Melting Pot

Well My avvie is very pale, simply because that is what I am like in RL, but I am slightly darker in SL. lol, if I used my RL colouring, I would just looked washed out. I would come across as gothy or vampiric.
I have seen some nice black skins, and have almost bought one, but the thing is, I wouldn't feel that is exactly 'me'. I like my light skin, as much as you enjoy having both black and white heritage.
But that doesn't mean I am against people with skins of different colours. My best friend is black and is the nicest person I have ever met. And I think the blue or purple or green skins are gorgeous.

I was thinking about this just last week, when I unexpectedly came across a pretty nice black woman's freebie skin. I realized I was surprised because I've seen so very very few black avatars in SL -- and none that I would have thought looked biracial. There are far more nonhuman avs around, and yes, this sucks. I'll second the idea, though, that the humans that are around tend to look more Hispanic or Mediterranean than what I think of as white.

As a child, I had the opposite problem from Alyx: I wanted to be a Goth (or a Victorian) before I knew what either were. Growing up in south Florida, though, I was stuck with a permanent tan whether I wanted it or not. :-} So now in SL I'm trying for the alabaster-and-ivory complexion I always wanted. But the best-looking skins do all seem to be tanned.

I do suspect there are also socioeconomic factors in play. The people who have the software and leisure time to devote to becoming good content creators are, while not guaranteed to be young whites, certainly more likely to be. Hence the predominance not only of white avatars but of clothing and hair styles that appeal to a younger demographic. You can find things to suit an older taste, sure, but they're not front and center at all the malls the way midriff-baring tops and flyaway hair are.

I am Asian.
My SL Avi is Asian.
My BFFs forever are white, white, and Puerto Rican
My SL partner is a Canadian who thinks he is Japanese
My SL father is Bolivian, Mother white
My SL Brothers and sisters, Asian, Brasilian, and Mexican
My partner in crime a French Black man
And I hang out at hip hop clubs

I think you're confusing skins with male shoes as male shoes have that honor.

Depends where you go. Basically, you won't find them in rock clubs. Check out R&B, Hip Hop, and Salsa clubs.

Don't worry about it...the world ain't perfect, on OR off-line...here in America, just last Century almost EVERY race has a story of how thier families were harrassed and had to try and assimilate into generic "White America", or "retreat" into ghettos, barrios, etc.

Hell in my city, Chicago, we got at least one neighborhood for almost every race, "Jew Town", 2 "Little Italies", people are pretty open w/ the slurs when they go through Polish, Black, Puerto-Rican and even Irish neighborhoods here too...so I figure at least in America, if almost all the "White" Americans have to hear slurs about thier Heritage, then I can just be me & do the best I can

*shrugs*

...you should see what a Racist background most of US (Black Americans) come from in around here...where I'm from EVERYBODY is "the enemy"...even if they live in the broke, burned-out Barrio 3 blocks away, with hardly any places to work

XIO,
Don`t forget china town, Little Vietnam

Kinda depends on what you consider "black". My RL self happens to be black, but I'm light. My avatar doesn't really look like me, but she is close to my complexion. There are some out there that say that the av isn't "black enough". It is the one aspect of my av that I've been tweaking for the last few years. She isn't quite there, but very close.

im 1/4 african american in rl but mostly swedish. there really cant be any specific skins for biracial folks because biracial folks do not appear as any one type or skin color. you can be biracial and very pale or you can look completely african american. or you can look some other hue in the middle. same goes for hair. same goes with features which would be determined more by shape then skintone. i wear pale skins with freckles and long silky black hair because thats close to how i look in rl. but even if i had been darker, there are soooo many more tanned skins then pale ones in sl. Most top skin makers offer dark skins. and i know for a fact (unless you are male) that more then a couple popular shops make good hair for africans.

the most attention i gave to the ethnicity of my avatar was when i created my shape. i made my nose a little thicker and my lips full.

I KNEW it! ...now I know Usagi's "Location", nyaa nyaa *high fives*
Go Chicago

Really I am in Tokyo

I love the city of chicago, been there many times.

DOH! lol...cool, I gotta visit that city sometime

CLOSE, but "no cigar"

Chicago is my fave US city, though it's probably biased by my having stayed there the longest - I travelled through the states (and elsewhere) in my student years, but I worked and lived in Chicago for about 2-3 months.

