Yesterday I participated in the Mike Brown protest at UMBC in front of the UC. Not just because I’m black and i felt i HAD to but walking past the people who have been there since 8am and thinking of what they were fighting for, I felt at that moment that was the best way I could show my support. I’ve been following the since August, when we first learned of the shooting. Continue reading
race
No indictment.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it. No indictment? No charges? Part of me wasn’t surprised, but the other part of me, the optimistic part, was crushed. Continue reading
Asian Women: A Fetish/Yellow Fever?
I remember talking to a friend of mine this past summer who currently goes to school in Boston. We went to high school together and she sometimes comes down to visit in Maryland where her family still lives. One time I visited my friend at her parent’s house and we watched The Wolverine. After we watched the movie we decided to go out to eat. Once we sat down at our table in the restaurant, we discussed the film. She spoke very passionately about the portrayal of Asian women/characters in the film. She complained about how the two main female characters in the film played on stereotypical Asian female roles. One of the characters in the film was a was a shy, meek, beautiful woman who needed to be saved by the stereotypical “white man.” The other Asian female character was a samurai sword wielding “bodyguard” for the lead white male character.
She went on to talk about how the city of Boston is mostly white and how the men there are “curious” about her because they look at her in a sexual way. While she believes the city is racist towards minorities, she does believe that as an Asian woman, she believes that what she experiences with the locals is somewhat different. She told me about a time when she went into a grocery store in the city with her African-American friend and while they were shopping, several white men in their 20’s were taunting him. They were whispering racial slurs towards him and they ended up having to leave because of it. While the men were hurling racial slurs, they were making comments about her physical appearance.
Throughout her many interactions with the locals in Boston, she finds it very weird how the men approach her and talk to her. She thinks that they are mostly curious about her because they are curious about her in a sexual way. To be honest my friend truly believes that the majority of white men fetishize Asian women. I’ve heard many of my own Caucasian friends and peers talk about how Asian women are more sexually open-minded than white women and that Asian women are better in the bedroom. It’s actually really commonplace for people to really believe that stereotype. It is one of the things that my friend has struggled with her whole life. Historically, Asian women in American society were sexualized because they were often viewed as the “seductress” or the “prostitute” and I think that has majorly impacted the way our society views Asian women today.
Can You Call Blackface by Any Other Name?
Racial Stereotypes in Media
I saw this image and suddenly the racial stereotype in USA media comes up in my mind. Media and advertising play an important role in ours everyday lives. We see so many racial images, films, and TV series that we forget that what we are watching is actually not only meant to be funny or interesting, but also contains racial stereotypes. But these images, ads, and TV series are the reminder to us that there are ethnic stereotypes still exists and they have different meaning and importance in society. Continue reading
Oh Dear god-What have I done?
So I did it!
After Months and MONTHS of growing my hair-countless hours sitting in a chair getting braids done, never ending conversations with myself about how great the end result will be and endless hours spent viewing pictures of afros on tumblr– I finally chopped my hair. Continue reading
A Politics of Tension, Pain, and Embodied Storytelling (Short Story)
(tw: racial slurs, street harassment/assault[?])
And so, I’m driving West on Route 40, feeling like I belong in Baltimore. It’s maybe ten on a Friday night, and about two hundred yards before I am to pass them, I see maybe a dozen kids of color on the median strip. Teenagers. My body tensed, as it’d learned to.
Imprisoning Addiction
I recently ran across an article, and a comic describing an experiment that redefines how we think about addiction. The basic gist is that it isn’t a personal flaw, that addiction is more about environment than anything else. It was really eye-opening and I invite you to check it out.
But it got me thinking…
(TRIGGER WARNING: drugs, addiction, incarceration)
Dysmorphic Friends
One of my closest friends is a fashion stylist. She chooses outfits, hair, makeup, and general looks or moods for photoshoots for natural makeup companies and independent designers. I have modelled for her in the past even though I am not a model and don’t look like a magazine model. I also model for my own Etsy store, selling vintage clothing. My friend has had eating disorders since puberty and I have not. I feel that her eating disorders are a sign of privilege and she feels that my “poverty genes” and post thyroid cancer synthetic metabolism are a sign of privilege. The arguments are frequent and comical.
I feel that it would be insulting to her profession and life’s path to say that her involvement with fashion feeds her disorder, so I often try to tell her eating disorders are a result of a sexist, competitive capitalism, a first world problem, and that if she stops aestheticizng the super young and super thin, wheat colored waify girls with vacant expressions, she won’t hold herself up for comparison to them. I tell her to keep her job but change her aesthetic, make it weirder, and I tell her she’s a misogynist. Then I go on like a hypocrite and smooth out my hair, put makeup on, and have my boyfriend shoot photos of me for Etsy, to make money. And I do make money. But recently, editing and cropping photos of myself, I feel like I look OOLLDD. So I call my friend and ask her for a disorder that will make me less old, less short, less frizzy, less dark, less tired. And there isn’t one. I’m really not sure what I’m aestheticising, but even though I’m perfectly happy with my weight I still feel the need to critically tear apart whatever I can about my own image, down to my assymetrical smile or uneven hair texture or slightly more almond shaped right eye than left one. Little little minute stupid details. All while knowing that I’m making this image public by my own free will, by my need to pay the bills and put gas in my car to get to school. Because those waify wheat colored girls are out there, and my tiny little capitalist enterprise is knowingly in competition with them, and growing up in the 80s and 90s, between Debbie Gibson and Kate Moss, I never felt that my features were pure or innocent, only exotic and “olive olive olive”, and now getting older.
Can a woman be this self-critical and also be a feminist?
Viola Davis: Oscar Loss, Natural Hair Win
Viola Davis, an award winning black actress, recently starred in the movie The Help. At the 2012 Oscars, Viola appeared on the Red Carpet glowing and debuting her natural hair. The media, of course, made this a into a huge story. When asked what made her decide to wear her natural hair to the Oscars, she stated that h
er husband encouraged her to do so.
I believe that Viola Davis was radiant and confident that night. She was absolutely beautiful. Many black women and young girls appreciated seeing natural hair on the red carpet. Wendy Williams, radio talk show host turned television host, did not feel the same way. On her self titled talk show, Wendy Williams insinuated that the Davis’ TWA (teeny weeny afro) made her look mannish, like the history teacher in the 70’s sitcom “Room 222”. At another time, Williams stated that Davis’ hair was just not professional. Many black women were appalled at her statements. They felt that Williams was attacking black women. As you can see in the picture on the left, Davis display of natural beauty was inspirational to black women and girls; and, Williams blatantly shot it down on national television to an audience who probably does not understand natural black hair to begin with.
Black hair has so much politics attached to it. In the past, black women have felt restricted by white beauty standards of straight or wavy hair that is often unnatural to them. I, like many others, am appalled that a black woman would scorn another black woman for displaying her natural beauty. “Natural” hair is our hair. Kinky, curly, wavy, coarse, whatever, it is our hair. I am encouraged by the fact that so many black women have decided to transgress white beauty standards and free themselves from chemical relaxers, letting their own unique beauty shine. Viola Davis certainly took a stand at the Oscars and became even more of an inspiration to black women.
Unruly Bodies 