I am definitely a person who loves my personal space, I get too uncomfortable when somebody is really close friends and family are the exceptions of course. I mean it took me about a year to be comfortable enough to hug the new friends I made in high school and college but I have improved now it's only five months.
Because I like having space I do not like when people sit next to me on the bus or train when there are many other seats available for them to sit down. To deter people from sitting down next to me I would often "screw face" hoping that they think of me as the mean black girl and sometimes it works but most of the time it doesn't, I remember one incident the bus was pretty empty and I was sitting by my self a woman got on the bus and was about to sit in the empty seats in front of me but she looked up at me smiled then went to sit next to me even though I had my rude girl look going on, needless to say I was shocked.
Or even quite recently I was standing at the bus stop and a old Indian man stood too close for comfort for me so I moved then he came to stand next to me again I looked him in the face smiled politely then moved down the over end of the station and the man comes next to me again and moves even closer. I was getting quite scared and told him to move away from me which he didn't I clenched my fist just in case the guy touched me. I swear I was close to having a Will Smith "Back up back up, mind your business" moment right there but the man then left after a while thank god my bus came in time for me to leave before he came back.
I was thinking why does this always happen to me even though I constantly screw face to people and it doesn't work my mum says it's because I have such a warm and inviting face and my sister agrees but I also wear glasses and have a whole geeky demeanour which is true I am geeky but this geek can hurt someone seriously when defending herself
"Get over it" is a phrase that more priviledge people use when less priviledgee people talk about their injustices. The phrase implies that less priviledge pepople are whining and complaining like little kids.
Example #1 Black person explaing how colourism and hair issue with black people began to a white person. "Slavey has had a profound effect on the way black people see themselves."
"Black people really need to get over slavery and stop complaining the past is past."
This is stupid now let's move on and have a different scenario
Example #2 Rape victim talks to her friend about not being ready to date again "Ever since my rape I find it hard to trust men."
"You really need to get over that and stop complaining the past is past."
You see what I mean stupid and stupid winner of the the first cycle of America's Next Top Model Adrienne Curry subscribes to that thinking.
Now there is a difference between moving on and forgetting about it and what the phrase impplies is that those people should foget all about what happend which is just silly
I have been wanting to do a post about this topic for a while but I have been having some trouble writing it so fell blogger Abagond wrote about the topic in great detail.
“Get over it” is something White Americans say when black people point out a case of white racism that is hard to deny, like that picture of watermelons growing in front of the White House. The phrase means that blacks should not get too hung up on racism, that thinking about it too much will only make things worse. It also means this: shut up and stop being such a crybaby. read the rest
Here is my take on it.
If you and I were messing around and I stabbed you in the arm
I caused you great pain
You are upset with me now I do not trust me
You can't do all the things you were able to do before I stabbed you in the arm.
Now I tell you to get over it because it's all in the past and we shouldn't dwell on it and even forget about it. But how can you forget about me stabbing you when you have to live with the reminder every day?
Posted By Nnena A lot of controversy has popped up with the appearance of Afro Latino baseball star Sammy Sosa, a lot of speculation is he bleaching his skin, does he have vitaligo like Michael Jackson did his appearance a side effect from years of steroid abuse?
Well there is a lot of racism, colourism and hair-ism in the Dominican republic a rejection for all things black. (Of course I don't apply this to all Afro-Dominicans who are very much proud to be Black.) So bleaching his skin and straightening his hair because the "good hair, bad hair." thing effects both men and women contrary to popular belief. But also look at his eyes he has blue contacts in.
What I have noticed from reading different post that discuss Sammy is that people are giving him a little bit more...hope? I guess they are hoping to believe that it's a side effect from the steroids or its an illness. While with Lil Kim and her appearance it's pretty much shout "it's self hatred!" so maybe a little bit of sexism.
I am going to be honest and voice my opinion I think both Lil Kim and Sammy Sosa are suffering from self hatred and have using skin bleaching cream and Lil Kim is suffering from Body Dismorphic Sydrome. Most people reading will probably ask what about Micheal Jackson? I am a fan of all three stars by the way so I hope I do not appear to be bias. Michael suffered from body dismorphia that could have stemmed from self hatred but not from a racial stand point because he did take much pride in his black heritage and of course the pigmentation of his skin was due to vitiligo which was proven in his post mortem.
Now some could argue that just because they have purposely lightend their skin that it is not self hatred and point out to white people that tan their skin. You have to look at the history behind both.