My photorealistic black skins outsell my caucasion skins by a wide margin. I think the reason we don't see more black avatars is just because there aren't many good black skins available, and as Isablan said I think that's because they're very difficult to make. Black skin is much more complex than caucasion skin. There's a great deal more variation of tone in a black skin so more often than not they just look "wrong" for reasons that aren't easy to pin down. As more creators start offering good ones I think we'll start seeing more diversity in SL.

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2006/02/the_skin_youre_.html
http://www.second-man.com/new-male-skins-by-chip-midnight.html

Well Love the people And the Pizza



The city has its own culture as Xio said its a melting pot of the usa really. There is some kind of maqic about that city that always makes me smile

We could learn a lot from a box of crayons: Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names but they have learned to live in the same box.

But do you match?

SL turns out coffee-colored people by the score...

I am caucasion in RL, but my daughter is bi-racial, Black/Caucasian, so is my nephew. I would agree that black and bi-racial skins would be very difficult to make in that there ARE so many tones and shades. My daughter, during the winter could pass for all caucasian, and since my father was Italian, i'm not fair complected. But in the spring, my daughter begins to tan, and I make both my kids use sunscreen. Her hair and her nose are a give away, though. Her hair is my color (brown) and texture, but very, very curly.....long spiral curls, which I think is beautiful, and she hates....lol.

My nephew has lighter hair, was blonde when he was little, but his skin is overall slightly darker than my daughters, and even more so in the summer. His hair is very kinky, and if it gets too long, it's an afro.

So, I could definitely see how difficult that would be. I have seen avs with skins, though, which I would consider bi-racial or hispanic in tone. In fact, I think I see that more often than skins which look purely caucasian.

i love that idea.

Looking back on my days as a noob and as a caucasian avatar...not knowing how to use the sliders... how comical! I recall that as soon as I knew how to, I frantically used the sliders, finally getting the color close to my rl self. But the hair... hahaha... had a do-it-yourself hairstyle from my inventory library -- very texturized with a shaggy punk look. Still have the av/hair and wear it sometimes when I want a good laugh. Seriously tho, it took a tremendous amount of time to find a skin that was acceptable. My husband, who was at the time a good friend and is from Holland, tried helping me look for a skin. However, even tho I'd used the slider, had texturized hair - he mistakenly thought it was a tan! Up until then, we had never discussed race. It just never came up. Anyway, he's was and still is so extremely helpful -- he started taking me to places that only had caucasian skins and I had to have a very serious talk with him - lol. Guess it was an aha moment for both of us in a way. At that time, finding a black skin was a dreadful experience. Just not a lot out there, and what there was looked absolutely hideous. Eventually I found a skin that I'm absolutely delighted with, and haven't seen any since that I'd trade it for.

I also agree with Ricardo that there are plenty of black avatars in SL. One only has to broaden their horizons and explore a little. I'm mostly into techno and house music, but when I visit R&B clubs I see very many there!

For a long while my avatar was decidedly pale white (which is rather like the real life me, too much time indoors, I think). I wanted a darker skin though, but never seemed to find one I really like.

When I finally found a gorgeous black skin, I wore it happily and was thrilled at how beautiful my avatar looked.

I have a real life picture on my profile, and a few residents have seen other photos of the real me, or chatted to me on webcam. I was surprised at how many made comments like 'why are you black here when you aren't in real life?' or 'what on earth made you do that?' - which seemed very odd coming from people who I knew had avatars that were thinner/taller/prettier/different sex/different specis to their real selves, heh.


I actually do have black blood, though it is very diluted indeed (a 17th century ancestor, actually). I still felt if was very odd that so many people were surprised I would want a black avatar. One person even hinted that I was somehow being racist by 'pretending to be black' - am I really???

Black skin is SO beautiful, why on earth would I prefer my real life pastry-white? lol

I am nowadays sometimes a white avatar (classic old-skool Fu) and sometimes my sexy black look - mind you, today I have been mainly a very large Egyptian Anubis dragon and yesterday I was a small brown ferret.

Ah, I LOVE Second Life

You Summoned Me?
All you Furless ones look the same to me
Or Softskinned depending on which avatar I am using
I would find much more prejustice if I used my SL avatar in RL.

Being 100% Black Myself IRL, I've noticed this also, a Decided disparity in the Number of well done black skins available. I've commented on it to friends, But never really made an issue of it. It does make me wonder though, Given the number of Black people living in North America, Just how many Black SL Players are "Passing for white"?

Very Dangerous ground this, and likely to get the thread locked.

Angel.

Nah, that would require a mod to log into the forums for a minute or two.