Taste the rainbow

"This is a problem?" -- Rick Ross on the fact that many hip-hop videos feature ethnically ambiguous models with light skin and long hair

Remember the video of that hoodrat who was butthurt over the fact that there weren't more dark butts in the video for Wale's "Pretty Girls?" She claimed to be particularly offended, as a Jamaican woman, even though she appeared to be about as Jamaican as Bob Marley. Towards the end of the video she mentioned that she was working on a documentary about colorism amongst video hoes. I saw where part one hit the Internets a week or so ago, but I never got around to having a look. I was reminded just now, when I saw that part two hit the Internets.

With all due respect, past and present, and without further... to do, five things I learned watching Complexion Obsession: A Hip Hop Documentary.

1) Melyssa Ford is the highest paid video ho. This isn't really discussed in the film, it just says so on the chyron, or whatever it's called, while Melyssa Ford is giving her opinion on why dark butts can't make it in rap videos. I wonder if Melyssa Ford specifically requested that be included. Also, I wonder how it was determined that Melyssa Ford is the highest paid video ho. Do video hoes have actual rates that they charge, like pr0n chicks, and Melyssa Ford's is the highest? Or is that based on a cumulative sum that she's received over the course of her career? Which would make sense, given that she's got to be older than a motherfucker, at this point. However, she does look fine as shit in this video.

1.5) Dollicia Bryan's great-grandmother was in slavery. This is almost certainly not true. I'm just pointing it out to give you an idea of the kind of intellects we're dealing with here.

2) Show mag is created by and for video hoes. You guys know I've been obsessed with Show magazine ever since I received an email from a suitcase pimp, the guy who sold Amber Rose to Kanye West, with pictures of one of his hoes in Show. She had a body like a brick shithouse. Later, I found an actual issue of Show at a Borders, and I came thisclose to buying it, even though it would have been embarrassing, in that it's not like I could front like I was buying it for the articles. Come to find out, the editor in chief of Show magazine is either a video ho herself, or she just so happens to look like a High Society version of Gabrielle Union, with tits out to here. At any rate, the fact alone that she's a black woman gives the lie to the idea that it's society's fault that dark butts aren't more successful video hoes. She could feature nothing but dark butts in her magazine, if she wanted to.

3) Light skinted is anything lighter than a very dark paper bag. Like the soggy paper bag you'd get from Jack in the Box, if you ordered nothing but selections from the drunk menu. Complexion Obsession is filled with images from ho-filled rap videos, which makes it way easier to watch than it would be otherwise (coincidence?), and one thing I notice is that the abundance of women who are supposed to be so light skinted aren't really that light skinted. I'm pretty sure I could even more light skinted women, if I were in charge of casting hoes for rap videos. (Which I should be.) The only video ho clearly presented as a dark butt is Bria Myles (who comes off as surprisingly nice and well-spoken), who's been in a shedload of rap videos but complains that she could never be in an Ursher video. So in other words, all but the crispiest of dark skinted black chicks are light skinted.

4) It's hard to see a dark skinted woman from a distance. I'm no expert on optometry, and I'm damn near blind, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. But I'm sure it seemed true to Cassidy when he said. Maybe he meant at night. To represent the rappers themselves, Complexion Obsession features interviews with Rick Ross, Cassidy, and... wait for it, Paul Wall - none of whom come off well. but Cassidy is easily the most amusing. The amusing thing about Cassidy, other than his 5x white tee (I wonder if he gets a good deal), is that it's hard to tell if he's criticizing the eurocentric concept of beauty presented in rap videos, of if he's merely articulating the eurocentric concept of beauty presented in rap videos. He says something to the effect of, "The reason more light skinted women are cast in rap videos is because light skinted women are more similar to white women," and right when he gets to the part where you might think he'd say, "and that's racist, because white women aren't necessarily better than black women," he just kinda stops. But it's hard to say what he meant by that, because he's kinda retarded.

5) Children are born racist. Have you ever seen that video where little kids are presented with a set of two dolls, one white and one black, and told to pick the prettier, and they always, without fail, regardless of their race, pick the white one? It's been around since forever, and I'm pretty sure it was featured not too long ago in another one of these documentaries preying a lonely black woman's wounded self-esteem. I seem to vaguely recall seeing it on World Star, but it's hard for me to remember anything on World Star that doesn't have nudity in it. Complexion Obsession features its own doll test, both with little kids and with adults. Surprisingly, even the adults pick the white doll, but they claim it's because Mattel or whatever doesn't know how to make cute black dolls. I'm more concerned with the kids, and whether or not they really were born racist. That's long been my suspicion, based on the way some babies look at me at the BGM. A scientist might need to look into that.