#negrinha

Diego shared some pics of some of the OGs out for a swim today! Bibi (first and second) and Urso (fourth) are the parents of Negrinha (second and and third), who is Vega’s granddam :) It’s nice to see them all together in the same photos and setting

When I visited my school's library for the first time, I decided to go look for some comics. I found some, but didn't find any yaoi or yuri comics. However, I did find "Negrihna" and my first impression of it was "Oh God, there are still people that draw black people like this." When I looked through the story, it disgusted me to see that almost all the black characters were drawn in black face style while the lighter skin characters looked relatively normal. Yet when I read the reviews, they were mostly positive and found out that the book discussed racism in Brazil. From what I've seen in the book so far, it's clear that the character on the left cares deeply for her (adoptive?) daughter on the right and she prays for her success. However, she seems overprotective of her.

From what I've seen so far, she is one of five black mothers with a white daughter and I don't know why none of them have black daughters. The comic book is written in Chinese and I've only read 42 pages, so maybe I have skipped over the reason why. Perhaps later I will see how the story was so good that the reviewers are willing to ignore blackface style.

----

Later that day, I watched Youtube videos that showed how Disney animated black people in the past. Even though I can never understand why so many animators color black characters with pale lips (especially the top lip), I found that a few animators actually did one detail better than I did: The color of the palms of hands and soles of feet:

Additionally, I was surprised to find this Twitter post:

I tried to paint lighter skin on palms, but I hated that the lighter skin gave me the impression that my character has stuck her hands in light paint. Because I couldn't get her palms to look right, I decided to just go with brown palms. Then I read some twitter posts talking about how brown palms on dark skin characters looks wrong, lazy, and ignorant and there was even one person who compared brown palms to blackface. After finding out that there are people who do want to see more realistic hand coloring on dark skinned characters, I decided to try coloring light palms again. Using my own hand as a reference, I did a quick sketch on Krita and colored it in. Using the blur tool, I tried to soften the color transition to make it look more natural. I like it better than my previous attempts at coloring, so I will try adding brown palm lines to make the palms' coloring look more natural.

Negrinha - Monteiro Lobato

 Com sua linguagem simples, Lobato retrata o fim da história de Negrinha, pequena escrava. A história toca por relatar de forma sutil e verdadeira, apesar de romantizada, o quão dura era a existência de humanos não vistos como tal, mesmo após a abolição da escravatura. Retrata o vazio de uma criança que não tem direito de agir como uma. Nem se quer saberia como fazer se pudesse. A dor e angústia que aperta o peito de quem teve uma infância com o mínimo de amor e carinho e reconhece a sombria verdade por trás deste conto é algo inexplicável.

 A proibição do prazer de ser criança para um e a liberdade para outro que, aos olhos da inocência, seriam iguais. Injustiça. Um singelo calor aparece no peito quando, ao decorrer das palavras, a pobre menina descobre a alegria de poder brincar com uma boneca, essa pertencendo a duas outras meninas. Brancas. Ricas, talvez. A leveza de poder experimentar uma vez na sua rápida existência a pequena vivência de dar asas à imaginação e agir como uma criança genuína permitiu Negrinha a reconhecer sua própria alma, até então desprezada. Alegria essa que durou tempo suficiente para alimentar a ilusão de igualdade na pequena criança, que ao despedir-se das tais meninas e de suas férias, permitiu também que levassem o brilho do olhar de Negrinha. Deixando espaço para o vazio já conhecido retornar, Negrinha entrega-se a morte como se fosse qualquer tipo de gesto carinhoso, mesmo que nunca tivera oportunidade de conhecer algum.