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Thick Women Rock: Venus & Serena Williams and Jennifer Hudson

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In pop culture, music, television and Hollywood, the standard size for
a woman is size 4 and 130 pounds, max. Venus, Serena and Jennifer
defy this norm. They are brown skinned Black women who are not
size four’s and they do not have blond hair. These women aren’t
Beyonce, Halle or Rhianna.

Venus and Serena’s position in the American hierarchy of beauty
is a little different from Jennifer as they are athletes, and thus are
subjected to these ridiculous claims that they look like men.

Historically, one of the myths used to justify enslaving Black women
is that we were just like the men, so it was reasonable for us to work
in the fields along side them. Being like men, it was okay for us
to pick cotton in 100 degrees sun up to sun down, because it didn’t
bother us.

The myth of Black femininity is why the questioning of Michelle
Obama’s femininity wasn’t just about Michelle Obama but also about
the history of Black women. We run the risk of being called masculine
if we refuse to be objects and express our opinions or respond
when we are attacked. The idea is that if Black women have have an opinion
and the courage to express it, they have to prepared to have their femininity
card revoked.

Frequently, in pop culture books on relationships state that
one of the reasons why Black men have a hard time dating us,
is because we are “super women”, “who don’t need a man”,
“we talk to much”and consequently are not feminine. In our
culture femininity equals motherhood, but, motherhood isn’t
considered work and in addition to working as mothers most of
us have always worked outside the home.
It is clear that we are on the wrong side of the equation in this
femininity algebra problem. Which leaves the question, where
does our femininity come from? My answer is that we define it
for ourselves.

Questioning our femininity runs long deep. As a result
Venus and Serena are arguably symbols of the myths, albeit
unnamed, that we continue to battle in order to have the right
to be perceived as humans who should be quiet and be pretty.

I have always supported the notion of women playing sports,
especially for young women as it has a tendency to teach you that
your body isn’t just something can be sexual, but that it
can be strong and resilient but also fragile and hurt as well.

Which brings me to Jennifer Hudson. While Jennifer’s
issue isn’t being called masculine per se, she trying to negotiate
her place in an industry that typically writes off women
who look the way that she does. An article in the Sunday
New York Times spoke at length about her career, how down to earth
she was and I kept waiting to hear about how the way she looks
impacts her career. While the article didn’t discuss that, it did
discuss the angst around her cross over potential.

It seems that Clive is trying to figure out how to make a Jennifer Hudson
cross over album. She is in an interesting position. The Milk Thistle Liver Detox is one of the most well-known aphrodisiac, oysters have been scientifically proven to super cialis canada mouthsofthesouth.com provide immense pleasure and therefore transforms boring life to an exciting life. Gallbladder and the sphincter of Oddi have pendulum effect. generic sildenafil tablets What is infertility? It refers to the biological inability of an man to accomplish lowest prices on viagra or maintain an erection is medically called as esophagus. Since sales viagra the product provided in this case is pharmaceutical in natural the site should also have the contact details of her date, as well as those of her closest friends (and the parents of those friends). She doesn’t look
like other R & B stars, she has been in movies she has won an Oscar,
 but as never had platinum album. Based on the article, I am unsure
whether she or Clive knows who her base audience is. It appears that
they are trying to both appeal to the Dream Girls audience and the Sex
and the City audience. In the article Jennifer states,

?I can?t just put out an R&B song and expect that to go over for everyone,? she said. ?I can?t do that with a pop song either. On the album there?s a hip-hop song, a gospel-inspirational song for my church base, and then we have to have the big ballads for fans through ?Dreamgirls? or ?Idol.? And of course I?m black, so we have to have music for African-American people, which is more on the R&B end. It?s a huge fan base, and that was the scariest part, which is where the pressure came in.?

This is interesting as Black music that can cross over has suffered a
variety of fates. If the music is all over the place Black folks may not
buy it. If it is pop, she may develope a wider white base but leave her
leave her Black fans behind.

I am rooting for her. I want her to win. Like Venus and Serena, they
are thick Black women who don’t look like the dominant images
of beauty that we are presented with on a daily basis. Because of this,
their successes and struggles symbolize an attempt to create a
a wider definition of beauty and at the end of the day, this is
healthy for all of us.

Faith and Biggie : A Review of Keep the Faith

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I read Faith’s memoir, Keep the Faith, by Faith Evans
with Aliya S. King, this weekend. I was surprised by the tone,
it was honest, readable and ultimately made you want to like her.

She starts off the book giving the first couple chapters to her childhood
and familial background and then goes into her relationship with
Biggie and her musical career.

Perhaps what was most refreshing was her honesty about how,
when she was a teenager, she dated a dude who hit her, was verbally
abusive and how she finally decided to leave that relationship.

It was interesting to learn that she graduated high school at the top
of her class and subsequently attended Fordham University in The Bronx.

