Wishing everyone Merry Xmas
Standard of beauty Part 2 May 7, 2007
Recently, I watched the documentary A Girl like Me by Kiri Davis. This is an amazing video about the standards of beauty which discusses light skin vs. dark skin. One of the interesting bits of the video was the doll demonstration with the kids in which the black kids were to choose what doll they preferred between the black and white dolls. Most of the kids choose the white doll as the prettier doll and the black doll as the bad one. They were asked why the black doll was the bad doll and the little girl replied because it’s black.
That moment was a breaking point for me which made me cry. I cried because it was so sad that a little black girl will pick a doll which looks like her and believe that it is bad just because it is black. I also cried because I remember when I was a child, my mother bought a black doll for me. I disliked it so much. I broke its legs and pulled the hair out. I cried because I wonder how come as a child I felt that way. What made me hate something so much that looked liked me? Why do some black kids at a young age feel inferior and hate things that look just like them? Why do they feel that the black doll is bad just because it is black? This breaks my heart so much.
I spoke to a friend about this, she told me she believes one of the reasons (more…)
Denigration of Black women in rap videos May 7, 2007
Lately, there has been so much news about the battle against rap music/ lyrics. Since the Don Imus incident, when he referred to the Rutgers female basketball athletes as “nappy headed hoes”. A lot of people have blamed Rap musicians to contributing to this negative portrayal of black women in videos. In most rap music videos the portrayal of women is very demeaning; the women wear almost nothing as the musician objectifies them. Even in the rap lyrics the words in which the women are described are words such as bitch, ass, nigger, it, thing. These words are degrading to women and shouldn’t be allowed. These words encourage people like Imus by reducing the value of women and influencing the younger generation to perceive women as such. No one is saying the musicians should be held responsible for Don Imus’ ignorant and racist comments but they play a vital role.
Recently, I watched the Oprah town meeting program. A lot of people commented that that some of the blame rests on the music industry particularly producers and executives. If the producers are able to restrict the content of musician’s lyrics then the root of the problem could be resolved. However, most musicians argue that this restriction would be a violation of their freedom of expression. Nevertheless, this so called freedom comes at an expense to the respect to women in the society. The abuse and disrespect of women must stop.
There are little boys calling girls bitches and asses. This is not what needs to be taught to our future generation. They need to be taught how to respect women. If we don’t we would have incidents like Don Imus happen again.
Please, we cry out to the music executives and musicians to not make an extra buck at the expense of the honor and pride of their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.
Standards of beauty May 7, 2007
Beauty!! Beauty!! A question I always wondered was what is beauty, how is it measured? When I was younger, I had a very weird and interesting conversation with my father about the difference between someone who is beautiful, cute, pretty or handsome. I wish I had listened to what he said that day. However, I have always wondered, on what conditions and measurement where his definitions on.
Growing up as a young girl in Nigeria, I was darker in complexion compared to my other friends. I always wondered why I was so dark. I knew I was beautiful but secretly wished to be lighter in complexion. I knew a lot of people in Nigeria who bleached their skin so they could be fairer. I wondered what was it about being black that made us question and dislike our skin and want to be something else.
After I moved to America, my awareness of my skin color was heightened. I had discussions with friend about skin tones. Most of my friends said in general most black guys dated white girls, and the guys who dated black girls mostly dated the light skinned girls. Why the preference to white and light skinned?
I believe most of the reason for the preference of lighted skinned or white lies in the colonial oppression and slavery. Black people have been made to believe that aren’t beautiful enough. They have been told they look like apes and are inferior mentally and physically. The message during the colonial period (more…)
Hello world! March 30, 2007
Welcome to my blog Race and Gender. I invite everyone to join me in this beautiful journey of exploration of ideas.
