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Is Beyonce Bleaching Her Skin?

May 20, 2011 By 10 Comments

Your Black World reports

by Ayvaunn Penn

Getting a new dress for special events is a female thing, but apparently it’s a Beyoncé thing to go above and beyond – defying the laws of nature – and get new skin. This black music artist known for her voluptuous curves is featured on the cover of her new album as what some are saying looks like a white girl. Over the years people have rumored about Queen B modifying her features. Some claimed she purchased herself a nice Anglo-European nose. Others said she gave her bust a royal boost. Now people are wondering if she is bleaching her skin.

This epidermal issue raises legitimate questions. It is never a sin to wonder. One only bites the forbidden apple when he or she starts making claims, but leave all of that aside. There is no need for making claims when the public can simply observe with their own eyes how Beyoncé’s album covers progressively portray her in an increasingly lighter image. Even toss the pictures aside. Nothing is more real than Beyoncé’s lighter, brighter, whiter appearance on the red carpet at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards that sent the media abuzz. Unfortunately, given this music artist’s interview modesty, it is probably safe to say that we will never really know if she is bleaching her skin. Regardless of if she is or is not, one truth still remains. Queen B still has millions of fans, and it does not look like that will be changing anytime soon.

 

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  • sparkle

    Damn! i didn’t even recognize her!,she looked better darker! 

  • Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

    Bleaching her skin?  Look at her hair.  See http://www.celebritiespics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Beyonce-beyonce-230799_1024_768.jpg
     
    I’m an old guy – really old.  I can remember the good days of the civil rights movement back in the late 50’s, 60’s, etc.  During those days black Americans, male and female, discovered the beauty of their natural self.  See Nikki Geovanni at http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/pictures/nikki_giovanni.jpg.  During this same period we made significant progress with civil rights and the movement of black Americans into the national mainstream.
     
    Look at the November 2010 cover of Ebony magazine at http://madnews.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/ebony-magazine-front-cover-november-2010-65th-anniversary-issue/
     
    Look at the May 2011 cover of Ebony magazine at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.205630909468697.50490.175725762459212#!/photo.php?fbid=205632706135184&set=a.205630909468697.50490.175725762459212&type=1&theater
     
    Look at any Essence magazine.
     
    What appears on the covers and in the pages of magazines reflects our culture.  Sometime during the 70’s or 80’s our movement toward including black Americans into the e pluribus unum (out of many – one) got off track.  And black American women’s hair styles changed.  In the magazines mentioned above, the women appear to be trying to look like white women.  From my way of thinking, we will regain some of the progress made in the mid-20th century when black Americans get back to being comfortable with being who they really are.
     
    This is not to say that people can’t do what they want to do.  My last supervisor in my last regular job was a black female with blond hair.  And she was a really nice person and a great boss.  But I look at those magazines and think that about half the black kids in America could be sent to college with the money black women spend on their “trying-to-be-white” hair does.  It seems to we lost track of substance and moved more toward artificial appearances during the 70’s and 80’s.  Let us see if we can get back on track toward real achievement instead of focusing on appearances.  Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.
     

    • M Tracee

      that shit is silly come on  who is that in the first picture not beyonce, i feel beyonce can wear what ever she wants and she just a light skin black women i think yall need to stop hating and write about something that true and not b.s. 

      • Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

        M Tracee, Maybe you should go back and read what I wrote.  And maybe you’re not nearly as old as I am to remember the 50’s and 60’s when we made some real progress with equality and equal opportunity.
         
        “who is that in the first picture not beyonce,”  The lady in the picture (not Beyonce) is Nikki Geovanni.  She is “an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Her primary focus is on the individual and the power one has to make a difference in oneself and in the lives of others. Giovanni’s poetry expresses strong racial pride, respect for family, and her own experiences as a daughter, a civil rights activist, and a mother. She is currently a distinguished professor of English at Virginia Tech.”  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Giovanni.  I have had opportunities to speak with her a couple of times and listen to two of her speeches here in Virginia.  If you are not familiar with her, you might get some of her poems and speeches and read them.  Professor Geovanni is a truly dynamic scholar that everyone should listen to. 
         
