a lot of the time you can't tell someone is olive skinned (especially in photos) unless you see them in comparison to other white people. the contrast is most striking when you see non-tanned flesh contrasted against non-tanned flesh. olive skin just looks golden or greenish against non-olive white skin.
are you american? the rest of the white parts of the world don't seem to have a problem with the concept of olive skin.
well i wouldn't be surprised if americans are using the term incorrectly. they are stupid and have really weird fucking ideas about whiteness.
many olive skinned people are culturally white, but it isn't just used for people who are white by cultural identity. you can be all sorts of things and olive skinned. but pretty much all olive skinned people could visually pass as white if you removed all cultural signifiers from their clothes/makeup/personal grooming etc and replaced them with signifiers of whiteness. those that can't, could if you gave them a nose job or hair straightening or similar small tweak. if you ain't going to be passing no matter what (short of skin bleaching) then you ain't olive skinned... you're brown or black or asian or whatever.
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(Anonymous) 2012-05-06 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)a lot of the time you can't tell someone is olive skinned (especially in photos) unless you see them in comparison to other white people. the contrast is most striking when you see non-tanned flesh contrasted against non-tanned flesh. olive skin just looks golden or greenish against non-olive white skin.
are you american? the rest of the white parts of the world don't seem to have a problem with the concept of olive skin.
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(Anonymous) 2012-05-06 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)i googled "olive skin" and there's almost only poc, and ppl here said it's only used for yts lol
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(Anonymous) 2012-05-06 05:00 pm (UTC)(link)many olive skinned people are culturally white, but it isn't just used for people who are white by cultural identity. you can be all sorts of things and olive skinned. but pretty much all olive skinned people could visually pass as white if you removed all cultural signifiers from their clothes/makeup/personal grooming etc and replaced them with signifiers of whiteness. those that can't, could if you gave them a nose job or hair straightening or similar small tweak. if you ain't going to be passing no matter what (short of skin bleaching) then you ain't olive skinned... you're brown or black or asian or whatever.