Colorism, Romance, racecraft, and me: A musing on deconstructing beauty
Jan 10, 2023
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
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Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
I've been accused of being a Shakespearean, and with a fond grin, I accept the accusation for the purpose of this musing. Sonnet 130 (cited above in full) is both a critique and a reiteration of an idealization of female beauty during the 16th century. I won't pursue the central paradigm behind the idea( beauty equals a female or feminized body). Rather, I want to muse on the stranglehold racial capitalism briefly/white supremacy has on the definition of what constitutes beauty and the insidious play of colorism always at work in the idea and representation in literature.
Back in the day, teaching Willie S's sonnet 130 in terms of racecraft required two different mindsets. As a particular form of poetry (Petrarchan sonnet), the tendency is to focus on Willie's "deconstruction' of the idealization of what constitutes a beautiful woman: whiteness, golden hair, ability to blush (red on white), sweet breath, and a soft speaking voice. The speaker's mistress lacks all of that and can never be mistaken for a "light footed goddess. Willie's “brown-skinned” girl got substance.
Then there's the other MargoH at work, the mindset that informed my scholarly writings about "race" in early modern English culture. As a romance author, I’m also deeply interested in the problems associated with colorism, race, and beauty. If the poem is about women's beauty, who are these women and does the answer shape the representation of "feminine beauty" in Anglo-American romance fiction and culture for centuries? In Things of Darkness, Kim F. Hall brilliantly demonstrates the juxtaposition of fair/dark as an emblem of beauty—one not limited to wordplay but to visual culture when a Black presence suddenly moves into the spotlight alongside a nation’s colonialist endeavors. The measure of one's subjectivity within a white supremacist capitalist economy is very much tied to colorism because of and despite the hoax of "race." Access to relations of power, even now, are color-coded and beauty coded (two different but interlocking links in racial capitalism), yet we take certain antitheses for granted: that race pivots between Blackness and whiteness, that ethnicity is situated within a spectrum of whiteness (nation); and feminine beauty always begins with colorism, and it too privileges an anti-Blackness ideology.
An illustration because…
I recently finished Lisa Kleypas' Marrying Winterborne. Over the past year, I've drawn away from reading historical romances because I was deep into the world of Elizabethan London. More importantly, I pulled away because I felt I was reading the same histrom with a different author's name, title, and cover. The predictability and the absence of "historical accuracy" were starting to weigh on the pleasure I formerly got. I grew tired of seeing "whiteness" washed and repeated, occasionally colorized for diversity (a different discussion). Even so, when I need a break I return to authors like Kleypas, Lorraine Heath, or Sarah Maclean as histrom comfort reads. What draws me is the storytelling and familiarity (isn't that what comfort is about?).
Marrying Winterborne is classic Kleypas. Class conflict versus progress. Again, another conversation for another day. Today's reflection is the colorism that permeates Marrying Winterborne when it comes to the characters' physical descriptions. Rhys Winterborne is Welsh, a commoner, and a self-made wealthy man. Kleypas describes him as follows: "the nose sturdy, the lips full and distinctly edged. His skin was not fashionably pale but a rich, glowing umber, and his hair was quite black." Her description of Helen Ravenel echoes the type sonnet 130 critiques: her eyes were the silver-blue of clouds drifting through moonlight. The fine, straight locks of her hair, the palest shade of blonde," and of course the "porcelain skin.
As I read these descriptions, what struck me was the racecraft at work. The imagery and choice of words produce a colorist hierarchy in sync with racial capitalism and its ideology of beauty. The pervasiveness of an unexamined notion of "beauty" in romance fiction, whether romance authors acknowledge it or not, shapes the representation of women's physical appearance in romance novels. The idealization in Willie's sonnet continues to define what inherently signals beauty. Even in an age of "diversity" and "multiculturalism," romance heroines are "white women" or some variation of color/hair/body adjacent (light-skinned, "straightish hair," thinner noses and lips, and slender body type). Without rehearsing the role traditional publishing has in pushing this narrative (that's a book, not a musing, folks), the idealization of a white supremacist standard of women's beauty is so pervasive in romance that some authors of color often write/whiteout obvious markers of non-white subjectivity. Black, brown, Asian, and Indigenous women become palpable versions of white women by virtue of colorism.
