As long as I live,I will never understand the level of cruelty, self hate, misogyny, various phobias( homo and others), and forgetfulness that happens in our African American Community.
Now I'm no" Pull yourself up by your bootstrap" Booker T Washingtonian republican with disdain for our people. I don't subscribe to Bill Cosby's pound cake stealing thug who should stay away from the pristine Spellman College debutantes theory. I recognize that we have never collectively recovered from slavery, Jim Crow, the murders of our leaders and warriors, or the myriad ways that White Supremacy has worked it's number on us. I even understand first hand how hard it is to escape both the ghetto and it's psychological effects on your brain. Just erasing the word Nigger from my thoughts took a mental revolution of epic proportions that didn't happen in a day or two. What I don't understand is how in this day and age I could hear the statement that I recently heard from one of my 14 year old girl drama students.
" I didn't know how Black and ugly I was until I came to this High School."
What??????
With 40 -50 years of Maya Angelou's, Essence and Ebony Magazine, Roots, Malcom, Spike Lee, The Panthers, Oprah, Toni Morrison, The Color Purple/Alice Walker, e.t.c why are we still here in 07? This is a school that exists mainly of students of color. There are no nooses connected to dubious and arbitrary prosecutions of Black children. There is not a chapter of the KKK presided over underground by the principal or the math teacher. She was not being escorted by the National Guard while the good White citizens of the town spat on her. This happened in Brooklyn ,NY. Jackie Robinson ( a dark man) led the Dodgers to the baseball promised land. Spike Lee admonished us to do the right thing. Dark Shirley Chisolm ran for President of The United States here. The community of Weeksville was built here by a Community of free Black folks who owned their own property and businesses . The most diverse grouping of African Diasporan Peoples on the planet lives here. So where in the hell did this 14 year girls tormentors get the idea that dark skinned people are ugly?
It's and old idea that has been perpetuated by both white supremacists and lighter skinned members of our race. Why won't it die? Why is it still the show stopper of insults? Why are the darkest people on the planet some of it's most oppressed?
I don't want to cast aspersion on Brooklyn as the self hate capital of the U.S. Here's another story that involves a friend of from Harlem: My friend, a well respected actress was involved as a volunteer on a trip that took a group of Black and Brown young people on a trip to perform as part of a national theatre festival. At some point during the trip a discussion took place amongst some of the girls about hair. One of the hair weaved young ladies got into a heated argument about good hair with some of the more conscious young ladies. Finally in exasperation one of the young women asked her to point out an example of good hair. Hair weaved 16 year old pointed to my regal short Afro wearing friend and said "It aint that". My friend was crushed. You see this is a person who spent time in the movement. This is a person who has dedicated all of her adult life to an aesthetic of Black Pride and upliftment through the arts. This is a person who although not a star, has major peer respect in the business. This is a person who brings quality Art In Education with an equal passion to the children. This is a person of beauty.
There are many people who feel that the ideas of the sixties and below are outdated . Many believe that "Say it Loud , I'm Black and I'm proud " belongs in the museum of quaint played out old school. But maybe those Langston Hughes Poems aren't meant for the oppressor to see our "beauty and be ashamed". Maybe we need to dig into those crates to find the beauty in ourselves. Are little black girls still reaching for that blond doll as the standard of beauty?
To fling my arms in some place of the sun
Dance whirl dance
Till the white day is done
Then rest at cool evening
A tall slim tree
While night comes on tenderly
Black
Like Me
quote from Dream Variation by Langston Hughes
With 40 -50 years of Maya Angelou's, Essence and Ebony Magazine, Roots, Malcom, Spike Lee, The Panthers, Oprah, Toni Morrison, The Color Purple/Alice Walker, e.t.c why are we still here in 07? This is a school that exists mainly of students of color. There are no nooses connected to dubious and arbitrary prosecutions of Black children. There is not a chapter of the KKK presided over underground by the principal or the math teacher. She was not being escorted by the National Guard while the good White citizens of the town spat on her. This happened in Brooklyn ,NY. Jackie Robinson ( a dark man) led the Dodgers to the baseball promised land. Spike Lee admonished us to do the right thing. Dark Shirley Chisolm ran for President of The United States here. The community of Weeksville was built here by a Community of free Black folks who owned their own property and businesses . The most diverse grouping of African Diasporan Peoples on the planet lives here. So where in the hell did this 14 year girls tormentors get the idea that dark skinned people are ugly?
It's and old idea that has been perpetuated by both white supremacists and lighter skinned members of our race. Why won't it die? Why is it still the show stopper of insults? Why are the darkest people on the planet some of it's most oppressed?
