Wow, I really had to check myself after reading this...Because I do think that Black women are the most beautiful of all of God's creations. I was honest about this with my wife when she was my girlfriend. That's just the truth, and I've never been able to pretend otherwise. But abusing, objectifying, dehumanizing? I don't think so, thankfully.

I believe that society programs us in ways that we don't always understand. When I was a kid, we were programmed to believe that Farrah Fawcett-Majors was the ideal in female beauty. I had a couple of experiences that knocked me off this programmed course, and made me look at non-White women differently.

The first experience was in 3rd grade (and I'm not proud of this...). I was sitting next to the only Black girl in our 3rd-grade class. I looked over at what she was writing. It turned out to be her diary. I'll never forget the 6 words at the top of the page: "I am black. I am ugly." I looked at her, and tried to tell her that, no, she wasn't ugly. That she was really pretty. She was horrified that I'd read her diary (rightly so) and never talked to me again.

The second formative experience was in 7th grade. I was taking an intro-to-acting class and the teacher's assistant, a 10th-grader, this GORGEOUS Black woman, walked into the room. Her name was Gail Grate.

https://www.goodmantheatre.org/artists-archive/creative-partners/actors/gail-grate/

She went on to have a successful TV, theater, and movie career (even picking up an Obie along the way). I was absolutely enraptured by her. I know that in 7th grade it's supposed to be puppy love. I never believed that. Somebody from my home town pinged me with the news that she died from lung cancer about 8 years ago, and I was sitting in my cubicle at work, crying like a baby.

But I do think that these things are worth considering and knowing. I didn't have the tools 20 or 40 years ago to understand the context in which my programming/de-programming occurred. I finally got my hands on a copy of "How to be an antiracist" by Prof. Kendi, and this passage also brought me up short:

"...To be an antiracist is not to reverse the beauty standard. To be an antiracist is to eliminate any beauty standard based on skin and eye color, hair texture, facial and bodily features shared by groups. To be an antiracist is to diversify our standards of beauty like our standards of culture or intelligence, to see beauty equally in all skin colors, broad and thin noses, kinky and straight hair, light and dark eyes. To be an antiracist is to build and live in a beauty culture that accentuates instead of erases our natural beauty."

Have I fallen short of this ideal? Yes. Definitely. But I'm working on my racism and hope that my sins are venal, not cardinal (am not asking forgiveness--it's up to me to grapple with my imperfections).