zizzy says: more @ clip source Where to begin in helping them understand that they are, in fact, reinforcing negative and damaging stereotypes about “good” and “bad” hair? That they are encouraging discourses of self-hatred in their young students, rather than self-pride? That instead of being flattered to be called a princess, they should be fighting the stereotypes that beauty is about approximating Whiteness? How many of these young teacher's turn around and say "I like your hair too, it's beautiful,your beautiful"? Very few I suspect, because those teachers mistake adoration as "interracial understanding.." and not psychosocial damage. Yesterday evening, Malcolm X was broadcast on the Dubai One channel (in fact, that was the third time in about 6 weeks). Malcolm encouraged us to be proud of our natural appearance. That was the '60s and here we are, still not proud. But what would happen if Oprah went natural? Do you think she would keep her audience? I totally agree with SeattleSlim's response (#34) to Leah's comment I used to work with a woman who had immigrated from Kenya and she had natural hair. I always thought she was quite pretty. Natural hair is pretty if like any other kind of hair it is well-kept. Your co-worker is from Kenya where her appearance is considered normal. I think that the societal definition of normal and by extension, good, is at the root of what is going on in our psyches. I think the real problem is in feeling the need for someone else's approval. I'll try just so hard to please other people, and if they still don't like it, then it's their problem, not mine. btw, I just logged on and my pops are blocked already, so I owe you one. Real beauty is always normal. In any society or group of people. If we dare to call this miracle by trivial word "normal". Somehow it belong to female only. Men are forced to look for another credentials for admiration. The scientist who can come with something that will make African-American hair look, feel, and behave like Caucasian hair, will earn a place in the Hall of Fame alongside that other great inventor who came up with Viagra. Black hair is such a sensitive issue with Blacks, that when Imus called the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team "Nappy-headed Hos," he might just as well have stuck a knife in their hearts. They had taken more offense than if he had called them the "N-word." We can try and bullshit the Blacks that we think their "Fro," Corn Rolls, and Dreadlocks are beautiful, but no one is really kidding anybody. They want hair like the Whites and I, for one, can't understand why someone ... chestnut - wow, the so-called clip daddies or clip fathers or whatever are really on your case. anyone who thought such preconceptions were outdated would have been reminded otherwise by some negative reactions to the president’s 11-year-old daughter, Malia Obama, who wore her hair in twists while in Rome this summer. Commenters on the conservative blog Free Republic attacked her as unfit to represent America for stepping out unstraightened.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/fashion/27SKIN.html?em @steve - We can try and bullshit the Blacks that we think their "Fro," Corn Rolls, and Dreadlocks are beautiful, but no one is really kidding anybody.Yeah, we know .... considering how we've been shown ... and there's no bullshit involved. She [Topsy] was one of the blackest of her race; and her round, shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over everything in the room. Her mouth half open with astonishment at the wonders of the new Mas'r's parlor, displayed a white and brilliant set of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which stuck out in every direction. The expression of her face was an odd mixt... Yeah, we knowzizzy, America really is the Great Experiment. We were planned as the Great Melting Pot, though, for now, we seem more like a Stew. People of all races, nationalities, creeds, ethnicities, etc., have been thrown together in a kind of Skinner Box to see what will be the final product. Try as we may, and as we have tried, because of this propinquity, we have been unable to maintain a permanent separation of races, or peoples of distinct national origins, or religions. There has always been the overriding factor of LOVE, which unrelentingly breaks down all barriers to integration, miscegenation, bi-racialism, and multiculturalism. One day we will be one people... One day we will be one people, sharing common physiological traitsThat has been tried before: Eugenics. Those common physiological traits would be fine with you if nappy hair (and broad noses) no longer exist because: In your utopia whiteness is preserved as the norm and only incognegros exist. zizzy, All races began at the same starting point - Africa. After the Diaspora from Africa, because of Natural Selection, via the processes of Mutation, Adaptation, Crossover, and Isolation, we have come to look the way we do after countless years of Nature's modification. Who who we were , is not who we are, nor who we will be. The most recognizable features of all of us will be compromised, modified, assimilated, etc. What is White, won't be as white; what is Black, won't be as black; what is Brown, won't be as brown; what is Red; won't be as red; and, what is Yellow, won't be as yellow. Every race is going to be kicking in to the Genetic Pot to produce a Homo Sapiens, or Homo Sola... steve - schooling not required. We are dealing with the present: the journey from Homo Sapiens Sapiens to Homo Solairs, or Homo Invisible is irrelevant. To the fevered imaginations of some, broad noses and nappy hair are all too Chimpanzee. Unfortunately, zizzy, there's not a switch we can flip that will instantly make things the way we want them to be. Several years ago, I saw a movie titled "Casualties of War." One of the most memorable scenes, for me, was when Ving Rhame, in the role of Lt. Reilly, a black officer, counsels Michael J. Fox, as PFC. Eriksson, who has just reported the rape and murder of a Vietnamese girl by members of his squad and is seeking justice. Rhame/Reilly then proceeded to tell Fox of his emergency room experience where his wife, denied attention, ended up having her baby on the emergency room floor. Reilly said he went ballistic; got arrested and thrown in jail. "Was this justice?" he asked Fox, "... It's easy to "live with it" when the injustice isn't aimed at you. Thanks lj. steve - conversation over. |
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