So I write a post on being a Black woman and finding it difficult to have healthy self-esteem
and folks feel the need to jump on and add “black person” or tell me that “women in general” face shit.
NO. I meant BLACK women, specifically. Because I live in a world where
Psychology Today, a fairly well respected mental health publication, publishes a study finding Black women to be the most unattractive women on earth, and not until they received backlash from Black women, did they think the science was faulty
I live in a world where the Black First Lady of this country is constantly having her body and shape mocked, or being framed as a slave.
I live in a world, in which the best female tennis player’s body is mocked by a white woman on the tennis court and the entire audience just laughs.
I live in a world where Gabby Douglas is the first Black girl to win gold in the all-around and the media story makes it about her hair, and then turns around and blames Black women for it.
I live in a world where a white dude on tumblr feels the need to justify finding a Black woman attractive by stating he’s “not into Black girls, but she’s attractive” B/c you know, she was light skinned and curly haired enough to fit his standard of beauty.
I live in a country where Black women make up, at most like 10% of the US population, but we are constantly having articles written about us and why we are so fat. B/c it’s our fat asses that is bringing down the national economy or some shit.
I live in a world where Black men tell me the hair that grows out of my head naturally, ain’t for me.
I live in a world where a Black man can write about hating Black women, and then when Black women respond negatively, we are called angry, bitter, bitches/hoes, etc.
I live in a world where just last week a Black women wrote a post on the shit we as Black women face in relationships, and a white girl comes along an crosses out the word black, talkin’ about she “fixed” it. Erasing our unique experiences.
I live in a world where Black men will throw interracial dating, and marriage statistics in Black women’s faces in order to get us to shut up, and in the same breath claim to “love” Black women.
I live in a world, where a Black woman writes a post on mental health and a bunch of white women saviors feel the need to jump on and tell us exactly what our problem is.
I live in a world where Black daughters are left taking care of their elderly parents, financially, physically, and emotionally, but it’s the Black sons who get praised for making a god damn sandwich.
I live in a world where a Black woman makes a post about a horrific birthing experience of another Black woman, and how she would prefer a home birth, only to be called stupid and ignorant by white people, b/c we are endangering our children.
I live in a world where the face of the “welfare queen” is Black motherhood.
I live in a world where 90% of the people who will defend Black women against these constant attacks are other Black women, and we will get mansplained and whitesplained for our troubles.
So no, I absolutely did not mean “Black person” which usually translates to Black man or “women” which usually translates to “white women”
Don’t change my fucking words.
Black women who judge other women for keeping their hair natural
Black women who judge other women for relaxing their hair
Black women who judge other black black women instead of supporting each other when we’re already in a world that continually judges us because of the implications of our race and gender
daily reminder to TV writers:
- black women are not your scapegoats
- black women are not your mammies
- black women are not your chocolate divas
- black women are not your sassy accessories
- black women are not your comic relief
- black women are not your exotic temptresses
- black women are not your laughingstock
- black women are not your rhetorical tools
black women exist independently of your gaze.
Seeing Naomi Campbell As We Do Not Usually See Her
1. Seeing the darker skin at Naomi Campbell’s joints is the reason for this post.
2. Here Naomi Campbell communicates some feeling / atmosphere / affect that fabulous and fierce Naomi Campbell is not usually invited to communicate.
3. This is skin usually evened out for editorials to create smooth lengths of mahogany and ebony. Here we’re confronted by the skin’s life and history.
4. We read Wole Soyinka’s ‘Telephone Conversation’ in English Lit. The words “has turned / My bottom raven black” prompt one of my classmates to ask me if I too have a black arse, like the man in the poem.
5. Cambridge, a decent chunk of the country’s elite is at this party, on MDMA, watching interracial porn. A friend screams ‘YUCK!’, swivels her head towards me and demands to know if my labia are also black like the woman’s in the film.
6. Here, Naomi Campbell’s body is not what black women’s bodies often are in these editorial contexts. Which is:
- contrast against the white background, clothing, other model(s)
- present as shorthand for exoticism (cue animal prints) / diva status / sass
7. Naomi Campbell’s body does not tell the viewer anything at all about whiteness - which is to say, she is not an instrument
8. Naomi Campbell’s skin is not mahogany or ebony - which is to say, she is not an ornament. Here, almost pathetically human.