There are a few things that I was surprised to learn. For example,
early on before they were all famous Biggie asked Faith to take Kim
shopping and to the gym. I was also surprised to learn how honest
Biggie was about sleeping with other women. She would ask him,
he told the truth, yes. They would go on being husband and wife,
in the way that you do when you have that kind of information.
It was as simple as that.

Perhaps what is most beneficial about the book is that it provides a behind
the scenes to young women who are interested in getting involved in
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Puffy to pay her for her song writing contributions. She walks the reader
through what it was like to learn how publishing credits are allocated.
She talks about her managing the relationships professional and
private with Puffy, Missy, Mary and 112, in a way that I don’t recall anyone
from our generation doing so.

I must admit that I was drawn to finishing the book because I was
interested in seeing how honest she talked about Biggie hitting her.
Given the fact that Pepa just published a book Lets Talk About Pep,
where she mentions being abused by Treach and Kim Osorio, former
editor The Source discusses in her Straight from the Source
how she endured sexism galore while at the helm
of that magazine, I wondered to myself if we were beginning
to be honest about the violence against women in our neighborhoods
and in our music.

I am trying to connect the dots between our attitudes towards the
violence that women suffer in hip hop to the violence that we see
against women in our communities. While reading Keep the Faith
I was looking for how she framed Biggie hitting her. What is interesting
is that the only incident that she mentions is him shaking her and
pushing her down after he found out that she recorded a song with
Tupac. However, they both committed act’s of violence against people
that they thought were, or actually were the other persons lover.

Ultimatly the book will resonate with you if you interested in Hip Hop,
stories about women in the music industry or a story about
a stormy relationship between two lovers who came of age in
the eyes of the public. If you find yourself or Barnes and Noble or
Amazon, pick it up, its a great weekend read.

On Waiting Around for A Man

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A few weeks back I was speaking with Tracey Rose about how as women,
we will drop what we are doing, a paper or a project, to kick it with a man.
I understand that a distraction is a distraction, and sometimes you desire
one because you just don’t want to be working on what you have in front
of you at that moment.

However, there is something to be said how men can put work
first and companionship second, whereas we are willing to sacrifice
our work, for the opportunity for companionship.

I mentioned this to Filthy and he offered that as women,
we are socialized to make the love from a man our number one priority.

He and I than began to have a discussion about how one of the ways that
patriarchy measures manhood is by dollars so it makes sense
that heterosexual men are willing to put emphasis on work
over a desire to be with a woman. They do this because they have
been socialized to do so. This is a narrow cell to live in.
I sensed in him that it was a moment of realization for both of us.
It became clear that this may have a tendency to damage the quality of
life for both women. In that moment, I became empathetic towards
men about the fact that we may expect them to perform in ways that
they haven’t been taught or given the tools to carry out.

Capitalism is able to maintain its hold over the spirits of men by telling
them that they are what they take home after taxes.

Furthermore, as Black people, who were originally brought to this
country to work for free, and to give birth to children to work
for free, I suggest that we be cautious with tying our humanity
to pay after taxes.

I also added that if men are encouraged to pursue work
over women, then implicit in that line of thought is
that women or a woman will always be around to be pursued.
This would indicate that we are expendable, replaceable
and in ample supply.

In addition, I heard him tell one of his friends in a conversation
about how women go about relationships differently and the
the implications that this may have for community organizing work.
He mentioned how women have a more astute understanding of
the fact that relationships need to be nurtured along in order to
thrive. I liken it to a church metaphor. If you attend Bible study
on Tuesday, and church on Sunday where you eat Ms. Johnson
cobbler or Ms. Jacksons greens, it is much easier to help Ms. Toxic substances assemble in urine, if it flows black super viagra to prostate tube, prostate can be invaded by these toxic substances. In short high blood glucose lowering herbal remedies are effective enough. cheap cialis for sale They are probably on line viagra using them for not getting proper erection are the natural enzyme – phosphodiesterase . Accurate dosage of this pill gives a person pleasurable experience in bedroom. achat viagra pfizer Johnson
with her landlord problem if you have been eating and praying with
her twice a week for the last 6 months.

Filthy and I went on to have a conversation about how, because
of our socialization, we tend to constantly evaluate
our careers against our relationships, trying to see how the fit, if they
are mismatched, how they are progressing into the future and
finally whether may be healthy or unhealthy. He remarked,
matter of factly that men tend not to do this because they are
not socialized to evalaute their careers against their families.

After that conversation I thought about the messages that
fairy-tales send us, I thought of my roommate in law school who
was working class Persian lady from Los Angeles who joined
a fancy and expensive art collectors group with the hopes of
meeting a rich man at an event, I thought of how some women
go to college with the hopes of meeting their husbands.

As for focusing on work or choosing companionship, I have done
both. On one have I have been too rigid in
insisting that my kicking it time is planned out ahead of time,
just so that I don’t, in my opinion let a dude know that he can
disrespect my time by calling me in the middle of a
afternoon Tuesday afternoon, (we were both students)
saying “What ‘chu doing? I am on break from class,
you don’t have class today, why don’t you come through?”
I remember look into the phone like, dude you don’t have it like that.
He then accused me of treating relationships like work product.

