The Queen-reigning as King

The Queen

Sade

Sade is a beautiful black woman and my favorite singer. "Somebody Has Already Broke My Heart," "No Ordinary Love," "Moon & The Sky," "Flow" "Smooth Operator" the list is endless of the songs that I vibe to she has recorded. Her voice is angelic. Her career started before I was born but her music is timeless. She is a living masterpiece of art and  beauty. She will never be duplicated. Sade I appreciate your work as well as your beauty.

Media sensationalism of single black women-don't believe the hype

Black women keeping it real :)

Interview #2, Rose Brantley

What is your name? My name is Rose Brantley.
Where were you born? Augusta, Georgia, 1955.
How was it like growing up in Georgia as a black woman? There were good and bad times. I grew up during the 60's as the Civil Rights movement was at its peak. Georgia was very racist in certain areas and not in others. My family moved to Atlanta in '66 for better jobs as Atlanta was about making money than racism at the time. Atlanta was less racist than other parts of Georgia. Rome (Georgia) was bad with racism.
How was racist was Rome? I had family in Rome and segregation was bad. Drinking fountains, buses, diners it was everywhere. Protesters were thrown and beaten by the police. Rome was one of those Old South places. Racism was ingrained there with whites deeply. There was a unofficial curfew there for blacks too. It was something terrible. My stubborn uncle and aunt stayed through the toughest times. They were better than would of been.
How does the South now compare to the South in the 60's? A lot has changed for the better and some things still remain the same. There's a lot black people can do now that they couldn't do back then. I see black people owning their own businesses, going to big time schools and thats a normal thing now. It wasn't like that in the 60's. One thing that really shocked me was the president being black. I couldn't imagine that back then. Oh Lord you couldn't have even dreamed about that back then. But see how they treat him though. Racism is now more hidden now than out in your face like back then.
How important do you think Obama being elected was to black people? Oh baby it was symbolic. I got my Obama t-shirts and key chains (laughter). It really showed certain parts of America was trying to change. I think many black and white people were proud.
What are your views on interracial couples? I don't really have an opinion. If thats what you like then go ahead. Happiness has no color.
How do you think the state of black women is right now? Its good but can get better. From what I heard black women are doing well at school and being real ambitious. My daughter can testify to that.
How do you compare your daughter's opportunities and your opportunities at the same age? Well my daughter is 24 and is taking a year off before heading to grad school. At 24 I was working at clothing store trying to get money to go back to school after completing communicity college. I think my generation opened doors for the younger ones to reach their goals. I'm proud of them.
How do you see yourself in 10 years? Relaxing with my husband and hanging out with your crazy mom (laughter). I love her like a sister. And Carlos you need to visit more often Mr. Ole Miss. Stop being a stranger, ya hear.
(Laughter) Yes ma'am. I will do. Thanks for the interview, Rose.

Erykah Badu, Beautiful Black Woman

Beautiful Black Woman, Liya Kidebe

Beautiful Black Women, Part 2

Erykah Badu is a beautiful black woman. Natural hair sexy brown skin. Lucy Ramos is a beautiful black Brazilian woman. Beautiful eyes and from one of the most beautiful (and blackest) countries in the world. Alicia Keys is a beautiful black woman. Amazing voice to go with her amazing features. Caroline Chikezie is a beautiful black woman. A Nigerian beauty defined. Beautiful, silky dark skin and an amazing figure. Liya Kedebe is a beautiful black woman. An Ethiopian queen from one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Her beauty is nearly unmatched.

