Gossip Girl) and fetishism (e.g Vogue Italia Black Issue). Deep down we just want to publicly exist outside of the media’s two dimensional box. We want to be ourselves. 

Blackandkillingit.com responds directly to this need. These are the black girls I know in thousands of shades of brown. Sometimes visiting BGKI feels like opening pandora’s box. Curating the beauty of black girls is like telling an untold story, although truth be told, we have been killing it since the beginning of time. As a black girl it is liberating to be able to relate to aesthetic statements. In a world where we only see black beauty through a damaged, off focus lens, the existence of BGKI is necessary. Appreciating the diverse aesthetics of black women is more than an exercise in vanity. It’s about loving ourselves in our entirety. Amongst black women we have various fractions of sisterhood and they often involve aesthetics. The result: natural sisters hanging with natural sisters and girls with weaves and perms hanging out together. Occasionally, the groups will insult each other based on aesthetic choices, it’s all very lame. This is another reason why BGKI is exciting - it’s inclusionary approach to beauty and style. The breadth of beauty is what I adore the most about the site as there is something for everyone.