The light skin, dark skin complex came from slavery just like the good hair, bad hair thing did too. The black slaves that were lighter and had a looser texture of hair were usually the off spring of the white slave master so they worked in the house and were sometimes given their freedom if they passed the brown paper bag and comb test then they were set.
The history of tanning happend when Coco Chanel came back from vacation and had a tan, she had time to out and enjoy the sun and not be in a room and look "pasty" a tan showed that you had leisure time which equated with wealth. Now do I belive that some people who tan do it because of self hatred yes I do belive that they do exisit.
Last week I was reading the blogs Stuff white people do and Abagond. The topic was on a Nigerian author called Chinua Achebe who speak about the danger of what is called a "single story".
I can relate to a lot of the things she talks about too many to write down but I write about one incident when I was in Year 4 making me nine years old, it was Black History month andwere asked to tell to ree-create a story we just heard about a girl in Nigeria and draw scenery and we were also put into groups. I drew a big house with many windows like a mansion, I have never been to Nigeria at that time but I had watched a lot of Yoruba movies (Nollywood films) with my mother and those types of houses were always shown and so were smaller homes and apartments and even huts.
A teacher that came in to tell us the story, a white irish woman who often bragged about travelling to differnt parts of Africa and Asia doing charity work. She looked at my drawing of the huge house with many windows and a front garden with a fountain and told me I was wrong she told the other members of my group to colour over the window and make it to look like a hut and more "authentic" I was so upset that I cried and left the groups and classroom. She was bascially calling me a liar saying that a house like that in Nigeria wouldn't exsist.
This is a common white tendacy to tell people of colour that they know more about their culture than the person of colour does, a case of showing her white priveldge because when she did this nobody questioned her my year four white teacher agreed and said it looked like a " a real african hut".
That incident has stuck with me for a long time at 9 years old I had already experice the subtle forms of racism that most people of colour living in the western eurocentric world face today,but it was the first time that white privilege/supermacy and racisim made me cry
I got this post from the the guardian adressing discrimination when it came to someone applying for a job. Those with "African and Asian sounding" names on their CV were more likely to be turned down for a job interview.
Researchers sent nearly 3,000 job applications under false identities in an attempt to discover if employers were discriminating against jobseekers with foreign names. Using names recognisably from three different communities – Nazia Mahmood, Mariam Namagembe and Alison Taylor – false identities were created with similar experience and qualifications. Every false applicant had British education and work histories.
This does not surpirse me I remeber watching an episode of the Tyra Banks show that discussed how people make snap judgements and have preconcived notions when they see names like are not english.
The Book Freakonomics (which was also adresses this too.
Part of the Channel 4 Race season the show How Racist are you saw ex teacher Jane Elliot the famous woman behind the "blue eyes, brown eyes racism experiment" did the same test on Britain.. She tried to get the blue eyed whites to acknowledge racism and white priviledge
The feeling of the show from the blue eyed whites were a lot of denial. People denined that there was any racism a lot of derailing of the arguement.
One white man said how everyone experiences discrimination and we should basically get over. He is an overweight man and said he gets discriminated so it's fair I guess, Janes Elliot then told him that he could change his weight and people of colour cannot change the colour of their skin . it. A lot of the blue eyed white people compared their 'hardships' to the hardships that people of colour face in the UK.
One other blue eyed white woman revelaed that she was shocked when one of the her black student had scrapped their cheeck and the skin was pink and assumend it would be black. (Everyone's tissue is pink stupid)
One white woman in the brown eyed group kept trying to stop the learning process. There was a lot of denile and I admit that I was screaming at my TV screen.
Jane Elliot made a very good ending statement about "the ways of white folks"
Jane Ellitot: White people have been conditioned to belive the myth of white supremacy.
In my last post that of the subject of afro textured hair and its politics I had to put up another post. Regarding or this malarkey around Chris Rock’s new movie ‘Good Hair’ from what I’ve seen about the movie on the Tyra Show, Oprah Show and little previews and other different guests spot appearances I am quite agitated about the whole thing and Black Hair is in the media more than ever I'm not lying google it. Seriously on CNN monring news show, newspaper articles on the Obama girls and talk shows and other stuff
For those who aren't in the know Chris Rock decided to make this documentary because his daughter came up to him and ask why she doesn’t have “good hair” as you can see from the preview below.
Ooo.....okay..... After watching that you’ are probably laughing right now or kissing your teeth or maybe even both LOL. When I heard about Good Hair Mockumentarydocmentarty the first time I was hoping that the movie would somehow explain where the “good hair” and “bad hair” mentality came from which is obviously from slavery just as the light skin dark skin thing. I also hoped that the myths about afro textured hair would be abolished like it can’t grow as long as other races and wearing a weave does not mean you are bald head and how when you see a black women with kinky/curly for textured hair in its natural state and the next day her hair is straightened the next day she does not always have a weave it’s most likely shrinkage, kind of like a slinky, but that is not the case it seems as if he was just telling the full reason it was more like.
black women wear weaves and get relaxers
okay why?
To be white.
Why?
.......lets hear some funny stories of how their hair got burnt off
After reading the reviews it seemed that Chris Rock didn't address the roots (no pun intended) of the good hair bad hair mentality like in this movie called "My Nappy Roots"
Rock then made his talk show rounds on Oprah, Tyra, Wendy Williams and Monique (don't watch monique's show episode it was kind of silly) The View and then Oprah again, and in the clips I watched l of the show and he made slave reference to Oprah when showed a picture of when Oprah was a child and had her natural hair and it was styled in the typical way you would see a young black girl’s hair big braids/twists. “You were a slave here huh?” WTF?! Then there was a picture of Oprah and her Afro when she was doing the news and Chris Rock said “This is when you were doing the mean news” The there was a picture of Oprah where she had her hair straightened and he said "This is when you were free." yeeeaaahhhhh.
So she was a slave in the natural child hair pic and when she was older and had an afro is looked mean.....and he was so shocked when his child asked him the question and I’d like to make not that Oprah and Chris Rock child had basically the same hairstyle. He said men don’t care about hair yet he couldn't’t help himself touching Oprah’s hair and salivating over it saying "he has never done that to a black woman" and "that's all you?....Now that's rich."
Solange Knowles was also on the show with her big chop styled do, I always preferred Solange to her older sister and when she cut her hair to go natural I was like wow she has a really nice face not like me when I big chopped uh,uh LOL. She was there basically to explain she cut her hair to go natural and not had gone crazy or was out for attention duh, I knew that my black friends knew that but my non-black friend didn’t get it. Solange also talked about how she got her first relaxer and 4 I was shocked why do people think it’s okay to relax a child’s hair at those young ages wait until they get a double digit or at least can form their own opinion DAMN. That's what Chris Rock wanted to do abolish the kids getting perms and i agree and where the weave came from I already knew where it came from last year there was a documentary on BBC Three called "Whose Hair is it anyway?" where Jamelia travelled to Russia and India and in India they were harvesting hair and stuff.
Overall Oprah’s show was about what women would do and how much they would spend on hair instead of the “Good Hair” i.e. loosely coiled hair which was talked about more on Tyra’s show but putting Tyra’s and Oprah show together instead of having one or without the other made for an alright show. The Good hair bad hair thing is such a huge issue to talk about it can’t all be covered in a 60minute talk show or a 90 minute film.
One thing I didn’t like in all three talks is that there wasn’t much of a focus on natural hair I think all aspects of afro textured hair should have been covered. Rock said he didn’t add it to the movie because it wasn’t entertaining enough.
Entertaining? I’d like to know what he means by that does that mean there wasn’t anything he could make fun about or what? Did the women he interviewed have no personality at all? I wonder that maybe he may have derailed from his "original" premise. (The reason why that original is in quote marks is because of the director of "My nappy roots" is suing Chris Rock for copying her movie.)
All of this is just so confusing and it is one of the reasons I tire of talking about our hair in the emotional context I’d rather talk about it in the technical sense I’ll state facts and if someone wants to ask me a question like “Why do a lot of black women relax their hair?”
If you are looking for an in depth look on where the term good hair and bad hair come from and how afro textured hair was like throughout history I suggest you read the book Hair Story by Lori L. Tharps and Ayana D. Byrd or the movie "My Nappy Roots" This is exactly why I hate talking about the politics of afro-textured hair.
I am a Black British Nigerian teenage girl living in London, getting sick of the shit I see in the world Such as race, gender, religion pop culture and representations in the media
Most people reading will probably ask what about Micheal Jackson? I am a fan of all three stars by the way so I hope I do not appear to be bias. Michael suffered from body dismorphia that could have stemmed from self hatred but not from a racial stand point because he did take much pride in his black heritage and of course the pigmentation of his skin was due to vitiligo which was proven in his post mortem.
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