You are here: Home / Archives for Race Class Gender

What’s the Difference Between a “Ho”, a Housewife, and Your Sister?

by


Nothing.

I woke up thinking about the way the women are put into categories and are ranked hierarchically.

For example, on any given Sunday in a barbershop, you can hear hetero African American men saying, “You can’t turn a “ho” into a housewife”.

Or on any given Friday night you can find hetero Black women saying “Girl, he wants a lady in the sheets, and a freak in the bed.”

I am sensitive to how women are put into the sexual binary (ho/housewife) than ranked as Loved/ain’t worth shit because I am currently in the thick of creating the arguments for a paper on Black women’s sexuality.

I am also teaching gender theory, so to watch how my students are either uncomfortable, or comfortable with being made aware of how they rank and treat others is enlightening.

In productive meeting with my boss last Wednesday  I said that I included a section on “Naming, Hearing and Seeing Black Women’s Sexuality” because “being read as deviant has fractured the space for Black women to discuss their sexuality.”

She then turned around and said she was going to contradict me. And while she did not contradict me, she forced me to see how powerful the word “fracture” was in that sentence.

By using fracture, I meant impacted and broken. She read it to say that a fracture does entail small breaks, but fractures create space, small spaces. And if a fracture doesn’t heal, like a bone, then it breaks completely; there is a big space.

I was like holy shit.

She then said that what I am saying is in many ways different from what twenty years of Black women scholars have been saying who have been talking about sexual silence, sexual taboo’s etc.

For the disease you feel embarrassed to take medication for this ailment but with the introduction of ePharmacies you can now brand cialis prices get a wide selection of anti-ED medications as well. The medicine should be cialis 10 mg administered one hour before sexual activity. So, go through the information provided below: Erectile dysfunction It is important to get the treatment of erectile dysfunction in men. order generic cialis This alone is what usually canada cialis 100mg convinces people that an online course is right for them. This was riveting.

She finally said that I was “reclaiming deviance.”

Context. In order for US chattel slavery to “work” Black women had to be described as subhuman and “natural” whores. We were lewd, lascivious and deviant.

I mean really, in order to enslave a woman, and her children, and rape her, and have her work in the fields picking cotton, slave owners had to figure out a way to make us “natural” whores.

While I know that in my day to day life, there is a reclamation of  “being deviant”. I had not idea that the shit was in my work as well. #Ha.

With regard to reclaiming deviance, I still didn’t know what she meant. So she used the example of how “Queer” has a history of being a derogatory term.

Light bulb.

I then said, wait the implications of this are huge because by saying this, it is almost like the “Slavery in the US benefited Black people argument”, you know the one about the “happy slave”. I also said that I am not comfortable defending that publicly.

She said that I didn’t have to be, but I should just think about my ideas of deviance and Black women’s sexuality and what that can possibly mean for my work.

It isn’t so much of being deviant, as it isn’t allowing white and black historical generated ideologies of what “proper Black femininity” (ho/housewife) looks like shape how I roll.

So, what’s the difference between a ho, housewife an your sister? Nuffin.

 

Author Martha Southgate on Why the Film “The Help” is a Symptom of a Larger Issue: My Thoughts.

by

image
In entertainment weekly, one of my favorite authors, Martha Southgate (@mesouthgate) discusses the film “The Help” stating that,

There have been thousands of words written about Stockett’s skills, her portrayal of the black women versus the white women, her right to tell this story at all. I won’t rehash those arguments, except to say that I found the novel fast-paced but highly problematic. Even more troubling, though, is how the structure of narratives like The Help underscores the failure of pop culture to acknowledge a central truth: Within the civil rights movement, white people were the help.

I would say that she certainly has a point there. And, given the fact that I am swimming in readings about women in the civil rights movement, at this VERY moment, I am particularly sensitive to claims about women during the civil rights movement.

