Lips are the fleshy parts along the edge of the mouth. When loose they sink ships. When making out they are first base (at least to baseball fans). And when viewed through the White lens, they determine one’s level of humanity. Take a look:
In 1827, Georges Cuvier, namer of the pterodactyl, dissector of Sarah Baartman, and one of France’s leading scientists, said in his book “The Animal Kingdom”:
“The negro race is confined to the south of Mount Atlas. Its characters are, black complexion, woolly hair, compressed cranium, and flattish nose. In the prominence of the lower part of the face, and the thickness of the lips, it manifestly approaches to the monkey tribe.”
For those in the US not up on the latest science, the same point was made by blackface characters in the minstrel shows of the 1800s. Their lips were made to seem big for laughs. Ha ha.
By 1837 the term “nigger lips” appears in English as an insult, as Hosea Easton noted:
“Negro or nigger, is an approbrious term, employed to impose contempt upon them as an inferior race, and also to express their deformity of person. Nigger lips, nigger shins, and nigger heels, are phrases universally common among the juvenile class of society, and full well understood by them”
By the 1950s, as Assata Shakur recalls her Black American childhood:
“We had never heard the words ‘Black is beautiful’ and the idea had never occurred to most of us. … i was only saying what everybody knew: little, thin lips were better than big, thick lips. Everybody knew that. … We had been completely brainwashed and we didn’t even know it.”
In 1993, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, speaking to Black American women:
“This country has tried negation and degradation. They have taught you to look down on your broad hips and thick lips.”
In 2006, nearly 200 years after Cuvier, Angelina Jolie, famous for her lips, was named by People magazine the most beautiful woman in the world. Now that White women could have thicker lips through lip injections and surgery, now, suddenly, they are beautiful. But apparently only on White women.
So now we know that there was nothing wrong with thick lips all along. They were just, ahem, out of fashion among White people.
But that is hardly the worst of it: the whole thing was built on a lie from the start.
From Cuvier’s very own book, here is a picture of an African woman (Sarah Baartman herself):
And here is a picture of an orang-utan:
Where is the orang-utan’s “thickness of the lips”? Cuvier was the founder of comparative anatomy – this was his stock in trade.
As it turns out, lips are something that sets humans apart from apes and other animals: human lips are turned inside out. It allowed human females to look more beautiful: not just the lips themselves, but it also allowed their breasts to be bigger and rounder since it gave babies a better airtight seal.
So if anything, thick lips are more evolved than thin ones.
– Abagond, 2018.
Sources: mainly Google Images; “The Animal Kingdom” (1827) by Georges Cuvier; “A Treatise on the Character and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the United States” (1837) by Hosea Easton; “Assata: an Autobiography” (1987) by Assata Shakur; “What Makes You So Strong?” (1993) by Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr; “The Naked Woman” (2004) by Desmond Morris.
See also:
- Women with the most beautiful lips
- White lens
- minstrel show
- people
- Naomi Campbell
- Cuvier
- Sarah Baartman
- Hosea Easton
- Assata Shakur
- Jeremiah Wright
- Angelina Jolie
- Kylie Jenner
- The N-word
- “Black is beautiful”
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I once read something about how thick lips are more common in hot climates and thin lips are more common in cold climates, because the lips have a lot of blood vessels that release heat from the body. The hotter the surroundings are, the more heat the body needs to release. The width of the nose also affects body temperature regulation because of how heat is released through the nostrils as well. It’s not just Black people who tend to have large lips and broad noses – so do many South Asians, Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders, Central Americans, and others whose ancestors lived in the tropics.
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White folks spend exorbitant amounts of money for features that they ridicule black people for. The vampire Kardashian/Jenner females are notorious for this. It blows my mind how the features of black women i.e. lips and buttocks are surgically argumented on white women and it’s seen as exotic.
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Naomi Campbell is a goddess with luscious lips white women would pay and arm and a leg for.
