An evaluation of Jenny Ann Hunt’s essay, “I Was Cyberbullied for Being a Black Feminist” explains that expressing your true feelings on certain social media sites may have a negative effect. I imagine that it was a challenge for the author to express her feelings to strangers but she knew it would be beneficial in the long run. Hunt’s informative and passionate approach to this article narrates what truly matters to her.
Hunt’s essay may be difficult for some to understand at a level that goes beyond what is said in the passage. I believe that a critical message that readers should take away from this work is the concept of black feminism. Black feminism is the interpretation that race and sex are inevitably linked together. Some acknowledge
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that the issue of race and feminism should be dealt with separately, thus creating conflict. Whether or not society chooses to recognize it, black feminism is a real-world controversy. Hunt wants to pass along to others the importance of black feminism, including her involvement of holding a strong belief in that area. Hunt has been inspired by the works of Angela Davis, Gloria Steinem, and bell hooks. All of those ladies that were mentioned in the Hunt’s passage have been very inspirational feminists and rose against the majority. The thought to put yourself in Hunt’s shoes, as being a black woman, is the empathetic idea of this article that readers should see and take back to their daily lives. From a young age Hunt has been inspired to embrace the importance of black feminism.
To this day she continues to share with the world of social media her thoughts and experiences. Social networking gives the world the ability to share and interact with others via the world wide web. The intended readers for this article are those who visit a blog known as “xoJane.” In my opinion, this blog is designed for females similar to Hunt. Young women who have a very strong personality and hold passion in them about important issues. According to the blog page website, women visit xoJane.com “to be their unbashed selves.” This online blog applauds any kind of post regardless of the writer’s age, sex, race, sexual preferences, occupation, and more. This online journal in particular seems to be a very safe way to share feelings with the world without being discriminated against. The idea that Hunt contradicts herself by stating that she is now “scared” of social media is backed up by this idea. She used her classified thoughts inside of her as motivation to tell others about her unfortunate experience within a safe environment. Her ultimate idea being to inform others and seek out for kind advice from people that she can trust. Viewers, readers, and editors are supportive and give advice to troubled writers. This blog is an exceptional place to share personal feelings because many others visit that can relate to the authors on a personal …show more content…
level. I cannot relate personally to Hunt’s experience but I have witnessed harmful words being said online.
A friend of mine posted a typical selfie of herself on Instagram. With that being said, this photograph was not any different in regard to any other photo that could be found on her page. This picture, however, ended up being one that the Instagram society decided to attack her on. Multiple people started a chain of the “horse emoji” running down the comments beneath her picture. This reference was not verbal abuse but rather an inference making fun of the way she looked. Emoji’s are small digital icons used to express an idea or emotion. These icons range from different faces that express emotion, a smiley face, to all different kinds of food, an ice cream cone. Some appropriate while others inappropriate. Hunt’s situation reminded me of this incident because her feelings were very similar to those feelings that my classmate felt, frustration, anger, self-pity, and hatred. I also have experience with the topic of cyberbullying because I completed a research paper during my senior year based upon the dangers of social media. This piece of writing included cyberbullying, inappropriate content, mental health, and safety concerns. Cyberbullying, in particular to Hunt’s piece of writing, has been on the rise since 2010 and shows little to no improvement. Society does not realize how much cyberbullying actually occurs and the world needs to make a change. People who have been
attacked and cyberbullied online can relate greatly to Hunt and her story. Looking into the future the concept of cyberbullying needs to be more widely educated throughout society. This would give people an insight of what happens online. This form of learning needs to start young as the age at which children are being introduced to social media is continuing to drop. Schooling about empathy should also be introduced to inform students about the dangers. If someone chose to pursue a harmful action they would now have a better understanding how it would make the victim them feel. This may reduce they chances of online bullying. Also, students should be introduced and aware of resources if they are a victim. These beneficial resources may include a school counselor and more. Hunt agree that a change needs to be made in the world of cyberspace.
For, in relinquishing, a mother feels strong and liberal; and in guild she finds the motivation to right wrong. Women throughout time have been compelled to cope with the remonstrances of motherhood along with society’s anticipations Morrison’s authorship elucidates the conditions of motherhood showing how black women’s existence is warped by severing conditions of slavery. In this novel, it becomes apparent how in a patriarchal society a woman can feel guilty when choosing interests, career and self-development before motherhood. The sacrifice that has to be made by a mother is evident and natural, but equality in a relationship means shared responsibility and with that, the sacrifices are less on both part. Although motherhood can be a wonderful experience many women fear it in view of the tamming of the other and the obligation that eventually lies on the mother.
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
In “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, Michael Omi claims that racism still takes place in America’s contemporary society. According to Omi, media and popular culture shape a segregating ideology by giving a stereotypical representation of black people to the public, thus generating discrimination between races (Omi 115:166). In “Bad Feminist: Take One”, Roxane Gay discusses the different roles that feminism plays in our society. She argues that although some feminist authors and groups try to create a specific image of the feminist approach, there is no definition that fully describe feminism and no behaviors that can make someone a good feminist or a bad feminist (Gay 304:306). Both authors argue
Women during this Jazz era were freer about their sexuality, but due to this freeness, an article called “Negro Womanhood’s Greatest Need” criticized the sexuality of Black women. In this article, the writers criticized Black women of the Jazz era; one part stated “.“speed and disgust” of the Jazz Age which created women “less discreet and less cautious than their sisters in the years gone by”. These “new” women, she continued, rebelling against the laws of God and man” (p.368). Women expressing their sexuality is not only an act against God, but also against men. In Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” Twyla’s mother Marry had no problem expressing her sexuality because she was a stripper, who danced all night, she wore a fur jack and green slacks to a chapel to meet her daughter Twyla.
