by
Chinwe
Broderick Hunter, a black male model, recently posted an appreciation thread for dark-skinned women on Twitter. Some of the responses to his thread were positive, including one from another black man. However, there was enough negative pushback — from one woman — to make Hunter have to explain himself. Here is how it all started.
On April 27, Hunter first tweeted a question as to why “dudes” don’t like dark-skinned women:
One follower could not resist asking Hunter if blasians could get love too:
Nonetheless, given the relevant responses to the question he posed, Hunter decided to start a dark skin appreciation thread:
While many of the tweets that followed were positive — mainly gratitude for the love — a few people were not here for the focus on dark skin, including one persistent woman named Sheyda:
Do you think Broderick is wrong to stan for dark-skinned women? Share your thoughts below!
67 Responses
He clearly said he loves every girl! But we clearly see the preference black dudes (and not only) have on lighter skinned women. He was sharing his thoughts. Light skin are appreciated everyday on these choices and preferences that boys and industry have. Can’t he show appreciation for dark skin girls ?! Cmon please. That girl gatra have several seats!
gotta*
Hell no!! Light skin people stay in their feelings when they are not, for once or twice, being celebrated. Look, light skinned folks, whites prefer your shade as do many, many other POCs so back off and go sit down some where.
Colorism does exist. Always has. From society to within colored communities.
Even in Hollywood, if there is going to be black girl in the film then she looks like Halle Berry. Someone light skinned or mixed and the same attitude is used in urban films; Friday, Dope, Love and Basketball, etc. Doesn’t matter how black the male protagonist is, his love interest is always lighter than him. From the majority of black men that I grew up around with, their number one preference when it comes to dating a girl is that she’s light skinned.
Wow. And yet we constantly see the shaming of dark skinned girls in the hashtags such as #lightskinwinning, but we don’t care. When they receive love from a good looking brother, it’s all hell on Earth.
I’m light skinned, but with the colorism in the world, dark skin girls never get enough love. As much as you want to argue me, light skin is closer to white and therefore is seen as more attractive because of racism. Sisters, don’t shut someone down when they are trying to raise up the beautiful black women that have been born with the short end of the stick 🙁
This is one example of why racism, bigotry and prejudice will always be with us.
Humans are always looking for ways to be apart from.
Humanity is fairly well doomed.
Let’s sort each other by amount of melanin, racial mixture, race and every thing else.
What’s next? We gonna divide ourselves by the amount and length of hairs on our nipples?
It’s called having a preference. We get that shit thrown in our faces ALL the time when we’re left out of the dating pool. And now that we’re specifically wanted it’s apparently racist or not-loving-the-human-race. Also, give me a break on that love-all-humanity crap. 13% of the world is starving, there has a been a VERY RECENT hate crime in America, we still have slaves running around in the community preaching colorism, and etc, so no! Love who loves you back. Don’t love people who are trying to kill you and put you down. And people like sheyda are SO confused about racism that she thinks she can use it against us. Racism is a GROUP activity. When was the last time black folks band together to band x race from entering a building? Voting? Walking on the damn sidewalk? When was the last time we passed a law banning x race from anything? We don’t have that kind of power because we’re not organized. But anyway…Broderick, ignore them. They’re too brainwashed and scared of people not looking at them anymore.
Is Sheyda one of these “rational” white boys I repeatedly encounter online? She types, and their arguments come flowing out.
Looks like Sheyda wants to live like she’s in a world already free from racism and colourism. That won’t get rid of racism and colourism, that’ll just leave the bigots unchecked, to do as they please, and the marginalized going without being uplifted. I seem to recall times in the past where people were reluctant to talk about how unjust it was that all humans weren’t treated equally. One of those times was “the entire span of colonial-era slavery”.
