Zoning Out
I have been practicing yoga for the past 5 months, and it is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. Seriously. The practice of yoga, which means “union,” first began thousands of years ago in Africa. It is a total workout for your mind, body and soul. I find it very calming for my mind and emotions. I have also lost a lot of weight since starting. This surprised me, because yoga doesn’t seem as vigorous as say running. It’s a more subtle workout, yet very effective.
Invisible Woman tagged me on blogs I like and there have to be 10 of them so here I go!
–Angry Gay Black Canadian Man : Fantastic commentary from a Jamaican-Canadian writer in Canada. This is one of my almost daily visists
– The Black Actor: Another daily visit- I love reading the commentary on the cinematic state in the US for black people.
–Invisible Woman: Well-written blogs that tackles interesting angles on black film in the US
–magCulture: you guessed it, a blog about magazines. it is genius
– The Black Snob: (Invisible Woman, thanks for putting this on your list, that is how I discovered it — very interesting perspective on politics).
–Boring Black Chick: Finally, a blog from a black woman in Britain! Yes! This is a great blog.
Pass it on people!
A
One racism row that is getting a lot of print and digital pink here is the alleged revelation that an Indian cricket player, Harbajan Singh called a mixed-race/black Australian player, Andrew Symonds a ”monkey”. For full details, check out this article.
This morning as I was trying to avoid doing any essay-writing, I was watching the box and there was a TV show debating whether the word ‘monkey’ could be racist. In the case of this cricket issue, it is completely and UTTERLY racist. It is no secret that black people have been taunted as ‘monkeys’ so why should it surprise people that we are called it once more? What is surprising and hurtful I think is the fact that an Indian player would call a black person a ‘monkey’ when in fact, there are many racial slurs that put people of South East Asian descent down too.
Check out the following intelligent comment below from a poster on the Guardian:
The above commenter is so right! My god, Australia does have race issues. Look at how marginalised the Aboriginal people of Australia are. They are part of the nation but yet I don’t see any high profile Aboriginal people except Cathy Freeman, who was visible in the Olympics. There are some real fucking issues to be dealt here as several members of the Australian team have uttered racial slurs too.
I wonder what it must be like for Symonds…strange life? Being called a monkey by a fellow ethnic minority and living in a country that had a non-white immigration policy for ages? Hmmm sounds like a Molotov cocktail to me!
*I was doing my daily perusing of the black entertainment blogs and found out that Elliott Wilson has been sacked from XXL! This comes as quite a surprise since I have been reading XXL regurlarly for more than a while and even though his stance on the N word is irritating, I found the stories interesting. I wonder what this means for the content of the magazine: I think it is fair to say that I am over hip-hop mags that much and I prefer reading hip hop writing online or watching music vids on youtube but again, I will still support black-oriented mags like Vibe despite how rubbish they can be or how overly US-centric too.
*Look at who is all from up from Eve’s Bayou!
This image was found at A Hot Mess. Jurnee looks simply stunning. Does anyone see some 1940s starlet a la Fredi Washington comparisons here? I like the fact that she is getting more ink, she is absolutely gorgeous and a great talent. I am really excited about seeing Great Debaters, I can’t wait.
*I have a job interview next Monday! I am excited and keeping my fingers crossed for it to work out cos I need £££ in my pocket LOL!
–A–
My late father would have been 63 today. It was his birthday in 1945. Time has flown by so much and I really do miss him desperately. People say that daughters want to marry men who are like their dads. I truly miss him. The last ever area he worked in before he got sick was Rwanda and part of me feels like I should go and work there too. Something is drawing me to go there. I have done things in 2007 which I know would not have made my dad proud but I hope to change things.
Miss you Baba
1945 – 2000
–A–
(note — my post contains *spoilers* about Elizabeth:The Golden Age)
Today I went to watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I am very interested in world history and I find Elizabeth as a woman fascinating. I have watched many films on her but Cate Blanchett is by far the best (in my opinion anyway). In the first film, it was full of life, passionate and you can feel the emotion. The second film? Ah…crash and burn? I am not too sure on whether it is as good as the original. It feels feeble compared to the first one but none of this is to do with Blanchett. She is brilliant, top form and it feels like she has literally picked up from 1998. The problem lay in the love interest and just the general structure and subject manner. It would have been nearly impossible to pick up and make a sequel great. Elizabeth was in many ways a perfect film: highlighting the trials and tribulations of a woman bound by her birth status.
Black and white women had been elevated to queen status by men. Women were made to be queens because they were born into these positions. The patriarchy helped to create the concept of kings, queens worldwide. This is not just about Tudors and big dresses. Does being a queen mean that you automatically have power over men? Is it purely symbolic? Symbolism is powerful because it is akin to tradition. Tribes in Africa still hold onto their chiefs and these chiefs have wives who are queens. The image of the queen is powerful because it is almost as if it is an accepted form of power that everyone agrees a woman should have. It is deeply blemished by the patriarchy but when power is sparsely given, is being a queen that bad?
Some traditional African ‘queens’ may look like this. They may not. This image in itself is beautiful. However, as queen-like as it may appear, it does highlight another issue: are women who are queens merely just a reflection of what the patriarchy wants them to be which is a pedestal? I am not sure. I love the image of a strong woman. I’m just not sure I like the fact that it could be a puppet of the patriarchy.
