Alice Walker pays Tribute to Howard Zinn

"I was Howard’s student for only a semester, but in fact, I have learned from him all my life. His way with resistance: steady, persistent, impersonal, often with humor, is a teaching I cherish." (Keep reading here).

The Sea

Check out my review of Corinne Bailey Rae's The Sea over at Bold as Love.

Haiti Mourns Leaders of Women's Movement

"Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, founders of three of the country's most important advocacy organizations working on behalf of women and girls, are confirmed dead," according to Jessica Ravitz at CNN. For more on the lives of these dedicated feminists, read here.

supporting haiti

As we continue to send healing thoughts, prayers, and money to Haiti, I wanted to post some relief efforts sent my way that take gender and sexuality into account:

The National Council for Research on Women lists five organizations that target women and children specifically.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) lends support to organizations like SEROvie and Mujer that attend to the needs of LGBT people, AIDS-infected populations, and women.

black girls rock!

Check out my list of 10 Sistas Who Rocked the Decade over at Bold as Love.

single black ladies

Apparently the relationship status of black women has reached "crisis" level (42% are single). But don't fret ladies, ABC News/ Nightline is on the case. They've also sought the assistance of comedian-turned-relationship guru Steve Harvey. Harvey's advice to fine-looking, twenty and thirty-something black women: get you an old cat daddy, they knows how to treat y'all. (insert eyeroll here)

"Blah blah blah blah, blah blah by myself."

I don't mean to be callous. But the "why black women are still single" narrative is getting a bit trite. So why am I posting about it again? In short, I'm a cultural critic and am especially concerned about black women as subjects. What troubles me most about the news stories and articles that profile the state of single black women is that most of these pieces hover fairly closely to black pathology theses. Black women are too picky/snobby/overeducated/emasculating/status-driven ... blah blah blah blah. Black men are players/in jail/undereducated/all dating white women ... blah blah blah blah.

Needless to say, these profiles make a number of troubling assumptions (most that are conservative, heterosexist, divisive along gender lines) that ultimately affirm that something is "wrong" with black people.

Is the marital status of black women a debate that should be played out in the media? And if so, how can such a conversation become more productive? What do studies that predict the improbability that a black woman will marry a black man hope to gain by trotting out bleak statistics? Can these kinds of debates be reframed in a way that doesn't blame black women for being single or that presumes that something is inherently wrong with (you for) being single?

beauty matters

Naomi Sims, Beverly Johnson, and Iman are all figures of beauty from my childhood. Proof positive that dark-hued women should grace runways and magazine covers.

Beauty matters.

Especially in a Western culture shaped by Kantian aesthetics. Black girls who have grown up since the late-80's have had an even narrower range of cultural images of beauty available for their appreciation. Most mag covers today look like a variation on a "fair"-skinned, blond-haired theme.

(randomly selected mag cover):

Recently, beauty and its relationship to colorism was broached in critiques of Lee Daniels' Precious as the light-skinned Miz Rain (Paula Patton) seemed to embody all the goodness and love Precious's darker-skinned and larger-sized mother Mary(Mo'Nique) lacked. The oppositional duo calls to mind Glinda the Good (Lena Horne) and Evillene (Mabel King) of The Wiz.




Black feminist writers and scholars continue to take up the politics of aesthetics, race, and gender. Two recent works that explore the contested nature of beauty and aesthetics, include Deborah Willis's superb Posing Beauty and Sarah Nuttall's thoughtful Beautiful/Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics.