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Perms & Skin Bleaching: Two Sides Of The Same Coin?

Last week an article about the abuse of skin bleaching in Jamaica went viral online. This practice, which requires one to apply a cream to the skin that strips it of its pigment in order to achieve a lighter complexion, is not foreign to Blacks in the U.S., but is rarely discussed. However the topic of Black hair remains on the table within our community and the issues of perms and relaxers is one guaranteed to spark the hottest of debates.

In last month’s all-women’s podcast, one member of our group likened perms to skin bleaching and she received an incredulous response. Though the application of perms and skin are about the same – apply it to the skin/hair and the original state of each is changed – the idea of the two being linked insulted former and current perm wearers at the table. I, too, am a former permie turned natural, but saw the link between the two practices – though I understood why my other sistren at the table were insulted. As a community, we liken skin-bleaching with self-hatred, but with perms we don’t. Perms just make our hair more “manageable”.

However having the dichotomy of the two presented before me I couldn’t help but think about the level of “self-hate” that is imposed upon us as children when it comes to our hair and the need to make it “manageable”. How many of us from ages 6 on up spent hours at the salon under the heat of the pressing comb, and were all too happy to move away from that to the ease of a perm? Both practices instill in us that there is something “wrong” with our hair in its natural state. For me, the discovery of natural hairstyles was not one of raised consciousness, but a decision I made based on economics. However, there was a certain freedom I felt knowing that my hair in its natural state could be managed. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more concerned with hair and scalp health for black women and have frequented sites like Nappturality and Long Hair Care Forum for advice and tips on maintaining hair health.

Our podcast ended at an impasse: One side feeling that wearing a perm has nothing to do with self-hated and the other feeling that there is a definitely an undercurrent of self-hate so deeply embedded in us when it comes to our hair practices, that we can’t see it.

What do you think?

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Celebrating Our Women: Antonia Pantoja

Antonia Pantoja (1922-2002), visionary Puerto Rican educator, activist, and early proponent of bilingual education, inspired multiple generations of young people and fought for many of the rights that people take for granted today. Unbowed by obstacles she encountered as a black, Puerto Rican woman, she founded ASPIRA in 1961,  (Spanish for “to aspire”), a non-profit organization that promoted a positive self-image, commitment to community, and education as a value as part of the ASPIRA Process to Puerto Rican and other Latino youth in New York City. ASPIRA now has offices in six states, Puerto Rico and has its headquarters, the ASPIRA Association, in Washington, D.C.. It has provided approximately 50,000 Latino students with career and college counseling, financial aid and other assistance, and is today one of the largest nonprofit agencies in the Latino community. In 1963 Dr. Pantoja directed a project of the Puerto Rican Forum that resulted in the establishment of the Puerto Rican Community Development Project (PRCDP),  to empower Puerto Rican youth, and created other enduring leadership and advocacy organizations in New York and California, across the United States, and in Puerto Rico. Recognized for her achievements in 1996, Dr. Pantoja was awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed upon civilians in the US.

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Black Women – We Want Curves….Part II

“Curves Not Cul-de-Sacs” was initially meant for another blog site.  As soon as I sent it, a woman told me “You know you’re going to catch hell for this, right?”  There were certain things I didn’t expect, but much of it I did.

When I read the post to a group of men and women, a few of them pointed out 2 parts of the post that I hadn’t thought about, that they felt were the reason many women felt the entire post was offensive:

“Looking like the Michelin Man is not sexy or cute.”

“It’s hard to hold on to you if your stomach is in the way.”

I understand why people would take offense to those parts.  I apologize for that.  I see how that was harsh.  I could go back and erase those lines, but I feel like I would be cheating and wouldn’t be owning up to it.

What surprised me were the levels to which women saw things I never said.  Women I personally know who thought I was speaking in a tone that I don’t speak in.

A woman told me when she was younger she was rail thin, but her brother called her fat to the point where she believed it.  This created a skewed vision in her mind of her body image.  In essence, she told me when I wrote that piece, it would’ve been safer to think that most women who read it have a body image issue.  That women, especially Black women, live with a cloud over their head everyday that tells them how they must be, and even the most beautiful of women may think I’m pointing at them.  I don’t think anyone has ever taught me how to address a woman with that level of psychological oppression in a concerned way.  If anything, I’ve been told how to exploit it.

When I said I’m talking about obesity, a lot of women included themselves, thinking that the pictures I posted were actually THEM.  I remember in college me and my friends made a point to tell Black women we knew that they were beautiful.  Nearly all of them said they knew we were sincere, but they didn’t believe it themselves when they looked in the mirror.  I don’t know if it’s healthy for me to assume that every woman I encounter has some kind of body image issue by default.  If this is so, then where do we go from here?

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Black Women- We Want Curves, Not Cul-de-Sacs

I write this out of concern. This is not a joke, nor a judgment on all of you. Not every black woman fits what I’m describing. If you take this personally I would implore you to ask if, just maybe, this is a reflection of something deeper going on within. Some of this may come off as superficial, but I figure you would rather me be honest. So let’s get to the point…

Black women: You need to workout more and lose weight.

Culturally speaking, yes, we like ‘em with a little more “meat on the bones”. But the meat should be tender, not fatty. If I can see the muscle striations on the meat, that means the fat is gone. For many of you, I do not see meat, I see fat. And we’re not talking “thick”, chubby, or “out of shape”. We’re talking OBESE.

Yesterday, I was talking with a Black female friend. She has a great shape, and you can tell that a lot of that has to do with her diet and exercise. I told her I was going to write this piece on women’s weight and asked for insight on how to speak on this without hurting feelings or being insensitive. She said I should just keep it real. In no way am I exaggerating when I say that in less than 30 seconds from getting out of her car, I saw 5 different Black women. 4 of them were obese. The kind of obese that forces them to lean back while walking to carry the weight of their stomach.

This. Must. Stop.

I’m not going to cite statistics because the more cynical among you will pick apart at it. I say, the next time you go out, try to keep count of how many Black women you see that are overweight. Think of how many Black women you know personally who are overweight. Compare those numbers you have with the stats online. Being overweight is not supposed to be a normal thing, or else they wouldn’t call it OVER-weight.

I go to a lot of different places and bounce between many different circles, but just about everywhere I go is with a particularly tight crew of Black male friends. For years now, no matter what club we’re at or neighborhood we’re in, we have remarked at how many of the Black women that are around are overweight. This past weekend it was as though everywhere we went Black women were obese. What’s going on?

I’m aware of the issues around having time to work out, the money it costs to eat healthily, and after having children sometimes there is weight that seems to never go away. But what I also notice is how many women use these as excuses to rationalize why they should not work out or even try to eat more healthily. 30 minutes a day is not much. Furthermore, working out but offsetting that by eating unhealthy food is never going to help. I also know a great deal of Black women who were able to lose weight after they had children. Some of them look even better than before.

At the least, try to have a healthier diet. I have seen so many Black mothers feeding their children McDonalds, KFC, Cheetos, and other junk. Please find a Subway, Quiznos, Trader Joes, or some kind of good quality grocery store in your area. If you don’t have one, organize a group and fight like hell to get one. This is your family and community we’re talking about.

Please stop with these “fasts”. After fasting, your body absorbs everything you eat even more because you’ve starved it of certain nutrients. Black women “fast” their way to losing weight, only to gain the weight back, and then have to fast again. It’s pretty much a fact of life that you must WORK to get the results you want. Whether it’s money or a healthy body, hardly ever does the “fast” way work. Fasting is also meant to be a spiritual exercise in many cases. What kind of spiritual growth do you get if you keep returning to bad habits?

Do men need to lose weight too? Yes. But at the end of the day, a man’s size and weight are hardly ever a major issue to his attractiveness. In fact, the larger he is the more manly he appears to be. But if you find that having a man who works-out to be an important quality to you, then by all means require that. If you have a boyfriend or husband, ask him to go running with you and workout together. Exercise and healthy habits also communicate how much you have self-discipline and self-worth. Who wouldn’t find those as attractive traits?

I have seen a lot of Black women complain about not finding a man. But when I look at some of them I say to myself, “You probably wouldn’t have that problem if you went to the gym.” Is that a superficial “man” statement? Maybe. But guess what? Men like women that look good.

Some guys do like big girls. More power to ‘em. But I am also willing to bet a lot of those men like to control the girl they’re with too.

I know a lot of women who gain weight and become depressed by it, and the unhappiness with their weight causes them to eat more. They reward the pleasure center of their brain to feel better by eating. Then they feel bad again. Then they give themselves pleasure again by eating more food and sugar. This cycle is no different than any other person with an addiction. They escape reality by feeling good for a moment, but the long term effect is not healthy. When you workout, the endorphins and oxygen circulating makes you feel good. Your skin glows. As you keep working-out and lose weight, you feel even better. You look in the mirror, smiling at the hard work you put in and how good you look. Those “video vixen” girls have had surgery, airbrushing, and make-up to look that way. You can look just like them, all naturally! Doesn’t that sound so much more appealing? That’s just the beginning!

Everywhere, from Mo’Nique and more, I see this embracing of Black women being “thick”, which really now means overweight. The Body Mass Index wasn’t really designed for all cultures who have different body types and eating habits, that’s for sure. Even still, there is something to be said for having a stomach that hangs out of your shirt. Too often I see people who try to turn unhealthy behavior into something to embrace as loving themselves. If you really love yourself, you will strive to be the healthiest you can be, inside and out.

I love the curves of Black women. The hips and backside that come from the African past. But the curves look best in certain places, not everywhere. Looking like the Michelin Man is not sexy or cute.

A lot of us men want something to hold on to.
But it’s hard to hold on to you if your stomach is in the way.

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Black Marriage Negotiations

After having many conversations about black male/female relationships, all I could do with these videos was post them and wait for feedback:

My single, successful sisters, is this us? Is this what we really expect from our men?

Brothers, are these your real fears about dealing with successful, black women?

Are these your expectations?

Let’s check ourselves people.

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The Essence of Things Hoped For

Now that the dust and charge of emotion have settled down a bit, cheapest essay writing service this black writer begs a lowest price cheap discount cialis professional few more minutes on Essence Magazine’s new hire.  Every buy generic cialis 20mg single Black person who heard that our beloved

Essence hired a white fashion director gave bittersweet pause.  Apparently, her interim performance proved meritorious enough to gain this coveted spot.  If truth be told, we knew this was coming–the inevitable shift born of commodification.  Essence–once for today’s Black woman now puts Black women first.

Why was this move so problematic?  Because it is hard to discern whether she’s a white fashion director or a fashion director who just happens to be white.   By the time we do figure it out, what will it cost black folks especially black women in terms of our precious cultural premiums held in mind, body, and spirit?

How do we

hold on to an evolving human condition and our cultural condition without letting one suffocate the other?  Often as a people, we engender inclusionary practices at the expense of our hard-won cultural sanctity and originality.  How do we accept that this particular white sister will do us honorably?

Now, I am not so naïve as to think that no non-black allies have existed, supported, and helped birth and hone much black creativity and talent.  Thank you to every non-black individual who is/was in service to black achievement and creativity for the sake of the achievement and betterment of the black artist who created it.  My query though is how many equally talented, creative, available, hungry to take up the torch black sisters and/or brothers were passed over?  Does this now mean that Essence will garner a more universal status and appeal thereby allowing more black talent in publishing to expect the same or similar opportunities working at Vogue, Cosmo or Elle?

Doubt that since the white supremacist formula historically does not go both ways.  Ironically though, it is this very precarious circumstance that produces the conditions and crucible for black product and creativity.  Make me wanna holla/The way dey do my life!

Black strivings—the creative and complex products of the terrifying African encounter with the absurd in America—and the absurd as America—thank you, Dr.

Cornel West for always going to the heart of the intellectual matter—like Essence magazine must be vigilant when choosing who's watching over the proverbial hen house.  Black originality born of the minds and souls of black folks must anchor itself as much as possible in the essential oil of our unique experience as American Africans because inevitably the price of doing lucrative business means white folks meddlin’ again as Granny used to say.  They will necessarily be in on conversations that deal with money and the making of money whatever the medium.  Yes, our cultural content springs creatively and consistently from our own original black selves and the influences therein but when it is to be imaged for mass consumption it is controlled and/or influenced largely by powers that are non-black.   And when one controls, they say what its gon’ be.    Their allegiance is not to righteous representation of which Essence was birthed nor is it motivated by the cultural sanctity or positive cultural proliferation Essence stands for.  As a body of work, Essence is its own rich and stellar legacy that testifies to our beleaguered black existence as beautiful but most importantly human.  Where and what this white sister is all about still remains to be seen because interim duty does not a fully-commissioned director make.  How will she use her power for our own black good?

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Black Men Revealed: The Problem or the Solution?

This morning I caught an episode of “Black Men Revealed” on TV One. The segment topic was cheating. Representing black men were an old cheater, a young “pretty boy”, a “reformed” cheater, and a man who is in a committed relationship. They initially began to reminisce about times they were caught cheating and how their partners reacted. The pretty boy bragged about how he had sex with the mother of one of his “Starting 5” ON Mother’s Day. He called it her “present”. Then he was heralded “the man” when he confessed his starter was so angry with him he felt obliged to put her twin sister in the game.

The men also discussed ways to avoid confrontation when their woman suspects them of cheating. One man revealed, quite proudly, that whenever his girl suspected something he turned it right back on her and accused her of cheating. He said she became so obsessed with proving her innocence she forgot all about his dirt.

I could go an and on about the ridiculous inferences made during the show, but it ended with the revelation that most men on the panel had been cheated on at one time or another. It was then I realized these men are no different than all the women who have been cheated on and are jaded because of it. These harsh realities have left men and women furious with one another, questioning the merit of monogamy and naturally mistrusting of others.

