shelbey said:

That's true. I've seen it happen to some of my friends who became Vegetarians, and also work out more than they used to.

2elijah said:

i agree with u 100%, people who are not black, should refrain from making remarks about who is/isn't light-skinned in the black community (b'coz they haven't got a clue about what they are talking about). in Africa there are light-skinned blacks fyi. i'm not waht you would refer to as a dark-skinned black girl, but i'm more lighter than Kelly Rowland of DC, i would say i'm more of Ashanti's shade. u should really look at my uncle (from my mother's side), he looks like my grandfather (way too light for an african black person). so to the non-blacks posting here...shut-up about shades of colour when talking about us blacks!
[Edited 2/26/10 5:02am]

^^^
I thought having eyes was the only necessity on discussing skin tone. I never realised you could only comment if you shared the same skin tone.

I really don't understand why the thing that makes us all unique is held like a members only club. We're all the same inside, we've just got different gift wrap.

erik319 said:

my point was that if u are non-black, u should not make yourself an expert regarding skin shades

cinnamongal said:

And my point was everybody has a skin shade. Nobody is black and nobody is white. You're no more an expert than anyone else.

To support the "NO SURGERY" theory, just compare the photshopped pic to his Contraversy cover. Same bone structure, same slim face, same eyes, same nose, and as far as his lips..Prince purposely holds his lips/mouth differently than he did in the 80's. He tightens his lips. But you can still catch him relaxing him and there is no difference in them between now and back then.

I think its called the curse of Jacksonacula or Dianarossification, turning a black man into a white woman/space creature type thingy. The final touch is called the Beyoncekonk, where you straighten your hair and put on so much foundation and concealer that you look pearly white.

no i think not! He gets more beautiful with the age

No mention of his teeth?

some of you are incredibly naive aw bless your hearts but yes he has, my cousin is here looking at all these pics and is also a trained cosmetic surgeon and can tell, ie his nose structure. Plus he lived in LA and has money, access to botox (most people do anyway) only thing is what he got done is very subtle and looks good, he didnt do it to the extreme. Yes theres photo shop but we have looked at random pictures of him out doors etc. He looks great and thats the main thing so it doesnt matter to me anyway if he has

and yes he did his teeth, wouldnt we all?
[Edited 2/28/10 5:10am]

I was just explaining Prince's appearance is because he is multiracial, he has white and amerindian in him, he was tanned in the "Prince" album cover.
"The majority of African-Americans/Blacks are not 100% percent Black African, and that is a fact. The majority of them can have African, European, Native American blood, and other, running through their veins."-They know it, they should stop labelling "black" the people who are 50% (genetically) or less black. Black means 100% that race, just like white means 100% that race, just like Amerindian means 100% that race.
Stop calling mixed people like Lisa Bonet "black", call them multiracial, she's half black-half white, many half black-half white people are wrongly called "black" in the USA.


http://kitoba.com/pedia/N...eople.html
Prince is in the list.
http://www.mixedfolks.com/actors.htm
http://www.mixedfolks.com/singers.htm
look at these people, they are not black, they are part black, they are mixed, multiracial.

Yes i know most african americans are mixed, yet they still call each other "black" no matter how light skinned or no "black features" at all.

Why should half-black people be called "black", they are multiracial or biracial.
When an african-american woman has a child with an african-american man, their child can be of a lighter skin color, only because both parents have non-black genes in them.
Let's say Eddie Murphy has 2% white blood in him, he seems to be 100% black, 98% black is mostly black, i think it would be ok to consider him black because he is more than 50% black, but what about someone who appears to be 100% white, but is actually 2% black (this person might not even know, considers himself white), u can't say that's a black person, he doesn't consider himself a black man but a white man, and people see a white man when they see him.

Yes, a very dark black person could have a little white blood, appear to be 100% black, and not be actually 100% black (genetically), but a really light skinned "black" person, obviously has some white blood, light skinned "blacks" are never 100% black (genetically), or you think Lisa Bonet is 100% black? Lenny Kravitz is 100% black to u? I just found out Jimi Hendrix was not really "black" but half black-half amerindian.
The only way a 100% black person can have really light skin is when they are born albinos, there are some albinos in africa.

Black people don't come in all colors, multiracial people come in all colors.
Hispanic is not a race (just a Spanish lastname or Spanish language), u can be hispanic and of any race or combination of races. Black is a race, u can't be black and be of any race or combination of races.

Many "white" americans (and "whites" all around the world), have a little (without knowing) black, amerindian, etc blood/genes, they consider themselves, and people consider them white because of how they look, it's not possible to trace their family tree so far back. All humans if they go back far enough, come from black africans, the original humans. There was a time when all humans on Earth were black africans.