Davis, Angela Y. “Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist” in Feminism and “race”, edited by
What art succeeds in doing is transmute the sexual expression into an acceptable form - by turning it into a thing of beauty and approximating it into a haze of sublimity. In the post- modern climate of media, eros as sexuality reels dangerously on the brink of pornography. Yet what is also important is to realize that it is an important lens to view our social, political and cultural identities. At the beginning of the twentieth century, sexuality rode on the tide of social progressivism and became a vehicle for artistic expression in the novel. Also, when eros as sexuality serves as a principal theme in serious or popular literature, it is often used as a means of remarking upon the dynamics in a society. This is the point that is scrutinised and analysed in this paper where the sexuality of women is seen as an important definition and perspective in Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973).The novel explores the lives and friendship of Sula Peace and Nel Wright in the black neighbourhood dubiously named ‘The Bottom’ in the city of Medallion . The novel also investigates lives of its various female characters in this community who add to our understanding of the life of African American women. Morrison is one of the most remarkable African-American authors of the twentieth century and her novels remind readers that the position of African-Americans in the white-dominant society of the United States of
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.
In My Dangerous Desires, Amber Hollibaugh addresses how sexual liberation cannot be separated from race, class and sexuality. Hollibaugh was raised in a biracial, working class family. She grew up trying to find a place in the world for her mixed race, poor, female, femme, and lesbian self. However, as Hollibaugh’s knowledge of herself and society grew, it became evident that her quest for sexual liberation can not be separated from her economic and class struggles.
Additionally, critical race feminism offered women of color newfound recognition under the guise of the term intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989). Additionally, scholars, Molefi Asante and Raka Shome, who offer alternative paradigms that incorporate people of color, have also introduced theories that seek to reinterpret the field of rhetoric. Austin expands on this point by calling on black women to form a ‘sisterhood’ that seeks to unify both deviant and non-deviant African American women. She asserts that Black women need to better understand the difference between deviance and difference within their lives in order to create a more united class of African American females.
Vulnerability is a theme that we have discussed heavily in class, and it has played a significant role in many of our texts. In a way, we sort of shift blame from ourselves onto other external causes for our vulnerability. Many of us argued that social media was the culprit; it had everything to do with why we were so scared to be vulnerable. On social media, we can put this in front of who we want everyone else to see us as, and we can selectively choose what we share with the rest of the world. Brene Brown breaks down the idea of vulnerability in her Ted Talk, while Martha Nussbaum and Bell Hooks share traces of this concept in their texts; all three of these pieces work together to promote similar realizations.
It should be understood that Morrison's novel is filled with many characters and many examples of racism and sexism and the foundations for such beliefs in the black community. Every character is the victim or an aggressor of racism of sexism in all its forms. Morrison succeeds in shedding light on the racism and sexism the black community had to endure on top of racism and sexism outside of the community. She shows that racism and sexism affect everyone's preconceived notions regarding race and gender and how powerful and prevalent the notions are. Within the community, racism affects how people's views of beauty and skin can be skewed by other's racist thoughts; sexism shapes everyone in the community's reactions to different forms of rape.
In this video, a man by the name of Hennessy Youngman focuses mainly on “cultivating an ‘angry nigger exterior’” as a mode to success (2014, p. 23). Hennessy’s use of anger as a mode to gaining notoriety feeds into the trope of the “angry black,” a stereotype we constantly see applied to Serena Williams. In the larger picture, racializing black citizens- more specifically, racializing black women- acts as a way to delegitimize resistance by people of colour against unfair treatment by writing them off as short-tempered and irrational. This process of attributing angry reactions to the character of the individual rather than as a reaction to injustices, allow colonialism and Euro-centrism to continue
For many literary critics, the novel is an authentic feminist work. This is understandable since the author herself is a well-known liberal feminist and an advocate of feminist individualism. Nonetheless, even without knowing the author’s background, we can certainly acknowledge the novel’s feminist tendencies. The novel is not only the story of a woman; it is also the first important novel written by a black woman. For a start, the novel critically describes the ways in which men (or the whole patriarchal system in general) hold down and confine women.
Social media can cause some great trouble for some people. Some people can become bullies over the internet, while others are the innocent victims for these emotionless
This sort of phenomenon makes major headlines regularly in recent times and effects a clear majority of today’s youth. State and local lawmakers have taken steps to prevent this type of bullying by making illegal under several criminal law codes. Michele Hamm, a researcher in pediatrics explained, “There were consistent associations between exposure to cyberbullying and increased likelihood of depression.” Cyberbullying became widespread among students with the rapid growth in use of cellular devices and the Internet. With this kind of technology bullies have the ability to send harmful messages to their recipients at any given time. This type of bullying is the hardest to control because it involves students but often happens off school grounds. However, because the evidence is material, students and parents could bring this evidence to the school and local police departments if a situation were to happen. Parents should be mindful of their child’s use of the internet and electronic messaging, cyberbullying usually takes place in a medium in which adults are seldom present (Mason, 2008). Also, instead of sending direct messages to other students, bullies use platforms such as social media and anonymous blogs to post harmful things for others to see. Educators must understand the significance of social media use to their students, especially