Is Beauty In The Eyes Of The Colonizer?

Quick — think of the most beautiful person you know. Is it your partner? Your mother? Rihanna? (Wait, you know Rihanna? That's amazing!)

There are a million different reasons we find certain people beautiful. But there's no denying that a lot of current beauty standards in the U.S. are based on a particular type of beauty — one that centers a type of white femininity that's only accessible to a select few.

So this week on Ask Code Switch, we're answering a question from Cecilia Fernandez, of Ann Arbor, Mich. She tweeted at us to ask: "Besides the natural hair movement, what other ways have women of color gone to decolonize their beauty routine?"

Cecilia — this is a really great question. As someone who spent years flat-ironing my curls and suffering through orthodontia — I was also quite curious about this.

So to begin, let's talk about what it means when we say