ABSTRACT
This chapter extends the theme of skin colour politics and representation in the previous chapter by looking at Black women who are recognized as beautiful by a variety of global and local publics. The focus shifts to winners of/entrants in the global beauty pageants, Miss World and Miss Universe, and national pageants that provide their contestants. Reading the film Misbehaviour, the analysis looks at colonial global skin colour politics and the racialized geopolitical relationships between women during the 1970 Miss World Women’s Liberation Movement protest. The discussion moves to 2019 the year in which there was a break in the pattern of the global politics of skin shade based on light/white skin and straight/straighter hair iconicity. In 2019, all of the winners of five major pageants were Black and represented a spectrum of skin colours from darker to lighter. The chapter takes this ‘break’ in light/white beauty iconicity as its central problematic to interrogate whether this means an end to colonial hate of Black skin in the 21st century or points to its continuation in the global consumption of Black skin as signifier of ‘post-race’ anti-Black racism in the Global North-West and South-West. It looks at Jamaica’s beauty politics and pageant winners that year to unpack what a ‘break’ in white/lighter skin iconicity means for Black beauty futures in a context where colonial beauty ideals mask Black skins.