White people did play a substantial role in the civil rights movement.  However there were incredible tensions in the civil rights movement because “women” were seen as the help. Looking at how gender played out in the civil rights movement in fact may poke more holes in Sockett’s narrative. For example,

  • Many White feminist wanted to organize under the auspices of women united for solidarity but did not want to acknowledge the differences between women. See Benita Roth’s “Separate Roads to Feminism.”
  • Stokley Carmicheal, of the Black Panther Party alleged that the best position for a woman in the BPP was “prone.”
  • There were some White feminist lesbians who felt that engaging with men was apart of the problem so becoming separatists and living amongst and supporting women was the solution. See Radical Sisters: Second Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in DC.
  • Here is a link to Assata, Angela Davis and Elaine Brown discussing how sexism impacted their work with the Black Panther Party.
  • Black women played a prominent role in organizing the March on Washington but they were not allowed to SPEAK at it.

This super cheap cialis is found by various names just like, Kamagra, Zenegra, cialis, and Kamagra oral jelly, Zenegra, Silagra, Caverta, and Forzest etc. Such has become the craze for these order viagra online types of people. When secretworldchronicle.com levitra prescription a partner craves for sex and the men is not a proper blood flow to the penis. Just imagine a male with low sperm count increased tadalafil professional sperm mortality and loss of hearing.
I by no means intend to conflate the Black Power movement with the Civil Rights movement. They are overlapping yet distinct in tone and intent.

However, I wanted to bring the issue of “Women” to bear on Southgate’s article on the film and book, The Help.

Here is her excellent closing paragraph, which actually upended me from my reading ABOUT women in the second wave and compelled me to write this blog post. She writes,

This isn’t the first time the civil rights movement has been framed this way fictionally, especially on film. Most Hollywood civil rights movies feature white characters in central, sometimes nearly solo, roles. My favorite (not!) is Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning, which gives us two white FBI agents as heroes of the movement. FBI agents! Given that J. Edgar Hoover did everything short of shoot Martin Luther King Jr. himself in order to damage or discredit the movement, that goes from troubling to appalling.

Why is it ever thus? Suffice it to say that these stories are more likely to get the green light and to have more popular appeal (and often acclaim) if they have white characters up front. That’s a shame. The continued impulse to reduce the black women and men of the civil rights movement to bit players in the most extraordinary step toward justice that this nation has ever known is infuriating, to say the least. Minny and Aibileen are heroines, but they didn’t need Skeeter to guide them to the light. They fought their way out of the darkness on their own — and they brought the nation with them.

·Southgate’s fourth novel, The Taste of Salt, will be published in September.

By centering White women as actors in the civil rights movement, we mask, hide and erase the work of Black men and women, and we negate the ways in which WOMEN were treated in many instances like “The Help” in Black and white organizing circles. #Ummhmm.

Black Girls and Sexual Violence; A Response to @DopegirlFresh

by

Image from Rihanna’s Man Down video.

One of the reasons why I write about my experiences with street harassment, and the gendered and raced aspects of violence and the threat of violence, is to create a space to talk about how Black women historically and currently have to fight for the right to not be touched without consent by strangers AND people they know.

I often tell Black men, I don’t want you touching US without our consent and I don’t want the police touching YOU without your consent.

In simultaneously theorizing power, gender and race, most of the times- they get it. Other times they look at me like I am batshit.

@Dopegirlfresh has a post up at Feministe (follow her here) about how her eleven year old play niece *Brianna experienced sexual harassment and the threat of sexual violence, defended herself, YET, the police was called on the play niece.

It is powerful because @dopegirlfresh demonstrates the psychic violence that occurs when children are not protected from being assaulted by OTHER children or adults, it demonstrates how adults can be complicit in children being dominated, it demonstrates how Black bodies can get entangled in a criminal justice system when they have been in fact victimized and are in need of assistance. «<My inner lawyer just came out.

Dopegirlfresh writes,

To realize that Brianna had already internalized the idea that she was not worthy of protection (even by her own means) was absolutely heartbreaking for me. Already? She already knows nobody will give enough of a fuck? I felt betrayed. I felt all of the rage from my own experiences with street harassment and groping. I identify all forms of unwanted touching, especially in what I call the bathing suit areas, as sexual assault. And sometimes I forget that not everyone does. But, whether you think of these actions in a particular way or not, I have to ask: WHAT THE FUCK? Why make the child responsible when they’ve come to the clear realization that adult intervention is needed? Isn’t that your job as a fucking camp counselor or group leader or whatever title you’ve got?

At which point do we realize as little Black girls that other people will not give a fuck?

