Why Does No One Hear The Screams Of Black Women ? (Patricia Hill Collins v.s R.Kelly )

r-kelly-cellphone-video-sweat   Understanding the complexity of African American politics in today’s conversation of sexual violence is vital as the politics of this community shapes how the group responds to African American public figures (mostly males) committing these acts of violence. Recently the docuseries on the singer/songwriter Robert Kelly known as R.Kelly has revealed information about his past and present that shows he has sexually abused past partners and acted violently towards multiple women. This information is not necessarily new as articles from the 1990’s to the early 2000’s noted that R.Kelly had been  depicted Kelly as a sexual predator. In 2008 he had a criminal trial has he was being charged for child pornography but once again slipped through the public’s dismay and remained a loved public figure. This acceptance of people such as Kelly leaves me with deep worry as the women who he assaulted still live in fear and live without justice. Acts of sexual violence such as rape are looked over when the victims are African American women, we see this as the most high profile cases of rape have involved White women though “…approximately 60% of Black girls experience sexual abuse by age 18. According to a 2014 study, about 22% of Black women reported being raped and 41% experienced other forms of sexual violence.” ( EndRapeOnCampus.org). Continue reading

The World Around Your Body May Not Be Made For Your Body

img_0849  Growing up within a world that was constructed through the naturalized standards of body movements, I noticed my brother’s body stood out. As he stayed wheelchair bound and I walked beside him as my mother lifted him upstairs I felt this desire to want the world to be more accessible to my brother. With small inconveniences becoming the reason my brother’s nurses refuse to take him out his room, I saw that my brother’s impairment in which he did not cause nor create was what caused the world to seem unfair to him.  Being diagnosed with something as debilitating as cerebral palsy and having infrastructure built off the assumption that you are an able bodied person creates   disability.  Tom Shakesphere, an English sociologist sees disability to be “the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a social organization which takes little to no account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities.” This depiction of disability seems to be fairly accurate as places such as college campuses do the bare minimum to ensure that people’s impairments don’t stop from being productivity. For example, on my college campus they provide ramps on extremely steep hills reflecting a lack of thought of those who have to wheel themselves up and down these structures. With non-disabled people creating the structures and tools for those who are disabled it continues the cycle of ignorance. It is easy to understand why disabled people have created Continue reading

“The Body I Wear Is Not Perfect”

selective focus photography of skeleton
Photo by Chris Mitchell on Pexels.com

When thinking about the beauty standards of today it’s hard to ignore that bodies within magazines and television are rarely realistic goals for the general public. With bodies that range from what some may consider skinny to what others may consider thick, it’s important that we acknowledge all bodies contain a life within them. Looking at myself in the mirror can be difficult sometimes as I don’t believe my body is what society deems as attractive. Attractiveness is different for each gender as what is subscribed for males and females are different though this is changing it still holds today that men should be muscular and that women should be small and hairless. Focusing on the physical aspect of the

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