Optimistically speaking, the producers of the show had good intentions when providing a forum to discuss issues related to black males. Unfortunately, the show serves as a vehicle to reinforce stereotypes about black men, such as them being pimps, cheaters, users and abusers. The show leaves much to be desired. Rarely if at all was there mention of these men or women being WRONG when they cheated. Rarely if at all did they mention how their families were affected. Not once did one man say to another “we gotta do better”. Not once did they mention the rising number of HIV/AIDS infections and other STD’s. The show glorified cheating and portrayed men on the hunt as a part of natural selection. ANIMALS hunt multiple prey. Doesn’t man possess the ability to reason and control instincts?

Is “Black Men Revealed” the problem or the solution?

Haaaaay girl signing off.

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Black Is… Me

I recently finished college and I’m told this is where my life begins. I have the world at my fingertips and can do whatever I put my mind to… I agree with this cliché statement to a degree but as a young Black woman in America, I know better. My “life” began a long time ago– I would say at the age of three. I became a big sister and my mother became a single parent. I had to grow up very quickly. My younger brother became my responsibility when our mom wasn’t at home. I didn’t complain. I understood my new role, and took it on proudly. My story is typical of many African Americans who grew up in single parent homes. I didn’t have time to dream big because I had to act quickly. When our mother was not home, I had to make parental decisions for my brother and I. I wouldn’t put that type of responsibility on any child but I can say that I am a better person for my experiences. Things never came easy for us but our mother never let us see her worry. To say that my life begins now is to throw away all the valuable life lessons of my childhood  and adolescence. These lessons got me where I am today so I refuse to do that. These experiences have helped me to deal with very difficult situations easily. I’ve learned how to “turn those lemons into lemonade” as the popular saying goes. As a people, we have been doing this since we involuntarily set foot on this land.

My story is one of many that make up the Black experience. Each of us handles what life deals us differently. What binds us is our history and culture. Our history is often sugarcoated and hidden. Our culture is often duplicated and seldom acknowledged. We continue to challenge stereotypes and even fall victim to them—but I digress. Black Is, the magazine, is a celebration of our experiences. It is a representation of the complexities that make up our daily lives. My hope is to bring the good, the bad and the ugly while posing questions to make you think and offering correctives to encourage action. What it means to be Black in America pertains to the individual. Black Is overcoming adversity and doubt in the face of struggle. Black Is determination and pride. Black Is beautiful. Black Is me.

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Let’s Keep the “Thug” Ball Rollin’ – Part II

Slim Thug recently participated in an interview with Vibe where he disclosed a bias he has towards black women. In this interview he states: “My girl is Black and White. I guess the half White in her is where she still cooks and do all the **** that I say, so we make it. She just takes care of me and I like that.” However despite this controversial comment he continues and manages to pick up the dirty laundry he threw on the floor by saying, “White women treat they man like a king and Black women feel like they ain’t gotta do that *****. Black women need to stand by their man more. Don’t always put the pressure of if I’m ******ing with you, you gotta buy me this and that. Black men are the ones that mother****ers need [but] I think a lot of them need to step it up too. A Black man who gets a little bread will go make it rain in the club and be broke the next day or instead of him going to invest in a business he gonna go buy new jewelry or a new car and still live in the hood. Black peoples’ mentality is real ****ed up in general [and] it’s affecting everything.”

On my first read, I couldn’t make out half of the argument because every other word was a curse word. He’s right: the world does NEED more black men however; we NEED black men with an extended vocabulary and proficient writing skills – in other words EDUCATED.

I am not here to degrade any ethnicity because that would be counterproductive; however I will say that certain people are born into wealth and therefore a job is not a requirement. Things mean a lot more to you once you have worked hard to get it and some people do not have to work at all to get what they are given in life. Also, black men and women need to start investing their money to gain wealth.  Everyone wants to be rich, however wealth is where the money really is.

It’s shocking and a shame that black men think like this and to be honest, I am grateful that Slim Thug did have the balls to call it like it WAS. We need to change this negative idea society has of black women being loud, nosy, rude, aggressive and, for lack of a better word, “ghetto.” However the image of black men needs to change too. We need to change the gang banging, baby daddy, no job having, high school dropout image. Black women are slowly progressing to change this image and we need a strong black man beside us. Why would we bend over backwards for someone who won’t make the effort to bend? If you think looking for a black man with an education and a stable job, who can afford to not support but spoil their girlfriend or wife is too much, then you have some soul searching to do. If you tend to attract gold diggers then you need to be extra careful about the company you keep and the decisions you make.