People who think this shit’ll go away if everyone stops bringing up how people are treated differently are utter fools. It’s a rare thing that gets fixed by being ignored. Racists and those who buy into colourism are the ones who started it and continue to perpetuate it, too. Commentary like Broderick’s is just the response that should be expected from more reasonable human beings. Racists and those who buy into colourism can stop any time, if they don’t want to hear the counterarguments which their behaviour will naturally provoke. No one is preventing them from no longer behaving in this way.
Nothing wrong with his adornment. I don’t even see how she flipped it so much.
Let me guess. Sheyda’s mother is white or she is a white adoptee. What a thirsty troll.
How could he be wrong to love Black women? Stupid question!
“He prefaced his celebratory thread by stating that he didn’t understand why dark skinned men seemed to hate dark skinned women ” i didnt see that.? also plenty of us darkskinned men love black women and that sheyda woman is a very sad individual.
I think she is or was in love with him and thought that every dark bm love everything lightskin when not all of does
I love what he says. Im in between light and dark…darker for now since I live in Florida..but not really…but I often look at my darker sisters like WOW!!! So gorgeous!! When people are feeling hate because they are darker it is terrible. I love all shades and all races, but what this Sheyda lady was doing isnlike saying all lives matter on response to black lives matter…we know, but we need to remind some of yall that black lives matter and DARK SKINNED girls need love…period.
Kudos to this man. I’m one of the in-between shades, but dark-skinned women get the most hatred directed towards them.
The “blasian” girl that got mad about him celebrating darkskinned women is a catfîsh using a fak? profile picture of a known mod?l.
The “blasian” girl that got mad about him celebrating darkskinned women is a catfish using a faké profile picture of a known model.
The “blasian” girl that got mad about him celebrating dark skinned women is a catfish using a fake profile picture of a known model.
No offense, but this argument about medium toned people being “overlooked” because they’re in the middle is strange to me. If I absolutely have to describe my coloring, I would say that I’m medium dark. I have often felt stigmatized because of my color, but also because of my features. Meanwhile I had a good friend who is darker than me, and would often complain when we were younger that more men seemed to be attracted to me than her because of my coloring. And you know… I believe her. She’s a beautiful girl, and we have similar features. And from personal experience men always seemed gravitate towards women who were lighter in complexion that me. Colorism occurs along a spectrum, just like racism. I would never think that somehow by me not being the darkest shade of black that I was somehow be so invisible that someone who is darker would have it better just by virtue of being more noticeable in coloring. I realize that I, even as someone who is relatively dark, enjoyed some privilege over my friend who is darker… just like women around me who were fairer skinned or had narrower features suffered less stigma than I did.
Medium toned black women are in general less stigmatized than darker skinned women, and more “mainstream” in appearance, so perhaps they don’t need quite as much “stanning”?
I think it’s a testament to my privilege that I’ve never witnessed the deluge of anti-black sentiment, light- or dark-skinned; as a white woman, race is disturbingly easy to ignore, both my own and others’. I’ve always found dark skin beautiful, probably in part because I’m practically translucent and the grass is so often greener, etc., and I assumed that everyone shared that sentiment, or at least knew to keep their hateful mouths shut. Mr. Hunter is a wonderful man for doing this, and especially for refusing to backpedal or downplay his admiration in the face of backlash.
(And please let me know, anyone, if you’d prefer I not comment on this site. I’m always awkwardly torn between wanting to express appreciation for the wonderful things being said here that aren’t said anywhere else, and not wanting to barge into a space and conversation that I’m not a part of.)
Amen to this brother. I have a dark skinned mother and older sister, and to me they are one of the most beautiful women I know. They were snapped up for marriage by gorgeous men as soon as they were legal LOL.
I want darker skinned sisters to get some love. As a caramel skinned woman I don’t feel left out. I want far more attention to be focused on the beauty of darker skinned women in the so called black community. Put more photos up of say…the women of Senegal. Dark long limbs and chiselled gorgeous features. Achingly beautiful.
