Lupita Nyong’o was beautiful and black when she accepted an Oscar award recently for best supporting actress in “12 Years a Slave.”
In her pale blue Prada gown, she was stunning—even though she did not fit into the long-blonde-hair-blue-eyes-anorexic-with-large-breasts stereotype that long has been glorified as the ideal in our culture.
“When a woman with jet black skin, close-cropped natural hair and a scant amount of makeup wins an Academy Award, it is about more than the gold statue in her hands,” wrote Sheron Patterson in the March 5, 2014, issue of The Dallas Morning News. “It means that Hollywood finally recognizes and salutes dark-skinned women.”
Lupita Nyong’o deserves a big round of applause. And so do all of the other beautiful black women. And so do all of the other women who are beautiful even though they do not meet fashion magazine standards for beauty. All of the women who are not slim enough, not perfect enough. Black women, brown women, white women. Young women and old women.