Mammys are a huge stereotype. Just look at Manet's famous Olympia...or watch Tom and Jerry. That's a mammy. Telma is also a mammy...but I like her character. They are suppose to be sassy, and extremely loving and motherly to others. They are usually housemaids, slaves or wet nurses. Watch "The Help" for nice story on that type of character.
Also the dark skin, light hair thing in anime is probably because of ganguro.
oh Japan.
When I was a little girl I would feel pretty terrible about my race because it was considered undesirable. I always wanted blonde hair and blue eyed everything. It's a pretty negative thing how impressionable young black girls are and how quickly they start to hate how they look. There was a study that showed that black girls preferred the blonde doll to the black doll almost every time. And when asked why they preferred it, they said that the black doll was ugly. The two dolls were identical if you ignored the coloring. In our globalized world where a Caucasian woman is the only standard for beauty...you get a lot of people feeling left out. I don't think Asian women should obsess over eye-lid surgery to chase after something they aren't. They're beautiful without trying to emulate the globalized standard of beauty.
I of course, realize I have my own form of beauty now. I wouldn't change a thing about me.
but for a long time I felt pretty terrible just by soaking in TV shows, magazines and books that only put us down. I don't really think it was a malicious thing that happened, it's just a bad consequence for non-Caucasian women.
Yay positive diversity. If Iris or whatever had existed when I was ten, she would've been amazing.
Also, I read through this thread and nothing has offended me yet. I think I'm a lot more tolerant for racism over sexism...even though I'm kind of affected by both. o_______o