That woman is used to the attention being focused on women like her, so typically gets twitchy when black men declare their love for darker women.
Honestly, he did not have to explain himself for any reason. If wants to promote anyone, anything, anybody, let him. Peace
It seems like the Sheyda girl has problems being light skinned, and she hasn’t found the beauty in herself yet. I’m light-skinned, and most women in my family are browner than I am. So, I always wanted to be darker because they usually made fun of lighter women, AND the most beautiful people that I knew were black women with darker skin than mine. Maybe something similar happened to her.
However, I don’t understand why people feel like someone saying that they like one thing means that they hate everything else though. He clearly states multiple times that he loves all black women.
No, that Sheyda girl is used to errybody putting her ass on a pedestal and is offended that he has the gall to love women who don’t look like her.
Exactly, women like her get twitchy like that. Like white women tend to do when black women are shown some love. They are used to people kissing their ass that when someone expresses a preference for someone who doesn’t look like them they are offended. Screw em I say!
Black ppl are nuts lol. This boy just simply posted he liked chocolate nothing wrong with that. I’m lighter skinned myself and I’m not butthurt, hell i like chocolate too! And my mother is chocolate and beautiful, nothing wrong with him giving them praises.
“They” is everybody who has never had to look more than 20 feet away to find images that look just like them, in books, on TV, on billboards, and in places where people go “Oh I wanna be like her/him.” That’s who THEY is.
That’s gonna be my next band’s name: Unrepentant Blackness! Awesome.
And me too. We get mad when people go “But ALL lives matter, don’t they?!” Well, we can agree that Black Lives Matter speaks to the need to raise a marginalized section of people. My beige beige behind ain’t marginalized — so why should I feel my darker sisters don’t deserve praising? Geez…
SOME… Some that are light-skinned love the attention and privilege. Personally as a sister light enough that white people never believe it when I tell them I’m Black, I agree that we need times and places to overstate the beauty of the diaspora’s deepest hues. It is true that even in 2016, men will make a habit of asking about my eyes, not because they really like me, just out of their societal training that says “Blue Eyes Are Best.” If we cannot even expect our OWN community to sing the praises of all Blackness, how would society as a whole ever embrace it? They still “voting” that Jennifer Aniston is The Most Beautiful Woman In The World! Anybody thinking we DON’T need Dark Skin Appreciation is a damn fool and another brainwashed american.
Privilege is privilege and the best way to keep it is to pretend that is doesn’t exist . It is very sad to see some ( not all ) light skin people are no different from white folks in that they feign ignorance to that fact the the world revolves around them 99% of the time but as soon as the attention is focused on someone else they are upset and want to play victim, cry reverse racism/colorism , kumbaya or something else …Pathetic
This is the same kind of situation that goes on between the “Black Lives Matter” supporters and the “All Lives Matter” supporters. He did not say that he does not like women of other skin tones. He is focusing on the dark sisters at this particular time. Everyone that has an issue with his commentary needs to compare how they feel about their stance on the “Black Lives Matter”situation and these posts. When one person is starving and a campaign is started to feed them would it be right to hold a protest because there are others starving too?
I really hate when women do this. If he was just focusing on her or people with her complexion – this conversation would never have happened. I don’t know what it is about people more specifically men liking dark skinned women that get other women upset. I’ve see it time and time again, they try to guilt the man – make him feel guilty for doing so. Once this Korean guy was talking about liking dark skinned women, everyone and their momma came out of the wood work, getting all bent out or shape. one woman was especially persistent and irritating, and she was also Asian like he was (don’t think she was Korean) and she was talking about why, why should he like black women when there are “other women” out there and all that nonsense. It got to a point where another Asian guy had to come in and be very forceful in what he had to say about these type of women, that can’t stand to see other women get complimented. Black women have been dragged through the mud for so long that when other men complement them, other women get butt hurt and take it personally.- It’s like they think “how can he like black women when we are here, I didn’t think anyone liked them with the smear propaganda against them.” smh.
