Well, I could have asked it any number of ways. I could have given it over to Sojourner, but, well, that's not who *I* am, that's who she was. I can say "Am I not a woman". Her life made that possible. Some get it, some don't. I don't have the patience to explain today.
I'm in full on writing mode. A little of this, a little of that and a whole lotta something. I'm flying on the cusp of the break out and just dotting those I's and crossing some T's.
I'm reading a few books this week. Groove by Bernice McFadden under the nic Geneva Holliday and If you come softly by Jacqueline Woodson. The latter is a book club selection that was chosen out of a debate about whether or not minorities can be racists from a message board I belong to. My opinion is simply no, they cannot, but that's another day. They can be ignorant, prejudiced and on a much smaller scale can even play a role IN racism, but they cannot be racists. Again, that's another post to explain and I'm just not in the mood to get into it. It's definitely not a topic that will get me into Real Simple, but you never know. That magazine doesn't really have Black women as a demographic and even with the small nods to diversity they use in articles about hair cuts and best friends, I just don't see their audience as having the stomach for the convo. I might be underestimating them, but I think the message boards are a microcausim of our society. A tiny little cross section of America. They weren't ready for it either. LOL!
So the books...I am having a hard time figuring out which one to concentrate on so I'm reading both at the same time."Softly" is a young reader book but it deals with Interracial love, young love rather and the many complex issues that accompany it. It was a light read to give some of the members of the board a glimpse into that reality. It wasn't my suggestion, nor my first choice, but it will definitely do. Within the first few pages, I'm already taken with the story. I will probably complete it tomorrow and then I will post more about it and Groove. Stay tuned.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Sunday, April 02, 2006
The Angry Black woman: A Myth
The Angry Black woman: A Myth
So I was just over running through the posts on the various boards and came across a post that read as follows:
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been watching many of the reality shows and have realized many of the black women on the shows have anger issues. Now is this a truth or is this just the way they are portrayed? Please, I do not want this post to have any racial connotations at all. I truly want to understand and am asking out of compassion for all woman and our issues no matter what color.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My first thought was that you don't ask a question about "Black" women, excluding all others and then qualify that by saying that you don't want it to have racial connotations, it absolutely does. However, the question remains and casting agents are looking for it...does the 'angry black woman' exist?
My first response is you damn right she does. As does they angry lesbian of any race, the angry white woman, the angry Jewish woman, the angry Italian woman and shall we not forget the Fiesty Hispanic woman. She exists because women are multi-faceted and entitled to their feelings, whether it be anger or joy or anything in between.
Is every Black woman more angry than any other woman? No, I don't think so. Do we, as Black women have cultural differences that people from other ethnicities mistake for constant anger? Without a doubt.
A few years ago there was a series of books called "Why Black men tend to shout". The premise was that cultural differences make Black men seem stereotypically more angry than any other, but in reality each person is quite individual and while speaking louder, being aware of racism and therefore sensitive to it and having it more identifiable to those that experience it more often is something that makes others believe that Blacks are just angry.
Are Gay people more sensitive to hearing slights that others perceive as just being inquisitive? If someone approaches a Lesbian or Gay man and says something like "Which one of you is the woman", it's something that has been discussed in their community. Joked about and sometimes the focus of anger at ignorance, and for this reason it doesn't come across as an honest question. It comes across as something that an ignorant, less tolerant person might say. It happens when people assume that Native Americans and the Irish are all drunks. That isn't a fact. Certainly not every Indian or Irishperson drinks at all. But people fall prey to stereotypes.
Black women, in my opinion, are the same as every other woman. We all have had our crosses to bear. We have shared most of those facing the oppression of ourselves and our sisters. The difference with Black women is that we have had to fight other stereotypes, prejudices and all out falsehoods more often for much longer than some of our peers in this country.
I believe the stereotype of the Angry Black woman came as a result of slavery. We don't commonly read about African women having a notorious anger streak. It's only in this country and others that have our same history that we find this belief. It begs the question: Where did it come from and who benefits from it?
When we ask that question, we have to go back to the origins of our country. We have to go back to a time when the wife of a plantation owner risked sharing her husband with a slave. She risked the value of her children being equated with the children of slaves and her husband. Distance had to be placed....and stereotypes ensued.
Back then, the African American woman was considered to be evil. No other word for it. A slave woman that practiced her own religion or exhibited any form of self preservation or risked her life to save her family would be labeled to keep her 'in her place' in respect to other women. Thus, a woman that went ballistic as her children were being ripped from her arms and sold to another family or whomever was the angry Black woman. Her emotions were not considered to be normal because by definition ( legal definition in this country and others) she was not even human. So how could whatever she was doing be considered normal?