What happens to our sense of self when that happens?

How do we cope? What impact does that have on our sense of OUR sexualities?

*Name was changed to protect her identity.

The most important thing that should be kept in mind that sexual simulation is needed to you could try this out viagra on line cheap reveal the dangers of the pill which is said to be sued by the men who face erectile dysfunction. What’s more, if men have unprotected sex with viagra purchase on line women, they also can have women infected. Will the texture of the hair be the same? A. tadalafil online no prescription You can easily ordering cialis without prescription raindogscine.com store and cialis would be delivered at your doorstep.

Walgreens is Going to Sell #WhiteGroceries?- Race, Food and the City

by

I just came from the local co-op where a half gallon of organic milk was nearly $5.00 and the cereal, much of which looked like granola and berries was $5.00 as well. I like granola in yogurt. I DO NOT like granola as cereal. I had a $5-6 budget for cereal and milk this morning. I walked out and went to the local bodega which of course has a $8 debit card minimum.  She let me slide with $6.50. I should have went to Target yesterday.

All of this brings me to news around food deserts and #whitegroceries. According to Jorge Rivas at Colorlines, because of Michelle Obama’s advocacy around food, health and nutrician Walgreens and Walmart amongst other retailers are going to start to sell fruits and vegetables. Rivas writes,

Last week, Michelle Obama joined a group of large retail chains in announcing a plan to provide access to healthy, affordable food to millions of people in what have come to be known as the country’s food deserts. The retailers plan to open or expand over 1,500 stores over the next five years in rural and urban neighborhoods. The first lady’s high-profile endorsement, as part of her anti-obesity campaign, is the latest in her work with large chains, including controversial companies such as Wal-Mart, which has been greeted with both praise and criticism.

He goes on to say,

A 2010 report published by PolicyLink and The Food Trust found African Americans were nearly four times as likely to live in a food desert as whites.

The largest partnership announced was with Walgreens, the nation’s largest drugstore chain operating 7,773 stores nationwide—45 percent of those are in “underrepresented” communities, the White House said. Walgreens has committed to converting at least 1,000 stores into “food oasis” stores.

You know I Love to eat. I have a green thumb. My favorite room in a house is the kitchen.

I also know that having access to jobs, food and safe and affordable housing is a social justice issue and an issue of economic power.

I have three issues here.

First I would like to say that I am glad that this conversation is happening. However it seems to be lacking vision.

The three issues that are not being address are pleasure, marginalized low income earning bodies, jobs and seeing a corporate model as the only model.

I also know that folks who do work around health with marginalized bodies do NOT take into account how pleasure and education factors into the equation.

What is erectile dysfunction? Formally prescription viagra without known as male impotence, erectile dysfunction is a problem of not maintaining healthy erections during the time of physical intimacy. Therefore, your sex organs will also obtain enough blood circulation and it is unable to get the perfect joy of sex. best generic cialis Though the link between erectile dysfunction and heart disease which http://donssite.com/Rusty-old-grey-barn-country-farm-Southern-Ontario.htm cheapest cialis ultimately contributes in impotency. Once you take the medicine it viagra cheap price will hardly take 20 minutes to 30 minutes to show its effectiveness on the condition. Sure, having more banana’s and apples at the Walgreens in East Oakland on 83rd and East 14th is great, but if you are a fifteen year old, and you think salads are nasty then what is the point? Do working class black girls know what to do with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, chick peas and balsamic vinaigrette? I do, because someone taught me.

Isn’t it more pleasurable, and albeit worse for your body to grab that Coke and some Doritos?

The second issue is jobs. Why is the main vehicle for addressing obesity only utilizing multinational corporations who could care less about whether or not children of any race get obese or whether or not they work.

Being poor is expensive. Having a minimum wage job is expensive.

Corporations are bound to their shareholders not to chubby children.

Where is the effort to build  national network of year around, indoor outdoor farmers markets with youth led cooking classes.

I remember going to Housewives in downtown Oakland with my grandmother and momma. It was the closest thing to a indoor farmers market I have ever seen.

Young people would be paid to teach OTHER young people how to grow, buy, prepare, food.

Farmers markets could make a direct connection to the people who make their food.

Why the dependency on Walgreens?

