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Last spring I was invited by the high school students of Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto, CA for their annual TEDx conference. I was actually contacted a year prior by a very sweet young reader of this very blog to speak on issues impacting millennials. I asked if there was any area in particular they’d like me to cover, but the topic was wide open. As one of my most debated and widely read articles on my column, I decided to tackle once again the issue of exotic beauty.
My first article found here was published in 2011, where I explored the notion of an exotic beauty as essentially discriminatory. My second article, here, further fleshed out hazards of exoticization by using the phenomena of the Asian fetish as a case example. While comments poured in, with some saying an exotic beauty is a compliment, and others saying it was racist, many held strong feelings about this. In my talk, I attempt to lay out my case further in an attempt to explain the problem of having such a notion as an “exotic” beauty.
Also, a warm and sincere thank you to the dedicated students of Gunn High School’s TEDx team for putting on such an enlightening event for the community and inviting me to be a part of it. You are to be commended for your wonderful efforts!
For more non-exotic articles, follow me on Twitter at MillenialMedia
