lindabong:

The thing is people we are all people of color and we will always struggle to make our place in society if we continue to hold each other down with this so called "color spectrum" issue!

The lighter skinned girls nowadays in our mainstream culture well here in America they're always y'know the love interest or the beauty and meanwhile the dark-skinned person whether it be male or female is always almost there for comedic interest

davidif:

solution is that we need more black models and to promote ourselves in a more positive light.

londoner:

I think it depends on which way in which you are looking at it.

If you look at music videos the main love interest may be sometimes be light (or more precisly Biracial or Hispanic). If you look at the runway, most of the Black models who are promoted as beautiful at the highest level are dark skinned, thats for both men and women.
Hollywood only promotes a handful of Black women of any skintone at a time, even if most of that few are light, again mainly biracial.
However, a dark skinned male is more likely to be portrayed as a love interest than a light skinned one IMO.

If you are talking about Nollywood, most of the women held up as beautiful are dark skinned. the Nigerian music videos also tend to have dark skinned love interests.

White people may well promote a White is better outlook, but they are White. You don't expect them to promote Black/Asian beauty as much as their own do you?

Honestly, if tomorrow White women are seen as the beauties of Nollywood, you would think that is ok? If the love interests in Nigerian music videos become White women, would that not raise alarm with many here?

People start to complain when a NIGERIAN GIRL who is not dark skinned wins MBGN contest.

How much more would it be if its a White or Asian woman??

Its us who have the mandate to promote Black beauty in all its shades, its not the Whiteman's responsibility to do so IMO.

I'm not saying discrimination is right, but when it comes to opinions of beauty you really can't force someone say they find Black women attractive if they really don't.
If we were shouting that Black is beautiful just as much as the White man shouts out his own, it wouldn't even be such a problem by now. For me, thats where the issue lies, always taking our lead from Whites, even when its to our detriment.

I'm more concerned at the type of characters Black people play, ie criminals, unintelligent, overly sexual.

masawa:

WELL SAID!!DO NOT EXPECT WHITIES TO PROMOTE THE AFRICAN BEAUTY

Exactly! Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Not everyone finds porkish pale skin that is constantly changing color from red to blue to pink attractive. Some of us love chocolatey brown skin which does not crack that easily as we get older