Exploitation? What Exploitation?

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Here’s a point-counterpoint exchange on that oldie-but-goodie, the Image of the Community:

“Your definition of ethical or moral may differ from my definition and from everyone else’s for that matter. It does take guts to do what these people have done and they are the new generation and the ideals they have are different from your generation, which luckily is passing on. I do not think by having this calendar out there, it will hurt our reputation as desis…”

“Please, please do not go there. The reason we Indians are held in high regard in America is because we are seen as law-abiding citizens, diligent professionals and model immigrants. Now if we develop and market trashy calendars and magazines, what will our image be in five years? It will be downhill from hereon.”

Those are two commenters on an interview of Saroosh Gull, publisher of DesiClub.com, by Arun Venugopal for the SAJA website. Now the last time we heard from DesiClub.com here at SM, it had to do with Paris Hilton, sorority jokes, and an Indian character called “Poo Poo,” so you can see what direction we’re headed in here.

Gull’s new product on the market is a bikini calendar of “Sexy South Asian Girls of 2007.” It came out last week and there are launch parties taking place in various cities for the next few weeks. (Here’s a sample of the advertising.) Something called Bibi Magazine is also involved, so perhaps we’re meant to understand that the bibi-saabs are giving their blessing, but you might have a different opinion when you see the product. Connoisseurs of the genre will also note the blend of representational approaches taken from white and black girlie pubs, although all the models but one are rather light skinned, surprise surprise. The text seems to follow the standard format with models listing their hobbies (which include “bubble baths,” “wearing stilettos,” “eating cupcakes,” “partying,” and “shopping, shopping and more shopping”) and aspirations (similar).

Anyway, here’s a bit of Arun’s interview with Saroosh Gull:

These women – how did you find them?

We found all of our models by doing a model search on our site, DesiClub.com, and by utilizing our relationships with key players in the South Asian-American scene. It wasn’t easy finding 12 Desi girls who wanted to pose in Bikinis, but we actually found 17, of which only 12 made it to the calendar.

Given that this is a desi calendar, you could’ve dressed your models in, say, salwar kameez. But you chose bikinis instead. Why?

I don’t think anyone wants to see South Asian models in salwar kameez, that’s been killed and killed again by the existing fashion outlets, who do nothing but the same thing over and over again. That was also part of the reason for doing what we did, to showcase South Asian women in a way that they have never been shown before. It puts a whole new perspective on South Asian-Americans being in the mainstream and not repeating the cliched Indian fashion look of saris and salwar kameez – not that there is anything wrong with that but we wanted to project an American look and that is what we accomplished.

Elsewhere, in the project’s press release, Gull says this:

..our main objective in producing this calendar was to showcase the beauty of South Asian women and to project an image to the mainstream market that South Asian women are just as “American,” being beautiful, attractive and capable in the mainstream fashion and modelling world as Latinas, Blacks, Whites and other Asians, if not more so. By advancing with this agenda, we are doing something that has never been done before, which makes this entire project and the impact it will have truly ground breaking.

So he’s actually raising the community’s image. You be the judge. Respectful comments only, please.

187 thoughts on “Exploitation? What Exploitation?”

  1. If the makers are so proud that their models are vets, nurses, students, doctors, etc.. why not photograph them in those settings?

    I mean, if that were the case, why not show desi women in all the diverse spaces/jobs they occupy across SES groups? They’re not “selling” the image of women in those roles, they’re selling a calendar full of light-skinned hot chicks for money.

    Honestly, sometimes I think this conversation is a total over complication of this calendar. There are definitely conversations around exotification, fetishism, agency, empowerment, etc., but ultimately I don’t think this calendar’s purpose or existence is particularly profound. Also, I think there’s a huge assumption about “conservative SA values” that exists much more strongly in the diaspora than in the desh.

  2. But I do also see their point. When I think of the girls I teach, I don’t hope for them to grow up and be strippers or calendar models because I personally feel we have a certain obligation to, not our families per se, but to contribute more meaningfully to the human family or the universe or something. Corny lessons I learned the hard way, I guess. Maybe though, in the process of being an object for a little while, she’s enabling herself to further her ‘other’ career as a student, artist or even being a mom long term.

    To me, this can be turned around, and substitute a guy with money in this situation. If you can’t see that turning into a similiar situation then I think its at best a temporary solution. To me the end point should be that people don’t make life choices based on compromising their well-being simply because of their outward identity.

