Ladies, you know how we do it: Before we leave each day, we do a once-over in the mirror to make sure that there are no lipstick smudges, that our ‘do’s are in place and that there’s no toilet paper stuck to our shoes.

These days, however, I’m about to start feeling my back for darts and a bull’s-eye. In the two years since our nation has had its first African-American first lady, there have been a flurry of reports, under the guise of being “informative,” that insult or ridicule African-American women.

First came news reports and countless magazine articles about “the plight of the single black female” — examining the societal implications of our so-called “adversarial” relationships with black men — as if we were a fascinating new species. (So, no other women ever find themselves single, right? Who is joining all those dating sites?)

Next came the 2009 documentary Good Hair, which revealed the lifelong battle that many sisters have with hair texture and an overriding need to rock those silky-straight Eurocentric hairstyles. Women of every ethnicity have spent time in the beauty shop, but a recent Atlanta Post headline practically shouted that African-Americans spend half a trillion dollars a year on hairstyling and products alone.

The last time I checked, J-Lo’s been camouflaging gray hair since her 20s, and the late actress and beauty icon Farrah Fawcett reportedly maintained a weave during her Charlie’s Angels heyday.

But the most outrageous attack of all came in a recent blog post on Psychology Today’s website stating that black women are inherently uglier than women of other races.

OK, the author wasn’t that blunt, but he came pretty close: Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, used data from an organization called Add Health that compiled lifestyle survey answers from thousands of students more than a decade ago.

Instead of studying the origins of each response, this “genius” examined how other researchers rated the appearances of the survey takers and concluded that black women are hypermasculine(!). Seriously.

As he so ignorantly asserted, “Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races. … Men with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive. The race difference in the level of testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less physically attractive than women of other races.”

So basically, the youth of the respondents and the prevalence of Eurocentric beauty standards — created by an imperialist, slave-driven culture that’s denigrated blacks for centuries — had nothing to do with any of the answers, right?

And even though many nonblack women pay top dollar to acquire the features that we’re naturally endowed with — full lips, bountiful backsides and a year-round tan — we are the least desirable of all?

Psychology Today, which did not commission Kanazawa’s post, quickly removed the article from its site and issued a formal apology earlier this week. But if this continuing type of context-free, race-driven media pile-on — The World vs. Those Oddball Blacks — is acceptable now, during what many believe to be a “postracial” time in history, what does this mean for black women who happen not to be Michelle Obama and little black girls not named Sasha or Malia?

Is it still believed that everyone must appear the same to be acceptable? Or can we truly embrace diversity and appreciate one another’s origins and idiosyncrasies?

I certainly hope we can, because as an African-American, I want me and my children to be able to navigate the world on our own merits — and not be picked apart by dubious “studies” or bigoted pseudoscience that’s as useless and obnoxious as unsightly toilet paper stuck on one’s shoe.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/local-voices/headlines/20110603-lorrie-irby-jackson-of-garland-double-standard-for-black-women-is-the-ugly-truth.ece