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Thanks Kimberly! “Like Mary, many women of color today believe that being their true selves will make it difficult for their colleagues to accept them and will hurt their chances of getting promoted…”
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Thanks Phil! “…I have dated only Chinese men, and each of my four relationships drew the same stares. I’m commonly branded a “rice chaser” and accused of having an “Asian fetish,” labels that—even though I’ve learned to laugh them off—pr
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“The opening of Japanese über-retailer UNIQLO’s flagship store in New York leads Jeff Yang to think about shopping from an Asian Pop perspective — and to offer some Asian Pop suggestions on choice stocking-stuffers for your lucky loved ones…”
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“The reality is that we live in a world that assigns value, meaning, power, and privilege differentially along racial lines. As such, there are certain things that Black people can and should say –in response to such inequality– that are nonetheless o
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” After seeing the success of social networking sites like MySpace, hip-hop hustler Damon Dash is backing his own site which will specifically cater to the urban market.”
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“A divided federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a private school in Hawaii can favor Hawaiian natives for admission as a means of helping a downtrodden indigenous population…”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
kim wrote:
Re: Free to be me
>Ironically, it was her younger black colleagues who made negative comments, afraid, they said, that she would be fired for being so overtly black.
The fear of displays of “overt blackness” runs rampant in the minds of many Blacks, in many arenas and forums, and across generational lines. Of course, that wariness is there for a reason, but the sad thing is that after decades of working hard to “fit in, to be less conspicuous,” the wariness has become less a defensive mechanism and more a condition of adopting a self-loathing mindset.
Black women spend millions -millions!- in relaxing and texturizing creams every year to relax the kink of thick hair in order to have a style that is more “standardized,” and less “other.” After a while, even Black women begin to talk to each other in terms of the ease of the relaxed style which makes it desirable, and their discomfort with their “roots” growing in.
The six-week trip to get hair “fixed” becomes as ritualistic and commonplace an observance to their young children as waking in the morning and seeing Mommy make breakfast, drive to church, pull her boots on, vacuum the living room floor.
When a Black woman walks away from ther relaxing (we call it perming) routine, other Black women call her brave, strong, courageous, insinuate that she must have “good hair,” (meaning not really thick and kinky like ‘real’ Black folks) and talk of how it just would not be possible for them to do the same, citing work, facial features that wouldn’t look good with a ‘fro, fear of a lumpy head that might become visible if they were to cut the processed hair out and ‘go natural,’ etc, etc.
I liken the disconnect to seeing so many Black women with relaxed, pressed and woven strands of silky hair to that which I experience when I ride the subway in NYC, and study the myriad faces of people from countries all around the globe looking miserable in their stiff collared shirts and ties, polyester black skirts and inappropriate heels on the women, and reimagine them in garb native to a land I guess they come from. It transform the ride, and makes it a little sad at the same time.
Posted 07 Dec 2006 at 3:34 pm ¶