So many times dark skinned women are not appreciated not seen not heard spoken to in a derogatory manner. I hate this bs about we are all the same we are equal we are the human race yes in the eyes of god however not in the eyes of man not on this plane. We need to be connected we need to fight for each other we need to love each other. MR hunter was celebrating his dark skin sisters because they don’t get celebrated and good for him. I wish more people would
He’s not wrong at all. Sheyda is being obtuse and imho looking for a problem. He prefaced his celebratory thread by stating that he didn’t understand why dark skinned men seemed to hate dark skinned women. He loves them, and wanted to take a moment to show his love for them. He never said that anyone else wasn’t beautiful. He was uplifting a marginalized group. How df do you pretend to want everyone to be loved while ignoring colorism’s impact?! Light skinned privilege , that’s how! Sheyda can kiss my dark skinned ass because I’m not buying her self righteous clap backs. If he were celebrating the red bones and high yellow women of the black community, she wouldn’t have replied at all.
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Good for him! Im lightskinned but I can appreciate a Black man staning for dark skinned women. That shayda chick was mad thirsty. Does she do that when Black men are dissing BW for other races? I think not.
Finally!!! It does feel good to be appreciated for being dark skinned.
he is right. dark-skinned girls are slept on. There are more person disregarding or bashing dark-skinned girls than light-skineed girl and other type of skin. So for once, lets cheer up dark-skinned girls. They need it too.
This “Love all people”, “Love all colours” and “Love all races” thing seems positive at first but is actually very tiring. He is not excluding other skin colours or light-skinned women. He is simply shining a spotlight on a group that is often ostracized from beauty standards. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Learn to wait your turn and appreciate others. Others can shine too.
Curvy girls are flaunting and rocking it nowadays and though I’m not the curviest, that doesn’t mean that I’ll say “No, show love for skinny girls too”. Curvy was far from the beauty norm in the past just as Dark skin has been rejected in the past. People are waking up and learning to rock what their Mommas gave them: Skin colour, body type and all. There is no need to get defensive. In order for equality and acceptance of all skin colours to occur, those that have been ostracized have to be included in the spotlight too(Emphasis on INCLUDED).
To all the chicks like SheydaDarian: You mad? Stay mad.
I’m so glad to see him not caving in and backtracking with all women are beautiful. He is keeping the focus on dark-skinned BLACK women.
It’s quite sad how those with little to no melanin are upset at not being celebrated. Aren’t they celebrated 365 days out of the year?
I see this all the time on social media, they hate black people getting attention especially black women. Plus there are dark skinned Black Asians, mixed light skinned people get on my last nerves.
I celebrate and appreciate his efforts more than he’ll ever know! It’s amazing to me that he was under so much scrutiny for appreciating a group of women who have been classically underappreciated for so long. I am “in-between” in terms of my own skin tone (not quite light-skinned, but not dark-skinned either) but to me I have always believed that darker skin is BEAUTIFUL. And people can be so cruel just for the sake of destroying another person’s view of his or her own appearance (just evil for no reason). So seeing this man step up and say he is going to appreciate women with darker skin, and encourage others to do the same, is beyond refreshing. Shame on people for not understanding what he was doing.
It’s funny how most of the people mad that he is representing Dark Black girls are light skinned. Like I understand, light skinned Black women are still BLACK but they don’t suffer the same negative effects from Colorism that Dark Skinned Black women face. When you’re light skinned, you have the stigma of being Black in a White Supremacist world with the privilege of lighter skin. Colorism won’t just “go away” if we stop talking about it! Like racism, its taught both openly and subtlety. Light Skinned people who can say that Black people are the ones responsible for grouping each other based on skin pigment already have representation for their skin color in the world. Its hard for them to see the lack of representation through the eyes of someone who’s been told “You’re pretty for a dark skinned girl” or “You’d be prettier if you were light skinned”. You can literally go on google right now and search “Dark Skin Women memes” and then search “Light Skin Women memes” and SEE why there is nothing wrong with stanning for Dark Skinned Black women.