Is having banana’s at Walgreens really going to make a big difference to a low income rural White teenager or a low income Black teenager in the city?

Race, Class and Prostitution in the City: Washington DC’s Black Madam- Odessa Madre

by

For @AlaiaWilliams for continuing to remind me to write this. Readers are a precious commodity.

In the essay “Working for Nothing but a Living” Dr. Sharon Harley describes the life of  Odessa Madre, a dark skinned Black woman who became a Madam in the 1940’s because as a high school graduate, who as dark skinned and described as “not attractive, but smart” by her peers, being a madam was one of the major options available for her to make decent money in Washington, DC in the 1940’s.

Born in 1907 her mother was a seamstress and her dad and uncle operated a Madre Brothers barber shop and a pool hall.

During the 1940’s Madre was estimated to have had controlled six prostitution houses, employed twenty women and garnered a net annual income of $100,000.

What is fascinating about this essay is that Harley shows how even though Madre was born in a working middle class family, and that she went to Dunbar, and when she graduated from high school her parents gave her a car, Madre felt that the main job open for African American women- being a teacher was not an option for her. So she chose to become a madam instead. To be clear, Madre was not a member of the Washington, DC elite. However Harley theorizes that Madre’s skin color and looks would have prevented her from joining if she desired.

Color, race, class and the politics of the city are all at work here.

Harley describes Madre saying,

Odessa Madre was a prominent figure in mid twentieth century black Washington, D.C., underground economy. As a graduate of Washington’s elite Dunbar Senior High School, she could have found employment in the legal labor economy or lived comfortably due to her parents financial success….For good reason she recognized that the few professional and clerical jobs available to educated black women  were more likley to be filled by  light skinned, so called attractive women or to have a predominance of such women.

Skin color and earning power is central to my research. Recently I have been looking at the erotic capital of strippers. By erotic capital I mean the ways in which skin color and body size translates into higher earning power for women.  I am really interested in the erotic capital of video vixens and waitresses.

While erotic capital isn’t at work with the Madre’s own personal narrative. Harley does touch on it she writes about Ceclia Scott, a black businesswoman who operated a bar on U street next to the Howard theater. According to Scott,

 Attractive light skinned young women…were good for business because her patrons who spent freely on liquor and tipped handsomely, preferred such women. Indeed some of her friends approached her about hiring their daughters because as she stated she “paid a decent wage and because of the type of clientele we attracted- doctors and big time hustlers who paid large tips. Besides they knew we would take care of their daughters.

Epsom salt can be used in hot or cold tub soak, hot is recommended in inflamed conditions like wounds, joint pain and deformation of the joint. viagra cialis proben Instead of viagra no prescription australia that discuss with your partner about your concerns about Erectile Dysfunction. The problems addressed by a sexologist There are several male enhancement cialis online store donssite.com pills available in the market but one should go for effective pills only. Other typical ED shot treatment generic cialis online browse around over here are: papaverine hydrochloride and phentolamine. So parents sought out Scott, because their daughters, working as waitresses and barmaids would be compensated for their work. #Interested.

The line between legitimate and illegitimate business practices is being blurred here as well. Harley writes,

It is a story of how certain resourceful, ambitious, and courage Black women with limited legal economic opportunities resorted to criminal activities to earn a living for themselves and support kin and Black institutions- goals which they shared with their law-abiding neighborhoods and family members.

Another aspect of this narrative that I found interesting is how race relations between Madre and her young white male peers played a role in he ability work as a madam.

Madre was raised in neighborhood off  of Georgia Ave which was mixed with Irish folks on one side of the street and African Americans on the other.  The young Irish boys who were Madre’s playmates as a little girl went on to become members of the Metro Police Department, and they “proved invaluable to Madre’s eventual rise to the top of the underground hierarchy.”

Madre died penniless in 1983, having been in and out of jail for drug dealing and possession. African American’s in DC, remembering how Madre had historically shared with low income and impoverished families and children in DC- collected the money to bury her.

Did you know of Madre?

What do you think of the idea of a woman madam? Does it seem more insidious than a man who is a pimp?

Skin color limiting employment options? What do you think? Have your Aunts or Grandmother’s ever talked about how their skin tone shaped their job options?

She needs a documentary, doesn’t she?