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“In the prominence of the lower part of the face, and the thickness of the lips, it manifestly approaches to the monkey tribe.” – Georges Cuvier
Well stated Mr. Cuvier and since you’re no longer here (good riddance), I’ll introduce some of your own people “to the monkey tribe” of the twenty-first century.
Kylie Jenner
Nicole Polizzi
Lisa Rinna
Heidi Montag
Megan Fox
Jessica Simpson
Tulisa
Bella Thorne
Iggy Azalea
Sorry ‘bout that Cuvier, they all seem to be happy about joining “the monkey tribe” with big lips, ….. except Iggy!
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Humans are the only animals, as far as I’m aware, that have thick lips. Therefore thin lips more closely resemble those of monkeys and apes. That is obvious to everyone who’s actually seen monkeys and apes. Well done Abagond for elucidating that.
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I have always had an irrational distrust of thin-lipped people. My gut reaction is, “if they’re hiding their lips, what else are they hiding?” I acknowledge that’s irrational because obviously there’s no connection between a physical characteristic and one’s character. But, it’s definitely one of the biases I have to actively work to overcome when I meet new people.
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Perhaps Cuvier spoke to his inner-self as well as for the rest of his race. That is, inwardly, they feel a certain amount of anxiety about themselves akin to that of being a monkey due to external features that are prominent. In other words, since I’m experiencing these self deprecations about myself or as a group, in unison, let us quietly project these feelings on to and towards the entire Black race through a defense mechanism.
However, there is a big oversight or mistake committed by Cuvier, … the lips sizes of monkeys, do not match that of the lips sizes of Black people in the vast majority of instances, just as he self demonstrated within his own book, “The Animal Kingdom.”
Most of you white folks are too darn much, …lol!
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:l45j8seR75gJ:https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html+&cd=21&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
https://www.aconsciousrethink.com/3833/psychology-projection-8-feelings-transfer-onto-others/
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I’d say it takes an extra special kind of supremacist to assert a racist theory based on their field of expertise that directly contradicts their very own research, but nah… There’s no difference between Cuvier and so many others.
Denial is a cornerstone of racism along with projection and displacement.
I don’t know too much about what it’s like growing up in a Black majority area, but that trio, denial, projection and displacement, were weaved into the very fabric of society in the mostly White areas I grew up in. Applied not just to racism, but to every aspect of life. In fact, playing into that, supporting it, and catering to it, at multiple levels (race, gender, country, class) is apparently enough to get one elected president.
The thing is, it was never about lips. Monkeys don’t have fuller lips, and even if they did, they also have arms, legs, 10 fingers and 10 toes, two lungs, a heart, belly button, and ears. We all have those things. None of it is an indicator of our intelligence or character and I may be projecting here, but I’m pretty sure Cuvier knew that… along with every other racist.
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Like thick lips and big butts, afro hair and broad noses will have their day too…
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Humans’ outward-turned lips are also very important for spoken language.
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Humans are also the only animal who has a chin, for no apparent reason:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/were-the-only-animals-with-chins-and-no-one-knows-why/431625/
The section of this article that talks about how and why the overall bone structure of our lower face changed makes me wonder if the outward-turned lips might have happened around the same time.
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I remember when I was a child hearing those stereotypes about blacks being more like apes.
Then I got this book from the library (wish I could remember what it was called) which clearly illustrated that no one set of humans has any characteristics that are more ape-like, eg, Europeans have thin lips which are closer to apes, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern people have more body hair like apes, East Asians have flattened nose bridges and eyes further forward in their sockets and non-protruding butts like apes, etc.
What’s more, all of the characteristics found in the rest of the world can all be found in Africa, which is where all humas trace their origin anyhow.
So, getting the right education in your childhood can do a good job of dispelling these stereotypes.
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Well stated Mr. Cuvier and since you’re no longer here (good riddance), I’ll introduce some of your own people “to the monkey tribe” of the twenty-first century.
LOL!
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