"People from many countries get confused often, about how Black Americans/African-Americans are defined in this country because of the various complexions/features/hair textures/physique, etc. and our ancestors' history in this country." Because americans are wrong, labeling everybody "black" just because someone is part black, 50% black or even less, americans (including african-americans and "blacks") follow the "one drop rule", i think that's being racist.
In the past, in the USA, if u were less than 25% black you were LEGALLY WHITE.


http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ack_people
One drop rule
Historically, the United States used a colloquial term, the one-drop rule, to designate a black person as any person with any known African ancestry.[48] Legally the definition varied from state to state. Thomas Jefferson had slaves who were legally white (less than 25% Black) and legally slaves (mother was a slave). Outside of the US, some other countries have adopted the practice, but the definition of who is black and the extent to which the one drop "rule" applies varies from country to country.

The one drop rule may have originated as a means of increasing the number of black slaves[49] and been maintained as an attempt to keep the white race pure.[50] One of the results of the one drop rule was uniting the African American community and preserving an African identity.[48] Some of the most prominent civil rights activists were multiracial, and advocated equality for all.

President Barack Obama self-identifies as black and African American interchangeably.[51] According to a Williams Identity Survey conducted by Zogby International interactive poll conducted November 1–2, 2006, among those who voted, 55 percent of white voters and 61 percent of Hispanics voters classified him as biracial instead of black after being told that his mother is white, and 66 percent of Black voters classified Obama as black.[52] Another poll conducted by the same group returned results that 42 percent of African-Americans voters described Tiger Woods as black, as did 7% of white voters.[53]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...-drop_rule
The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term for a belief among some people in the United States that a person with any trace of African ancestry is black.This notion of invisible/intangible membership in a racial group has seldom been applied to people of other ancestry. The concept has been chiefly applied to those of black African ancestry. As Langston Hughes wrote, "You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown."[1]
From Reconstruction until about 1930, the children of black/white interracial parents and of mulatto parents were usually identified as mulatto. It is becoming increasingly common for people to identify themselves as multi-racial, bi-racial, mulatto or mixed, rather than as black or white. The fraction of mixed children census-labeled as solely black dropped from 62% in 1990 to 31% in 2000 (when respondents were allowed to select multiple races), suggesting that the one-drop theory and denying one's European ancestry are no longer accepted the way they used to be. Affirmative action court cases, on the other hand, (when an apparently white person claims invisible black ancestry and claims federal entitlements and/or EEOC enforcement) are mixed. In some cases, such as the 1985 Boston firefighters Philip and Paul Malone's case, courts have held that such claimants are guilty of "racial fraud" despite their claim of having a black grandparent.

2elijah said:

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Amerigo said:

God, ppl are so ignorant about color. He took the older picture (when he was younger) in L.A. ...it called a TAN MF!!! Yes, black ppl do tan and get lighter depending on temperature. Its called pigmentation, its the reason why we are all different colors. I lighten up in the Winter, but darken up in the Summer. Seesh, I hate stupid ppl...i swear!!

There's 2 possibilities:
A. He was tanned in the "Prince" album cover, and in the picture inside the "1999" album (the one where he is laying on bed), Then his lighter skin color is his real/actual skin color. He looks the whitest in the movie Grafiti Bridge (and the G.B.album and singles pictures), or that picture from a Versace (1994? 1995?) picture book where he has a metalic gold vest, u would think he bleached his skin, compared to "Prince" album picture.

B. He whitened his skin somehow.

I think A is more likely.

Eye Makeup doesn't help looking more masculine you know.

rudedog said:

Yeah, the most famous Prince impersonator of them all. Michael Jackson.
The cover for the Prince album was the result of Warner Bros. stupid decision to darken Prince with make up since he was being marketed to an all black audience and they felt Prince was too light skinned to be accepted by blacks. Turn the album cover over and you can see patches of white where the make up got rubbed off.
You can also look at videos Prince did for that album and he wasn't nearly that dark. Remember, this was in the bad old days when music was heavily segregated.

Plastic surgery? Not as far as I can tell. That's the same nose as 1978 people. Let's not confuse our music icons, okay?
[Edited 3/2/10 18:00pm]

I apologize for making these comments that were percieved as ignorant of skin color. All I meant for a self professed black man, he looks like he could be persian or something. In reality, race labeling does not matter though in my opinion. And yes, of course he's become more beautiful now.
[Edited 3/7/10 0:11am]

Amerigo said:

awwww, that is sooooo cute!

shygirl said:

That's to show you how ignorant the folks at Warner Bros. were;maybe if they had a book to read like this to read, they would have known better:

"Shades of Black" - author Sandra L. Pinkney
[Edited 3/7/10 8:43am]

thedance said:

Well of course the photo on the right looks more like art than a real pic;and photoshopped as well.

G--
[Edited 3/7/10 8:40am]

Acrylic said:

I have the book it's from Martin Schoeller's 'Close Up', it's headshots of famous and not so famous folk. You oughta see the full size pic. Rest assured, Prince is still wearing make-up in it.

