{"id":58490,"date":"2019-07-14T01:20:43","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T01:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58490"},"modified":"2019-07-14T01:20:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T01:20:43","slug":"lil-kims-lighter-whiter-skin-is-a-sad-indictment-of-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58490","title":{"rendered":"Lil\u2019 Kim\u2019s Lighter, Whiter Skin Is a Sad Indictment of Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/lil-kims-lighter-whiter-skin-is-a-sad-indictment-of-racism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Lil\u2019 Kim\u2019s Lighter, Whiter Skin Is a Sad Indictment of Racism<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Daily Beast<\/a><br \/>\n2016-04-26<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.yabablay.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Yaba Blay<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/lil-kims-lighter-whiter-skin-is-a-sad-indictment-of-racism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-radius: undefinedpx;\" src=\"https:\/\/img.thedailybeast.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,d_placeholder_euli9k,h_1440,w_2560,x_0,y_0\/dpr_1.5\/c_limit,w_1044\/fl_lossy,q_auto\/v1492113716\/articles\/2016\/04\/25\/lil-kim-s-lighter-whiter-skin-is-a-sad-indictment-of-racism\/160425-blay-lil-kim-skin-tease_prin6h\" width=\"550\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small>Handout; Instagram<\/small><\/p>\n<p><em>Why has <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lil%27_Kim\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lil\u2019 Kim<\/a> seemingly lightened her skin? Because of the absurd, but very present, social advantage for black people that comes with having lighter skin.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There was a time when <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lil%27_Kim\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lil\u2019 Kim<\/a> represented a brand of unapologetic self-love for black women. The kind that announced that we are sexual beings without shame or fear. She reflected what it might look like to be at once a woman, black, and sexually free. Visually, her body was a site for pleasure, most importantly her own.<\/p>\n<p>Sonically, her lyrics offered us permission to explore our own bodies and our own pleasure. Lil\u2019 Kim was our champion.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not sure what she\u2019s now championing. In a series of pictures she posted on Instagram, she is virtually unrecognizable.<\/p>\n<p>While we have debated whether other celebrities like <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wikihttps:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beyonc\u00e9\/Beyonc\u00e9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rihanna\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rihanna<\/a> have actually lightened their skin or if the magazines that featured their images had photoshopped their complexions, with Kim, there surely can be little question.<\/p>\n<p>It looks as though she has lightened her once black-girl-brown complexion to one that\u2019s not so brown at all. Her hair is longer, straighter, blonder. Her once round nose now thin. Even her eyes sit differently on her face. She\u2019s changed, in ways that words can\u2019t even begin to capture. And it hurts&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/lil-kims-lighter-whiter-skin-is-a-sad-indictment-of-racism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why has Lil\u2019 Kim seemingly lightened her skin? Because of the absurd, but very present, social advantage for black people that comes with having lighter skin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,25],"tags":[240,30000,29999,7992],"class_list":["post-58490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-women","tag-colorism","tag-kimberly-denise-jones","tag-lil-kim","tag-yaba-blay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58490"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58492,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58490\/revisions\/58492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}