Black Girls Rock It !

Forever 21 Spring 2009

If you can support Forever 21, show them some love for including US in their Spring ad campaign.

FOREVER 21.com

"Obsessed" Drops April 24, But The Foolishness Has Already Begun..Thanks Essence, I Knew I Could Count on You !

Leave it to Essence to use the movie "Obsessed" as a means to keep beating the "jealous black woman" fighting for her black "kang" drum.  SMH   To say that I'm tired of that old stereotype is putting it mildly.  {yawn}

Anyhoo..I'm sure when the movie drops this Friday, there will be PLENTY of black women in the theaters cheering on Beyonce's character as she "beats down" that "white b*tch" trying to steal her man.  SMH {more yawning}

Here is how Essence is framing their take on the movie:

Black Men and White Women: Does It Still Matter?

An Obsession The wounds of Black men being romantically linked to White women go back a long way—and is still a sore spot for some. In the highly anticipated film “Obsessed,” out April 24, Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles) finds herself battling the secretary (Ali Larter) of her husband, Derek (Idris Elba), after the assistant boldly seeks her man’s affection. A White woman pursuing a Black man is a reality that hits close to home for many sisters, so we decided to explore the age-old issue of Black men dating White women and whether or not we should care who a person decides to date.

Or my other personal favorite from Essence's little list of what's wrong with black women.  / sarcasm

(Because that's what this little trip down memory lane in their "story" is really about.)

Sexual Healing

One reason that has floated around for the large numbers of Black men dating White women was a stereotype that sisters were more inhibited in the bedroom. Some women have even bought into this thought. "I was dating a White woman and she told me, ’I’m not like those sisters; I can take it,’ in the middle of fellatio when I informed her I was about to climax ", says Raheem*, a 26 year-old paralegal.*Identifying details have been changed.

LOL, LOL, LOL....wow.  Uhmm...ok.  Hhhmmm I must have missed that chapter on sensuality that explained how ingesting bodily fluids or having one's "back blown out"  was the ONLY key to esctasy.   LOL...but, uhhmmm...perhaps different strokes ??

Essence did try to throw in a little ..."now be open" to black women at the end of their little "article," but it was, in my opinion, mired in B.S.

  If you so desire, check out the full list, article or whatever HERE.Thank you Lorraine for the heads up and pointing out this sane reader's comment from Essence's site:Do you think we "own" our black men? How can we yell diversity and equality when we segregate ourselves? This movie is a really bad idea and it will plant negative segregated seeds in the impressionable minds. Also, if you want to evoke "territorial rights of my man" attitude, you don't have to go across racial lines....are you [sic] insuiating that black women back off when they know a brother is already taken??? Please. This movie takes our nation in a negative direction. Focus on how our women are reproducing without thought, focus on how our men are banging around like they can't think....this problem truly comes to the core level, not the color level. Please stop segregating by trying to create anger in interracial relations. This movie isn't about interracial, it should be about a man who needs to say no when he is already taken, REGARDLESS of the color of the woman groping him. DUH. RISE ABOVE!

I'm so glad you found that comment, because I don't have the energy to plow through that site. 

Somebody wake me when Essence starts reporting on the [growing] numbers of black women who are not "obsessed" with whom black men are romantically involved. Some of us {me, me, me} really don't care; we are too busy living our OWN lives and finding love with men who want to love us --be they non-black or black.  We are making plans for our futures, dreaming big and living well.  We don't have time to be bitter, angry or wallowing in the past.  Perhaps Essence should join us.

"Black Women Don't Deserve Respect" : The Words of a Killer

Once again we have the murder of a young black woman by a black man.  Except this time, the creature who killed Asia McGowan announced to "the world" via Youtube his hatred for black women.  I'm so sick of people not taking it seriously when black women express their fear and distress upon running into the absolutely EVIL creatures they encounter online.   Please read the article about Asia McGowan below:

Dearborn murder-suicide suspect had hate videos on YouTube

Internet pal said he warned police before murder-suicide Friday at community college