People don’t understand sometimes it just ain’t about them. This guy is praising dark skin women because many times dark skin women don’t get a lot of public displays of love from black men especially black men with some level of popularity, You don’t have to talk about every issue at once someone said its like going to the walk for breast cancer and asking “Well what about brain cancer? You don’t care about brain cancer?” Step back and let have their own space that’s just for people like them where they can feel loved and beautiful and like they are important because they are.
I’m here for it. There’s ENOUGH representation of women looking like me. I’m glad to see a black man proudly and unapologetically proclaim his love for dark skinned BLACK women.
Geez you can’t even express a preference without someone having to make a speech about why we should all be equal opportunity attracted.
People need to leave my husband Broderick alone and let him stan for dark skinned black women who hardly get any public love and appreciation because people are trapped by white supremacist thinking.
Damn he’s fine as hell. I say good for him for supporting darker skinned black females. We need MANY more people, men and women, doing the same thing. Dark skinned black women are just as beautiful as any woman of any race and skin tone. I’m light skinned black female, proud to be black and support all of my African sistas.
Idk why ppl always have to have these “fake deep” rebuttals any time someone tries to give black women [specifically darker skinned] any type of praise. He was c l e a r l y addressing the stigma behind being a dark black skinned woman and showing them that black IS beautiful…and several times said he thinks ALL women are beautiful , but as far has social media goes no one seems to appreciate them. So excuuuse him for being “proud of differences and bringing them into the table”…He essentially was agreeing her…GOD… lol and don’t get me started on that blasian comment…I felt like she already KNEW the answer to that but was just fishing for compliments smh.
So she mad cause he stated HIS opinion… So confused. Plus good for him for standing his ground. I think dark skin women are winning too. They are and always will be some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen and I am a light skin black women saying this.
comments begin…oh BGLH why my comments are not posting?
It was his preference to single out darker women and LOVE on them. He did state he loved ALL women and what was up with men not liking dark-skinned women. We need to love ourselves and each other…no matter the color tone. We must NOT allow social media or the world to warp us into what is beautiful. So what he chose to celebrate darker tones. GREAT! Whether he picked my shade or NOT, ee are ALL beautiful…with or without his approval.
Ms. Sheyda just mad that she is not the in the spotlight. I encourage people like Mr. Hunter to keep loving black women, and spreading the love ????. So glad I have a dark skinned boyfriend like him who loves me for who I am.
No, he is not wrong! Everywhere you look White and light-skinned images of beauty rule, and the black women that are upheld as beautiful are almost always light-skinned – Beyoncé, Halle Berry, Vanessa Williams, Jane Kennedy, Billy Holiday, Dorothy Dandridge, etc… I love that a black man is appreciating dark skinned women. The Blasian girl and SheydaDarian need to “have several seats”. Broderick did not negate anyone else’s beauty – he didn’t say he didn’t like/hate blasian or light-skinned women. He simply said let’s here it for dark skinned girls and for some reason people find this offensive! Could it be you are offended by unrepentant blackness? Girls, bye! Black IS beautiful just like White, Asian, Latina, Native and in-between. Get onboard.
When we have the likes of lil Kim doing that crap to her partly as a result of black men cheating on her with white women, it’s good to have a good looking, intelligent, thoughtful black man standing up and proudly boasting of us ladies of a darker hue – because there’s many a black man who doesn’t.
I think she’s an attention whore. She’s used to the focus automatically being women of a lighter tone and or biracial whenever black men are praising them. It had nothing to do with hate and EVERYTHING to do with loving what you love and showing appreciation for beautiful dark skinned women who are usually the subject of negative talk and degrading jokes. I love him for that! She needs to have several seats. Why not comment to the bruthas who were throwing shade at dark skinned women on Twitter when talking about some women in a photo they posted. Girl bye!
