Ever since Madame C.J. Walker became a millionaire selling hair and beauty products it became clear that black women felt the need to tweak themselves to feel attractive. Hair had to be straighter and skin lighter, blacks have been brainwashed by the images of Europeans and what they considered to be beautiful. After hundreds of years of being told they were inferior and being raped and beaten it’s hard not to believe it. The film, “The Soul of Black Girls”, candidly showed how these thoughts are still embedded in the minds of African-American women today.
For years many people have supported the notion that women have been devalued and under appreciated in society. This gave rise to the feminist movement. The feminists have pushed for equal treatment with men for many years. This includes economic, social, physical, sexual and equality in all aspects of our society. Black women have a different set of concerns than do many other women and their push for equality uses rap as a way to achieve this.
Rosa was always very aware of the differences around her in the ways blacks and whites lived. She recalled, in her book, My Story, that she remembers the white children riding in buses to school as she walked to schools. She also stated that the African American children often did not have desks and had to hold their school books in their laps. Rosa was educated at several schools and was
Rosa actually waited for another bus after seeing the first bus’s seats were all occupied. When the second bus arrived she strolled on, not realizing until the doors closed, the driver was James Blake. Rosa had problems with Blake in the past, and only boarded the bus that day by accident. She then seated herself in the first row of the black section. The next stop was inundated with white passengers; all but one received a seat.
That's exactly what Madonna attempts to do when she appropriates and commodifies aspects of black culture. Needless to say this kind of fascination is a threat. It endangers. Perhaps that is why so many of the grown black women I spoke with about Madonna had no interest in her as a cultural icon and said things like, "The bitch can't even sing." It was only among young black females that I could find die-hard Madonna fans.
ESSAY 4 The Role of Education in the Liberation of Black Women in America Education had played a substantial part in the post-Civil Rights Movements. At that time words such as 'Black Pride' and 'Black Power' were widely used, emphasizing the differences between whites and the blacks and the need to build a powerful black community. Such a notion opposed the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement which sprung up in the 1980's for fighting for racial equality and maintaining peace between whites and blacks so that they could coexist in harmony. The movement was a complicated issue that sprung during a cultural revolution throughout the states. At that time, racial segregation, especially in the South, was apparent in education where by the worst financed schools were found in black settlement areas.
Black women living in the United States leading up to and during the civil rights era were unable to express themselves due to the closed minds of white America. In the essay “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” Alice Walker goes into great detail about the oppressions of African American women who were forced to endure not only racism and sexism, but classism as well. Walker goes on to talk about how spirituality is the only tool they had that could not be taken away. This was kept alive through folklore and anything else they could get a hold of that helped them to escape reality. Within the essay Walker speaks of several different instances of women before and during her time that were visionaries of indescribable proportions.
The reason why women do this can depend on the generation you ask. According to theorists, hair has always been an important factor in defining one’s identity (Brownmiller 1984; White 2005; Byrd and Tharps 2001; Patton 2006). For African Americans this is doubly true. During the 1800s, hair was an indictor of one’s slave status; today hair is a marker of beauty, economical status, power, and beliefs. Women with straightened hair are still considered the beauty norm in African American society today.
Effects of the Media on African American Women Being an African American woman I have had firsthand experience on how the media has portrayed both an unconstructive and encouraging image of us. African American Women casted, in too roles to play as characters in the movies as well as on television are more often than not portrayed in an unflattering roles. All women have been stereotyped in one way or another, but African American Women have been stereotyped by other races as well as our own. Now in these recent years we have been breaking down barriers showing everyone that African American Women are not what you think we are we are better. Unfortunately there are a great deal of troublesome images that are being shown about women in the African American community that has absorbed into their psychological mind.
Under Jim Crow laws, African Americans were segregated from whites especially in regards to transportation. (jimcrowhistory.org) Busses and trains didn’t have “separate but equal” vehicles for the different races but they did enforce seating policies that formed separate sections for African Americans and whites. In the South, school busses didn’t run at all for African Americans. "I'd see the bus pass every day... But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom.