Black Feminism: Uncool But So Necessary

[What does a Black Feminist look like?]

Modern Feminism is hot, hot, hot, and probably has been since Gloria Steinem, donning the most mod pair of glasses ever, hit the international stage with intelligence, style and a gang of White supporters.

I have identified as a feminist for a short while, probably less than two years, but I've made up for lost time by voraciously consuming pro-women's media (Cosmopolitan doesn't count) and staying abreast of and supporting campaigns, elections and movements that help women. There are young feminists, old feminists, feminist blogs, feminist Twitters, feminist magazines, but there aren't any Black feminists.

Oh sure, there are Black women who call themselves feminists (like me), but women exploring the gnarled, juxtaposed relationship between race, class and gender? Not really. And if they're there, they're not buoyed up like their White counterparts. Even mainstream media doesn't ignore Black women, but they make the fatal mistake of attempting to discuss our gender and social station without also discussing race and class, which makes any argument only surface-level.

I want to do that. My friend and Twitter soulmate Nikita wants to do that. I'm sure there are other Black women that want to.


Food for thought:

"Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together"

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker

Womanist Musings.com

Latoya Peterson, the hip-hop feminist, is amazing...Google her ("older feminists being insensitive to issues of race, class or sexuality")

Erica Kennedy's a feminista

Rebecca's Walker's "How my mother's fanatical feminist views tore us apart"

Rebecca Walker on Twitter

Tales of the Public School Nothings

Originally written for Change.org

“Why do you talk like that?” “You’re not like those Black kids.”

Before I donned the standard white dress of my fifth grade graduation, I had heard phrases like that all too many times. According to a report from National Public Radio titled “Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools are Failing Black Students,” I was something of a “straddler,” or Black kids that navigate the rift between privileged classmates in advanced academic programs and the friends they leave behind, mainly Blacks and Latinos without the same societal expectations. This peculiar duality that many minorities experience is precisely one of the reasons why schools are failing them.

At my neighborhood elementary school, I took classes in a small annex that was dubbed “the pod,” where the city’s only elementary Magnet program was housed. While the greater school was predominantly African-American, the Magnet school was mostly White. I excelled in my classes and still managed to retain neighborhood friendships, though both sets of peers regarded me as something of an oddity. I didn’t appear to subscribe to the limited and often negative view of Black achievement, as others did.

And because of my educational environment, I was taught: challenged, constructively criticized, encouraged, and rewarded. I was told that I was smart, and expected to behave accordingly. My teachers were given positive cues on how to deal with me because of my past markings. And while my education was the best that my city could inexpensively offer, it often felt that my schooling was nothing more than an accident, a byproduct of being in a class full of White students that the teachers were eager to reach.

But the real achievement wasn’t a Black girl making the grades, rather a Black girl making the grades without “selling out.” “Mind the Gap,” spoke to students in Northern New Jersey who were straddling the space between achievement and authentic African-Americana, which are often seen as being contrary.

At the core of this issue is a damaged sense of self in the Black community that is reinforced by academic tracking, which is often prejudiced and biased. Black children who make it to honors, Advanced Placement, or Magnet classes (in and of itself a feat at some schools) find themselves ostracized and forced to deal with social implications never present for White or Asian students, who see themselves all throughout the top tier of their school’s hierarchy.

There are certainly Black success stories within public schools. I did well throughout primary school and attended a prestigious all-Black college on a full scholarship. I graduated in three years and am now a writer. It’s not a stretch to say that in the gamble that is the nation’s public schools, I won. But what can be done about the losers?

The solution certainly isn’t a simple one, but part of it should be a representative sampling of ethnicities at all levels of education. Standing against this, as “Mind the Gap” proved, are the middle class parents who are mobilized and ready to fight for their kids’ spots at the top. But the question that’s never asked is, “What have those children done to deserve their status?” Is it really a question of intelligence or hard work, or have those children simply been dealt a winning hand?

Listen to the documentary in its entirety at www.prx.org.

Don't I Look Like a Feminist?

I'm trying to get someone to tell me how I can become a full-fledged member of feminism's third wave...to no avail. Oh well, at least this pic makes me look informed, intelligent and infuriated.


-- Whitney

Project FAIL

Hello (in a sad voice). I miss this little blog! I feel like I haven't posted in forever, even though I was getting some momentum earlier in the year. The culprit is, as it always is, my maniacal, obsessive personality.

You see, I started a book blog with one of the my best friends. It's called Uptown Literati and it's got a blogspot, but we've also got a dot com and we update daily and we have contributors and we do interviews and we just joined a blog network and we also have a weekly column on Clutch and we need to get someone to design the template and we try to Twitter a couple of times a day and we update our Facebook page too...and I'm not good at balance, which is ironic because I'm a Libra and this is my birthday month and our sign is the scales. My partner (blog partner, not life partner) still manages to keep her blog looking fresh and dazzling, despite the UL strain. I can't do that.

It's like when I get on one of my exercise kicks. I'll work out everyday at 180% until I make myself sore and don't want to work out for weeks, except that I don't get sore from being chained to my laptop. I type and type, send emails, edit posts, post posts, research partnerships, read books online, look for new contributors, connect with other nerds on Twitter, I send frantic text messages at all hours in the morning (Nicole normally ignores them...), we email back and forth all day, I spend HOURS editing posts to plump them up and make them perfect (in my eyes). I put friendships on the line, all that, and it does nothing but feed my gluttonous need to see UL succeed. Guys, it's SUCH a cute idea :)

I've also become a little obsessed with Erica Kennedy. There, I said it. She's AMAZING! She's soooo smart, and she wrote a really great book that I can't stop talking about (literally! UL blogged about it, I wrote about it on Clutch...twice!) and I can't stop checking her blog, which she updates, like thrice daily with the most relevant and interesting stories that people proceed to write the most relevant and interesting comments on. Ugh. It's an obsession. She also Twitters and I find out about other fab Twitters through her. It's really, really sad.

Sooooo...that's why I neglect you, 1016, because I'm too busy obsessing about other blogs that are not you. I apologize....

Am I Black Enough For Ya?

No, actually you are not.

The crop of '80s babies whose parents sacrificed for their kids to grow up in the right neighborhoods (i.e. not a brown face in sight), attend the right schools (again, mostly white, regardless of the rigorless curriculum) and talk right (i.e. using white colloquolisms, not proper grammar) really piss me off.

In some ways, I'm one of them. Technically, I've always lived West of the interstate that runs through my hometown, either in a suburb or sufficiently close to one to be considered suburbia. I entered a Montossori program at 5, a magnet school at 6 and thus was privy to my share of "Well, that's an interesting hairstyle" comments and damn-I'm-the-only-Black-girl-at-this-sleepover-again moments.

But, on the other hand, I grew up with a huge Souhern Black family. Which meant that I always knew the latest ghetto dance, had plenty a recommendation for a good, cheap hairbraider and could hand-game with the best of them.

Because I've moved within different worlds my whole life, it always annoys me when people who are more one-sided feel superior about it. Like, "Oh, I'm a wannabe Valley girl with bad weave. I'm better than you." Or, "I'm so hoooooood. Get on my level." Either personality is annoying, but the Oreo complex is the most offensive. Mainly because it's rooted in the same prejudices that kept Black people out of those white (not rich) neighborhoods and schools. The idea that because white people embrace it, it must be better.

Just because you listen to Maroon 5, doesn't mean you have eclectic taste. It only means that you like Top 40 hits. Like the rest of the world. Just because the slang you use isn't normally heard on MLK Boulevard, doesn't mean that you're speaking the King's English. Your speak isn't "better" than so-called African-American venecular; it's just different. Just because you have "Daddy Bought It" plates on your car instead of a baby Jordan dangling from the rearview, doesn't mean you are more cultured; your culture is just not stereotypically Black. But you still are.

And again, I find it so obnoxious because the mentality behind it is "Well, this is white, so it must be better." I attended Howard University ("H-U!") and I vividly remember all of those Freshman year, "rep your set" talks. The Black-neighborhood kids against the white-neighborhood kids (I repped both), the private school folks against the public school people. The gist of what a lot of the Oreo kids would say is that their parents wanted the best for them, so sending them to ABC Avenue High School and making them the only one in their class was the best option. The school's often didn't offer any special programs or super-duper advanced classes to prepare them for a good college. They were just white.

I just never understood that. Probably because my mom was so vehemently against me and my sister going to school in predominantly White neighborhoods. She never explained to me why, but I believe it was because she understood the sense of pride and community you get when your principal, counselor, teachers and fellow students are Black. When everyone is actively engaged in the process of learning and growing, not just about academics, but also about history and culture. Maybe it was because she recognized that some of the best academic programs our city had to offer weren't at the nearby Catholic school or Joe Schmo White School, but in historically Black neighborhoods, like the one that she was raised in and where our grandmother lived.

But at the end of the day, that's high school, or middle school, or some other school that's in the past. So anyone that carries that experience around like a badge of honor, please shut up and sit down.

--Whitney

Gratuitous Inspiration

I love these chicks! And the way left-side twin is rocking the strapless-high waist look is so inspiring. Boxy blazers and a empire waist? Nothing wrong with that either. I'm collecting images in the hopes that it will ignite my imagination for my fall wardrobe. Y'all know how much I love that season, and this time, I want to make it extra fly!

Besos!

The New Black

[Careers in non-profit organizations are the new black]

Here's a thought: Careers at non-profits are the new magazine jobs. Let me explain. So, I was IMing my friend yesterday when we got on a pretty familiar topic.


Friend: I don't know. I think [my magazine freelancer friend] is actually leaning in another direction outside of journalism now.

Mags are over.
me: here here!
me: i think i'd like to go into nonprofits when my mag career is over

NP's are the new mag

Friend: I like that.

The demise of the magazine industry is a popular point of discussion among Journalism alums (myself included), so I've had some time to think about what my post-magazine career should be, and a non-profit is the perfect fit.

Consider this: Both careers offer fashionably low pay rates, stylishly dressed co-workers (albeit, a different sort of style) and that self-righteous attitude that can only come with industries populated by upper class white people.

To further prove my point, Stuff White People Like rated Unpaid Internships in both fields #105 on their list. They said, "White people view the internship as their foot into the door to such high-profile low-paying career fields as journalism, film, politics, art, non-profits, and anything associated with a museum. Any white person who takes an internship outside of these industries is either the wrong type of white person or a law student. There are no exceptions."

[Lisa Bonet, clutching one of her babies at the Farmers Market. How much of a stereotype can you be?]

And if the quick-to-spend, quick-to-drink Carrie Bradshaw was the woman du jour of the '90s, certainly altruistic Earth mothers like Angelina Jolie and Lisa Bonet are the It girls every yuppie or buppie worth her salt aspires to in this decade.