–A–
Read this Brandy post to see why Bossip does not appreciate Black Hair. The post from the staff explicitly states:
Anyway, glad to see she’s decided to join the rest of the modern world and ditch those braids. We know her hairline is probably way past receding for wearing them thangs for over a decade.
The modern world? What the ….? Are these fools being serious? I can’t believe I even used to read this stupid poseur website. Brandy looked great when she wore braids; let’s not forget that braids are part of African culture and originated on the continent as a way of wearing our hair. Since when does that need “ditching”? It is almost laughable how uneducated they sound. I’m natural and love braids to death. Fighting against people of my race about hair is so embarrassing: do you think other people of different races do this?
What an embarrassing excuse for a website.
An ex-reader
I don’t know why but I want to run for this position at the student union for Women’s Officer. I really want to do it but it makes me nervous just thinking about it! By next Thursday, I need to present myself as a candidate with a manifesto but I just feel freaked out and scared lol. I am quite shy and not a publicity maven in the slightest, so um…I just want to ask: is this a good idea to try and run? I want to do it but lol if there are like 10 million other people or even just 1 person running for women’s officer, I’ll sit myself out lol.
Stay tuned
–A–
According to dictionary.com, glamour can be described as “the quality of fascinating, alluring, or attracting, esp. by a combination of charm and good looks”. I think glamour is one of those attractions that many women search for when they go on diets, try and lose weight, buy makeup etc. Why are we so attracted to the notion of being ‘alluring’ or ‘fascinating’? Is it because our egos need to be stroked?
What women in your eyes are glamorous and does this reality make you feel less than a woman or do you seek to emulate them? I can think of women who appear to be glamorous such as the old-guard veterans like Diana Ross, Dorothy Dandridge and new school women like Naomi Campbell, Beyonce. Then, I think, why does them being ‘glamorous’ seem so positive? I think women and beauty are inextricably linked and as much as we may like to deny it, glamour and beauty is desired by many of us. There are different variations of glamour & beauty within all races but at the end of the day, looking good is the commodity that everyone wants.
Plastic surgery has been the next step up for many people to attain the beautiful/glamorous look. If looks are so important, do you judge other people by the way they look? I have definitely been a culprit of this before and I hasten to say that I still am a culprit when it comes to myself since I really want to achieve a certain look with my hair. Does that mean that I am ‘vain’ or am I just a normal girl who is into her looks?
women of all races do things to their faces to look different. Are we masking our true selves or enhancing it? I went through a phase of wearing makeup all the time but now I don’t wear that much, only if I can be bothered. I don’t think that wearing makeup all the time screams of insecurity but it wholly depends on what type of woman you are.
Personality is paramount. It’s a shame that we still put ourselves under unattainable beauty standards to look one way, when we could just be happy with ourselves. When someone says you are ‘beautiful’, that evokes positivity. The case of ‘Ugly Betty’ is probably the best example — a woman who in fact is stunning made to look ‘ugly’ so we can see her personality shine through…Is this distateful?
(cover seen @ think2wice)
Bought the September issue of ESSENCE at the newsagent yesterday (I am sure the US heads have already read it) but of course, yours truly needs to get her media sugar rushes. It has Jill Scott on the cover and it seems okay…so far (I’m looking 4wd to reading the Jill Scott interview). Until I got to the beauty pages. A chunk that follows on her is verbatim what was in the magazine on page 52 in the “Choose the Right Texture” paragraph:
“Buying quality hair is absolutely essential but it’s not enough. Selecting a believable texture is critical. ‘Superstraight hair with nappy roots looks crazy.’ says celebrity stylist Porsche Waldo of Ebony Design in New York City (Faith Evans, Mya, Jojo). ‘I’ve coined the term ‘Kunta-meets-Becky”, says stylist Nelson Vercher of the Rita Hazan salon in New York City”
F/CK.
The reason I use the four letter word is simple: the stylist sound so damn foolish! Kunta meets Becky? WTF? Is that supposed to be funny…or clever? I think it’s disrespectful to talk like that about hair. Kunta Kinte is a symbolic name that represents strength and to talk down about it shows lack of understanding about the politics of us. And I don’t business: that stylists sounds like s/he is talking down about hair textures. So if it isn’t straight, then it is automatically wrong…? Why can’t the straight texture fit into the natural texture? Why does it have to be the other way around? I am all for people wearing their hair how they want but talking down and using references to people’s struggles in SLAVERY is fucking off-colour.
Even black magazines, meant to uplift their women, have a long way to go. It probably was not intentional but nonetheless it raises serious questions about black women & hair. Is straight hair the way to bounce forward and is it the way to get one noticed?
They have this one section in that piece called ”What Men Think”. And here is the oh-so-”empowering” quote:
I can actually feel the desperate calls 4 male validation jumping out of that. Who cares what black men or men in general think about our hair? We need to sort out our insecurities with hair FIRST and live that way. Don’t get me wrong, receiving compliments from anyone, irrespective of gender/race is great but why do girls always need to look towards men 4 liking their hair? I am still stuck on that one.
