Air Brush City

Yesterday, I was walking by a magazine stand (I can't afford them anymore, that's why I was just walking by) and I caught a glimpse of who I thought was a tan Marlo Thomas on the cover of Oprah Magazine. It was Oprah. Okay, maybe I need a stronger prescription for my glasses. And maybe it wasn't so much Marlo Thomas as it was more a slightly tanned, fuller figured Teri Hatcher, much fuller figured - I'd be surprised if she could stand still in a breeze. But my point is, isn't Oprah black? She was when she started, I know that much. And it's okay to be black now, right?

So, I really don't care if Oprah's biggest audience is white women, does she have to look white? Right before the photo shoot for the magazine cover, are they like, "Okay girl, now here...douse yourself with this baby powder and put on all this fake hair and duct-tape that stomach in and then go...you know...do that 'Taa-Daa!' thing with your hands."

We have a weather girl on a local news station here in Santa Barbara that Will thinks looks like an Easter Egg - and she does, all year long. She's suppose to be white, with dark hair - that's all we know. She has one of those fake-ass spray on bullshit tans that makes her glow like she was just dipped in food coloring, bizarre dyed blonde hair and so much make-up that we can't see her eyes, all we see is color. And everytime we see her, I wonder what she really looks like. She's basically just a walking illusion of color. A dipped and dyed weather whore. But, I think it's all kind of sad, the delusion of illusion.

A few years back, Will and I were at a street fair here in Carpinteria and there was this sunglasses stand. We stopped and looked for a while and there was this great pair of real big sunglasses, the kind that Lenny Kravitz wears now or did...Anyway, I would look like an asswipe with them on, but not someone like Lenny, oh no - he'd look cool. So, Will says, "These would look great on a black guy with a big afro." That's all he meant, he's an artist and celebrates life through his artist's eye. And he was right, they'd look great on a black guy with a big afro, even Lenny thought so. Well, the dark latina who was selling the glasses took offense, but well before that, she had dyed her hair blonde and was wearing blue contacts... So, she says, "That's just wrong...That's wrong!" Getting louder. I said (in always trying to rationalize with people), "He didn't mean anything by it..." And she said, "UH-HUH, that's just wrong!" And Will turns to her in his cool style and simply, yet profoundly says, "You have blonde hair and blue contacts - you have issues." and turned, dropped and rolled.

Why is blonde hair and blue contacts becoming the ideal for black women? Or for Latina's? Or for white women who have dark hair and dark eyes? Aren't they beautiful too?