Had White women of the time faced the same fears of having their families torn apart, we would have seen that women, regardless of ethinicity respond the same way when attacked or in fear of the safety of their young. I am certain that they would have been kicking and screaming to keep their family together. Then it could have been 'normal' and not just a behavior limited to Black women, the slave woman.
If we try to imagine how a woman might feel in the days and weeks after her child ( ren) were sold on an auction block out of her arms, we can imagine that she was resentful. We can assume this because we know that that African American women are the same as any other woman and that they are, indeed, human. Perhaps she was cruel to the mistress of the home, thinking that another mother would understand her pain and try to have prevented it. Perhaps she acted out in various ways to express her anger, holding back just enough to stay alive.
Now, fast forward 120 years. Aren't her children still at risk? There is a well known saying in the Black community that when a young man turns 18, he has two choices in life; jail or the military. While the opportunity has leveled out, the means to get that opportunity have not found complete and absolute equality among races.
We know that minorities are still the majority residents of impoverished neighborhoods. We know that the schools in these areas are sub par, for the most part with less access to technology, outdated materials and yes, even prejudice in the schools.
Now, there are hundreds of thousands of teachers that work in these schools because they want to see all children have opportunity and they truly want to see all of them succeed, but we cannot forget that prejudice exists everywhere and in all. For that reason, we also have to consider that some teachers and other figures of authority do not want all people to be considered equal. Even those that do would shake at the prospect of their son or daughter coming home with a mate of another race. It wasn't that long ago that these matings were illegal in this country, only 3 years before my birth.
There are also still natural predators. Oh, I know some might scoff at the mere mention of racism in the police force, but statistics are against them. National polls show that racial profiling is not on the decline. Young Blacks get a record number of non-moving violations compared to their white peers. What this means is that they are being stopped by the police until a crime is discovered, not because one has occured.
For this reason, every Black mother I have ever met has to give her children an additional set of rules, this on top of what every mother teaches their child. These rules are how to behave when stopped by a police officer to avoid being mistaken for someone else or killed. This is when a Black mother must teach her child to work hard, as every mother does, but the disclaimer is that she tells her children they must work twice as hard, for twice as long to get half as far, as this is still the society they live in. She makes sure they know that they will live under a microscope. The things they do wrong will be attached to their entire race.
This is exemplified by looking at the worst of the worst in our society, murderers. When Jeffrey Dahmer was convicted of cannibalism, murder, kidnapping, sodomy, rape and a host of other crimes, never was he linked to ALL White men. Never did people shy away from ALL white men because of this one man's actions. On the flip side, when a Black person commits a crime, it is seen as a reflection on the ENTIRE population of Blacks.
When someone crosses the street when they see a Black teenager approaching, they aren't doing so because they fear THAT individual, but because they fear the stereotype linked to that entire group of people.
Another comparison can be seen in the Mother killers, which have been overwhelming White. Susan Smith and Andrea Yates were never seen a a reflection of all White mothers. They were seen as anomalies, crazies that were a departure from the norm. On a smaller scale, one looks at Omarosa from Survivor and Coral from Real World and they are free to link their behavior to all Black women and label them the "Angry Black Woman.
While Black women do on a large scale carry what I consider to be a heavy load with the responsibility for their children and themselves, White women carry the same load. The only difference is the fear from prejudice. Any woman with any shred of tact and decency does not go off on a stranger for no reason. There is no study to say that any one ethnic group of women does this more than another. With reality tv, we have to understand that this is for entertainment and is exploitive to all women to label them this way.
Omarosa was not cast just because she was qualified for the show, but also because she was a Black woman and also because she had a propensity towards exhibited confrontation. Many of these reality tv shows use the Myers Briggs test and other psychological evaluation to cast their shows. In doing this, it is easy to find polar opposites and place them together in circumstances that are bound to erupt. It is purposeful and it is targeted and it is something that all of us should say NO! to.
When we see a tv show that depicts a stereotypical Gay man exhibiting all of the negative and false behaviors linked to them through ignorance, we have to ask ourselves if that is truly that person or if the Executive Producer is trying to spark up their ratings. We have to ask ourselves if we would respond the same way in that circumstance. We have to ask ourselves if we are being manipulated into believing false stereotypes and sometimes, we have to turn off the television and stop supporting the exploitation of our fellow man/woman.
Just another long thought from Dyna....
So I was just over running through the posts on the various boards and came across a post that read as follows:
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been watching many of the reality shows and have realized many of the black women on the shows have anger issues. Now is this a truth or is this just the way they are portrayed? Please, I do not want this post to have any racial connotations at all. I truly want to understand and am asking out of compassion for all woman and our issues no matter what color.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My first thought was that you don't ask a question about "Black" women, excluding all others and then qualify that by saying that you don't want it to have racial connotations, it absolutely does. However, the question remains and casting agents are looking for it...does the 'angry black woman' exist?
