race

When I come across blatant misogyny in mainstream articles; clichés, stereotypes and sexist jokes that are enjoyed tolerated or ignored, I often ask myself; Would this be acceptable if it was written about black people?
In most cases it wouldn’t be. It would not be acceptable for a college newspaper to publish an article about how black people who go to nightclubs are sluts. It would not be acceptable for a respectable news channel to label a news segment about a black celebrity with a racial epithet. At the same time though, just last week a recognized comedian launched into a hate tirade against the black people heckling his standup routine. How can we even consider having defeated prejudice when Mel Gibson decides to defend him?

I just got back from the coffeeshop here, and got a chance to talk to Jayne. Jayne's a workingclass, 60something, matriarchal, peacenik feminist who does a lot of work w/the local homeless population. Last year Jayne came to the annual Women Studies party, and tonight she and I reminisced about how wonderful it was that she boldly expressed her opinions to academic, upper-middle class feminists, really exposing them to some of their unexamined class prejudice that, even as feminists, they didn't want to discuss. Jayne is a revelation and a national treasure.

And I was thinking how great it would be for all of you bloggers to take a minute and try to find a woman whose life you feel is totally different than your own, and write about how this is so. Now, it may be hard to do this in real life, so think about women and girls in the movies, tv shows, or in books that you're familiar with. Maybe she's from another country, or another class, or another agegroup- but somehow you feel that she's 180-degrees different from yourself.

I’ve been writing a lot about cosmetic appearance in my past few blogs, I promise once I get this one off my chest I will move on to something different.

As a young black girl, you have to deal with both racism and sexism, sometimes separately, in this case however, they are intertwined, like a strand of hair.

Black women are not attractive. Their large noses, widely spaced eyes, big foreheads fat hips and kinky hair, they may be sexual (in fact over-sexed), but they are not attractive. Wait a minute, I can hear you say, there are plenty of black women considered attractive, what about… Halle Berry. Oh yeah slim-hipped, straight haired, light skinned Halle Berry. Yeah… she’s hot.