Azealia Banks is a black female music artist. Born on May 31, 1991, the Harlemite rapstress is also an actress, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She burst onto the scene in 2011 when her lasciviously tongue-twisting song “212” went viral instantly. Her 1991 EP garnered widespread critical acclaim, earning praise from industry icons like Kanye West and Beyoncé. She was touted as the music industry’s next big “it girl” being on every possible magazine cover. But if you fast forward to more recent times, the public perception of Azealia Banks has drastically changed. So what happened? Just as her career was about to take off a variety of things slowly started bringing her back down to earth. The world began to know Azealia more for her …show more content…
Introduced in 2010 by queer scholar Moya Bailey of Northeastern University, misogynoir is a prejudice that combines both misogyny and racism. It “creates a sense of invisibility for Black women’s pain and hypervisibility for what are deemed inherent flaws based on Black womanhood” (Explanation of Misogynoir). It can be seen interracially through marginalizing stereotypical images like the “loud hoochie mama” or “gold digger”. Intraracially, misogynoir is visible in spaces traditionally dominated by black men such as the church, office, and home. It’s evidenced in the music industry when black men are able to maintain a successful career amidst a scandal while a woman like Azealia Banks gets blacklisted from her craft. Lakin Starling of The Fader says, “Rappers are charged with sexual crimes and violence against women and the industry continues to cut them checks, fanbases grow and judges are lenient with sentencing.” (Pache & Starling). Misogynoir also gives way to colorism, which is the discrimination of one or more people based on skin color. The media endorses colorism by perpetuating European features and promoting light skin as the beauty standard. The effects of colorism on black women are well-documented in the music industry from Lil Kim’s transformation to Azealia’s skin bleaching. Lil Kim once said “Guys always cheated on me with women who were European looking. You know, the long-hair type. Really beautiful women that left me thinking, ‘How can I compete with that?’ Being a regular Black girl wasn't good enough.” (Lil
Think about your favorite female MC album of all time. It could be Eve’s Ruff Ryders’ First Lady from 1999, Roxy Brown’s Broken Silence from 2001 or Queen Latifah’s All Hail the Queen from 1989, but whatever album you picked should make you think of MC Lyte for at least a quick second. If you enjoy listening to Eve, Queen Latifah, Trina, Missy Elliot or even Nicki Minaj you should know MC Lyte. MC Lyte made a huge impact in the world of hip Hop, so much that she is respected by men and women for being one of hip hop’s pioneers. MC Lyte made a great impact in the world of hip hop as she paved the way for all the female artists by making sure her voice was heard, while remaining true to herself.
In The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto, Imani Perry argues that the over-sexualized, unattainable bodies of black women in popular culture will lead to the breakdown of feminism and the positive body image of the everyday black women. As hip hop music continues to become more popular, the sexist messages presented in lyrics and music videos are becoming more common to the everyday public, including young black girls developing a self-image. Instead of these girls being exposed to healthy, positive role models who encourage individuality and that there is more to a woman than her body they are given hip hop video models whose only purpose is to look sensual on screen. The strong women that do exist in the hip hop genre are pushed to sexualize themselves or their lyrics to sell records or stay relatively unknown. Although Perry’s arguments are logical, I believe that she is creating a slippery slope of logic. A genre of music cannot destroy the self-image of black women that has existed for generations.
Many people say that African-American women natural beauty isn’t the white supremacist look but fail to realize that when straightening your hair or looking a certain way minimizes their self-actualization to present themselves as an individual. By hiding your true beauty (meaning expressing yourself through the way you look) brings self-esteem issues because you are constantly putting yourself down when you find yourself looking more natural than different. For example Hook states, “within white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the social and political context in which the custom of black folks straightening our hair emerges, it represents an imitation of the dominant white groups appearance and often indicates internalized racism, self-hatred, and/or low self-esteem” (336). That indicates that the illogical beauty standards of white supremacy brings women self-esteem to rock bottom and sooner or later make them hate the way they were born/created as an
The lyrics from “Formation” state, “My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana-You mix that Negro with that Creole make a Texas bamma” (Beyoncé); were directed toward African American women specifically because they have been taught to hate the skin they are in which leads to women using bleaching to become lighter which can be extremely dangerous if it is not used properly. The feud in the black community is light skin vs. dark skin is also addressed with these lyrics it simply states be proud of your bloodline no matter what you may be mixed with. The light skin vs dark skin argument is an end result of the brown paper bag test, which determined who would work the fields and who would work inside the house. The “Paper Bag” test was the determinant factor, if your skin color was the color of the brown paper bag or lighter you were given access to certain privileges and conversely if your skin was darker than the paper bag you were denied those same privileges (Steward). Beyoncé goes on to sing, “I like my baby hair with baby hair and Afros-I like my Negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils” (Beyoncé), this focuses on African American women changing their looks because society tells them that their natural hair and big nose is ugly. Beyoncé personally targets the criticism she received for not “combing” her daughter, Blue Ivy’s, hair stating that if
Being a woman is hard work. We many have pressures on us from society to marry, bear children, be an upstanding citizen, and maintain some sort of career, all the while trying to understand our bodies and its changes; being a woman of color, or black woman, it’s even harder. Not only do we have to deal with everything a White woman does, and we also have the added pressure of defying stigmas and stereotypes within our own group of people. What stigma’s you ask? How about not being perceived as ignorant, uneducated, and or “ghetto”. The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of Blacks for centuries. The typical stereotypes about Black women range from the smiling, asexual and often-obese Mammy to the promiscuous and the loud, smart mouthed, neck-rolling Black welfare mother is the popular image on reality television. These images portrayed in media and popular culture creates powerful ideology about race and gender, which affects every day experiences of Black women in America.
