The national debate sparked by broadcaster Don Imus' use of the term "nappy-headed hos" to describe black players on the Rutgers women's basketball team has raised an unintended, seldom-discussed question:
How have African-American women maintained their femininity and sense of beauty after centuries of dehumanization?
They survived the inhumanity of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the indignity of being separated from their families on slave auction blocks. They endured abuse and rape by slave masters and overcame the injustice of being bred and worked like animals. During segregation and after desegregation, they suffered doubly for being black and female in a culture that esteemed neither.
More recently, the physical attributes historically possessed by black women were deemed undesirable by America's wider society - until women of other ethnic groups began to exhibit them. Cornrows weren't chic until Bo Derek got them, curvaceous derrieres weren't sexy until Jennifer Lopez came along, and full lips were unattractive until Angelina Jolie's kissers showed up and sparked a cottage industry of lip-plumping potions.
Black women are least likely to be perceived as attractive and worthy of respect, some observers say, which may be why groups ranging from black rap artists to black comedians to white radio hosts have no problem denigrating them.
And the darker her skin and the kinkier her hair, it seems, the less she is valued.
"The truth of the matter is, black women in general are almost demonized, both by African-American men and the greater culture," said former fashion journalist Roy Campbell, a book author and celebrity event planner with offices in Philadelphia and Miami. Campbell and others perceive the marginalization of black women in the fashion and beauty industry as a reflection of general lack of appreciation of black women's beauty in wider society.
"Imus showed that regardless of accomplishments and achievements, in the minds of so many whites, we are still nappy-headed black folks, period," he said.
When Sudan-born model Alek Wek emerged on the international fashion stage in 1995, many Americans beheld her Hershey complexion and short, kinky hair and pronounced her ugly.
Although Wek still enjoys a successful modeling career, black models with her skin tone and hair texture seldom get high-profile work and are not the cover subjects for mainstream U.S. fashion magazines or the faces in fragrance and cosmetics ads.
On the other hand, the black women who enjoy the greatest prominence in the industry - Beyonce, Halle Berry, Liya Kebede, for example - nearly always are fair-skinned with smooth hair.
Washington Post fashion editor Robin Givhan, who last year became the first journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for fashion criticism, described a "weird display" at the Givenchy fall 2006 fashion preview in Paris.
The show opened with six black models wearing black outfits and black accessories, some carrying black luggage-like bags. They were followed by white models and were not seen again in the show.
"I joked with someone about the black girls, saying, 'Were they the porters?' " said Givhan, who is black. "My guess is that the designer, Riccardo Tisci, wanted to separate those pieces, the little black dresses that are so iconic to the label. He also, I'm guessing, wanted to show the accessories. Honestly, I don't think it got much more complicated than that in the designer's mind. I guarantee you that the designer didn't for one second think that what he was doing could be seen as offensive."
Routinely at New York Fashion Week, many womenswear designers hire only one black model, or none. BCBG's Max Azria is among a handful of designers who never send black models down their runways.
A conversation in Paris with a black booker for a modeling agency helped Givhan understand one of the reasons black models have trouble getting highly visible gigs.
"He said he was trying to get more black models work in Paris," she recalled. "The problem, he said, is that (magazine) editors and designers will say that if they put the clothes on black models, people don't notice the clothes, they notice the girl - as if the sight of a black model is so rare and distracting that people will gawk."
Even as they grapple with social obstacles and cultural oppression, black women revel in their beauty. From hair and makeup to clothes and accessories, everything is meticulously maintained to present an image of loveliness that time and adversity have been unable to erode.
Many of the high-profile groups and individuals who successfully pressured NBC to fire Imus are turning their outrage toward the hip-hop music industry and rappers who persistently denigrate women.
Oprah Winfrey, who has verbally sparred with black rappers about the issue in the past, recently devoted two days of her hugely popular talk show to the topic. And in the May issue of Essence, author Jill Nelson criticizes how black comedians - Flip Wilson, Jamie Foxx, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Tyler Perry - have donned drag and presented demeaning images of black women for decades.
"I will not, I repeat, I will not, pay my $9 to see 'Norbit,' Mr. Murphy's latest movie, in which he portrays an obese, dark-skinned, boorish black woman," said eBay style director Constance White, a former fashion journalist who has dark skin and wears her hair naturally kinky.
"How can we see as funny a man - a black man, at that - playing a black woman as ugly, vulgar and just a huge joke? What the Imus debacle has brought about, whether permanent or temporary, is a look at what roles blacks themselves play in depicting black women as less than beautiful, less than alluring, less than sexy. Racism is systemic and systematic in America, but that doesn't mean we should be perpetrators."
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