For centuries beauty has been represented in terms of a specific dichotomy encapsulated in this passage from Julie Jacobs' essay, "Beauty and Civilisation. Buffon's consideration on human somatic features in Historie Naturalle de l'Homme":
The naturalist establishes a systematic link between the beauty of the peoples in question and their whiteness. The two terms seem equivalent. Women, in particular, are beautiful because they are white. On the other hand, people with darker skin can only be beautiful despite their color, as evidenced by the example of the Spaniards who 'are born very white and are very beautiful; but as they grow older, their complexion changes in a surprising way' (223) - the adversative expression implying that the darkening of their skin degrades their appearance. Moreover, to understand more precisely what a beautiful face looks like, according to Buffon, it suffices to take the opposite of the typical Black eunuch, presented as the epitome of hideousness: 'they are meant to have a very flat nose, a horrible expression, very large and thick lips, and in particular, black and sparse teeth' (34). Thus, a straight or aquiline nose, eyes (either blue or light brown), a small mouth, and white teeth and skin constitute an ideal face (221-222).
To summarize, "The first element that characterises beauty in a woman is the whiteness of her skin...Other characteristic elements of the woman are the roundness of her breast and her waist, thick and long hair, whether blond or brown, scarcity of body hair, a soft, cheerful countenance, and an overall youthful appearance" (Jacobs, 221). With very little modification, this is the vision of beauty in romance fiction since the 19th century and dominates 20th and 21st centuries descriptions of romance heroines.
What color is umber?
In her recent romance novel, Marrying Winterborne, Lisa Kleypas uses a word I’m far more likely to see in Black or Brown romance fiction to describe Rhys Winterborne's skin strikes me as unusual. In fact, I had to double-check the description to make sure I wasn't over-reading. As a resistance to the pervasive use of foods to describe non-white skin (especially Black peoples), colors such as umber, russet, and copper have begun to replace cinnamon, chocolate, caramel etc., in romance novels. However, the food descriptors haven't completely disappeared. Hence my surprise to learn that Winterborne's color is "glowing umber," in other words, a particular shade of brown. In essence, he is not white but Welsh.
My point here is that romance scholars or reviewers rarely speak to the issue of colorism at work in historical romances penned by white authors. Very few read Marrying Winterborne as an interracial romance yet, both in terms of colorism and the "racialization" of Winterborne, that is precisely what the book represents. So, why isn't the book viewed in terms of "race" or "color"? Why is his Welsh "umber" "savage" and her English "pale beauty" civilized? Because both fit the ideology of colorism. The paradigm has shaped and continues to shape readerly expectations, which informs writerly expectations until thwarted.
In a discussion of Beverly Jenkins' Indigo, I kinda waxed poetic about Jenkins' use of Galen Vachon to effectively "deconstruct" our expectations about what constitutes a "beautiful woman"(for video link, see Margo Hendricks below). Galen's wooing of Hester is typical "romance hero," but his perception of beauty never begins in whiteness, always in blackness: "she [Hester] was as beautiful as a black velvet sky; beautiful as a sunrise." (145). The language of wooing is sensually erotic and deeply coded in loving Hester's "blackness". There is no "Black but beautiful" for Galen. Hester is Black therefore beautiful--and her blackness is her beauty.
Thinking about Galen's love for Hester's beauty and his insistence on gracing her beauty with beauty (silks, perfume, food, etc.) allowed me to reflect on why Black Romance is so critical to academic romance scholarship. Importantly, why whiteness shouldn't be the lens through which it is filtered.
Unlike white-authored or white-centric romance novels, Black Romance recognizes the insidious nature of white supremacist ideologies around "comparative beauty" (idealized versions of good, better, best). Yet, because Blackness in terms of colorism should be seen as heterogeneous rather than homogeneous, Black romance authors grasp the need for "representational gradations" is far more complex than the simple dichotomy of Black/White. White romance authors will never fully comprehend gradations. Black beauty cannot be defined in absolute terms (any more than white beauty can, but that's not something that concerns me here). Black romance authors should follow in Ms. Bev's "footprints" and fully deconstruct the colorist ideologies surrounding beauty ( originally wrote the word "must" but sometimes gentleness is better).
