Hart Larsson from PXL Creations has made a lovely skin for black avatars. One of my real-life friends that I brought into Second Life is African-American and has lamented the state of black skins in Second Life many, many times. It’s not that black skins don’t exist or that no effort was made to create beautiful skin. She described it as the skin having the wrong undertone so that it looks flat. She also said it was often too light or too gray. When Hart sent me a bundle of promotional copies of this new Efe skin I tried them out and think they are what she was looking for. If she weren’t pregnant and a few days overdue I bet she would be camping outside his store waiting for their release.
Normally I would not wear a black skin because putting on a skin does not bring with it the experience and culture that it projects. A white person role-playing a black person could easily transgress with inappropriate stereotypes, cultural appropriation and even blatantly racist role-playing. I think nearly all of us have seen this happening in SL with some of the “gangsta” avatars. However, I did want to highlight this fabulous skin and shot it in a few outfits inside my photosphere.