I don't want to cast aspersion on Brooklyn as the self hate capital of the U.S. Here's another story that involves a friend of from Harlem: My friend, a well respected actress was involved as a volunteer on a trip that took a group of Black and Brown young people on a trip to perform as part of a national theatre festival. At some point during the trip a discussion took place amongst some of the girls about hair. One of the hair weaved young ladies got into a heated argument about good hair with some of the more conscious young ladies. Finally in exasperation one of the young women asked her to point out an example of good hair. Hair weaved 16 year old pointed to my regal short Afro wearing friend and said "It aint that". My friend was crushed. You see this is a person who spent time in the movement. This is a person who has dedicated all of her adult life to an aesthetic of Black Pride and upliftment through the arts. This is a person who although not a star, has major peer respect in the business. This is a person who brings quality Art In Education with an equal passion to the children. This is a person of beauty.
There are many people who feel that the ideas of the sixties and below are outdated . Many believe that "Say it Loud , I'm Black and I'm proud " belongs in the museum of quaint played out old school. But maybe those Langston Hughes Poems aren't meant for the oppressor to see our "beauty and be ashamed". Maybe we need to dig into those crates to find the beauty in ourselves. Are little black girls still reaching for that blond doll as the standard of beauty?
To fling my arms in some place of the sun
Dance whirl dance
Till the white day is done
Then rest at cool evening
A tall slim tree
While night comes on tenderly
Black
Like Me
quote from Dream Variation by Langston Hughes
3 comments:
Sometimes we hate ourselves more than the opressor does. We have swallowed the white supremacist standard of beauty. Forget whatcha heard, when a black model is on the cover of a magazine it is usually their lowest selling issue - Naomi Campbell on the cover of Vogue to give an example. Our girls - and boys are sold that beauty myth pretty early, and we as a people do not do enough to destroy it. Self-love has to be taught and reinforced, our girls and women should not be basing their standard of beauty on visions of weaves and Ambi.
Did you ever read that book I told you about Black No More? You need to.
I will speak on this subject as I was once a girl who did not value my dark beauty. I don't know if you remember but when I was child I went through a phase where I only wanted white dolls. I had a really black doll and you know what I named her? Ms. Cook ad because Ms. Cook was so dark she could not come inside, she had to stay on the porch. Now I came up with the name Ms. Cook and that she was too black at an age where I don't even remember doing it. Yet still even so young it came across to me possibly through the media, that beauty was not black. Beauty to me as a little girl was Disney's Alice in Wonderland. It didn't help either that my mother was light skinned because as a child I didn't know the varying degrees of blackness and to me she was white. Even though she always told me she was black, I never believed her, she was white. What I wanted to know, was why did I not look like her, why couldn't I wear my hair down all the time, long and flowing. Even when I had a family that is very proud to be African American my vision of beauty was still skewed. Of course in time and with age I came to grow into my black beauty and now I would never wish to be white. What exactly made me come to this revelation that I being black made me beautiful, I don't know. However when I think about it, I think it is because I began to see other black girls, close to my age who embraced their blackness and who were positive and confident, successful and beautiful. I don't really know. Something I have speculated on, and I even wrote a poem about it, is the term black. Black people are not actually black, in fact most of our eyes are not black, they are dark brown and some of our hair when grown out is noticeably not black but dark brown. Black although a term we claimed, isn't in my opinion that positive. What is the opposite of black, it is white and what does white symbolize? Purity, innocence, goodness, positivity. Black symbolizes darkness, negativity, death. Black Plague anyone? We are brown, and that term isn't exclusive to Latinos. Our actual color is brown and normally I am not one to get caught up on semantics but "blackness" even though not intentionally has a negative connotation, I think subconsciously it does. No matter how much we reclaim the term, just like some people believe we have reclaimed the term nigger, it still leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
How can we make black girls feel more beautiful, I don't know. One idea is to provide them role models, but not celebrities with long weaves. Other young ladies that they can identify with, look up to, talk to and strive towards.
There also needs to be revamping of solidarity between black women. All women really, but women spend so much time wasting energy against each other because of jealousy and pettiness often because of a man that we break each other down and make ourselves feel even more ugly. Women need to stand together and quit fighting and being jealous. Very rarely is the fight actually worth it. Then again because black women do not feel beautiful and do not value themselves they set low standards when it comes to men, and therefore choose one that does not deserve them, one who will go out and fool around with other women and cause discord between them. Pitting women against each other to improve their self esteem and assert their own power. So really if we work on perpetuating the idea that beauty is diverse, unique and that being different is more beautiful than all the sameness in the world maybe we can have solidarity and comfort in our beauty and if we set high standards for ourselves then men will have to rise the occasion and follow and then utopia ;o)...
Ash
As a kindergarten teacher in the Deep South (Little Rock)I have also seen many young girls with skewed feelings about their non-processed hair. Sesame Street has recently created a song "I Love My Hair" which is just about the most adorable thing I have ever seen. I would suggest viewing it on youtube if you haven't seen it, you may have a place for it in your classroom, I think even the older girls would like it (although they may not admit it)
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