Solange's Influence On Women

What does it mean to you to be a black girl? If you aren’t one, what do you see when you visualize a black girl? If your imagination limits you to just an afro-centric featured, loud and slang-loving, uneducated woman, then this piece is addressed to you. The persistence of the stereotypes concerning average black girls have chained us all to the earlier listed attributes. One side effect of this dangerous connection is the wide opening for a new form of discrimination it creates. Whether it is depicted through slave owners allocating the preferable duties to lighter-skinned black woman, or in modern times where a dislike in rap music categorizes you as not really black, segregation within black communities occur. Tracing all the way back to elementary school, my education on the subject of racial segregation has been constricted to just the injustices routed by dissimilarities between racial groups. What failed to be discussed was the intragroup discrimination occurring in the black society from both outside observers and inside members. Unfortunately, our differences in the level of education, in physical appearance, and in our social factors such as our behaviour, personality or what we believe in have been pitted against each other to deny the variety of unique identities that we as black individuals carry.

W.E.B. Du Bois has contributed greatly to contemporary sociological thinking because he began a conversation of what it means to be “other” in this American Society. In his conversation of what it means to be other he constructed and included three major concepts that continue to resonate till this day. His concepts include “the color-line”, “the veil”, and the “double consciousness” (Appelrouth and Edles, 269). Together, these concepts not only described past experiences of blacks in American society (e.g., slavery) but also continue to remind us that the relation of whites and people of color remains complex. In Du Bois’s own words, “the Nation has not yet found peace from its sins” (273).

With these mediums of oppression, her first theory, referred to as the Matrix of Domination is brought up. Previous models of oppression were considered additive, or hierarchal, meaning that they must be ranked. Collins uses the experiences of black women to explain that all these modes of oppression, gender, race and class are interlocking and equally important when viewing domination. This bleeds mores into Part II, but the essentials are discussed in this section.

Although the text, Women: Images and Realities a Multicultural Anthology, has done a wonderful job of showcasing the diversity of women’s experiences, I find Beverly Daniel Tatum’s work “Defining Racism: “Can We Talk?”” to be the most striking. In the essay, Tatum describes how she (and many other feminists) define racism and who can and cannot be racist. Tatum argues that there are important distinctions between prejudice and racism, wherein racism is defined as a ‘system of advantage based on race” or more precisely “prejudice plus power” (388). Through multiple examples Tatum illustrates that if one accepts and uses her definition of racism then only White people (the group of people who ‘dominate’ society) are racist because “people of

Near the middle of her article, Perry argues that even though statistics show black girls having the highest self-esteem of their physical appearances, the rate will fall as they “move into adolescence and their bodies come under scrutiny” (138).

Gerald Early, the author of the essay Life with Daughters, describes the hardships of being African American especially when trying to raise two daughters who don’t believe they are beautiful . Early’s purpose is to inform the reader of all the difficulties that black girls face growing up in a society who has defined beauty with the image of a white, skinny blonde. He adopts a bitter tone in order to point out all of the difficulties these girls face in order to appeal to similar feelings and experiences of other African American girls their parents.

The fourth chapter of "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”is about the identity development in adolescence. It is said that when black children are growing up, they engage in many of the white culture’s beliefs and values as it is all around them. It is not until a little later where they begin to recognize the impact of racism. This can happen around the early stages of adulthood. It might even happen around the junior high age. Gender also comes into play around this time as well. A black girl wouldn't be acknowledged for her beauty in a white setting as she is not in the society's standard for beautiful. Since the black girls aren’t considered beautiful, they begin to feel devalued. The black youth are beginning

respectability politics completely overlook institutional racism and the ways in which the education system, the social welfare system, and the justice system only reinforce many of the problems the black community faces. – Gay (pp.

