Why Rihanna’s New Beauty Line Matters
And so do Black girls
Rihanna has a new line coming out in the fall — Fenty Beauty and from the teasers — there is every reason to be gratified.
Watching the ad with gorgeous girls mixing through the collage with carefree artistry — it was hard not to be affected. I shared my initial reaction — and as the day progressed — it was clear that my words resonated.
As long as I can remember — there has been a consistent erasure of dark-skinned women from the globally-certified aesthetic that still propels a certain kind of delicacy as superior and more viable.
I didn’t escape the effects of colorism while growing up in Lagos — Nigeria in the eighties and early nineties. There was always the pride in our heritage and the stubbornness to not allow the resounding effects of our former colonial masters — to completely dilute the primal structures of what makes an Igbo girl different from a girl of Yoruba descent.
But somehow — in the midst of restoring the glory that predated the avalanche of ships — carrying the…