Paul Egan / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Anthony Powell, the man Dearborn police believe killed 20-year-old student Asia McGowan in a college classroom Friday before killing himself, posted hateful videos on the Web site YouTube in which he railed against black women and people who believe in the theory of evolution. Powell's grief-stricken parents -- a retired Detroit Police officer and a registered nurse -- said Sunday their 28-year-old son had a history of mental illness. Sam and Doris Powell said they tried for years to get help for their son's clinical depression and other problems but never suspected he would hurt another person. "If my child was going to kill himself, I would prefer he do himself, and not anybody else who was innocent," Doris Powell said.
"We are sorry for the death of (Asia McGowan)," Sam Powell said. "That's from the bottom of our hearts." So disturbing were some of Powell's YouTube videos that another man with a YouTube site reported him to Detroit Police and got an e-mail back April 2 from someone in the office of Chief James Barren, according to a video posted on YouTube. "On behalf of the chief, I would like to thank you for contacting us," said a message received by "Infamoustrag" on YouTube. "I was unable to view the video. According to the site, I have to have a sign in. "Do you recall exactly the content of the video? If it is too graphic, or you need to talk to me directly you may contact me at (phone number and officer's name blacked out)." A spokeswoman could not confirm Sunday whether Detroit Police had been contacted about Powell. Infamoustrag, who lives in Virginia and did not want his real name used, said he was concerned when he combined Powell's talk of suicide with him being upset over a girl. He sent an e-mail to Detroit Police warning of a possible suicide March 25 and provided a copy of the e-mail Sunday. The e-mail did not mention the possibility Powell would kill someone else.. Powell, of Detroit, took a gun to Henry Ford Community College on Friday and shot and killed McGowan in a classroom, shortly before 1 p.m., before killing himself. Campus officials ordered a lockdown until Dearborn Police could confirm a gunman was not still at large. The college reopens today for meetings for faculty, staff and students, according to its Web site; most classes resume Tuesday. Turahn McGowan, Asia's father, said Sunday he was shocked by snippets of Powell's YouTube videos he saw on the television news and felt there were warning signs that could have prevented his daughter's death, particularly if police were warned about Powell. "It's like they wait until after the fact," he said. Infamoustrag said on his site that Powell had talked about a girl he liked named Asia. But on the day of the killing, Powell deleted or made private the videos in which he talked about murder and suicide so they could no longer be seen, Infamoustrag said in the video. "I tried my best to help," Infamoustrag said in his video. "It was too late." Don Cooper, 24 of Atlanta, a student and YouTube enthusiast who got to know Powell through the Internet, said he tried to encourage Powell to get help after Powell mentioned he had a shotgun and might do something stupid. But Cooper, who uses the YouTube handle "dc coop," said he was shocked by the action Powell ultimately took. Powell's videos feature him sitting in his bedroom talking, and sometimes shouting, directly into a camera. In one Powell video, titled "Black Women Don't Deserve Respect," Powell denounces black women as sexually promiscuous and says they "murder 1,500 babies a day" as a result of abortions. In another profanity-laced video, Powell attacks those who believe in evolution. Doris Powell said her son was deeply religious and anti-abortion. He normally talked to his mother when something was troubling him, but she had been preoccupied recently by a serious stroke suffered by her father, who was also close to Anthony Powell, she said. Anthony Powell had attended the community college off and on for years and recently said he was studying film and planned to go into the movie business, she said. Powell worked at a variety of jobs, including at restaurants and a grocery store, his parents said. The Powells did not keep guns around the house and don't know where he got the gun, she said. "Tony was the type of child that basically stayed to himself," she said. "He was a very shy type of kid and he didn't make friends easily. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't do drugs. "He never had a girlfriend."   Source

How many more Asia's have to die ?

So Michelle Obama Should Help "Save" the Same Fashion Industry That Snubs Black Women ??

Editorial Update:  The italicized portions of this post denote quotations from the original New York Times article that I originally linked below, labeled as "Source."  My comments on the article are in red.  I am pointing this out for the folks writing in and "going off" about some of the original content of the article.  Per my prediction, it didn't take long for folks to start losing their minds at the mention of "mammy" and "fat" in the same sentence as black women; regardless of the context.

Mainstream designers (i.e. non-black ones) have figuratively been spitting in the face of black women for eons and now that a Black woman receiving  a lot of "fashion attention" is on the global stage they want to play the victim.  I don’t think so.

 

Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta and Vera Wang to name a few are mighty upset that Michelle Obama is not helping their fashion houses in these difficult economic times:

 

Donna Karan told WWD that Obama’s flirtation with “niche designers” was temporary: “I hope and believe this is just a moment.” “I love seeing young designers and their vision and how they grow and all of that,” said Vera Wang. “On the other hand, of course, I wish she would consider some of us.”

           De la Renta got straighter to the point: “You don’t go to Buckingham Palace in a sweater.”

 Oh really, sooo….because y’all say so the First Lady should come begging at your door.  The underlying message to me is summed up nicely:

 

Diliberto reported that she’d been hearing for weeks what WWD finally reported:           Since the Inauguration, I’ve been hearing fashion insiders - designers, journalists and scholars  complain that many of Michelle’s clothes by the relatively obscure U.S. designers Jason Wu, Isabel Toldeo and Thakoon Panichgul don’t fit right or are unflattering. They think that Michelle doesn’t have enough fashion savvy to know what looks good on her, and that she’s relying too heavily on Ikram Goldman, owner of the eponymous Chicago boutique, to choose her outfits. . . .