In the beginning of the novel, Black introduces the concept of beauty, or lack thereof, through Emma Jean’s childhood. Emma Jean’s mother, Mae Helen clearly has a set image of what a beautiful black child should look like. Mae Helen believes that two of her three daughters are beautiful, but believes that Emma Jean is not and wishes that she would have named Emma Jean “Nobody” (20). She calls Emma Jean ugly directly to her faces and proceeds to mentally and physically abuse her throughout her childhood. To add insult to the abuse, Emma Jean watches as her sisters, who her mother believes are more beautiful, get treated with love and respect. The root Mae Helen’s hatred for Emma Jean is her skin tone. Mae Helen chose her male suitors based on the lightness of their skin, and once Emma Jean was not as white as her father Mae Helen instantly disliked her. Black is commenting on the societal ideal that whiteness is equitable to beauty. This preference is displayed when Emma Jean is thinking about why her mother

In 1863 the emancipation proclamation was signed giving African American citizens the right to vote. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act passed outlawing discrimination based on, among other qualities, race. Although progress in racial equality is evident, its slower than many assume. W.E.B. Du Bois (p.373) lamented, “The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.” America’s culture of racial stereotyping and hidden racism is explored in Robin D. G. Kelly’s essay “Confessions of a nice negro, or why I shaved my Head”, and complimented by Du Bois’s pioneering theories regarding the color line, the veil, double consciousness, and standpoint epistemology found in “The Souls of Black folk” and “The Souls of White Folk.”

The things that are being promoted by well-known black figures in the media are not the best things. Instead of spending the majority of their time promoting things such as HIV/AIDS awareness, their time is spent doing other less productive things. Many influential black people choose to flaunt things that seem to further prove the stereotypes that society has for blacks. Rapping about all the cars, money and “hoes” one has is not the best answer to this problem. According to Collins neither is boasting about the easy access that one has to such things including females. In addition, Collins focuses on the contradictions within the black community. She uses the example of black women always wanting to claim their independence and how sophisticated they are, but yet having lyrics about how “bootylicious” they are. It’s counterproductive. Omi and Winant note that racial etiquette is a set of interpretive codes and racial meanings which operate in the interactions of daily life. (Omi & Winant, 2011, pp. 23-24). The example also is a perfect example of what Omi and Winant refer to as “presentation of self,”which is determined by the rules shaped by our perception of race in a racial society. In other words, there is a contradictory presentation of self through the claims of “bootylicious”-ness and independence, and sophistication.

The film features many accomplished, intelligent and powerful women and allies who are academics, politicians, writers, journalists and television personalities. Unfortunately, the film is largely silent on racialization, with the exception of some commentary from racialized interviewers. The fact that the “perfect image” of a woman in American mainstream media is often also white could have received more attention and critical analysis. 78% of girls hate their bodies by the age of 15. 65% have an eating disorder.

Throughout many decades, African American women have been able to set their own standards of beauty. Lonnae Parker, a writer for The Washington Post, states in her article Black women heavier and happier with their bodies than white women, poll finds, that “Freed from that high-powered media gaze, generations of black women have fashioned their own definitions of beauty with major assists from literature, music, and help from their friends” (Parker, 2012). The importance of this quote is that they were getting help from their culture, the music and literature is essentially the culture that helped them to define their own standards of beauty. By being isolated

In the debate over equality for both African-Americans and women, the question of 'nature versus nurture' inevitably arises. Although most authors acknowledge that there are differences between these historically discriminated-against groups and members of the hegemonic culture, the origin of those differences has been hotly debated. While the African-American intellectual W.E.B Du Bois was inclined to conceptualize African-Americans as 'a race,' feminists of the 1950s like Simone De Beauvoir were more inclined to see the values ascribed to the genders as mainly rooted in cultural norms established by men, not as essential attributes of women.

However, a complication that came with this ideal is that she never learned anything about her body or sex, which made her uncomfortable with her body for years. Though there are similar beauty ideals for white women where being a virgin is preferred, the beauty ideals of Cisneros’ race made her uncomfortable with her own body. Additionally, the author of The Black Beauty Myth experienced a set of beauty ideals from her own racial community. In the article, the author, Sirena J. Riley, states that “White women have even told me how lucky black women are that our men love and accept our bodies the way they are” (Riley, p.231). This quote shows how Black women experience a different beauty ideal than white women.