A Winding Road...

darklovelyandsouthasian:

I was delighted to find this tumblr.

My name is Joy Hui Lin, I’m a half Thai and half Chinese entertainment writer and poet. My Thai family is considered dark/tan which we’ve always said must mean that we’re part South Asian from a long while back. In Thailand being a Chinese-Thai which are the fairer skin citizens is the ideal. All the women on the TV programs or commercials are fair skinned and of course there are skin bleaching creams galore advertised nonstop. As I’ve gotten tanner my cousins on both sides tell me “You’re like a black person …” in a tone of equal parts insult and dismay. My sisters and I stand around while our other Asian friends remark with disappointment to their children, “You’ve gotten so tan,” after a frolic in the sun.

I wanted to submit my picture because when I was 18, the whitest most popular football jock in my biology class asked me after a long and sunny tennis season, “Haven’t you ever heard of sunblock?”

And this is for my niece who wishes she had blonde hair like Princess Aurora because “she’s the most beautiful.”

I’m happy to be considered “dark and lovely.”

Photo credit: Tobias Kinnebrew

Submitted by Joy Hui Lin

(Source: blackballerinas, via heyfranhey)

Beautiful people in no particular order
↳ Zoe Saldana: “I just want to be a part of great stories, whether I’m part of an amazing ensemble cast or I’m leading it or the antagonist or whatever.”

(via n-kita)

beautiful

(Source: tundae, via heyfranhey)

heyfranhey:

Beautiful everything <3

(Source: beautifulbahamian)

racebending:

The number one whitening lotion SkinWhite, wows us again with new SkinWhite Teens, the first-ever vitamin-based whitening lotion made especially for sensitive teen skin.

Perfect for you girls who are experiencing your many firsts, just like Sam, a high school freshie who dreams to become the lead in her school’s Brand New Me Musical.

Does she have the confidence to face her first-ever audition and sing for her dream role? Watch her story and dont forget to log on to www.brandnewme.ph after for cool prizes and surprises!

There has got to be a special place in hell for skin whitening product companies that market to preteen girls.

Discovered this video from reading Jen Wang’s article on Disgrasian:  DISGRASIAN OF THE WEAK! Vagina Whitening (That’s Right, You Heard Me)  (You might remember Jen  from Racebending’s WonderCon panel last month!)

Designed to address the problems women face in their private parts, Clean and Dry Intimate Wash offers protection, fairness and freshness. To be used while showering, its special pH-balanced formula cleans and protects the affected area, and even makes the skin fairer. Life for women will now be fresher, cleaner, fairer! 

(Source: wizard-of-the-world, via n-kita)

Stunning.

(Source: darkskinnedblackbeauty, via afroboheme)

oh-so-coco:

The other evening I was asked to join an interesting group of doctors, editors, models and lawyers to speak with Dr. Herzog director of the Massachusetts General Hospital about his work with CFDA’s Health Initiative. Along with fellow model Doutzen Kroes, I had the chance to speak before the group.

Today I’ve seen some positive and some rather negative feedback regarding the parts of my speech that have been made public. With this in mind I have decided to publish my entire speech below - Coco Rocha.

I would like to thank the Harris Center for inviting me to speak today. I’m deeply appreciative of the research, education and advocacy you provide as well as your outreach program to the CFDA.

I’m sure to many in the audience, my industry, fashion, must appear to be something like the wild-west. Specifically within the field of modeling, a smaller part of that industry, we are essentially entirely unregulated and this is the way its been for a long time now. The models who make up this highly visual work force are mostly teenage girls, many of whom are largely seen as disposable commodities. Its no secret that there’s an immense pressure put on these girls to maintain a specific look and for quite a while now, that specific look has been impossibly thin. Models know they have a shelf life, and they know that if they cant maintain the look, they will be replaced.

Often the pressure is very direct with some designers, stylists and agents in no uncertain terms pushing these young girls to take measures that often lead to anorexia or other health problems in order to remain in the business a few extra seasons. I myself felt this pressure very early in my career as a fashion model. I recall being specifically told by someone of authority, much older and supposedly wiser than I, that the “look” that year was anorexia. He said to me “We don’t want you to be anorexic but thats what we want you to look like”.  For a young girl of 15 you can imagine how confusing and disturbing that statement was.

A large part of the problem is that models come into this business at 13, 14 or 15 before their bodies are even close to finished developing. Often they are the tall skinny girls in middle school, with none of the curves that they will one day inherit. Within a year or two these girls are developing into women and they are not told that this is OK. On the contrary, they’re told that they are loosing their edge, losing money, and losing favor in the eyes of their clients and so they struggle to take measures that will please those they look up to. When I was younger, many miles away from home I turned to diuretic pills to loose weight. One day, I took so many on an empty stomach that I spent hours doubled over and racked with pain. At that time I promised myself that I would never again take such drastic measures in order to please others.

To this day I question how anyone can justify an aesthetic that reduces a woman or child to an emaciated skeleton. Surely fashions aesthetic should enhance and beautify the human form, not destroy it.

Why should there be a difference between being healthy and being a model? In my mind, the two should be one and the same. We demand and we legislate that our sports stars achieve success without the use of dangerous drugs and supplements that would otherwise harm their bodies in the long run. Why should we not encourage and even require that our runway and editorial stars also hold themselves to a higher standard.

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woodendreams:

(by Grisù the Dragon)

Gorgeous. This would make a fantastic book cover.

(via gigglebug)