...Together, their wins showed how the competitions have evolved from typically only validating features associated with white women, like lighter skin and straight hair. That evolution could influence communities globally, where blackness is rarely held as the standard of beauty, Noliwe Rooks, professor of Africana studies at Cornell University, said on Sunday.
The fact that five of the winners of major beauty pageants are “identifiably black women really does say something about a level of comfort of black skin in the public,” said Professor Rooks, who recently taught a course on race, fashion and gender.
Read the entire article in The New York Times.
