“Do You Want a Wedding? Or Do You Want a Marriage?” and other links…
Brown Sugar: “I know plenty of black women who have every detail of their wedding planned, yet they have no man. I know women who were obsessing over wedding magazines, but had never had a conversation with their future spouse over how the finances are going to be handled. There are couples who spend tens of thousands of dollars on a wedding and all of its surrounding events, but have yet to have a conversation how many children they are going to have, if any.” At this moment of my life-long change, it seems healthier to me to frame this not as a “black woman” problem but as an issue of the general state of consciousness. Often there is an implication that a solution to these problems lies within the source of the problems. The solutions involve fundamental shifts in consciousness—it’s not like going out and buying a Prius.
“Black Denial in the Dominican Republic”
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS: “Several women said the cultural rejection of African looking hair is so strong that people often shout insults at women with natural curls. …‘I cannot take the bus because people pull my hair and stick combs in it,’ said wavy haired performance artist Xiomara Fortuna. ‘They ask me if I just got out of prison. People just don’t want that image to be seen.’ …The hours spent on hair extensions and painful chemical straightening treatments are actually an expression of nationalism, said Ginetta Candelario, who studies the complexities of Dominican race and beauty at Smith College in Massachusetts. And to some of the women who relax their hair, it’s simply a way to have soft manageable hair in the Dominican Republic’s stifling humidity.” It should not be a surprise that a strong theme about my Black women is coupled tightly with concern with “exposure” and seeking ostentatious and expensive forms of concealment. It is rare to see a nude Black woman—even when she is wearing no clothes.
“Diversity Lacks; Minorities Underrepresented”
Shadow And Act: “So, here’s a reasonable question: given that the percentage breakdown of film and TV roles for all groups pretty much matches the percentage makeup of the country, is that fair enough? I can hear right-wingers like Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly argue that, well, whites make up the majority of the nation’s population, so, it makes sense that they make up the majority of the film and TV roles available. Is that a fair argument?”