My first response is you damn right she does. As does they angry lesbian of any race, the angry white woman, the angry Jewish woman, the angry Italian woman and shall we not forget the Fiesty Hispanic woman. She exists because women are multi-faceted and entitled to their feelings, whether it be anger or joy or anything in between.
Is every Black woman more angry than any other woman? No, I don't think so. Do we, as Black women have cultural differences that people from other ethnicities mistake for constant anger? Without a doubt.
A few years ago there was a series of books called "Why Black men tend to shout". The premise was that cultural differences make Black men seem stereotypically more angry than any other, but in reality each person is quite individual and while speaking louder, being aware of racism and therefore sensitive to it and having it more identifiable to those that experience it more often is something that makes others believe that Blacks are just angry.
Are Gay people more sensitive to hearing slights that others perceive as just being inquisitive? If someone approaches a Lesbian or Gay man and says something like "Which one of you is the woman", it's something that has been discussed in their community. Joked about and sometimes the focus of anger at ignorance, and for this reason it doesn't come across as an honest question. It comes across as something that an ignorant, less tolerant person might say. It happens when people assume that Native Americans and the Irish are all drunks. That isn't a fact. Certainly not every Indian or Irishperson drinks at all. But people fall prey to stereotypes.
Black women, in my opinion, are the same as every other woman. We all have had our crosses to bear. We have shared most of those facing the oppression of ourselves and our sisters. The difference with Black women is that we have had to fight other stereotypes, prejudices and all out falsehoods more often for much longer than some of our peers in this country.
I believe the stereotype of the Angry Black woman came as a result of slavery. We don't commonly read about African women having a notorious anger streak. It's only in this country and others that have our same history that we find this belief. It begs the question: Where did it come from and who benefits from it?
When we ask that question, we have to go back to the origins of our country. We have to go back to a time when the wife of a plantation owner risked sharing her husband with a slave. She risked the value of her children being equated with the children of slaves and her husband. Distance had to be placed....and stereotypes ensued.
Back then, the African American woman was considered to be evil. No other word for it. A slave woman that practiced her own religion or exhibited any form of self preservation or risked her life to save her family would be labeled to keep her 'in her place' in respect to other women. Thus, a woman that went ballistic as her children were being ripped from her arms and sold to another family or whomever was the angry Black woman. Her emotions were not considered to be normal because by definition ( legal definition in this country and others) she was not even human. So how could whatever she was doing be considered normal?
Had White women of the time faced the same fears of having their families torn apart, we would have seen that women, regardless of ethinicity respond the same way when attacked or in fear of the safety of their young. I am certain that they would have been kicking and screaming to keep their family together. Then it could have been 'normal' and not just a behavior limited to Black women, the slave woman.
If we try to imagine how a woman might feel in the days and weeks after her child ( ren) were sold on an auction block out of her arms, we can imagine that she was resentful. We can assume this because we know that that African American women are the same as any other woman and that they are, indeed, human. Perhaps she was cruel to the mistress of the home, thinking that another mother would understand her pain and try to have prevented it. Perhaps she acted out in various ways to express her anger, holding back just enough to stay alive.
Now, fast forward 120 years. Aren't her children still at risk? There is a well known saying in the Black community that when a young man turns 18, he has two choices in life; jail or the military. While the opportunity has leveled out, the means to get that opportunity have not found complete and absolute equality among races.
We know that minorities are still the majority residents of impoverished neighborhoods. We know that the schools in these areas are sub par, for the most part with less access to technology, outdated materials and yes, even prejudice in the schools.
Now, there are hundreds of thousands of teachers that work in these schools because they want to see all children have opportunity and they truly want to see all of them succeed, but we cannot forget that prejudice exists everywhere and in all. For that reason, we also have to consider that some teachers and other figures of authority do not want all people to be considered equal. Even those that do would shake at the prospect of their son or daughter coming home with a mate of another race. It wasn't that long ago that these matings were illegal in this country, only 3 years before my birth.
There are also still natural predators. Oh, I know some might scoff at the mere mention of racism in the police force, but statistics are against them. National polls show that racial profiling is not on the decline. Young Blacks get a record number of non-moving violations compared to their white peers. What this means is that they are being stopped by the police until a crime is discovered, not because one has occured.