The designers say that Michelle will help the struggling fashion industry if she spreads her sartorial self around. But it’s hard not to read in their complaint a note of condescension. How can Michelle, who comes from a working class background and probably doesn’t know the difference between silk ziberline and silk twill, dare to snub them?

Oh but the plot thickens as Dmitcha, an African-American former model and a diarist at Daily Kos reports:

 According to Dmitcha, the snubbing mostly goes the other way.

            In Feb 2009 ,New York's 

        Fashion Week featured 116 labels and 3,697 runway spots. 668 of those spots - 18% - went to    models of color. Not 668 models, mind you, because three of the top ethnic girls took up half of those spots with repeat appearances. That’s right, 18% women of color - ANY COLOR - on the runways and 82% white models. In New York City. So the real question should be “Donna, Ralph and Calvin, where in the world are your ethnic models?” And the answer is: Calvin Klein: showed 1 look with an ethnic model out of 35 he sent down his runway. Donna Karan: showed 3 looks with ethnic models out of 45 she sent down her runway. . . . Now they clamor for our African-American First Lady, who one month ago wouldn’t have seen anyone who remotely looked like her on their own runways, to wear their clothes because “the kind of worldwide attention Obama and her labels are getting can boost an entire corporate psyche from designer to ground floor. It can boost sales as well.” Well, hiring ethnic models could boost their professional psyches - and boost rent payments, as well.

 Who’s really zooming who? SMH  Dmitcha goes on to explain that this issue isn’t just about clothes, but about the changing image of Black women on the world stage:  

And it matters to people all over the world - not just young Black girls, but everyone who ever will interact with a Black woman - that Mrs. Obama has become the leading icon of womanhood that our country now exports. It matters. And it may actually change these darn runways and magazines at last, after decades of resistance, so that all of our kids will see a more diverse image of beauty, not just for their own self-esteem, but in the face of a woman they may one day hire, work with, work for, befriend or love.  

Zora at We Are Respectable Negroes agrees the problem is beyond fashion. The problem is that Michelle doesn’t — won’t — conform to any of the predefined stereotypes available to her: she’s not a “mammy” nor a “good, middle class Negress.”

And….heads start popping in 5..4…3…2….

Folks are still struggling to understand her (and to define her) because she is so unlike any other Black woman on the national and international stage. One “tired” and superficial way of managing this is by focusing on her appearance. If Michelle were overweight and outwardly insecure about her Negritude (ala Oprah Winfrey), America would likely embrace her more affectionately as our own. She would be heralded as our national Mammy. Yes, she would still get some digs; but the scrutiny of her appearance wouldn’t be nearly as great. We’ve seen mammies before and we are comfortable with them. Instead, we don’t quite know what to do with Michelle Obama. The problem is that she does not confirm the WASP woman as an ideal — neither by fitting into the stereotype of the loud, overweight black woman nor by being the good, middle-class Negress who conforms to the norms of white women.

The focus on Michelle Obama’s appearance is a last ditch effort on the part of some to assert power over her, to sum up her worthiness on the basis of her looks. It is taboo to openly talk about her race, so they resort to focusing on the loud colors, the “big Butt,” the “massive arms,” etc. Give it up folks! It’s not working. Michelle Obama and millions of other black women around the world could give a damn about what you think.

This issue is clearly about the balance of power as it relates to the ‘feminine ideal’ of beauty.  I think a lot of folks are very uncomfortable there might be more thoughts like the comments below floating around:

 Great post–and excellent point by Dmitcha. As long as we keep dismissing issues of diverse representation as “fluff” or “window dressing” we won’t be conscious of how fashion spreads, etc. influence society’s ideas of what is beautiful–and the roots of ethnic self-hatred. Make more posts like this one!

Nicole -  As a bald, middle-aged white guy in Indiana with almost zero fashion sense I could not agree more     with this article. My First Lady is beautiful, intelligent and has a great sense of humor. If she had a twin sister who was also attracted to midwestern guys with strange names I would seek her out and propose immediately. —    Baron Imhoof

  I’m white, 56 years old, middle class but struggling. Michele Obama is the first First Lady I have ever felt entirely comfortable with. She is wonderful. Highly accomplished, warm, smart, and an excellent mother. It’s a nice bonus that she’s attractive, too. What a great role model, not only for young girls and women of color, but for women of all ages, colors, and body types. Hooray for her, and I don’t give a hoot what designer — she wears. The fashion industry may be getting its just deserts, as the article implies. —    Sarah D.Source

 

Now we can’t actually have folks challenging the status quo..oh no.