To be labeled as a feminist is such a broad classification therefore it is divided into various subsections, one such subsection is known as hip hop feminism in which Ruth Nicole closely associates herself with throughout this essay I will thoroughly discuss this form of feminism. Ruth Nicole is a black woman that categorizes herself as a girl, by her definition a girl is far from independent. Black girlhood discusses the shared experiences of the ever-changing body, which has been marked as vibrant, Black, and female, along with memories and representations of being female. As a result, Ruth Nicole wrote Black Girlhood Celebration in order to share her personal and political motivations of working with black girls within the community. A conversation that is not often articulated about due to a language barrier. In which this discussion accurately details a means to work with black girls in such a way that does not control their body or pilfer black female individuality. Under those circumstances, Brown believes that black girls are being exploited for their physique through the use of music and instructed to conform to white norms constructed by society.
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comprehend black girlhood fully and understand the reason for which Brown became a feminist, we must apprehend some of the terms frequently used throughout the novel first. For example, SOLHOT which was formed by Brown as a means to initiate an after school program dedicated to black girls and women that formerly had not existed. Within this program the girls were permitted to disobey certain rules that the school forced upon them such as the concept that they must sit motionlessly at their desk as well as being told that they are too loud and must remain silent or risk facing the consequences, such as expulsion. In this program the girls are never told that they are incorrect and ponder how the narratives formed within SOLHOT contradict those constructed by society which are stereotypical and riddled with popular messages of black ethnics. This program as a cultural area is persistent in the production of narratives constructed by Black girlhood highlighting black women and girls that are jointed by the critiquing of each other, survival, ways of existing, as well as falling apart emotionally and mentally at times. With this in mind SOLHOT exists as a means to keep black women out of the prison systems which has become a common place for women of color after the completion of schooling. This is known as the school to prison pipeline, which has been around for centuries as a way to degrade blacks. They are offered so little educational opportunities within their community along with the concept that blacks receive harsher sentences than whites and recidivism is almost certain, due to the lack of jobs within black communities. Angela Davis demonstrates this perfectly in her book Are Prisons Obsolete, where she discusses her involvement as an anti-prison activist as well as the increase in prison systems, focusing on California prisons which had claimed thirty percent of the African American population in 2002. A surprising amount of blacks are thrown into prison each year due to possession of 5g of crack, while a significantly smaller number of whites go to prison for possessing a much higher quantity of cocaine. Which is ironic since crack and cocaine are the same drug with relatively little difference. Also highly intriguing is the sentencing received for crack and cocaine. Whereas, the possession of crack carries an average sentence of 115 months, whereas cocaine bears a much lesser sentence of 87 months. With this in mind, it is an undeniable concept that blacks are solely being targeted in drug arrests and are being tossed into the prison system daily, while a low amount of whites are being convicted of the same crime. “Little Sally Walker…” “Walking down the street She didn’t know what to do” So she stopped in front of me” Saying “gone girl do your thang…” “Do your thang switch.” Little Sally Walker is a dance that is key at SOLHOT meetings because dance is especially important in black culture, where it is used as a means to express themselves and their feelings.
At the beginning of the song a leader emerges from the group and begins by singing the first line afterwards everyone claps. Then, the next two lines are shouted out as another leader surfaces from within the group, moving to the middle of the circle and stands in front of the person that they have chosen as the group recites the last few lyrics as well as adding a dance move at the end. After the leader is done and the dance has been performed the group says the last line and the song restarts all over again. Little Sally Walker signifies what SOLHOT is all about, strengthening relationships within the
group.
Elsa Barkley Brown focuses on the intersectionality of being a black woman in America, in “What Has Happened Here?”. Black women experience different forms of oppression simultaneously. Indeed, racism, sexism, classism, as well as heterosexism, intertwine and form layers of oppression.
Laurence Hill’s novel, The Book of Negroes, uses first-person narrator to depict the whole life ofAminata Diallo, beginning with Bayo, a small village in West Africa, abducting from her family at eleven years old. She witnessed the death of her parents with her own eyes when she was stolen. She was then sent to America and began her slave life. She went through a lot: she lost her children and was informed that her husband was dead. At last she gained freedom again and became an abolitionist against the slave trade. This book uses slave narrative as its genre to present a powerful woman’s life.She was a slave, yes, but she was also an abolitionist. She always held hope in the heart, she resist her dehumanization.
She sheds a light of how early Black feminist scholars such as Collins have been criticized for relying too heavily on colonial ideology around the black female body. Subjectively neglecting the contemporary lived experience of Black women. Critiques such as these highlights the Black female agency in the representation of the body. viewing this as a human and sexual rights or health perspective has been lending to the contemporary Black feminist debates about the representation of Black female bodies and Black eroticism within the culture of
Sapphire, more commonly viewed as the angry black woman, is viewed as, the bad black woman, the black “bitch,” and the emasculating matriarch (88). The reason there may not be much research on this myth is because many researchers themselves acknowledge the stereotype (89). The stereotype is seen not as black women’s anger towards the unequal treatment and circumstances they endure, but an irrational desire to control black males, families, and communities around them (95). This stereotype bestows yet another double standard on black women in America today. While a white woman’s passion and drive may be seen as ambitious and exceptional, a black woman displaying the same perseverance would be seen in a negative rather than glorified light.