For this reason, every Black mother I have ever met has to give her children an additional set of rules, this on top of what every mother teaches their child. These rules are how to behave when stopped by a police officer to avoid being mistaken for someone else or killed. This is when a Black mother must teach her child to work hard, as every mother does, but the disclaimer is that she tells her children they must work twice as hard, for twice as long to get half as far, as this is still the society they live in. She makes sure they know that they will live under a microscope. The things they do wrong will be attached to their entire race.
This is exemplified by looking at the worst of the worst in our society, murderers. When Jeffrey Dahmer was convicted of cannibalism, murder, kidnapping, sodomy, rape and a host of other crimes, never was he linked to ALL White men. Never did people shy away from ALL white men because of this one man's actions. On the flip side, when a Black person commits a crime, it is seen as a reflection on the ENTIRE population of Blacks.
When someone crosses the street when they see a Black teenager approaching, they aren't doing so because they fear THAT individual, but because they fear the stereotype linked to that entire group of people.
Another comparison can be seen in the Mother killers, which have been overwhelming White. Susan Smith and Andrea Yates were never seen a a reflection of all White mothers. They were seen as anomalies, crazies that were a departure from the norm. On a smaller scale, one looks at Omarosa from Survivor and Coral from Real World and they are free to link their behavior to all Black women and label them the "Angry Black Woman.
While Black women do on a large scale carry what I consider to be a heavy load with the responsibility for their children and themselves, White women carry the same load. The only difference is the fear from prejudice. Any woman with any shred of tact and decency does not go off on a stranger for no reason. There is no study to say that any one ethnic group of women does this more than another. With reality tv, we have to understand that this is for entertainment and is exploitive to all women to label them this way.
Omarosa was not cast just because she was qualified for the show, but also because she was a Black woman and also because she had a propensity towards exhibited confrontation. Many of these reality tv shows use the Myers Briggs test and other psychological evaluation to cast their shows. In doing this, it is easy to find polar opposites and place them together in circumstances that are bound to erupt. It is purposeful and it is targeted and it is something that all of us should say NO! to.
When we see a tv show that depicts a stereotypical Gay man exhibiting all of the negative and false behaviors linked to them through ignorance, we have to ask ourselves if that is truly that person or if the Executive Producer is trying to spark up their ratings. We have to ask ourselves if we would respond the same way in that circumstance. We have to ask ourselves if we are being manipulated into believing false stereotypes and sometimes, we have to turn off the television and stop supporting the exploitation of our fellow man/woman.
Just another long thought from Dyna....
Who's to say if someone is Black or White or PURPLE??
Who's to say if someone is Black or White or PURPLE??
There is a woman on a show that I watch that is Biracial. A trip to the message boards about the show reveals how much hatred and bigotry is still running rampant in this country. One of the topics led me to ponder how Biracial Americans view themselves and define their cultural identity.
The first issue that focused on her was the question of "What is she"? I think the posters are looking for her racial identity. WHen I hear this, I'm divided on the subject. My first instinct is to think we should live in a world where it doesn't matter. But, I know that it does. Then I wonder if people mean, is she black or white. Well, she is both.
Regardless of how she identifies herself, she is Biracial, part White and part African American. I don't even like saying that because both of those halves are made up of likely many ethnicities. She could be a bit Greek and a bit German or some Irish or some Native American. We are more than those labels.
It seems that there is some truth to the thought that Biracial people walk a thin line between both Blacks and Whites, but I think they fit in both and on their own as multiracial people. Whereas, I have witnessed for myself the pressure that African Americans place on Biracial people to identify themselves as being African American, I rarely have seen Whites look at someone like Halle Berry and ask, "Why doesn't she say she is White"?
However, when Mariah Carey came out with her first record, most African Americans ( as written in articles and discussed widely after an appearance on the SOul Train Music awards) knew that she was at least part African American and thought she was distancing herself by not saying that she was Black. Was she? Shouldn't she be able to be Biracial and call it a day?
The One drop rule in this country says that she cannot. With one drop of African American blood in her veins, she is Black. What I don't understand is why the reverse isn't true. If someone has one drop of White Blood in them, why aren't they to be considered White?
Just things that make me go hmmmmmmm....
There is a woman on a show that I watch that is Biracial. A trip to the message boards about the show reveals how much hatred and bigotry is still running rampant in this country. One of the topics led me to ponder how Biracial Americans view themselves and define their cultural identity.
The first issue that focused on her was the question of "What is she"? I think the posters are looking for her racial identity. WHen I hear this, I'm divided on the subject. My first instinct is to think we should live in a world where it doesn't matter. But, I know that it does. Then I wonder if people mean, is she black or white. Well, she is both.
Regardless of how she identifies herself, she is Biracial, part White and part African American. I don't even like saying that because both of those halves are made up of likely many ethnicities. She could be a bit Greek and a bit German or some Irish or some Native American. We are more than those labels.
