As a Nigerian woman with 100% Nigerian family members who have similar features and coloring to Joan Smalls, I approve of her blackness and am not offended...

Agreed and thank you. As a Nigerian, coming from a country with over 200 ethnicities and a wonderful, reflective diversity of facial features and skin tones, I'm always confused when African Americans and other Americans state that a black person doesn't look 'black', particularly when that person is from an African…

Agreed. Tim Wise has an insightful article about what he terms the "pathologies of privelege" here: http://www.timwise.org/2012/12/race-class-violence-and-denial-mass-murder-and-the-pathologies-of-privilege/#more-2316

Since this issue of 'merit' keeps popping up in the responses:

However, inherent, in-born character traits do earn you privileges that are often referred to as 'merit'. To see this examine the following list:

I see where you were going with this comment but gotta say it- Black women, like white women, come in all shades and features and yes Tyra is most definitely Black (there's an undertone of stereotyping in your comment about 'forgetting she's black' that I'm certain you didn't intend, but would definitely make for an…