We're seeing far more descriptions of romance heroines and heroes whose physical appearance disrupts expectations. Characters with "broad/wide noses," well-defined asses and hips, full, soft, thick lips, and natural hair (whether braided, cropped, twisted, or afro). Authors described these characters' specific "color" in light of shades of brown, giving readers a range of "Blackness." Many of these novels aren't by traditional romance publishing companies (there are a few exceptions but not enough). These "indie" authors refused to rely on interracial romance storylines or racially ambiguous depictions (readers know the characters aren't white but feel comfortable--especially with heroines-- imagining white proximity).
Just as important is the choice to situate their romance characters in Black families and communities instead of predominately white culture. These authors drew upon cultural specificity to locate representations of beauty where Black women are the standard. This didn't mean that elements of white-centric thinking disappeared completely. Instead of straight blonde hair, we have black straightened hair, but the claim for that straight hair increasingly shed its good/bad valance and was deemed a style choice, and one easily shed. A celebration of what has long been viewed as opposite beauty—a rounded, shapely ass, the absence of a soft voice, and "gentle manners"—emerged in descriptions of Black romance characters' physical and cultural subjectivity.
Within the language of romance, whiteness and white proximity remain desirable property. Whiteness begins and ends with white women as standard bearers. Challenges rise, debates occur, and resistance to implicit anti-Blackness--the product of a changing readerly demographics. Riding ourselves of white supremacy's hold on beauty requires work, but it can be done. To cite Keyser Soze (The Usual Suspects), "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist." I believe the greatest deception by white supremacy and racial capitalism has been "convincing the world that colorism in the form of “whiteness” and “Blackness” (and the idea of race) exists as inherent human attributes.
copyright 2023 by Margo Hendricks
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Addendum: These are some, though not all, of the readings that inform my thoughts on beauty
Camp, Stephanie M. H., “Early European Views of African Bodies: Beauty” in Sexuality and Slavery Book Subtitle: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas Book Editor(s): Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie M. Harris (University of Georgia Pres 2018)
Hall, Kim, F. Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England, Cornell UP, 1995, esp. introduction and Chapter 2.
Hall, Kim F., “Beauty and the Beast of Whiteness: Teaching Race and Gender,” Shakespeare Quarterly (1996)
bell hooks, Art on Mind: Visual Politics (see chapter “Beauty Laid Bare”) (1995)
Camp, Stephanie M. H., “Making Racial Beauty in the United States,” Connexions: Histories of Race and Sex in North America, Brier, Jennifer, Jim Downs and Jennifer L Morgan, (University of Illinois: 2016)
Henderson, Aneeka Ayanna. Veil and Vow: Marriage Matters in Contemporary African American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2020)
Tate, Shirley Anne, Black Beauty: Aesthetics, Stylization, Politics (London: Routledge, 2009)
Robinson-Moore, Cynthia L. “Beauty Standards Reflect Eurocentric Paradigms-So What? Skin Color, Identity, Black Female Beauty,” (Journal of Race & Policy, 2008 Spring 4:1)
Gautier Walker, Speshal, “Black Beauty: Womanist Consciousness as a Protective Factor in Black Women’s Body Image Satisfaction,” (Journal of Black Psychology 47:8 2021)
Jacob, Julie, “Beauty and Civilisation. Buffon’s considerations on human somatic feathers... (Aesthetic Investigations, 4:2 2021)
Galer Smith, Sophia, “How Black women were whitewashed by art” (https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190114-how-black-women-were-whitewashed-by-art)
Harris, Cheryl, L. “Whiteness As Property, Harvard Law Review, vol 106, number 3, June 1993
Hobson, Janell, “Remnants of Venus: Signifying Black Beauty and Sexuality, Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol 46, no1/2, Beauty 2018.
Hachimi, Yasmine, “’A beauty not so whitely’: Anne Boleyn and the Optics of Race,” S&F Online, Issue 18.1 | Fall/Winter 2022
Jenkins, Destin and Leroy, Justin, eds., Histories of Racial Capitalism (Columbia University Press. 2021)
© 2024 Margo Hendricks