It seems that there is some truth to the thought that Biracial people walk a thin line between both Blacks and Whites, but I think they fit in both and on their own as multiracial people. Whereas, I have witnessed for myself the pressure that African Americans place on Biracial people to identify themselves as being African American, I rarely have seen Whites look at someone like Halle Berry and ask, "Why doesn't she say she is White"?
However, when Mariah Carey came out with her first record, most African Americans ( as written in articles and discussed widely after an appearance on the SOul Train Music awards) knew that she was at least part African American and thought she was distancing herself by not saying that she was Black. Was she? Shouldn't she be able to be Biracial and call it a day?
The One drop rule in this country says that she cannot. With one drop of African American blood in her veins, she is Black. What I don't understand is why the reverse isn't true. If someone has one drop of White Blood in them, why aren't they to be considered White?
Just things that make me go hmmmmmmm....
Read Child of God, by Lolita Files
I just finished reading Child of God, by Lolita Files and it was a great read. It kept me turning pages deep into the night until I had completed it in its entirity. I really enjoyed the flow of the book. I just cannot believe it took me this long to hear about this writer. This is her 5th or 6th book. Previous works include, 'Tastes like Chicken',
I do not think that anyone but Shakespeare could pull off a story with this much of the drama; incest, rape, murder, abuse, homosexuality, and intrigue, but Ms. Files gives it a try with this tale. It was seamless. Relative to Shakespeare, there is more than just a bit of similarity. Files even throws in a Hamlet and an Ophelia for effect.
The cast of characters in the Boten family is a bunch of mixed nuts. There is the crazy aunt from Louisiana, of course--aren't we all Voodoo princesses with snakes on our necks!-- that casts spells and curses on members of the family. There is a brother and sister that don't seem to know wrong from right and it almost hurts you to want to tell them the truth because Files has made them so endearing to the reader. There is pain and there is tragedy, but I think you leave the tale more compassionate than when you started. One can never just look at a person and know their story. If you look to deeply, you might be surprised by what you find.
Debating about starting the Sister Souljah book, 'The Coldest Winter Ever', tonight. I have never read any of her books, but I did catch a clip of Jada Pinkett Smith recommending this particular novel. Now, the Sister Souljah I remember was a militant from the late 80's that was a frequent Geraldo guest on the shows with the Klan. You remember, when the chairs would get tossed across the room Pre-Springer. I don't actually recall if she was in anyone of those battles, but it was the era just the same. Talk show hosts were never able to wrap their mouths around her name and purposefully/mistakenly called her "Sista Soldier".
Now she did fit the description if I recall. I don't remember everything about her, but I do remember boots and leather. I think I was sportin' biker shorts and neon sweaters at the time, though. It was "Ain't too proud to beg" in those days...but believe me, I was far too proud. Still am. What I do remember is that she had the most perfect set of lips I had ever seen. They were full and round, pouty and proud at the same time. Hmm, was that when we lined our lips with black liner??? Did she ever do that? Uggh, did I?
Her topics back then centered on Black empowerment and I wasn't really ready to hear all that. I spent my youth listening to my father's lectures. I knew all I needed to know about Black empowerment...or so I thought until I took my first Black History course in college, back in 1992. When I got my first essay back, I remember being so pissed at myself and the instructor. How does a Black woman get a B on an essay on the Civil Rights movement? I still think he was just pissed because I was down on the people that led the movement, thinking they fell apart in the 80's and 90's. Alas, there was Sister Souljah, bringing it back to the forefront.
I wasn't listening though. What I was listening to was Prince, because I lived somewhere between Paisley Park and Glam Slam back then, rarely seeing my own apartment. I used to bring my clothes for the club to work with me and dress in the bathroom after my shift at the Record Shop and do my make up on the way to the club. Always arriving fashionably late, but fashionable just the same. I would stay out until the club closed, head to Paisley for the after party and make it home when the sun came up, just in time to catch a cat nap before I had to be at the Jewelry store, or shoe store or card shop...whichever it was that was filling the time until I went back to the Record Shop.
I was still coming down from the California move with my girls where we were just into peace, love and happiness. This story will have to wait for the memoir, which is nearly completed. All this is reminding me of the sounds of the day, though.
Music to drive across the country to:
1) Sisters of Mercy-This Corrosion
2) Violent Femmes-Blister in the Sun
3) Bob Marley-All of the Legend album
4) The Doors-Entire collection, especially Break On thru which is what was playing when we arrived in L.A.
