"race"
Monday, February 25, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
"Contemporary forms of oppression do not routinely force people to submit. Instead, they manufacture consent for domination so that we lose our ability to question and thus collude in our own subordination."
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics (via emturner)
Saturday, February 9, 2013
"Indeed, within White supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the entire culture works to deny Black women the opportunity to pursue a life of the mind, makes the intellectual realm a place “off limits.” Like our 19th century female ancestors, it is only through active resistance that we claim our right to assert an intellectual presence. Sexism and racism working together perpetuate an iconography of Black female representation that impresses on the collective cultural consciousness the idea that Black women are on this planet primarily for the purpose of serving others. From slavery to the present day, the Black female body has been seen in Western eyes as the quintessential symbol of a “natural” female presence that is organic, closer to nature, animalistic, primitive [….] Black females have been historically perceived as embodying a “dangerous” female nature that must be controlled. More so than any group of women in this society, Black women have been seen as “all body, no mind.” The use of Black female bodies in slavery as incubators for the breeding of other slaves was the practical exemplification of the notion that “disorderly woman” should be controlled. To justify White male sexual exploitation and rape of Black females during slavery, White culture had to produce an inconography of Black female bodies that insisted on representing them as highly sexed, the perfect embodiment of primitive, unbridled eroticism. Such representations impressed on everyone’s consciousness the notion that Black women were all body and no mind. Their cultural currency continues to inform how Black females are perceived."
bell hooks in “Black Women Intellectuals” (via daniellemertina)
10 Things You Didn't Know About Rosa Parks
aninvisibleman:
1. Parks had been thrown off the bus a decade earlier by the same bus driver — for refusing to pay in the front and go around to the back to board. She had avoided that driver’s bus for twelve years because she knew well the risks of angering drivers, all of whom were white and carried guns. Her own mother had been threatened with physical violence by a bus driver, in front of Parks who was a child at the time. Parks’ neighbor had been killed for his bus stand, and teenage protester Claudette Colvin, among others, had recently been badly manhandled by the police.
2. Parks was a lifelong believer in self-defense. Malcolm X was her personal hero. Her family kept a gun in the house, including during the boycott, because of the daily terror of white violence. As a child, when pushed by a white boy, she pushed back. His mother threatened to kill her, but Parks stood her ground. Another time, she held a brick up to a white bully, daring him to follow through on his threat to hit her. He went away. When the Klu Klux Klan went on rampages through her childhood town, Pine Level, Ala., her grandfather would sit on the porch all night with his rifle. Rosa stayed awake some nights, keeping vigil with him.
Read More
Monday, February 4, 2013
softjunebreeze:
Musical director and guitar player BiBi McGill plays guitar next to Beyonce Knowles during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show on February 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
But What About Beyoncé’s Band?
Whether you’re a fan or not you have to admit Beyonce’s Knowles performance at the Super Bowl was full of explosive energy. Her 13-minute performance included a 120 dancers, a 10-piece all female band and several back up singers.
Then there’s the Super Dome staff, stage, lighting and costume designers, the choreographer, the hair and make up folks, the list goes on.
It’s no surprise Beyoncé is getting all the attention but since no one else is talking about the musicians that made that performance happen it’s a great opportunity to highlight the band.
Beyoncé says she started the 10-piece all female band called “The Sugar Mamas” so young girls could have more role models.
“When I was younger I wish I had more females who played instruments to look up to. I played piano for like a second but then I stopped,” Beyoncé said in a statement. “I just wanted to do something which would inspire other young females to get involved in music so I put together an all-woman band.”
Meet some of the band members that make up Beyonce’s band “The Sugars Mamas.”
Rosa Parks: a great American rebel for racial justice
edforchoice:
100 years ago today Rosa Parks was born. Often Parks is portrayed as a ‘tired seamstress’ who’s moment of activism was confined to December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. The real story is very different. Rosa Parks was a strategic, trained political activist.
“Rosa Parks has much to teach us. In fact, she and other young women had refused to give up their seats on the bus before 1 December 1955… Rosa Parks was no tired seamstress. As she said of that brave action she took: ‘The only tired I was, was tired of giving in’.”
The rebellious lives and non-violent direct action tactics used by women civil rights activists have so much to teach us all today. Please SHARE this quote and make sure Rosa Parks is remembered for the committed life-long campaigner she was.
"To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a “woman doctor” or they will say they went to see “the doctor.” People will tell you they have a “gay colleague” or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a “Black friend,” but when that same person simply mentions a “friend,” everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word “woman” or “gay” or “minority” in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses “literature,” “history” or “political science."
Michael S. Kimmel, in the introduction to the book, “Privilege: A Reader” (via queerintersectional)
Thursday, December 6, 2012
"Of course, not all women of color are sexualized in the same way. For example, while black women are considered lascivious, always consenting and out of control, Latina women are considered exotic or overly sensual and Asian women are considered childish and prude. These particular stereotypes are reinforced through popular culture and pornography (just Google respectively “Asian women,” “black women,” or “Latina women” and then “women” and see what comes up). The common thread here is that nonwhite women’s sexuality is seen as outside the norm of white heterosexuality. It’s therefore something to be uniquely desired, manipulated, exploited, or controlled. Within this rather toxic climate, being a woman of color who’s in touch with her sexuality is an act of resistance. Pushing past the negative media depictions and still finding a healthy, healing, erotic, and functional sexuality is no small feat."
Samhita Mukhopadhyay
sorry y’all but these quotes are so relevant and my queue has a lot of stuff in it so
(via wretchedoftheearth)
crankyskirt:
ISBN 978-1-935950-05-9
Softcover 6″ x 9″, 240pp
Coming September 2012
What Are You Doing Here? investigates how black women musicians and fans navigate the metal, hardcore, and punk music genres that are regularly thought of as inclusive spaces and centered on a community spirit, but fail to block out the race and gender issues that exist in the outside world.
“We can neither reflectively choose our color identity nor downplay its social significance simply by willing it to be unimportant… but our color no more binds us to send a predetermined group message to our fellow human beings than our language binds us to convey predetermined thoughts.”—Amy Gutmann
“Sometimes I think nothing is simple but the feeling of pain.”—Lester Bangs
I’ll be the first to admit that, like any other book, What Are You Doing Here? is partly self-serving. I wanted to find other black women like me: metal, hardcore, and punk fans and musicians that were rabid about the music and culture and adamant about asserting their rightful place as black women within those scenes. I wanted to find other women who put aside the cultural baggage that dictates that we must listen to certain musical styles, and simply enjoy the music that influenced us, not just as black women, but as individuals who grew up in an era when, thanks to technology, a large variety of music is accessible and available to everyone. I found many black women and have shared their stories, but I also realize there is still a lot of work to be done.
Sweet! Looking forward to reading this.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
mackiejunior:
Ayo, if you follow anyone on Twitter, you should follow @maleprivilege