        “i feel beyonce can wear what ever she wants”  That is exactly what I wrote, “This is not to say that people can’t do what they want to do.”
         
        “i think yall need to stop hating and write about something that true and not b.s.”  Although the truth is often inflammatory, I don’t see that anything I wrote involves hate or is BS.  What I wrote is that during the time when we made important progress toward equality and equal opportunity, “black Americans, male and female, discovered the beauty of their natural self.”  That was when there were a lot of black Americans looking like Professor Geovanni’s picture that I posted.  The 50’s and 60’s were a time of substance.  But sometime during the 70’s and early 80’s natural looks and substance changed to attempts at looking like successful whites in regard to dress, hair, and other physical things.  People can do what they want to do, but I think we need to think about why looks are so important, particularly “white looks,” and maybe we might return to naturalness and substance and real progress with equality and equal opportunity.  Also, see HERBCAROLL’s comment at http://yourblackworld.com/2011/05/21/dr-boyce-those-ugly-ugly-black-women/#comment-209543878.  Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.      
         

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shakka-Zulu/1379420279 Shakka Zulu

    It’s all about using airbrushing to be the friend of the photographer and their clients..James Brown might be singing about being black and proud, while he was boning a white woman and making a child with her..I have a very low tolerance for hypocracy, the same can be said for Cornel West, Skip Gates, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Potitier, James Earl Jones, Danny Glover, etc..All these black and proud men and their white women..They cant sell me ice water on a hot day, with their BS..You’re so damn proud you could not find a black woman to partner with?

    Beyonce, Rihana, Niki Menaj, are all ho’s who are no role model for young black girls or black womenhood..Any man (Jay Z) who would allow his wife to be prostituted, to make a buck, need his damn head examined..We blacks who were once the builders and rulers of socities, are now allowing ourselves to be pimped by these johnny come lately, whites…This goes to show what some people will do for a buck..

    Ebony and Essence are no role model for blacks, they need to die a slow painful death..Remember Ebony for a long time only featured models on their covers and pages that looked like the owner’s wife, Eunice Johnson..All their  makeup products, were geared towards the lighter skined blacks..Essence is no longer black controlled, all their models are light skin, racial ambigious, and wears permed, european hair..This is why black girls feel they have to make themselves look like one of these video vixens, to get the attention from the opposite sex..The minute black women start wearing their natural hair, love themselves and appreciate that black dont crack, they will be able to think clearly, and not behave like a european negro…Why the hell would you want to put poisonous chemicals to alter the texture of your hair? Why buy hair products made by your former enslavers? If they are trying to commit genocide on the other peoples of color, why dont you think they will not put things in the products made specifically for black consumptions to get us of this planet? HIV/AIDS was a disease found specifically in white gays community, then within the past 30 years, it has been killing off more blacks and peoples of color than the community which bred this disease..Can we say vaccines which have seen an uptick in recent years, starting from the birth of your newborns to your death, they are always coming up with newer vaccines..
     

    • Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

      Shakka Zulu
       
      I agree with some of what you have written.  For example, “Remember Ebony for a long time only featured models on their covers and pages that looked like the owner’s wife, Eunice Johnson..All their makeup products, were geared towards the lighter skined blacks..Essence is no longer black controlled, all their models are light skin, racial ambigious, and wears permed, european hair..This is why black girls feel they have to make themselves look like one of these video vixens, to get the attention from the opposite sex..The minute black women start wearing their natural hair, love themselves and appreciate that black dont crack, they will be able to think clearly, and not behave like a european negro…” 
       
      But it appears you need to check some of the other information you wrote about.  For example, I’m having trouble with, “Ebony and Essence are no role model for blacks, they need to die a slow painful death.”  For example, Essence has a monthly circulation rate of more than 1,050,000 with 78% being mailed subscriptions.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_magazines_by_circulation.  The same list shows Essence sells more copies than Teen Vogue.  Ebony, more of a news magazine than a style magazine, sells nearly a million.  If these numbers do not reflect these magazines being role models for black people, who do you think is buying them?  It’s certainly not redneck males. 
       