5) De La Soul- Me, Myself and I
6) Maxi Priest- Close to you ( OOOH how I loved that man-wonder what he looks like today)
7) Wilson Philips/EnVouge- Hold On ( completely different songs)
8) Pop will eat itself and S'Express from the Club mixes
9) The Cure- Entire collection
10) Prince- Entire collection
Ahh, the days of wild!
I do not think that anyone but Shakespeare could pull off a story with this much of the drama; incest, rape, murder, abuse, homosexuality, and intrigue, but Ms. Files gives it a try with this tale. It was seamless. Relative to Shakespeare, there is more than just a bit of similarity. Files even throws in a Hamlet and an Ophelia for effect.
The cast of characters in the Boten family is a bunch of mixed nuts. There is the crazy aunt from Louisiana, of course--aren't we all Voodoo princesses with snakes on our necks!-- that casts spells and curses on members of the family. There is a brother and sister that don't seem to know wrong from right and it almost hurts you to want to tell them the truth because Files has made them so endearing to the reader. There is pain and there is tragedy, but I think you leave the tale more compassionate than when you started. One can never just look at a person and know their story. If you look to deeply, you might be surprised by what you find.
Debating about starting the Sister Souljah book, 'The Coldest Winter Ever', tonight. I have never read any of her books, but I did catch a clip of Jada Pinkett Smith recommending this particular novel. Now, the Sister Souljah I remember was a militant from the late 80's that was a frequent Geraldo guest on the shows with the Klan. You remember, when the chairs would get tossed across the room Pre-Springer. I don't actually recall if she was in anyone of those battles, but it was the era just the same. Talk show hosts were never able to wrap their mouths around her name and purposefully/mistakenly called her "Sista Soldier".
Now she did fit the description if I recall. I don't remember everything about her, but I do remember boots and leather. I think I was sportin' biker shorts and neon sweaters at the time, though. It was "Ain't too proud to beg" in those days...but believe me, I was far too proud. Still am. What I do remember is that she had the most perfect set of lips I had ever seen. They were full and round, pouty and proud at the same time. Hmm, was that when we lined our lips with black liner??? Did she ever do that? Uggh, did I?
Her topics back then centered on Black empowerment and I wasn't really ready to hear all that. I spent my youth listening to my father's lectures. I knew all I needed to know about Black empowerment...or so I thought until I took my first Black History course in college, back in 1992. When I got my first essay back, I remember being so pissed at myself and the instructor. How does a Black woman get a B on an essay on the Civil Rights movement? I still think he was just pissed because I was down on the people that led the movement, thinking they fell apart in the 80's and 90's. Alas, there was Sister Souljah, bringing it back to the forefront.
I wasn't listening though. What I was listening to was Prince, because I lived somewhere between Paisley Park and Glam Slam back then, rarely seeing my own apartment. I used to bring my clothes for the club to work with me and dress in the bathroom after my shift at the Record Shop and do my make up on the way to the club. Always arriving fashionably late, but fashionable just the same. I would stay out until the club closed, head to Paisley for the after party and make it home when the sun came up, just in time to catch a cat nap before I had to be at the Jewelry store, or shoe store or card shop...whichever it was that was filling the time until I went back to the Record Shop.
I was still coming down from the California move with my girls where we were just into peace, love and happiness. This story will have to wait for the memoir, which is nearly completed. All this is reminding me of the sounds of the day, though.
Music to drive across the country to:
1) Sisters of Mercy-This Corrosion
2) Violent Femmes-Blister in the Sun
3) Bob Marley-All of the Legend album
4) The Doors-Entire collection, especially Break On thru which is what was playing when we arrived in L.A.
5) De La Soul- Me, Myself and I
6) Maxi Priest- Close to you ( OOOH how I loved that man-wonder what he looks like today)
7) Wilson Philips/EnVouge- Hold On ( completely different songs)
8) Pop will eat itself and S'Express from the Club mixes
9) The Cure- Entire collection
10) Prince- Entire collection
Ahh, the days of wild!
Blue Contacts
Some essential truths; women like to look good. Women like to try new things. Women like accessories. I’m a typical woman and I like looking good, trying new things and I love accessories. If it hits the cover of a magazine, and I find it appealing and fitting for me, I’m going to run out to eBay ( because I’m cost conscious) and find it. There is one thing that has alluded me since I was a Tween though; colored contacts.
When I was in my early 20s, everyone had a pair. I used to hang out in the clubs and we did trends. It was important to have style, your own style and to look FABULOUS! Part of that fabulous at the time was having colored contacts. Everyone did it. Celebs, Moms and Pops, and the girls in the clubs had a set for every day of the week. Hazel, Blue, Green, Brown, dark brown, we changed our allure with the wink of an eye.
