There are West Africans in Africa that shade and probably lighter. I think that lady is pretty. A lot of these black Miss World contestants worldwide don't wear their natural hair. I remember seeing Miss World a couple of years back and the majority of the black women that took part from Africa never wore hair natural. Yes i would liked to have seen some of these contestants sport a beautiful head of strong healhty natural hair but i am not that bothered by it.

Any West Africans lighter than her definitely do have white ancestry. No west African is naturally light like that. Most naturally light skinned Africans are in Central and Southern Africa. And most Miss World Contestants always have weaves, wigs, or relaxers in their hair.

I have seen some pretty light skinned Yoruba and Igbo Nigerians who are probably as light as this lady. The Igbos i read are meant to have an Albino trait i don't know if this is true though. Of course though not all Igbo's are light skinned. If you run a search on Google i am sure that you will find some stuff on this.

Take away the weave and she looks black to me. You'd be surprised how much weaves like that can change how a black woman appears.

She's very pretty(good thing) but very skinny(bad thing lol),this is usually the representation for AA women when it comes to beauty so i am not surprised here.

she looks alright, in a boring sort of way. I think if she had natural, short hair she would look unique and stunning.
Then again I'm not a fan of the "beauty queen" look on anyone. I hate the big, curly, layered, bouffant, ****-star hair and pink lipstick.

already she looks way better here:

Are you serious? Black people come in all hues. I've seen pictures of west Africans with green & blue eyes, also you have to remember white ppl are a mutation of black ppl.

This youtube video is a bit interesting some user is trying to make a point about this whole lighter skin issue in Nigeria. Like i wrote in my other post i don't know if there is any scientific basis to back up these albino traits claims that i have read. As been mentioned above though African people do come in all different shades.

@ Shemsi - yes she is beautiful. This is a silly debate to me but seems to preocupy Diasporans.

What do you mean by "to us".....who is us? If the standard of beauty is looking "African" I will have to ask again what that means? Even in Africa, beauty is diverse.

So what is this discussion really about?

Some Africans could look at you, Shemsi, and say you look European. And just relax your girlfriend's hair and she too would easily meet what you seems to define as European standard of beauty.

Happiness

ps - I didn't read all poster's comments so sorry if I am being repetitive.

@ Rachie - the albino trait is true. It is quite common. Igbos are typically very light or very dark....and the light ones sometimes come close to albinoism (green eyes, red/blond hair, etc...).

Happiness

Let's not make an undue divide between Diasporans and Continental Africans, as this is an issue pertinent across Africa itself while most of the developing countries seem to adhere to European standards of beauty as well.

If it isn't obvious by now, I rarely come straight out and say what I think when it is more fruitful for people to hammer it out themselves through dialogue. The thread title was intentionally posed in a provocative way for said reasons. Umbra stated what's closest to my thoughts in we shouldn't even care to compete in these things that our "enemies" control.

I guess where I would have like to see the convo go is whether she would win a beauty pageant amongst Africans (assuming our own minds are doing the judging). If she would win, even though many African people have her traits, it begs the question of how we truly view ourselves in comparison to others if we make a standard of beauty that most of us can never ascertain.

^^ That small blue font is near enough impossible to read bro. People are gonna get eye cramp trying.

Can see the African in the woman in question, she looks nigerian perhaps, definitely west african, Don't think shes mixed either, just coated with make up.

Agree with the albinism comments above, was going to say the same. Have an uncle and two aunts who are pale skinned, my uncle (not blood related) in particular looks all out european, privy to lunch time talks about ethnic people etc, is also conditioned due to the way he looks making him a bit ignorant at times. Has three kids all girls one looks like Beyonce (literally) the other a gremlin and the last is a healthy brown... from there I think albinos can produce children of color, seems that after a long period of interbreeding the caucasians can't... my aunt who is also paleskinned has five kids and they're all black.. another aunt is paleskinned but tans to a normal brown in the sun, really weird. Posted a video of her kid on the drums a while back.... the caucasians can't stake claim to their features at all, they're just derivatives.