Big thinkin'

Crooked Purple Rain!: some thoughts on time

tranqualizer:

strugglingtobeheard:

on the subject of time and being Black lol. my mom said my dad hated the concept of cp time (colored people time) and that he would be annoyed when people in the group we used to belong to (my dad and some of his friends…

I’ve long suspected CP time was a subversive revolutionary act that, like most rituals, became separated from its intent over time. Think about not owning any part of your existence but the stereotype of shiftlessness and mental inferiority allows you an opportunity to “steal” some of your autonomy back from your oppressors. Wouldn’t you take it? Wouldn’t you drag your feet bringing massa’s horse round front? Wouldn’t you serve dinner five minutes late? Not move so fast to get to the next performance of “Black Inferiority, The Life Play”?

Clocking in late, moving slowly to respond to a demand, strutting when you should be running: it all seems so logical to me for black folks to be late. Too many times we’re going where we’re not wanted, where we don’t want to be and/or where we won’t be allowed to be. Why in the hell should I hurry for that?

Tags: sociology theory black black folks CP time
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The lighter the Skin, The Shorter the prison term

crunkfeministcollective:

satifice:

kettleblacc:

Researchers say this is the first study to look at how colorism affects black women and how long they may spend in jail. Part of the reason may simply come down to how pretty jurors consider a defendant to be, and that being light-skinned and thin (also a factor studied in the research) are seen as more attractive, says Lance Hannon, co-author of the Villanova study.

More evidence, for those still unconvinced of lightskin privilege. This shit is real. With real world impacts.

Yep. Will some light skinned folks please do/finish the light skinned privilege check list?

Darity, Hamilton et al have also done a lot of work in this area.

See: light skin privilege in wages and marriage, for starters.

And THEN tell your light skin folks who claim they didn’t have a friend because they were so pretty in high school to please take all the chairs, sit in them, and dream of Dorothy Dandridge.

I throw no shade at light skinneded people…until they start mimicking white folks in that privilege speak nonsense.

Tags: colorism black folks self-hatred white privilege light skin privilege data sociology cultural studies african american black
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“

the talk was a part of a larger critical race theory conference held at UCLA (one of Kimberlee Crenshaw’s institutions of residence—even if she ain’t ever there) on Intersectionality. It was actually the 30 year anniversary of her positing the theory.
anyway the point is.

at this talk a Black male professor had conducted an experiment by which he gave folks of various races/ethnicities photos of Black men and women and asked them to distinguishes the perceived gender in the photos given less than a minute to see the photos and then make pronouncement.

what he discovered in this exercise was that most folks (white folks in higher percentages but in general all non-Black folks) could not tell the difference between Black men and Black women based on the general assumptions made about someone’s gender based on their phenotypical characteristics.

his point was this. many folks, Black men in particular, argue often that Black women experience less racism than Black men or at the very least less violent racism. however, in actuality most Black women—especially dark-skinned Black women—are assumed to be Black men in society ANYWAY. so the amount of violent racism that we encounter at least on the street level is quite similar.

i tell that story merely to make the point that many of our daughters, sisters, friends are in as much danger walking down the street from random acts of racist violence.
(another point that could be made is that the notion of the impossibility of a Black womanhood is ingrained in non-Black folks at the subconscious level. till they literally can’t even see us when introduced to our bodies. all Blacks really are men apparently.)

—

…Replaced…It’s All Good w/ Revolutionary Cries: i was just remember this talk i went through a couple of years ago

Gotdamnit.

Tags: black life fuck whiteness black womanhood
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My First Wikipedia Entry

As a social scientist I’m contributing to the source from which all of my students, apparently, draw. Finally. Plus, it’s an entry that matters to me.

I’m struggling with formatting and proper citations. Wikipedia has a reputation for being particularly harsh on entries about/by people of color so I’d love it some of my e-friends could help me get it right. Crowdsourcing my own crowd, as it were.

Please see here and edit away. Thanks for helping/reblogging!

Tags: wikipedia sociology economics academia black
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blackacrylic:

23.01.11

I had a really interesting discussion about identity, self hate, cultural capital etc with my BFF today and it got me thinking of Margaret Bowland’s selection of paintings of young black girls in white face. When asked to comment on ‘Kenyetta and Brianna’ Bowland that ‘It is a commentary on how women still have to jump through all these hoops to be desirable. These girls are still visible beneath all those layers of crap … they’re still looking back at you.’ I think that a lot of black girls looking at Bowland’s paintings would say that the metaphor transcends beyond the art world. For many black girls Bowland’s paintings are a life metaphor - reflecting a reality where black girls are often marginalised by European standards of beauty. I agree with Cherise Kramarae when she states that ‘For women of color who are viewers, trying to achieve idealised femininity entails not only adjusting or refining one’s body, but also rejecting one’s identity and certain characteristics altogether. To resist this artificial standard is to stand apart from beauty as defined by society’. The frustrating thing for me is that even if you put the fact that there is very little aesthetic diversity across all media platforms to the side, in the black community we impose European standards of beauty on each other with a vengeance. It’s black men that make fun of Alek Wek and it’s black girls arguing about natural hair v relaxer/weave war (e.g ‘These little nappy headed hoes need a terminator’ - Nicki Minaj) etc. It’s this infighting that is the real tragedy.

Somebody told a lie and we believed it.

(Source: blackacrylic)

Tags: art margaret bowland race color white black society beauty normalcy assimilation femininity
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