    A person born female, or male, or black, brown, white, ect should not have to say, well, this compromise I will make and then retroactively see the benefit of because my “background” forces me to make this concession.

    In a neutral setting I bet some people who choose to be dancers. The girl from My Name is Earl likes jumping up and down for example. But the rest of the people who do things they would rather not just to get along, that kind of thing seems different

  3. Honestly, sometimes I think this conversation is a total over complication of this calendar. There are definitely conversations around exotification, fetishism, agency, empowerment, etc., but ultimately I don’t think this calendar’s purpose or existence is particularly profound. Also, I think there’s a huge assumption about “conservative SA values” that exists much more strongly in the diaspora than in the desh.

    Couldn’t you say that you have to pick concrete examples to discuss these issues? I think these kinds of things are rarely presented in scenarios that scream out to you “this must be discussed”. Usually its the more mundane compromises we make that pass us by that comprise our day to day lives.

    I think out of academia, a lot of people feel powerless to change our society as our day to day existence goes by. Most people even given their faults can identity a few things that suck and should not be going on. Being arrested for driving while black and having to take off your clothes and skip around a stage for ooggling, pathetic men are probably two of them. But how is that going to change if its just noticed in passing? Or should it change? Where do you start that conversation?

  4. And you can take this from a total post-identity angle, and not even consider it a special case that these are desi women. In reality, taken just from the images, a non-desi could not place these people as definatively desi. So I’m totally discounting the angle that these are “desi women”. To me thats mostly irrevelent because in reality as desis we don’t live in a sealed bubble called “desi-America”

  5. And lastly, I think its a big assumption to make that only women make compromises like this for the money. CREAM was written by some black dudes in NYC and I think we all have had situations come up where this kind of thing happens in some form or another

    sorry for the multi-posts

  6. Couldn’t you say that you have to pick concrete examples to discuss these issues? I think these kinds of things are rarely presented in scenarios that scream out to you “this must be discussed”.

    Sahej, I feel you, but this calendar does not scream “this must be discussed” to me. Maybe this is just a non-issue to me. Or maybe it’s because the “big picture” issues we’re discussing are broader than and not specific to the desi community. Additionally, I don’t think it’s easy to say “this has to be changed” when you don’t consider the full package, and the idea that this is a uniquely desi thing doesn’t resonate with me.

    Let’s be honest, part of 90s feminism was an embrace of women making decisions that didn’t necessarily jive with what some would view as progressive feminism – e.g. becoming highly educated and being a stay at home mom, entering the (broader) sex industry, etc. A lot of it was about choice. For all we know, these women wanted to pose and didn’t need the money. I mean, we could hypothesize to kingdom come, but this kind of feedbacks on previous ideas of agency and victimization. I’m not denying that there’s “institutional sexism,” but that said, I think this calendar is part of a larger picture, not some kind of specialized case just because it has a bunch of ambiguously brown (grandma) bikini-clad women in it.

  7. But how is that going to change if its just noticed in passing? Or should it change? Where do you start that conversation?

    Women are constantly sounding off on these issues… I wonder what the men here think about the main two option for women: you can be attractive (so long as you meet some euro standard) but dumb, or you can be intelligent but no one will really find you appealing. How many of you have daughters? How many of you plan to someday? How do you plan to merge your personal version of what beauty is with the actual appearance of your future daughters? Especially if they don’t meet that standard.

    I remember being at the mall with my uncle once when I was still in middle school. He pointed out a woman to me and told me she was a real natural beauty. She was my opposite in nearly every physical category. There was a long long period of time after that where I lost a significant amount of self esteem, and it showed.

    Anyway… I just think men don’t realize how much of an impact they can have on young girls.

  8. I hear you Camille and Oneup. One thing I am getting from this is that women are talking about these issues, but men are not generally.

    I think the next wave of feminism, if we can ever get there, will be for men to understand their role in these situations, the part we play.

    I totally get you Oneup, that was poignant

  9. And lastly, I think its a big assumption to make that only women make compromises like this for the money. CREAM was written by some black dudes in NYC and I think we all have had situations come up where this kind of thing happens in some form or another

    It’s the Wu Tang Clan, and they’re from Staten Island, and the relevance of bringing them up in this discussion is very questionable.

  11. what are you the hype boy for the Wu Tang Clan? Are you from Staten Island and insulted, offended even?

  12. Amitabh,

    The children of conservative desi professionals (or non-professionals) aren’t necessarily always conservative themselves. The opposite frequently happens, partly as a reaction to what they regard as over-protective parents and partly as a reaction to the various opportunities given by our liberal Western environment and society once they manage to break out of their over-sheltered upbringing. At least in my experience of NRI Indian families, which in some ways doesn’t appear to be that different to yours except for the fact that I’m in a different Western country. Maybe there is some transatlantic difference at work here (although I thought NYC was fairly “wild”, including the lives of many 2nd-Gen desis there ?), but I’ve met plenty of desi doctor’s kids who have frequently ended up being doctors themselves and have pretty much been at the extreme end of the behavioural scale in some aspects of their premarital lives (postmarital too, if one believes the rumours), especially some of the young women. I’m talking about family-friends and so on.

    But I enjoyed getting used to it.

    I bet you did, mundea ;)

    Very good points by my fellow Brit BongBreaker in post #97 too. Hot desi women flaunting themselves in skimpy clothes ain’t exactly “Breaking News” these days. Not that I’m complaining about the eye-candy kindly offered to us by Siddhartha Sahib on this cold December weekend, of course…..

  17. No HMF, I was not joking. I think De La Soul wrote Fight the Power and Ted Nugent was a member of the San Fransisco posse known as Digital Underground, along with a little known former art school grad named Too Short originally from Baltimore. Educate me.

  18. although I thought NYC was fairly “wild”, including the lives of many 2nd-Gen desis there ?), but I’ve met plenty of desi doctor’s kids who have frequently ended up being doctors themselves and have pretty much been at the extreme end of the behavioural scale in some aspects of their premarital lives (postmarital too, if one believes the rumours), especially some of the young women. I’m talking about family-friends and so on.

    Jai, absolutely. In fact I was almost going to mention something about this in my post. The crucial thing is this…all the above activity is/was BEHIND YOUR PARENTS BACK! It’s the whole ‘split-personality’ thing that your/my gen grew up with (one face at home, a different face in your private life). Maybe the younger crowd (young people today…tsk tsk) has less of that constraint.

  24. How many of you have daughters? How many of you plan to someday? How do you plan to merge your personal version of what beauty is with the actual appearance of your future daughters? Especially if they don’t meet that standard.

    Oneup, I don’t have any children but I teach high school PE/Health in the inner city and I have been a volunteer at the YWCA, an organization that counsels and supports women and children who are survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence. I had a group of teen girls (13-16) that I was working with. They all lived together in a group home after having been removed from their violent families. Most of the girls had been raped or molested, repeatedly. Oh, and two were white, the rest black and latina.

    Self-esteem with the girls was a topic of discussion every week. Since their families were the source of the negative self-esteem, we were the source of the positive. Instead of being preachy, we would have group discussions about what different words mean and how they made them feel, what their feelings accomplished and how did feelings hold them back and what did they think was beauty and why. (There was a lot of ‘life skills’ learning- like – No, it’s not cool to chase that girl with a hot comb, even if she did steal phone time.)

    A lot of it was asking them questions and them learning critical thinking skills and how to work through emotions in a positive way. Many of the girls ( esp. if they had been raped or molested) thought that they were ugly, ghetto or ho’s (their words). One of the techniques their counselor used was, first they had to define those words for themselves. Most of the girls were suspicious of anyone telling them they were pretty for good reasons. They had eventually worked out that other people judging their beauty had no relevance to who they were and whether they thought themselves beautiful once they kept re-defining beauty. The definition of beauty started to evolve, encompassing a lot of healthy choices, balance and development of personal style.

  26. Sorry, threadjack, here, Abhi, I forgot to mention, no other girls showed up in my weight class to fight me at Silver Gloves. Our team member won for his class though. ;)

  28. i am 23-years-old. born in benaras, i grew in the united states since 3rd grade. almost all my friends are non-desis, but i date almost only desi girls. i listen to the same music as my peers, watch the same ignorant shows as my peers, and party just as hard as my peers.

    what i am tryin to say is that i am the target audience. i am not attracted to the same type of girls as my irish and italian friends, but i do want to see the ones i am attracted to in the calendars month by month like my friends do.

    saroosh did not re-invent the wheel. like HMF said, even michigan militia has a calendar for their group. he’s just filling the gap of this demographic’s need. kingfisher did it and it’s been a success.

  29. (Of course, if you’re exclusively attracted to people from your own race or ethnicity, then you’re acting on the narcissist principle… or you have cultural issues).

    How is this narcissistic? Maybe you want to have a guy/girl who shares your background, similar looks (which draw you in), and understands what it’s like (emotionas people!) to be desi in a mostly-white society (in my case US). Maybe they want a guy that talks and thinks like them. Please don’t judge those who prefer their “own” people or “own” cuture (Bangladeshi & American in my case)!

  30. Please, the narcissist principle is simply seeing your own looks and experiences in someone else and being attracted to that. What on earth is wrong with finding yourself in someone else and loving it? Narcissism is NOT vanity or conceit, it’s just indulging in something related to yourself… like being addicted to Sepia Mutiny :)

    And by “cultural issues” I was not pathologizing anyone or anything. I just meant that some people have boundaries (self-imposed or otherwise) because of cultural considerations – most of which I think are totally valid and/or understandable.

    Okay, Shruti! Glad to see you clarified yourself…

  31. I remember being at the mall with my uncle once when I was still in middle school. He pointed out a woman to me and told me she was a real natural beauty. She was my opposite in nearly every physical category. There was a long long period of time after that where I lost a significant amount of self esteem, and it showed.

    Anyway… I just think men don’t realize how much of an impact they can have on young girls.

    I’m sure this has happened to a LOT of girls/young ladies! My dad ALWAYS told us that he LOVES healthy, smart, and Westernized (clever) girls, so I guess my lil sis and I are lucky!

  32. Amitabh,

    The crucial thing is this…all the above activity is/was BEHIND YOUR PARENTS BACK!…..Maybe the younger crowd (young people today…tsk tsk) has less of that constraint.

    Agreed completely. I’ve noticed this amongst the younger desi crowd in the UK too — the under-25s seem to be a lot more open about a lot of things than we were at that age, whether it’s to do with dating behaviour or the way the young women dress, or (for example) the contents of UK bhangra videos.

  33. With regards to the whole “They don’t look South Asian/they look too much like Latinas/they’re practically white girls with tans” thing, I sometimes think that some of SM’s commenting population are so overintellectualised, politically-correct and tunnel-visioned that they actually end up going round full-circle to the other extreme of stupidity and ignorance. It’s truly reaching epic proportions of ridiculousness now. But then again, I guess it wouldn’t be a proper SM thread without at least a couple of commenters whining about others being “too light” or “not looking authentically brown”. Well, boo hoo hoo. Look at the list of the models’ names; they’re mostly Gujarati and Punjabi, with a couple of Muslims (Pakistanis ?). Sure, they’re not representative of people from the subcontinent as a whole — either in terms of their regional backgrounds or their physical appearance — but they are fairly typical for the groups they originate from, at least in terms of the subgroups who migrated to the West.

    “Ambiguously brown”, my ass. Give me a break. If you can’t see that those models are obviously South Asian — a blindingly obvious fact — then I suggest you start mixing with a much larger number of South Asians from different regional backgrounds and get some proper life experience beyond your own narrow, rarified social circles. And stop viewing yourself as the “template” for the stereotypical South Asian physical appearance, with anyone who doesn’t look exactly like you or people from your own corners of the subcontinent judged to be “non-authentic”. That kind of attitude is extremely self-centred, and more than a little dense.

    As for the following:

    I need to make a “Sexy South Asian Girls” calendar of my own. I vill use real desi vimmen.

    Good idea. You can populate it exclusively with women from the southern and eastern corners of India, and anyone who even remotely looks “Latina” or “not brown enough” (whatever the hell that means) will be automatically removed from the cut without mercy or hesitation. I’m assuming there will be both a desi and non-desi viewing audience for that kind of calendar too. Go for it ;)

    That’s all I have to say on this tired, boring, and very irritating topic which seems to rear its ugly head on SM with regular frequency. Thank You and Goodnight.

  34. Hear hear Jai! Very well said. That’s some good spleen-ventage.

    I took another look at the girls to check their collective hue and realised December is a Bong babe, hurrah!

  35. Jai, was #133 necessary? Happy New Year to you too.

    I’d bite (and I’ve got a BIG bite for #133), but it’s the first day of the new year, and that’s not how I want to start mine off. Good day. Good year. Peace.

  36. I’d bite (and I’ve got a BIG bite for #133), but it’s the first day of the new year,

    eh, you should have bit away. New Years Day is the most anti-climactic holiday of the year. Hell most of us lived through the millenium changeover and thought something meaningful would happen then (I assume noone under the age 6 reads this board, but weird things have happened). NYD is just a ploy to sell more alcohol and charge outrageous covers for parties, this of course is shortly followed by the ploy to sell chocolate and perfume in February

  38. “Fight the Power” is an N.W.A. song.

    Please, please, stop. This is so painful. “Fight the Power” is by Public Enemy. “Fight the Police” is by NWA.

  40. Speaking of not looking “brown” enough… I saw the movie “One Night With The King” (filmed in Johdpur, India) and there were MAD brown desis in it- major and minor characters alongside Omar Sharif, UK whites (like John Rhys-Davies)and blacks, and American newbie actors. If the faces didn’t give it away, the desi-Brit accents totally did!

    Sorry, but we ALL didn’t grow up in “desi-rich” areas!!! For ex: My family mostly hung w/ ppl at their jobs or Bangladeshi families like us (intellectual types) in Tucson, AZ. Most youn’uns I talk to didn’t know anything “desi” before they got to college (undergrad).

  41. Most youn’uns I talk to didn’t know anything “desi” before they got to college (undergrad).

    This was very typical of most desi kids who grew up in the 70s and 80s. But today in New Jersey at least it’s such a different scene…kids going to schools which have huge numbers of desis, hanging out in desi cliques, watching Indian movies in the theaters, going to the numerous temples/mosques/gurudwaras, and hanging out in places like Edison/Iselin, taking Bollywood dance classes, etc. AND THEN eventually heading to Rutgers University where the desi factor actually manages to go up a few more notches!

  42. ewh.

    Turn ons are in the eye of the observor.

    Offend, maybe I will. Money making venture – I get that. Different kind of pimping, isn’t it? Only, now, it’s pimping my “sisters” in published media.

    While I’m sure all these gals can be sexy and some of the shots are more toward that than others, I don’t see how this calendar promotes any type of greater message that the company claims – the one of participation and American-ness. I think that all cultures have their bit of trashy…it’s not purely an American thing. Now, whether all cultures or generations have a bikini calendar to display it is another thing.

    Really, what does this calendar say? Rather than promoting any type of “we are beautiful or sexy too and participate we shall” message, it kinda says “hey, South Asian gals can be hoochie too. Wanna see?”

    On the positive note – it is very consistent with the Desiclub brand. And, this calendar further gives the party promotion company a tangible, recognizable look.

    However, it’s just plain ridiculous and overreaching that the company should try not to speak for a larger creed or culture when it’s clearly, in one interpretation of the word, displaying a lack of cultured behavior.

    Hope these girls realized that the end product wouldn’t be so sexy vs. smutty. eh, they’ll get some publicity…land a snoop dog-ish video spot…oops, I believe one of the gals posing actually was on a Puff Daddy video. And, she looked incredibly hot there.

    girls who think this is great for expression…what exactly is being expressed? I’m not getting it. I mean, don’t enough men – Indian and non – already regard women (Indian women included) as sex objects? I’m not seeing the big-need-to-be-said-to-forward-us message.

    Logical progression seems that next up would be the desiclub online version of the Jerry Springer show…hosted by Jerry himself or a greying Indian uncle with the same appeal…only we’d probably include the blacks and whites as well to show how similar we are. (desiclub – I want a cut of the $$ for the idea!)

  43. …correction to my post:

    “However, it’s just plain ridiculous and overreaching that the company should try“

    vs. “not try”

    :)

  44. Shruti,

    Jai, was #133 necessary?

    Unfortunately, yes it was, and it’s long overdue. Enough is enough.

    Having thought the matter over, I do actually agree that if the calendar was supposed to represent South Asians as a whole then there should definitely have been more models from other parts of the subcontinent, purely for the sake of accuracy — it would be stupid to have a calendar called “Sexy European Girls” and only have models from Scandinavia, for example — but I still stand wholeheartedly by the rest of my post, from the second paragraph onwards.