That pic itself is from 2004 as i recall.

[Edited 3/7/10 8:36am]

Gonzalo1979 said:

Gonzalo, I will not call them multiracial, if you read the entire post I said "technically", Blacks are multiracial, but in this country they identify as Black or African-American by choice. If DNA would have been the way each individual had to define themselves, then that would have been the system most nations would have used to identify people within specific groups. Meaning if everyone was to be stripped down by their DNA, then we would know the connection to each race group many of us share. In this day and age, that type of system would be impossible to use as a defining factor on applications, because it would be too unorganized and cause confusion.

There are way too many people in the world with mixed DNA to have to use that as a system, this is why most nations use a system, like we have in place in America, where people are defined by "race or ethnic group", such as on specific applications and census documents, i.e, "White-non hispanic; "Black, non-hispanic"; Asian, other, etc.

Secondly, go back and change what happened in American and Caribbean history if you can't accept the many different complexions that exists among black people existing today. Don't blame our existence for something we had no control over dude.

Gonzalo, I have to say though, that you are getting a bit ridiculous and obsessive with this issue of Prince's complexion. Not only that, how dare you tell other people to stop calling those who identify as Black, to stop calling them black, when they are the ones who often identify as such. Secondly, how many times does it have to be explained to you about the way it is in this American system? Do you think if a light-skinned Black guy driving down the street, who is pulled over by a racist white cop in NYC who assumes the black guy is a suspect. based on the cop's racist assumptions (and often times in NYC we have many racist cops who make these assumptions of all black men), that the cop would give him a pass because of his lighter complexion? Are you kidding me? What do you expect the guy to say to the cop "Hey, I'm 43% white, so you don't have to harass me?" Do you think that racist ass cop would buy that?

Imagine if members of the KKK approached a lone black guy back in the 1930s in the south, and that black guy says "Hey, don't hurt me, I'm 48% white" What do you think the reaction of the KKK members will be? You really need to stop imposing your "segregated" ideas, as your type of ideology and assumptions about Blacks, led to the Apartheid system in South Africa, and look what happened there.

So let's not be ignorant here, regardless of the examples I've given you in my posts about some African-Americans/Black Americans' DNA results, where they found out they were either 13% white;33% white or even 50% white, just like Professor Gates, they still walk with a skin tone that many in this nation hold racial hatred towards. That 13% or lighter in color will not give them any "extra" points. Save that fairy tale for someone who wants to believe that BS.

You bring up Lisa Bonet, and I told you my sister is the same exact complexion as Lisa Bonet. Why would my sister suddenly change how she identifies herself as a Black woman, just because people such as yourself, would feel more comfortable with her doing that, based on her lighter complexion? That's like saying her race/culture/history has no value. Why would she have to hold "your shame" because you may have an issue, with someone of her complexion referring to herself as a Black woman, and people such as yourself trying to segregate her from her own identity, in which she chose to personally define herself? According to your assumption/opinion of what "Black" is, then if one was to go by your assumptions, then you're basically saying that my sister should also separate her identity from her parents or her 8 siblings because of her lighter complexion. Absolutely not. Like it or not, those who refer to themselves as Black Americans or African-Americans, of lighter-complexions, do so because apparently they have no issue or shame about it, and why should they?

You need to educate yourself a little more, and have a little more respect for those who choose to identify as African-Americans/Black Americans. From reading your post, you seem to not be very embracing of lighter-skinned Blacks in America who refer to themselves as Black or African-American, nor do you seem respectful of those who are darker-complected, and you carry on as though the darker-skinned individual is that of poison.

I've recommended some books for you to read about the human journey from Africa and how those early humans of a darker skin tone, helped to populate the rest of the world, and how others"came to be", so-to-speak, through the travels of those that left Africa.

Maybe then you will understand that there's no crime in having dark skin or one's personal right to identify as Black or African-American in this country, if they so choose to identify as such, regardless of how light or dark in skin color they appear to be. I am done explaining this to you and good luck in your quest to educate yourself on the human species.

Here's some recommended books:
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey - By Spencer Wells
The Real Eve - Modern Man's Journey out of Africa - by Stephen Oppenheimer

(A few words and spelling edits)
[Edited 3/7/10 14:42pm]

This shit is uncomfortable as hell.

2elijah said:

Brilliantly put. The human race originated in Africa and only due to migration across the globe & adapting to different climates did our skin tone change to help us adapt.

For people to still have issues regarding skin colour in the 21st century is mind boggling!

Erik

erik319 said:

Thank you for saying that. I wish more people would educate themselves about this.
[Edited 3/7/10 14:33pm]

This is from Entertainment Weekly in 2004 (as are the closeup pics)

Amerigo said:

Thats cool man. It takes a real man to it admit when his wrong.