      You also might check up on some of your history about AIDS and HIV.  “The earliest known positive identification of the HIV-1 virus comes from the Congo in 1959 and 1960 though genetic studies indicate that it passed into the human population from chimpanzees around fifty years earlier. A recent study states that a strain of HIV-1 probably moved from Africa to Haiti and then entered the United States around 1969.”  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS
       
      We have some real issues to work on regarding integration of blacks into the American mainstream.  We made significant progress in the 50’s and 60’s, but that progress seems to have stalled about the same time models in magazines (nearly all magazines) started looking like what you call “european negros.”  From my point of view, having lived in South Central LA and other such places, too many blacks are seriously conflicted about who they are, what they want to do with their lives, and how they want to look.  There is a lot of conflict among many blacks with what seems to be self-hate and far too much black on black violence.  And, I think, one of our great hindrances to making progress, is the taboo against openly discussing these issues.  How can we make progress if we don’t acknowledge and discuss real issues?  Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.
       

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shakka-Zulu/1379420279 Shakka Zulu

        Any researcher would know you have to list more that one source to support your argument..citing wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that can be edited by any nut job, is not a very creditable source..This HIV virus you’re talking about coming from Africa to Haiti is a mute point..This was shown to be a research lab in the Belgian Congo, under very dubious conditions, tainted the polio vaccine they were working on, which was exported to Latin America and other third world countries instead of being destroyed..Big pharma once again choosing profits over safety..This is where the HIV/AIDS came from…Here we going again blaming the black man and Africa for all the diseases, when this disease was started by whitey for genocide of the black man, except whitey weak immune system picked up this disease first…

        About Ebony making all this profit, it they were doing so great their magazines would not be as thin as Jet, Johnson Publishing would not have to sell their building on Michigan Ave, and are now renting space in what they once owned..Most of their articles are geared towards multi-racials, biracial, hispanics, and hardly covers any issues of importance to the black community…Most of the seasoned editorial stall has left to include Harriet Cole, to name one..Writing spurious articles about black women being single, needing men, having children out of wedlock, all the usual supermarket tabloid junk is not telling the black community anything, but denegrating them…All their staff looks nothing like the average black person, writing about fashons and other fluff issues in this hard hit ressession, is not what most people, who was hit hard in their pocket book want to read about…These magazines are bought by blacks and mostly other ethnic groups and white women married or involved with men of color..I do not use wikipedia as any source for concrete information, since there figures can be manipulated and changed by anyone including myself and you…

        I dont want to hear this BS about black on black violence, all communities have violence, why magnify blacks? Because in order to demonize a people magnify everything they do, put it on the news, scare the population that all blacks and latinos are the criminals, and you will have a captive audience..I see more white men and women robbing, stealing, child molestation, killing each other, so I dont want to hear about black on black violence..What about white on white violence? They are 60% of the population, and they are not committing any crimes? You’ll had better wake the hell up to the programming that is being done, desenticize us, so when blacks are mass slaughter, we’ll all say “they had it coming”..

        • Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

          Shakka Zulu
          You seem to have expended a lot of words denying the realities that everyone can see.  For example, you seem to think that black on black violence is not a common problem in our society and you seem to think that the incidence of white on white violence is the same as black on black.  I don’t know where you live or what news sources you read, but society were I have lived (South Central LA) or live now in the Norfolk/Portsmouth area of Virginia have not reflected a world of peace, prosperity, and joy for many black Americans.  And I can’t see how living in denial is going to help.  Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D. 

  • AntBee

    NO!

    Bey is not bleaching her skin!

    Why would she need to do that ?

    These days with lighting, photo-shop, and all the other tricks of the photography trade, one can look like almost anything!. 

    Stop hating!

  • guest

    a bunch of dark people complaining that she aint black just because she a little famous..anytime anything is ever good black people always try to discredit it. just because we black do we all gotta look like welsey snipes or some shit?
    is beyonce black or white?
    i dunno go back to 1864 and ask me again because i swear she’d be somebody’s slave just like you and me
    wake up!