being black and being a woman. Scholars convey that African American women are involved in what’s called the “double threat” where membership in more than one oppressed social group results in cumulative risk outcomes (Brown 2000; Chavous et. al 2004; Childs 2005; Steele 1992; 1997). Black women may also experience stress due to unrealistic stereotypes. For example, research has revealed that black women experience “double threat” when they apply for housing from a white landlord. Results conclude that white landlords perceive black women as the “black single mother” stereotype, therefore they refuse to provide them with adequate housing (Iceland and Wilkes 2006; Roscigno et al. 2009). Black women actively seek to resist the positive and negative stereotypes for fear that embodying them will result in validation of those categorizations (Chavous et al. 2004; Fries-Britt & Griffin 2007; Rollock, Gillborn, Vincent & Ball 2011; Settles 2006; Steele 1997). Black women may not have intended to perpetuate stereotypes in the presence of others, but are subjected to social pressures to normalize these stereotypes for others and pigeonhole themselves in counteractive representations of black women (Childs 2005; Wilkins 2012). Steele (1992) described this process as “stereotype threat” which occurs when individuals perceive that negative stereotypes about their group as
Oswald, Janelle. “Is Rap Turning Girls into Ho’s?” The Black Book: A Custom Publication. 3rd ed. Ed. Sam Pierstorff. Modesto: Quercus Review Press, 2012. 171-175.
It is sad to know that we cohabit a nation where you are frowned upon because of the content of your skin. This documentary depicts adolescent Black/ African American girl and boys, and women talking about their melanin. Society imposed on us that to be beautiful you must be of a fairly light complexion, have a sculpted body, perfect bone structure, and have nice non-kinky hair. This image has been imbedded in our society, and resulted in those in the Black/ African American community feeling as is they are ugly, non lovable, unwanted, not smart, less than, lacking self confidence, and wishing that they can change their skin tone (by bleaching) to be accepted and to be considered beautiful.
Taylor Swift’s Shake it off video contains elements of cultural appropriation that exhibit stereotypical tropes which have been used to define African American women and, in particular, their sexuality for years. The video perpetuates the negative stereotypes that have placed Black women on the opposite side of respect for centuries. The video involves White women twerking in a way that conforms to the male gaze, for profitable success. Twerking involves thrusting hip movements, low squatting stance, and shaking of the derriere. White women are able to perform the twerk without being socialized as hyper-sexual, whereas Black women are. Hence, the different conceptions of White and Black womanhood. The inability for Black women to escape their skin color is the one of the many reasons they are ridiculed. Their skin color assigned them to the category that defines them as unholy, dirty, and promiscuous White women have the ability to hide behind their skin color, which classifies them as pure, and innocent in society eyes. The cultural appropriation of twerking is an exercise of White women’s privilege. Black women are judged harshly for
Gay suggests another way characters within pop culture are portrayed as unlikable or at least not powerful, is by being a person of color. As stated earlier, there exists a narrow conceptualization of womanhood and femininity, which primarily mirrors the privileged class, which dominates pop culture in terms of the books we read, television we watch, ads we consume, heroines we aspire to be, and music we listen to. However there does exist different identities of what it means to be a woman. In Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens. Cathy J. Cohen imagines the contemporary view and power of women to be in relation to their homogenized identity. This meaning, to be a woman also depends on other factors of identity; to be a woman in relation to if you are poor or rich, black or white, gay or straight, queer or fall into the dominant class. Luckily, this understanding of womanhood has somewhat expanded. The scope of racial expansion somewhat increases by moving to include Gay’s idolized Black Miss America. Unfortunately, this expansion follows the privilege trend where only a certain type of green girl is able to satisfy the role of Black Miss America. A large issue that Gay has with representation of women of color is that they are tokenized, they are stereotyped, and they are grossly generalized. Instead of this poor misrepresentation of women of color, both Gay and Cohen seek, “a new political direction and agenda, one that does not focus on integration into dominant structures but instead seeks to transform the basic fabric and hierarchies that allow systems of oppression to persist and operate efficiently” (Cohen 165). Gay concludes that inclusion of women of color in pop culture fails to portray them as more than one dimensional characters. This lack of depth is attributed to the lack of respect that women of color face in real life as well. While the
“The widespread perception of Black women is based on mainstream misogyny” and because it is main, a social norm, and a way for young Black people to be unified “[Black females] accept stereotypical views and unconscious behaviors that devalue women and esteem men”(Henry, West, & Jackson 245). As long as hip hop continues to thrive on misogyny and people continue to ignore that it is an issue Black females will continue to reap the internal and sometimes physical
Oppression disguises itself in various spheres, including Black womanhood. This classification includes societal pressures of Black women to conform to Eurocentric values, such as in beauty, gender, and families. The standard of European beauty is imposed on Black women, in which they feel subjected
Rihanna describes herself being at the studio fronting Jay-Z, the rap king. Jay-Z was living his golden age when he met Rihanna, more importantly heard Rihanna. He was at once convinced, being blown away by the young prodigy’s talent. Rihanna later shared her experience at the first audition with Jay-Z. In her description she was nothing but a mass of shaking nervousness. However, once she started singing, all the shaking halted and a voice was heard that changed the world in just a matter of time.
began, there were hardly any female rappers well known. She is a quite recent rapper but it did
(Carby 213-4). While many white feminists might argue that the treatment described in Truth’s piece aims to reduce women into frail beings in need of constant assistance and guidance, Black women, like Truth, were never seen as women to begin with, and therefore, were always subject to the cruel and subhuman treatment by not only white women but also white women. Through her repetition of the phrase “Ain’t I A Woman,” Truth further shows how this narrative, largely created by white women, of the reality of women doesn’t seek to include all women, pointing to the obvious erasure on behalf of white