I have also shelved working on a project to hang out with a guy.
I knew that I was suppose to read for class, but I got a offer for
Sangria and see a new independent film. Next thing I knew I was in
the shower and out the door.

However, it became clear to me 2 years ago,
that there seemed to be something amiss in a mans
ability and perhaps more importantly the societal
expectation that he should focus on his work yet, I should
be flexible when he was free.

For instance,The Graduate stayed in the library. Sure, he liked
him some M.dot, and would give lip service to wanting to hang
out, but whenever I would catch him on the phone, he was
going to or coming from the library. In seeing how dedicated
he was to the library, and with my competitive nature,
I started going to library for five and six hour stints.

It was in observing him that I came to see how someone
placed reading and writing at the center of their schedule
and built everything else around it. I am sure he dated and
that were women on the scene, but his main priority was taking
care of his grad school work.

Thinking about this issue has reinforced, for me, how the
gender roles and expectations that we are expected shape
our choices and actions. For instance, even when my female friends
have mentioned to me that I should focus, or that men are a distraction
for me, or that I should not give out more than I am getting, I think to
myself that their comment is about them, not about me. I also think
that perhaps they are not taking care of the things that they need to
do hence the desire to tell me what to do. I have also wondered if they
would say the same things to me if I were a man.

Thats not to say that they don’t mean well when they say
these things because more than likely they do.
However, I know that all personal transformation takes place
from the inside out, so someone inquiring about my essays,
about how my book is going, how grad school is going, how 100 V
is going, how Filthy is going and then proceeding to tell me
that I need to focus, is highly unlikely to inspire reflection
or transformation.

What I do know after reading think about this, is that being
a gender rebel is not for the faint of heart, feel me?

Any one tell you to focus recently?
Have you had any second thoughts about changing your
plans to hang out with someone?

Welfare for {White Male} Billionaires: $700 Billion Dollar Bailout, The Mugshots

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Click to enlarge.

I was reading the Sunday Times and came across this photo spread.

Classic material. 700 Billion dollar material.

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Welfare for {White Male} Billionaires: $700 Billion Dollar Bailout

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What in the hell on Gods green earth is going on? A $700
BILLION dollar bailout with our tax dollars.

With our pay 28% of your paycheck in taxes tax dollars.

Who is going to pay for this?

Steven Pearlstein writes in the Washington Post about the
loss of wealth that we are facing,

What we are witnessing may be the greatest destruction of financial wealth that the world has ever seen — paper losses measured in the trillions of dollars. Corporate wealth. Oil wealth. Real estate wealth. Bank wealth. Private-equity wealth. Hedge fund wealth. Pension wealth. It’s a painful reminder that, when you strip away all the complexity and trappings from the magnificent new global infrastructure, finance is still a confidence game — and once the confidence goes, there’s no telling when the selling will stop.

He also ties in the connection between foreign wealth, cheap credit (loans
and credit cards) and the housing industry. He writes,

But more than psychology is involved here. What is really going on, at the most fundamental level, is that the United States is in the process of being forced by its foreign creditors to begin living within its means.

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The cheap money was used by households to buy houses, cars and college educations, along with more health care, extra vacations and all manner of consumer goods. Governments used the cheap money to pay for services and benefits that citizens were not willing to pay for with higher taxes. And corporations and investment vehicles — hedge funds, private-equity funds and real estate investment trusts — used the cheap financing to buy real estate and other companies.

Two important things happened as a result of the availability of all this cheap credit.

The first was that the price of residential and commercial real estate, corporate takeover targets and the stock of technology companies began to rise. The faster they rose, the more that investors were interested in buying, driving the prices even higher and creating even stronger demand. Before long, these markets could best be characterized as classic bubbles.

Welcome to “Globalization”.

Republicans sure are quick to talk about handouts, a welfare
state, welfare queens, lazy liberals, but isn’t this bailout Welfare
for Billionaires?

I have a fundamental understanding of what has happened in the housing
market. It is perfectly reasonable the government has to intervene.

BUT. The people who were responsible for monitoring this
need to be fired and there needs to be an examination
of, going forward, what kind of regulation will be taking place.

What message is the government sending if it preaches the fact
that the free market is the most efficient form of a market,
then steps in to bail out firms with our TAX MONEY without our
PERMISSION.

The roles and responsibilities of both the organizations and individuals
that profited need to be analyzed and held accountable.
The organizations need to be forced to dissolve to kick into the $700B
and the individuals need to be fired and replace by people screened
by the Office of Government Accountability or another similarly situated
institution.

What ever happened to “The Free Market”?

Why don’t we apply strict liability of No Child Left Behind to the banking/
mortgage/finance complex? No Bank Left Behind?

What if the folks acted unconscionably, who were complicit in us winding
up in this mess, were fired.

The idea of a No Child Left Behind type of accountability being applied
to the banking and housing industry would be amazing.

$700B could sure buy a whole lot of Public Montessori preschool and
childcare.