links for 2009-12-15

The reality is, Angry Black Woman will always be "sexier" to a journalist than Apathetic Black Woman. Apathetic Black Woman doesn't care about Tiger or what he does and who he does things with. Apathetic Black Woman is just morbidly curious, watching the car wreck of alleged girlfriends and jump-offs like everyone else. Apathetic Black Woman doesn't fit the stereotype, so she doesn't get as much ink as everyone's favorite black straw woman to bash — ANGRY BLACK WOMAN.

The good news? Despite the pressures media pushes on public figures to look their best 24/7 and take off baby weight within THREE months is the kind of thing that I like to challenge. Luckily, so does my manager.

‘Knitta Please’ is nothing more than a lame attempt by cultural elites to make fun of people they see as beneath them. With group members named Knotorious N.I.T. and P-Knitty, there isn’t any one shred of doubt as to who this collective treats rhetorically as Other and Lesser. Of course, white-washing black power symbols like the clenched fist is just the icing on the blackface cake.

This, I feel, is something that is looped time and time again throughout black thought, that sense of always being on display, of being hyper-aware of one’s behavior and the behavior of other blacks, of second-guessing everything you like, say, or do (such as loving fried chicken but fearing to eat it in public because of the stereotype that black folks loooove them some fried yard bird) in effort to be an individual who happens to be black. I am definitely not exempt from this struggle, hence my founding this blog, nor do I pose to have all the answers. However, because I recognize the role of double-consciousness in the life of the average black American, I can’t help but feel exasperated when I see entertainment placed in the role of educator. Yes, media/entertainment studies reveal our cultural biases and brainwashing, but in case of say, black romance fiction, it can obscure the basic storytelling intent.