In our society of today, there are many images that are portrayed through media and through personal experience that speak to the issues of black motherhood, marriage and the black family. Wherever one turns, there is the image of the black woman in the projects and very rarely the image of successful black women. Even when these positive images are portrayed, it is almost in a manner that speaks to the supposed inferiority of black women. Women, black women in particular, are placed into a society that marginalizes and controls many of the aspects of a black woman’s life. As a result, many black women do not see a source of opportunity, a way to escape the drudgery of their everyday existence. For example, if we were to ask black mother’s if they would change their situation if it became possible for them to do so, many would change, but others would say that it is not possible; This answer would be the result of living in a society that has conditioned black women to accept their lots in lives instead of fighting against the system of white and male dominated supremacy. In Ann Petry’s The Street, we are given a view of a black mother who is struggling to escape what the street symbolizes. In the end though, she becomes captive to the very thing she wishes to escape. Petry presents black motherhood, marriage and the black family as things that are marginalized according to the society in which they take place.
In The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto, Perry begins the essay with the shocking realization of the way women are presented in hip hop videos. Although she seems to set up a strong opening argument that positive body images for women in black society are in danger, Perry’s lack of evidence to support her main points and weak arguments about why young girls self-esteem could be on the decline take away from her credibility and causes the reader to challenge her opinions. Perry’s slippery slope mentality that the way women are presented in hip hop will lead to an overall decline in self-esteem in young girls has no supporting evidence that can prove a direct relationship between the two issues.
It is believed by the author that the feminist movement in many ways parallels the struggles faced by African Americans in the US during the same time period. The authors will offer ideas on where the pro...
As you begin to read my review you will start off by hearing my voice throughout the first couple of lines. The words that I chose to start my review speak for all African American women/girls today who feel exactly the same way that I do. I focused my review on a young poet who talks about the consistent hardships that black women go through in America. By choosing that spoken word poem it really overall explains how it is for a lot of black women and girls. I wanted to focus on this topic because it is an important matter that needs to be told. It also reaches home for me because that is who I am. So, as you read my review I want you as the reader to hear every word loudly and take inconsideration the importance of this review.
Sonnets is a type of poetry that originated in Italy. There are many different types of sonnets, such as the Shakespearean sonnet, Petrarchan sonnet, and the Spenserian sonnet. Despite their differences, these sonnets share some similarities. “Harlem Dancer” by Claude McKay and “In an Artist’s Studio” by Christina Rossetti share many similarities and differences such as the form, the portrayal of women, and the way the woman is objectified.
"29 n The Color Purple: Black Women as Cultural Readers." Cultural theory and popular culture: A reader (1997): 310.
This is the normality of life. In Chapter 1: Suppose They Don’t Want Us Here, Simmons contends this of black girls’ survival during this era which depended upon the development of mental maps of their environments, and the ways in which they needed to maneuver in certain neighborhoods while differentiating what was associated with them and what was not. Anyone born into this world enters with no choice of habitat or footing in which they will live their lives, Simmons demonstrates this through exploring black girls’ public and private realities described as the “double bind” of being black and female. “During Jim Crow, mental maps provided “imaginative order” to black girls’ worlds and helped them form a growing “awareness of racialized space” (p.55). These mental maps helped declare the racial and gender distinction in New Orleans as well as force young black girls to really comprehend their surroundings and themselves within this rigid space. The girls’ sense of individuality, role, and capability was constantly changing in reflection of their substantial position in the city at a given time. “Before I was ten I knew what it was to stay off the sidewalk to let a white man pass; otherwise he might knock me off” (p.57) Black girls had to foster resilience and elasticity in their role in order to not be harassed or reach conflict. This was expected of black girls to adjust their behavior as planned based on the interactions and people they cross paths with. “She learned where her body belonged in relationship to whites, whether they were men or boys” (p.58) This chapter shows how physical space has constructed women/girls mental maps and analyzes the perspective of space in which they were functioning in. Black women would suffer insults from both white and black men which lead to further arrangements of their
On the night of December 13, 2013 Beyoncé, released her fifth self-titled album on ITunes. The album caught many people by surprise because Beyoncé did not set a date for the album, nor did she use any promotion; she did release a video on her Instagram asking her followers if they “were ready”. The buzz spread through social media like a wild fire. With no promotion or no warning, Beyoncé album took the world by storm and made it for her audience and critics to take in the album and it contents. Many people loved the album for not only its catchy songs, but also the growth and “looser” conservative Beyoncé. On the other hand many people did not feel that her album was growth, but a way to catch up to the overly sexual generation. Beyoncé has always been aware of her sexual side, pop side, and feminist side; this has been documented through her four previous albums. Yet, a lot of people have questioned if Beyoncé a feminist because of the content of her newest album. In order to answer that a person must ask him or her self; what is a feminist, why some people believe she is feminist, why others do not believe she feminist, and whether or not Beyoncé think she is a feminist.
Hip Hop a grass movement started in 1974 in the South Bronx in New York City. Created to end gang violence, a voice for the underrepresented minority. Rap music is critical to understanding the hip hop generation’s gender crisis, a crisis between sexes that allows African American males to blatantly disrespect African American women for the sake of the culture. The consistent referencing of African American women as ‘bitches’ and ‘hos’ and the hyper sexualization of their bodies is harmful to the African American community. These images instill that it is alright to represent black women in this nature, and harmful to the young girls who are intaking all these negative images. Harmful to both the perspective of young men and women Hip-Hop is like a pillar in the African American culture. It represents how each generation views themselves in this society and how they internalized these narratives. In this essay I will summarize the main arguments in Chapter 7 of Gender talk , discuss the creation and deconstruction on views
Among the many subjects covered in this book are the three classes of oppression: gender, race and class in addition to the ways in which they intersect. As well as the importance of the movement being all-inclusive, advocating the idea that feminism is in fact for everybody. The author also touches upon education, parenting and violence. She begins her book with her key argument, stating that feminist theory and the movement are mainly led by high class white women who disregarded the circumstances of underprivileged non-white women.
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.