A certain website with the initials MTO, that I visit for reasons unknown to my higher self, flashed a headline about this like it was a huge accomplishment that we finally have a black playmate of the year. ummm....as a black woman, i simply fail to see how this is anything to celebrate.

Has any of you acutally bothered to look at her name. She is biracial, African mom, European father.

I am sick of the black people we are the world types. Yes there are features that are black/African, if someoene points out differences stop getting defensive, the person in question can be an actual multi racial person and not only black. Arabs and Europeans rolled up in African too. Black knows black stop frontin

That Cameroon first lady looks like a bootleg wannabee version of Beyonce.

Why oh why do so many Americans assume all sub-saharan Africans look like Alek Wek (no disrespect to Miss Wek, I think she is beautiful.)
Don't be lazy, do some actual research ...and I do not mean checking out National Geographic.
Better yet - visit Africa. Not just South Africa but The Gambia, Kenya, Botswana, Sierra Leone, Ghana, etc. It may well change your life.

Her mom's Tanzanian and her father's Swedish. She also sounds like she grew up here in the US because she has no accent. She is African, but also biracial. I've been watching The #1 Ladies Detective Agency and not all Africans look the same. They are as diverse in their appearance as we African Americans are. Many of the features that we associate with being Caucasian or Native American are indeed African. Let's not hate on a girl who is more African then we are.

@dilettante. Why wouldn't it surprise you if the Cameroonian first lady used skin lighteners? Is it because she is African and therefore simply "cannot be that light-skinned' even though by your own admission she is biracial? Zillions of biracials come in many hues INCLUDING being so light as to be mistaken for white BUT according to you Mrs Biya's colour may be as a result of skin bleaching! Do you know ANYTHING of African people? The wide array of hues, noses, culture, body structures, etc?? Do you?
Don't answer that!
Jeez, some of you are so up your own asses...or mired in self-hate...
Sad. Yet your origins are African. Some of you AA look down on Africa so much I guess you consider it a blessing that your ancestors moved (or were moved) out of there, right? Jeez.

We should be clapping for this? O_o Okay....

@dilettante
I "get" that many black (or Asian) women use skin lighteners and hair relaxers. Heck, in many African countries some folks have become millionaires simply by selling this stuff. I get that.
But, why target Mrs Biya? Even if she were not biracial one should not automatically assume this - but - hello, she is! Yet you still choose to place her name and skin lighteners in the same sentence.
Are you admitting to possesing a colonized mind? Can you expand on this? I am well aware of the damaging effects of colonialism and racism but these serve as no excuse for the belittlement and downright ignorance some AA display towards Africa. Which is why, yes, I went "there"- for I could only surmise that because some AA distance themselves so readily from the Motherland it can only be assumed that they are happy about the circumstances around which their ancestors came to the US.

@dilettante
"Some of my dearest friends are African"
Sounds like the "some of my best friends are black"...ruse whites use to explain how they could not possibly be racist. Yet you accuse me of patronizing you? What a laugh.
"She does not appear to be coal black, Tanzania is the deepest sub-Saharan Africa."
So all Tanzanians residing in the "deepest sub-saharan Africa" are coal black?
Please, please stop displaying your limited knowledge (mostly acquired from google and CNN) on Africa. TRY and visit.
Or talk about something else.

But, why target Mrs Biya? It was wrong, I apologize, but come on- the woman does not look like she wouldn't exercise and every artifice >to maximize some weird view of beauty (+ I have an anti French/'Francophone bias-don't ask).

"Some of my dearest friends are African" Yep that's snark all right ,in response to your comment "Jeez, some of you are so up your own asses...or mired in self-hate..." when its patently obvious you DID NOT bother to read my observations to understand where I'm coming from.

Speaking of which, the "where" I'm coming from happens to be Central London, (the UK), Shock horror!, AfAm's as well as Af Nationals are exposed to travel. I'm not sure what was too colloquial in my English that has PREVENTED you from understanding my words about the >presumption of Danielle, or other posters to attribute so called "white" features, lighter skin tone to Ms. Ljungqvist to racial mixing. Can you follow that? to put it in another way, I dilettante, can understand that some one who is is 'purely' African does not automatically mean that person has skin the color of graphite. Turns out this girl is mixed, but my point was/is that fact was not obvious to me just from looking at her picture even with the knowledge that she was from Africa.

My statement on her skin color was preferenced by the phrase "'can of worms"' -> as I freely acknowledge that AfAM's often think of sub Saharan Africans of looking in a "Singular" way.

You know I'm working on my second language of Arabic, I practice with my bf who's was born and raised in Khartoum Sudan, (who is, I secretly think, a bit too proud that Arabic is his mother tongue). Perhaps you need to spend a little working on your English before you engage a native speaker in this inanity.

laters

"or I could only surmise that because some AA distance themselves so readily from the Motherland it can only be assumed that they are happy about the circumstances around which their ancestors came to the US".

Feel free to join the Pat Buchanan school of thought on what 'America' has done for "blacks"o and its attendant 'otherization' if you want to. I don't think its not a good look for a black immigrant, but suit yourself. I've seen , first hand, the poverty in Ireland, Glasgow, Scotland, and several other 3rd rate European cities, that still exists today, that Mr. Buchanan ancestors and many other whites escaped when they made it to America.

While I totally dig learning about my Sudanese friend's Arabized history, identity etc- I'm completely satisfied with my own.

cheers!

cheers!"

The rest of your argument is

@ dilettante
I have made my point and have no desire to prolong this cyber conversation anymore. Besides it has become somewhat dull. Also you do not need to prove your Afrocentric credentials by bringing up your Sudanese bf at every turn. As to the anti-French bias, don't apologise - it is completely mutual.
Finally how very "Pat Buchanan" it is to try to belittle my English in order to advance your own side of the argument. No English is not my first language. But unlike your ancestors it was voluntarily taught me at school. To me that sure beats how YOU got to learn it.

homegirl isn't even full black! whatever... i don't see this as an accomplishment anyway

Well, the accomplishment is: WHITE MEN RECOGNIZED MY BEAUTY AND DECIDED TO PUT IT IN A MAGAZINE. (Rolling my eyes)

CAT-FIGHT!!!!
Who's pullin' hair first?

@Zion ... so .. would you prefer we DIDN'T find you beautiful. Can't have it BOTH ways now... wanting Everybody to notice a black woman's special, unique beauty ... and then complaining he's a white guy! LOL. What you WANT?!

I think Ms. Ida is very good looking aka fine as hell.
It doesn't matter to me too much that she isn't dark-skinned. What's a shame is that to me it seems like Playboy never picks top-notched dark skinned girls for their pictorials. The ones they do include are aight, but trust when I say I've seen waaay finer dark sistas on the street.
At the end of the day, although light like Obama, they both represent 2009 well in that they're the first of many, and signs of the times.