Model
Digital Document
Publisher
Florida Atlantic University
Description
This study analyzes various forms of visual and textual rhetoric found in popular
black-owned print media from 1900-1970, including: beauty product advertisements,
magazine cover photography and feature articles in order to contribute to a rhetorical
history of color bias within the African-American community. The imagery included here
validated and encouraged the transformation and lightening of African-American bodies
through what I call embodied mimicry in order to achieve dominance within the racial
group and a semblance of acceptance outside of it. Mimicry of white societal standards
by African-Americans including: formatting of print media, circulation of beauty ads and
physical embodiment of white physical features ultimately re-inscribed the tenets of
racism into the black public sphere in the form of colorism. The intention of this research
is to analyze the rhetorical history of colorism in order to better understand the current
state of colorism in American society.
black-owned print media from 1900-1970, including: beauty product advertisements,
magazine cover photography and feature articles in order to contribute to a rhetorical
history of color bias within the African-American community. The imagery included here
validated and encouraged the transformation and lightening of African-American bodies
through what I call embodied mimicry in order to achieve dominance within the racial
group and a semblance of acceptance outside of it. Mimicry of white societal standards
by African-Americans including: formatting of print media, circulation of beauty ads and
physical embodiment of white physical features ultimately re-inscribed the tenets of
racism into the black public sphere in the form of colorism. The intention of this research
is to analyze the rhetorical history of colorism in order to better understand the current
state of colorism in American society.
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