    I’d bite (and I’ve got a BIG bite for #133),

    It’s up to you, go ahead if you have something constructive to add. I must stress, however, that nothing I have said is intended as a malicious personal attack on you — although a couple of other commenters on this thread have indeed been making some pretty stupid comments about the subject, as BongBreaker obviously agrees — but when the same pattern of complaining arises from the same quarters on thread after thread every single frikking time a certain topic arises, then something does need to be said. For the record, I do think you are a nice person and historically we’ve always been on good terms, and you come across as warm-hearted and with a good sense of humour. So don’t take any of this personally. However, there is definitely a streak of ongoing prejudice amongst some sections of this blog’s commenting audience (something many people have realised), and 90% of the time it’s not actually coming from the parties which some people are apparently so “oppressed”, “marginalised” and obviously threatened by, despite their insinuations to the contrary.

    Happy New Year to you too.

    The same to you too :)

  45. Please, please, stop. This is so painful. “Fight the Power” is by Public Enemy. “Fight the Police” is by NWA

    Thank you Camille, my head was about to explode.

    calmstorm:

    girls who think this is great for expression…what exactly is being expressed? I’m not getting it. I mean, don’t enough men – Indian and non – already regard women (Indian women included) as sex objects? I’m not seeing the big-need-to-be-said-to-forward-us message

    Excellent point. But I think it’s justified by a “one more lamb to the slaughter” type thinking. It’s the standard problem with anything of this nature. They’re continually forced to defend themselves (i.e. go on and on about how expressive it is, how the women are doctors, bla bla) in a way that a porn magazine or video never has to. Because the porn folk have nothing to hide, nowhere to go, they’re completely upfront with what they are.

  46. HMF, a lot of people know a little bit about hip hop, I’m not sure why you’re setting yourself up as a guardian of hip hop knowledge.

    I am not an expert but among the things I know, which you seem to assume no one can know without being schooled by the likes of people like you;

    De La Soul is from from Long Island and is not known to have written Fight the Power. Public Enemy wrote Fight the Power. Tupac was a member of Digital Underground. Too Short was known among other things for his nasty nursery ryhme lyrics. NWA involved Easy E, Mc Ren, Dj Yella, Doctor Dre, and Ice Cube. Dre produced one of the best rap albums of all time by DOC that a lot of mainstream people slept on. DOC was never able to make another record like it. Everybody from NWA fell out with Easy E but they sort-of made up by the time he died. NWA came out in the late 80′s and signified a trend toward gansta rap which was then eventually eclipsed first by the East Coast-West Coast beef, and more recently by the Southern style of crunk and, basically, stripper hip hop. the Wu Tang Clan momentarily brought NYC back to the limelight, but eventually they could not sustain their momentum. Nas also carried the standard for NYC along witht Jay Z, who had a legandary beef in which neither really emerged as the number one, and both were sometimes thought of as the heir apperent to Rakim, one of the original lyrsists par excellence. Along with the East Coast-West Coast stuff, there was also the movement which included the Native Tongues, people like Mos Def and Talib Kweli, who took their lineage from people like KRS ONE of BDP and Chuck D of Public Enemy, who also had their linneage carried on in a different way by people like Immortal Technique and Dead Prez, as well as from Afrocentric groups like The Last Prophets. Common came out of Chicago but moved to NYC and his hip hop was also of a “concious” nature. Later, Chicago was able to keep people like Lupe Fiasco and Kanye West in town, but Chicago never has become a center of hip hop, even with the likes of Rhymefest.

    I am not an expert of hip hop at all, but I just wanted to say I think ALOT of people who read this board know as much or more than me about hip hop. Anyway, I’m really getting tired of this attitude that other people don’t know what they are talking about unless they stick to very narrow ways of speaking, that invariably, yes, involve words like “colorism” and such.

    Point blank, I tend to agree with Jai on this thread. That calender is not all that different from the hues of at least 50% of desi population in the States. Yes, colorism is an issue in our community, but please, this calender is by far not the most egregious offender

  47. You set yourself up as some kind of always right expert who schools everyone else on what’s up with our people, when in reality, nothing you say is really anymore relevent than anyone else says

  48. If you put things in the converse, I don’t think too many guys would go for this kind of empowerment for themselves.

    This is a great point.

  49. I don’t know what you guys think ‘light skinned’ is, but all those models look like average desi girls to me (albeit with above average bodies).

  50. Um, guys, Miss July is a senior in high school.

    Jailbait much?

    Also, seriously? Even current hip-hop fans don’t know the history of hip-hop. Calm down, folks. People make mistakes; educate them, not isolate.