The New and Improved Nicole Ari Parker

http://photos.essence.com/galleries/star_gazing_062410#457021

I jokingly told my girlfriend recently that the lightskinned, sandy haired, light eyed girl never impressed me. In fact, I always thought they all look exactly alike and not exotic at all. They have all those "characteristics" that you would think automatically made them interesting and beautiful but never really amounted to much, well as far as I was concerned. To put that all in perspective, I'm not trying to come across as discriminatory or to generalize and come up with misplaced and ignorant conclusions. I'm mostly joking in my assessment that "they" all look alike but the other part of me is tired of the generalization that those with these characteristics are beautiful just because, so this is more about balance and annoyance with the blanket beauty pass for being black with fair skin or black with lighter eyes or black with wavy hair. That has to be one of the most annoying and frustrating assumptions and racist based conclusions out there and it's even more offensive when it comes from black people. I've said it before, and trust me you will hear it many times over, Nia Long and Halle Berry (I do acknowledge she is mixed and her hair is fine but she's also brown skinned, has dark eyes, and is more beautiful with her pixie cut and brown hair than she is with long highlighted locks) are super hawwt without any of those "auto" features, not to mention there is Sanaa Lathan, Gabrielle Union, Michelle Obama, Malinda Williams and many other brown skinned women that are automatically beautiful without doing a single thing or having been born with any one of those "auto" features! Anyways, I say that all to announce that I have been pleasantly impressed with Mrs. Kodjoe more recently. With age, marriage and children she looks absolutely fabulous, and that's my kind of girl. She looks gorgeous in this picture! The dress and shoes I absolutely love, her hair looks more modern funky and most importantly, she seems very happy. Absolute winner look...and it has nothing to do with her hair texture, eye color or skin tone! The dress and the shoes are to die for and her happiness is to kill someone else for!