But there was on thing holding me back then, money. I didn’t have a lot of it and what I did have was spent on buying new outfits to wear to the club each night. Mind you, there was rent to be paid, but lucky me, my parents helped out a lot. I was in school and I was spoiled as all hell so the rent got paid…most of the time anyway.
Fast forward 15 years, I’m 35 years old and people are still wearing colored contacts. They’ve expanded the line and you can have purple eyes if you want. You can buy the cat’s eye that Michael Jackson wore in the Thriller video. No one is going to speak to you, but you can buy them at will. However, I can’t and the reason is complex and maybe even self imposed.
You see, I’m a black woman. I’m a Black woman married to a White man. There are enough connotations to that and I deal with enough judgements and stereotypes that I don’t often just walk right into one only to be peeled apart layer for layer because of it and just the act of buying a set of colored contacts would do that.
I fear the reaction from Sistas, to be honest with you. Because of my skin tone, the accent I have ( that it totally a product of my education and environment in a Midwestern state and has little or nothing to do with ethnicity), and the fact that I’m in an interracial marriage, I think the appearance of colored contacts would look as if I’m trading in my blackness. Sounds like a lot for a colored contact to do, but it’s how I feel.
We all judge each other. We can pretend to be perfect and pretend that we actually measure people by the content of their character, but the truth is that you do look at people and your brain—whether you are party to it or not—does make decisions for you based on how people look. You can look at someone and your instinct will tell you whether or not you should trust them let alone speak to them. Your instinct is set into motion by your brain sizing up that person’s appearance.
I admit that when I see Tyra Banks, who I adore, with her blonde weave and colored contacts, I tsk and bristle at the root behind that look. Tyra has admitted that to be successful in her industry, many times she had to appeal to White/Majority senses. The Blonde haired, blue eyed, well shaped woman is at the top of the visual appeal totem pole for all intents and purposes. We can dismiss that all we want, but magazine sales and box office returns tell us differently. Blondes have more fun, they say. Ditsy or not, Pamela Anderson, Marilyn Monroe and all the other “bombshells” appealed to America’s ideal of beauty.
It’s not my ideal. I happen to find beauty in every woman. I think hips add character. I think a roll or two after childbirth is a battle wound that I’m proud to have. It gives you membership to a club of millions to not fit into a size 2 and the size 14s on the other side are very welcoming. But make no mistake, there is a standard and it’s not typically ethnic and it’s not typically any dress size in double digits.
So already, I’m against the grain of the Majority beauty standards. Where I do fit is within my own community. Being overweight isn’t a cause for ridicule. Well, it is and we tease each other plenty, but that’s in the family jokes. In the Black community, it’s well known and well documented that our teens don’t face the same issues of appearance that White/Majority teens experience. We don’t have the same rates of eating disorders. Where I see my overweight Caucasian friends fearing they will never find a life partner because of their size, my Sistas don’t feel that weight will prevent them from finding love. For them, it’s that someone will love ALL of them, including the rolls and cellulite, which by the way I’m not sure if that’s a problem for most of us or if that’s just a White thang. For the same reason that little moles on your face as you age isn’t a problem for Whites as it is for Black women, there are some differences in our ethnic make up.
But back to the original issue…from the time I was a child up to today, I’ve felt very much as if I was straddling two different worlds, one black and one white. Certain attributes of mine put me apart from both worlds. My interests, my diction, my culture and most importantly my choices in mate are all viewed and judged by both worlds. If I were to run out and get Blue contacts, I think my sistas would view me as a Black woman that doesn’t want to be black. Maybe if I went natural with my hair I could make the contacts work.
All of this is far too much thinking about what others think and as Oscar Wilde once wrote, “You’ll think a lot less of what people think of you when you realize how seldom they do”. The truth is that people might not even notice the change in my eye color and others simply won’t care. It’s not them I’m worried about because as grown as I am and as self assured as I am, I want to be accepted and I want to be liked. I admit it.
I don’t want to put distance between myself and my Sistas because we are one and we are far more united than what I see amongst Majority women. When we show up in a meeting at work and there is another Sista there, there is a nod (The Nod, to be written about later, stay tuned) and a look that we give each other that says so many things but most importantly it says “Thank God you’re here. I know what you’ve been through to get here, girl. I got your back”. I don’t want to lose that from a first impression.
So to me, it’s about way more than just appearances. Putting on a set of contacts is something that makes me feel like I AM turning my back away from my culture and away from the perfection that God has already made and thus approved of. Who am I to mess with God?
When I was in my early 20s, everyone had a pair. I used to hang out in the clubs and we did trends. It was important to have style, your own style and to look FABULOUS! Part of that fabulous at the time was having colored contacts. Everyone did it. Celebs, Moms and Pops, and the girls in the clubs had a set for every day of the week. Hazel, Blue, Green, Brown, dark brown, we changed our allure with the wink of an eye.
