Slaughter-Acey hopes to see an end to this through open dialogue and empowering children at an early age by exposing them to diverse representations of beauty outside of current societal confines.

“As a society, we have to recognize that the topic of racism and beauty ideals is not new, as communities of color have been trying to address the perpetuation of beauty standards that do not include people of color, particularly Black people,” Slaughter-Acey said in a statement provided to AfroTech. “I think that there is a lot of things that we can do to address the toxic beauty ideals that are pervasive in our society. The first is that we need to have conversations and open dialogue about the role of racism in establishing harmful and unobtainable beauty ideals that place social value on one’s proximity to whiteness by centering on European features. With that, there is definitely a place for media, traditional and social, in disrupting messaging that we are exposed to and to broaden the definition of beauty so that it is inclusive.”

She continued: “As a Black mother with a young daughter, I have carefully curated her environment since she was born to help buffer against the racist toxic beauty ideal. This includes making sure there is representation in the toys she plays with, the books we read, and the places and spaces we visit. My goal is to, one, make sure she sees herself in all that she interacts with, and two, broaden the definition of beauty so it represents all the shades, shapes, and textures that exist.”

beauty standards

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