My comment for SheydaDarian: Different groups (and shades) deal with different types of discrimination. In order to address their unique discrimination, we must first acknowledge that they suffer uniquely. Putting out a thread saying dark skinned girls matter is part of loving all people. Tell me about YOU and what YOU need to better, and we’ll talk about that today. Tomorrow, I will ask someone else and I will help them with their unique struggle.
http://i.imgur.com/8PzADU0.jpg
BGLH, I too am perplexed. I am light skin but it makes my heart jump with joy when a man says he APPRECIATES (not prefers) women with dark skin. It’s like he’s in love with our origin. I don’t take offense. I am more offended if a man says he APPRECIATES and/or PREFERS light skin women. Like the lighter the better is not cool with me.
However, if a man says that, I don’t feel the need to even try to convince him otherwise. That’s his OPINION that he developed that’s rooted way deeper than social media. I don’t care.
My grandma has beautiful dark skin, my sister, my brothers, my dad, my aunts, all have dark skin. I can make a baby with any man and the baby could come out dark skin because of all the beautiful melanated people on my family tree. I want to know he/she will be loved because her daddy loves my skin tone and my baby’s.
BUT this LIGHT SKIN woman coming for him looks petty. No one stans or stands up for women with dark skin. This is the time you want to pick a fight? People don’t often openly praise the beauty of dark skin. In our global society, dark skin tones are not the standard. At least he is praising dark skin because DARK SKIN is beautiful and it is allowed to be preferred just like looser curl patterns, relaxers, blonde hair, weaves of all curl patterns and nationalities, and lighter skin tones are preferred. We all have preferences, and I am extra cool with his preference… excuse me again, HIS APPRECIATION.
Black in every shade is beautiful. My word to ole girl (she don’t deserve shine): Fight people who think we all need to go back to Africa the way you fight this man on Twitter and maybe that would alleviate racism and not this stupid argument on what HE should appreciate. This is my OPINION and I PREFER to share it this way. If you don’t APPRECIATE it, I understand. 😉 We fight the wrong stuff. THEY see it and THEY love it. Now let’s argue over who THEY is. GO!
I don’t know how to love this any more than the button permits me. I come from a region where dark skin is the dominant colour and still I see the struggle of the dark-skinned folks. When I see someone darker than my chocolate I always say such a pretty black. Coming from a family of several races I’ve always been grateful of my colour compared to some of my cousins and even my brother. Like Mr. Hunter I have an appreciation of the darker tone (I have seen the struggle) but I don’t discard all others.
So basically she is saying the intra- racial equivalent of #alllivesmatter. Girl, bye!
I’s the whole slavery/colorism mentality, the lighter skinned you are, the more successful and better your treated b/c your closer to the European beauty standards; meanwhile, dark skinned people are are far from that.
What’s so funny is a lot of black people on social media have prejudice on skin tones but he would also get heat if there was a #lightskinappreacition tweet too but him being darkskin himself has to explain himself over and over when he didn’t even criticize girls who weren’t darkskin that barely deal with colorism issues
I support him!
Thank you for loving me. That’s how I feel.
so sad we have these #teamlightskin #teamdarkskin lets get over that and just be #teamblackpeople and lift each other up instead up acting like field vs house negros.
What kind of hogwash? Gone head my brother! While no one stans for us caramel, honey, cinnamon, milk chocolate, medium brown sistas, we’re no where near as marginalized as the darker beauties. No one comments on our complexion.
Why would this woman be so bothered by the efforts of this man? It makes no sense. If you want to live in the fictional post racial society that only benefits whites, be my guest. But right now she sounds like those folks who tell people stanning for plus sized beauties that they are doing a disservice to the community by trying to uplift those who have been kicked down for ages.
When someone tries to uplift beauty outside of the mainstream some folks always get mad.