But there was on thing holding me back then, money. I didn’t have a lot of it and what I did have was spent on buying new outfits to wear to the club each night. Mind you, there was rent to be paid, but lucky me, my parents helped out a lot. I was in school and I was spoiled as all hell so the rent got paid…most of the time anyway.
Fast forward 15 years, I’m 35 years old and people are still wearing colored contacts. They’ve expanded the line and you can have purple eyes if you want. You can buy the cat’s eye that Michael Jackson wore in the Thriller video. No one is going to speak to you, but you can buy them at will. However, I can’t and the reason is complex and maybe even self imposed.
You see, I’m a black woman. I’m a Black woman married to a White man. There are enough connotations to that and I deal with enough judgements and stereotypes that I don’t often just walk right into one only to be peeled apart layer for layer because of it and just the act of buying a set of colored contacts would do that.
I fear the reaction from Sistas, to be honest with you. Because of my skin tone, the accent I have ( that it totally a product of my education and environment in a Midwestern state and has little or nothing to do with ethnicity), and the fact that I’m in an interracial marriage, I think the appearance of colored contacts would look as if I’m trading in my blackness. Sounds like a lot for a colored contact to do, but it’s how I feel.
We all judge each other. We can pretend to be perfect and pretend that we actually measure people by the content of their character, but the truth is that you do look at people and your brain—whether you are party to it or not—does make decisions for you based on how people look. You can look at someone and your instinct will tell you whether or not you should trust them let alone speak to them. Your instinct is set into motion by your brain sizing up that person’s appearance.
I admit that when I see Tyra Banks, who I adore, with her blonde weave and colored contacts, I tsk and bristle at the root behind that look. Tyra has admitted that to be successful in her industry, many times she had to appeal to White/Majority senses. The Blonde haired, blue eyed, well shaped woman is at the top of the visual appeal totem pole for all intents and purposes. We can dismiss that all we want, but magazine sales and box office returns tell us differently. Blondes have more fun, they say. Ditsy or not, Pamela Anderson, Marilyn Monroe and all the other “bombshells” appealed to America’s ideal of beauty.
It’s not my ideal. I happen to find beauty in every woman. I think hips add character. I think a roll or two after childbirth is a battle wound that I’m proud to have. It gives you membership to a club of millions to not fit into a size 2 and the size 14s on the other side are very welcoming. But make no mistake, there is a standard and it’s not typically ethnic and it’s not typically any dress size in double digits.
So already, I’m against the grain of the Majority beauty standards. Where I do fit is within my own community. Being overweight isn’t a cause for ridicule. Well, it is and we tease each other plenty, but that’s in the family jokes. In the Black community, it’s well known and well documented that our teens don’t face the same issues of appearance that White/Majority teens experience. We don’t have the same rates of eating disorders. Where I see my overweight Caucasian friends fearing they will never find a life partner because of their size, my Sistas don’t feel that weight will prevent them from finding love. For them, it’s that someone will love ALL of them, including the rolls and cellulite, which by the way I’m not sure if that’s a problem for most of us or if that’s just a White thang. For the same reason that little moles on your face as you age isn’t a problem for Whites as it is for Black women, there are some differences in our ethnic make up.
But back to the original issue…from the time I was a child up to today, I’ve felt very much as if I was straddling two different worlds, one black and one white. Certain attributes of mine put me apart from both worlds. My interests, my diction, my culture and most importantly my choices in mate are all viewed and judged by both worlds. If I were to run out and get Blue contacts, I think my sistas would view me as a Black woman that doesn’t want to be black. Maybe if I went natural with my hair I could make the contacts work.
All of this is far too much thinking about what others think and as Oscar Wilde once wrote, “You’ll think a lot less of what people think of you when you realize how seldom they do”. The truth is that people might not even notice the change in my eye color and others simply won’t care. It’s not them I’m worried about because as grown as I am and as self assured as I am, I want to be accepted and I want to be liked. I admit it.
I don’t want to put distance between myself and my Sistas because we are one and we are far more united than what I see amongst Majority women. When we show up in a meeting at work and there is another Sista there, there is a nod (The Nod, to be written about later, stay tuned) and a look that we give each other that says so many things but most importantly it says “Thank God you’re here. I know what you’ve been through to get here, girl. I got your back”. I don’t want to lose that from a first impression.
So to me, it’s about way more than just appearances. Putting on a set of contacts is something that makes me feel like I AM turning my back away from my culture and away from the perfection that God has already made and thus approved of. Who am I to mess with God?
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