Ok im pretty self confident. But whenever someone glances at my body my mind gets to racing. I just came back from the mall and of course people looked at me. Girls and guys but especially when guys look at me Im thinking to myself are they going “oh she got a nice body for a slim black girl” ( cuz black women are expected to be thick) are they looking at my arms and going they’re so tiny. Are they picturing me as athletic and active. Are they saying my strides are so graceful .Or just a lazy bum that happens to be slim. I wish I could look at myself and the way it moves from outside my body. What would I think about my bodies look and movement if I was an outsider looking in. Like my conscious floats out and I can see. It’s kinda hard to just observe the body when you’re out in public. I can’t just stand in the middle and watch. But honestly not just me, I wish I could just see in a spiritual way the way we mammals dance through life.
Continue readingculture
I am but I’m not
In Alcoff’s piece we learn about the three basic pastimes for understanding race and one of them being essentialism. In essentialsim the key piece is that racial identities are stable across time and space. And that is not true. And I say that is not true because of factors like time period and location. Identities like African-American, Afro Latino/Caribbean are new identities. They are literally only identities because of the transatlantic slave trade. 450 years ago African-American Afro Caribbean Afro none of those things were being used by anyone because they were not terms until mid 1600s . As an African-American woman myself one thing me and my Caribbean or Latino friends always talk about is that there’s somewhat of a disconnect between us and Africans because Africans are like lucky in a way. They are going by the original term. Yes there was death and destruction and colonization for them but they have that tiny fact that they didn’t get shipped off to other continents. They got to keep the OG term. Technically we should just be African or even like the term black woman back in 1191 and 1347 no one was using that. Same with people in Malaysia and they weren’t saying oh I’m Malaysian/ I’m a south east Asian they went by their tribal identification. All those terms like black girl, asian girls, etc…
Continue readingWhen Failure is Radical.
Affirmations from an unreliable drop out –
I have failed to work with a system that prioritizes productivity over personhood.
I have chosen moving forward over suffering
I will accept myself to spite a value system that does not want acceptance – but always striving for “better”. If I internalize it, that I am always striving for “better”, then I build a comfortable place for the belief that I will never be enough, to rest upon. Instead, I will build space within myself to be less than ideal.
Continue readingThe Jungle
I’ve had a lot of nicknames, more than most, I think. Sonja boi, J, Gerber, Jaskinky, Keeks, Jas. But one of the worst nicknames was The Jungle. I had this nickname in middle school because I didn’t (and still don’t) shave my legs (and armpits too). Matthew Immergut states that body hair is seen as a manifestation of a nasty and wild nature so ‘The Jungle’ is probably accurate nickname for a hairy twelve-year-old. Continue reading
The Resting Bitch Face
In a poem titled “Ode to My Bitch Face” Olivia Gatwood theorizes about some reasons why women have resting bitch face or R.B.F. She says that some are born with it, to some it is a defense mechanism they put up every day, and to some it is a “safe zone.” The resting bitch face according to Urban Dictionary is “a person, usually a girl, who naturally looks mean when her face is expressionless, without meaning to” and “A bitchy alternative to the usual blank look most people have. This is a condition affecting the facial muscles, suffered by millions of women worldwide. People suffering from bitchy resting face (BRF) have the tendency look hostile and/or judgmental at rest.” Continue reading
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder?
Nowadays, we often find ourselves letting society define what is acceptable/not acceptable, or what is beautiful/ugly, e.t.c. So a while ago I was speaking with my friend and she tells me that she wants to go for a swim, but that she can’t go because of the fact that she has a lot of stretch marks on her thighs and stomach. She is not the first person that I have come across that talks about how they feel ashamed and ugly because they have stretch marks. I have also come to realize that this thought process is often associated with women.
In my opinion, this is absolutely nonsense/absurd, just like scars I find stretch marks to be rather beautiful and I feel like it’s one of the things that defines you as a person. This to me also shows our cultural differences because in my country (Nigeria), a woman having stretch marks is actually celebrated. To Nigerians it’s a sign of wealth and healthy living. Society (mostly men) needs to do a better job in giving people the opportunity to be themselves. No one should be insulted/attacked/harassed for having stretch marks because if anything, stretch marks enhances a persons beauty.
The Most Common Augmentation
While attempting to define what a cyborg is in class, I was struck with inspiration for a discussion topic on the blog. Fast forward two weeks and I had completely forgotten it, racking my brain for what I wanted to write on. I knew I wanted to write on cyborgs and how people don’t realize how common they are, but I couldn’t remember the specifi-It was memory!
“I Liked Your Hair Better Straight”
I’m getting tired of hearing that….
But I like this show mom!
As a 90’s baby I look back at the old cartoons and listen to old hits, reminiscing the good ole days. I joke around with the children at my job, telling them how the best shows were on cartoon network . I expressed that my favorite shows were the Power Puff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter laboratory , and other hit TV series.
As I continued to share my stories, one kid goes “I like Loud House”. Of course I did not know what he was talking about , but another child replies ” It’s that Gay show! My father said I cannot watch it”. Then it clicked. I remember this being a controversial topic on Facebook before the shows premier. The show contains a married, biracial , Gay, male couple that has a child.
In this blog I will explain what makes this show inappropriate .
Point #1 It goes against the social norm : How dare you show a child who is the product of the american dream two men together! That’s absurd ! How dare we show children that there is more to life than just mommy and daddy. Boys cannot be feminine ! They must be rough. If my child see’s this he will not be the man I want him to be! (sarcasm)
Point #2 STICK WITH YOUR OWN RACE! : How dare we promote outside our race ! ( Sarcasm)
Point #3 THIS GOES AGAINST OUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ! : who cares.
Point #4 How can you reproduce if your gay : Well if there’s a will there’s a way……. who cares
At the end of the day no one said you had to be gay, but just respect them as humans. The world must embrace change! Whose to say your way of living is right!? If anything I see it as this, we are letting people finally be themselves. Many people have been killed, have been shunned, have killed themselves,or have had something tragic done to them because they were considered ” not normal” ( Much like blacks were considered way back when but I shall not go there 😀 ). Now we have same sex marriages, Tv shows, Gay parenting, etc! All of these things that were considered abnormal are now part of our norm and should be! At the end of the day we are people. Accept it!
Majority, yet still the minority
Now and days, I have been thinking about being more political aware and like any curious person I decided reading The Washington Post would be a good place to start (only online, of course). Continue reading
Unruly Bodies 
