Fashion’s aesthetic standards can invert to make whiteness the unfavored norm

Evidence

The readiness of many Brazilians of all stripes in poll after poll to identify as moreno or pardo – basically, as mixed in one way or another – reveals more than just an avoidance of blackness and a “somatic preference” for whiteness, as Sansone puts it, although it clearly represents that. It reveals also, and increasingly, an aesthetic appeal for that touch of color noted above, tied to the preference for the elevated structural conditions identified with whiteness. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1188 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The aesthetic of the illicit made dark skin fashionable and profitable; Choosing the moreno category signals aesthetic embrace of color tied to whiteness-linked privilege — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1188

Broader Connections

• Choosing the moreno category signals aesthetic embrace of color tied to whiteness-linked privilege #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1188