Interview #1, Lee Ethel Drake

What is your name? Lee Ethel Drake.
How old are you? 49. (proud voice)
Where were born? I was born in Rosedale, Ms. Raised in Sherard, MS.
Do you have any siblings? Yes. Yvonnie Eggleston, Versey Denise Drake, Viola Cusic, Bobbie Jean Taylor, Evenline Hardman, Minnie B. Harris, Estella Mae Drake, James Drake, Jodie Drake III, and Curtis Jackson.
What was life growing up as a black girl in Sherard, MS? It was alright. We went outside and played.Pulled wood in made fire. Had fun over grandmother's house. I had fun.
Did you experience any racism? No, we played with the white children. My family, I guess kept us away from it. Didn't really experinece any racism until I got older and moved into the city.
Did your parents tell you you anything or instill any values on how life will be as a black woman? Yes. Be strong and independent. Cook, clean, and be a woman. Mama taught us to work hard and know hiw work is. Never to be lazy.
Tell me more about your experiences about racism? Honestly I didn't experience any racism until I left Mississippi. My schools were intergrated from kindergarten to college. We all got along. One racsit experience I recall was when my sister Viola worked at McDonalds in Clarksdale during high school and was called a nigger by a white guy. Another white guy named John took up for her and said thats my sister and made him apologize.There was a couple experiences in California of racism from some Mexicans but there was also alot of nice Mexicans. In California I was really good friends with a Filipino girl named Juanita. We worked in the mess hall together and there was some words said by some other Filipinos that didn't sit well with me. All in all though it was more about wanting power or better pay by kissing but than race. At least thats how I took it. Memphis was another matter. I think Memphis is the most racist place I've ever been?
How so? White people here in Memphis still think you should be in slavery, not all, but some of them. If a black person does the same wrong thing a white person that black person would be punished not the white person. Its like some of them they're privilaged to everything. If equally qualified black and white person applied for a job the white person would be hired. Black people on get hired in warehouses. Its like modern day slavery. Don't get me wrong some make good money but they work you like slaves. You don't really get to appreciate it. Work, work, work. Its not like other countries where you can take vacations once in awhile and not have job threatened or take care a sick child and have to worry about your job status. If you black its all about who you know to get a decent paying job for a white person its not like that they put in an application and they get an interview.
What's your relationship with black and white women? Good. I treat people how I want to be treated. I have black friends, white friends, Filipino friends, Latino friends. (Laughs) I get along with everybody. Its all about personality and attitude. Well I can't say everybody because everybody not going to like you.
Do you have any children? (laughing) Yeah the big-headed boy doing the interview.
How do you feel about interracial relationships? My honest opinion, I don't care. If they love each other that's all that matters. When God made us he didn't see color. All this racist stuff is man made.
What do you think is the role of both black men and women in relationships and inside of the home should be? I think a man if he at home should be the head of the house and take care his family and work. A woman should let a man be a man. There's not plenty man like that nowadays. Back in my day there were plenty. Man are not what they used to be. A woman should stand by her man. She should care her family. By working and taking care of home as well.
Do you think women should be submissive to men? To a certain point. If a man treats his woman like a queen then she should treat him like a king. If he a real men and she a real woman thats how it should be. Thats how good relationships work. Honesty and communication.
What do you think is a critical issue affecting African Americans today? Better paying jobs. If you don't know nobody its hard. You can the education and the degrees but its still hard.
How do think about President Obama's job performance? No comment right now. Economy is in a bad spot but I'm blaming him. I don't know. Bush made a huge mess and its going to take a long time to clean up and he's only be president for a short while.
What makes me the greatest son ever? (smiles at her while I ask) *Laughs* your big a-- head. Honestly I think you're intelligent, strong, motivated, considerate, and hard working. Your my still my lil boo and my lil Los no matter how old you get.
How do you think the state of black women is right now? We still have to be strong women, dependable on our self. Stuff doesn't come easy as black women. Its the same as it is as it was.
To end the interview how do you see yourself in 10 years? Hopefully retired (laughs).
You don't have to worry about that. I gotcha mom. I going to have you in Barbados sipping lemonade living the retired life :)

Classic

Interracial Dating, A Perspective

Skin color shouldn't prevent who you are attracted to or who you fall in love with. Race doesn't exist in the first place its just a social illusion to mantain a social hierarchy. Today in class race was the discussion evolved into black men dating white women. Many generalizations were thrown at why black men and white women: white women are status whores, black men are weak, media promotes white beauty (which is true),etc. You know the same stereotypes. The truth is that black men do not belong to black women and white women do not belong to white men. The same holds true that black women do not belong to black men and white men do not belong to white women. Attraction is more than skin color. Personality, environment, and what you have in common is what generally makes people find each other attractive to each other. Demeaning people on the aforementioned stereotypes is wrong. Not all white women seek black men because of status. Do some? Yeah. Not all black men seek out white women because they are perceived to be submissive. Do some? Probably. These relationships from my perspective evolve from commonality with the  other person and environment in which you live. By environment I mean diverse, open-minded liberal communities verses monolithic, socially conservative communities. I myself dated non-black women. Black women have always been my preference and probably always will be. I have dated a white girl, Filipina and Afro-Cuban girl (racially she is black but her culture was somewhat different that is why I included her even though our relationship wasn't an interracial one). We think seek each other out because we was like "damn I gotta get me a white girl" or "girl I gotta get a black dude" we just clicked. We had the same philiosophies on life, political views, social views, liked the same sports, movies, etc. Plus there was a physical attraction to go along with it. We liked each other because of the person not because of the color of the skin on that person. If you date outside your "race" I'm all for it. If you like it, I love it. However, don't date outside your race and demean your own women or men when you do. Don't be a black dude that talks bad about black women when you're dating a white girl. Don't be a black woman and talk bad about black men when you do. That's wrong. Do it because of the internal reasons like how they think, their sense of humor, and how much you two have in common. Pursuing someone just because of their skin color, in my opinion, does both parties a disfavor. By pursuing somebody because of skin color you'll be fethisizing a person because of their race. You're stripping away everything that makes them a person, personality, intelligence, demeanor. etc., and seeing them as an "other" to satisfy whatever personal interests you have. A racial toy if you will, to be shown off to the public to proclaim  how special you are because you have someone that differs from you by skin color. Attraction should be mutual no matter what somebody's skin color is. See people as a person not their skin color. Then let whatever happens, happen. Black couples are beautifulm white couples are beautiful, Asian couples are beautiful, Latin American couples are beauitiful, and interracial couples are beautiful. End stereotypes about interracial/interethnic couples and judge them by substance, not by societal stereotypes that exist to diminish one another, and by effect, continue the same cycle of ignorance that was started centuries ago when Europeans made contact with indigenous people. Date who you want to date. Like I said earlier, you like it, I love it. Do you.

Beautiful Black Women Part 1

Megan Good is fine. Caramel skin, succulent lips, nice beautiful body with curves she is the definition of beauty.Gabrielle Union is fine. Dark skin, face of a Nubian queen she is a beautiful woman. Solange Knowles is a beautiful black woman. Light-skin, natural hair and poercing eyes she is beauty defined. All shades of black are beautiful.

Helga Crane

 Helga Crane is a interesting woman. She is constantly in conflict within herself to defer her happiness. Once happiness is within her reach she incredibly snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. She is an example of the "tragic mulatto" to me. Unable to fully exist in the black or white worlds she exists in between them, like a certain kind of purgatory if you will. This is not her own fault. In 1920's America she can not those to claim her whole identity as a biracial woman because society won't all ow it. Her skin color doesn't allow her to be white and her conscious will not allow her to fully embrace in being black. She is torn within her very being as to who she is. Her response to Axel Olson's proposal that she "doesn't believe in mixed-race marriage" reveals the tear within herself. Helga is a product of interracial marriage and as a result she doesn't believe on herself. Her self-loathing throughout the novel is her being, the yin and the yang of her conscious, being unable to unite into her true self. I believe that is why she denies herself happiness when is within her grasp. I believe she is only truly at peace with herself when she is lost in thought daydreaming what could of been. This way she can exist as who she wants to be, a biracial woman without racist societal ostracization, in her mind's eye.Tragic mullato, indeed.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

An emotional rollercoaster of a movie, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," tells the story of Janie Crawford and the relationships she has with men. Janie tells her story in retrospect to her friend Pheoby and her tale of love and hardship. In a way Janie's story is a kin to a Greek tragedy as every time she finds happiness that happiness is engulfed in a void of despair. Her first husband Logan is cold and unromantic. Talked into marrying him by her mother Janie is thoroughly unhappy with the relationship.The charismatic Joe Starks captures her heart and they elope to Eatonville. Jody, as she calls him, isn't the dream man as she thought he was. Controlling and ill-tempered Janie suffers through two decades of marriage before asserting her independence and chastizing him. His ego now hurt he brutally beats her. Time passes amd Jody falls greatly ill. Janie belittles him while he is on his deathbed  and he dies in shame. Janie's endurance of an unhappy relationship and the way Jody treated and beat her Janie gets the last word. She once again becomes independent skeptical of relationships with men as her previous ones with them were trials of contempt. Tea Cake a much younger man, eventually wins her heart. Tea Cake steals her money as soon as they are married but he apologizes and states his hearts belongs to her. They enjoy happiness after the event and Janie finally finds the man of her dreams. One day a hurricane hits Janie and Tea Cakes homtown and a series of unfortunate events occur. Trying to escape for higher ground Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog in enthralled in a fit of madness. Forced to kill him to save her life Janie shoots him. Absolved of the charge if murder Janie returns to Eatonville where she finds peace in a town unfilling to embrace her. Janie's story doesn't end in what you would call a happy ending. She faces many trials that test her character and resolve. Her story speaks on what it means to be a black woman in in a patriarchial society, Southern society. In this tale, however, whites are not the oppressor. Black man and women are both the protagonists and antagonists. "Their Eye's Were Watching God" examines the internal politics of black society. The townspeople are eager to try to demean Janie as they feel so overstepped societal bounds for women of that time. Marrying Tea Cakes so soon after Jody's death was an act of independence that interrupted a social fabric that people were uncomfortable with. A woman being free without worryong how society sees her caused resentment in women who were afraid to do the same thing, hence the malicious gossip when she returned to Eatonville. Janie defined herself at the end and as she had at the beginning. Through the ups and downs of her life she found true inner peace within herself as happiness lies within.

The Colored Girl

Fannie Barrier Williams "The Colored Girl" is testament to the will of black women. Through every obstacle that is put in front of her she overcomes and perseveres through society's trangressions against her. Placed on the bottom of a social hierarchy created by racism and cruelty based on the color of ones skin she defiantly prevails. "The colored girl may have character, beauty, and charm ineffable but she is not in vogue," speaks to this disrepency. Having all the qualities that represent the zenith of womanhood she is rejected because of her skin tone and features. Williams states "it is because of race predijuice the colored girl is called upon to endure and overcome more difficulties than confront any other woman in the country."A Black women's path in life is more treacherous than others with her race and gender being an obstacle. The greatest obstacle of all, in my opinion, is a black woman never got to define herself. Negative stereotypes was created about her as soon as she was taken to the other side of the Atlantic in chains.Such claims as being oversexual, infeminine because of bodily features, and subhuman because of the color of her skin has placed her on the bottom of a society created by patriarchy and race that is not her own. African American women fought through these harsh difficulties since the beginning and before they were recognized as part of society as a person, as woman. She fought to define herself from the white oppressors who tried with all their might to break the very fabric of her being and against all odds and through  many calendars of time to define herself and debunk the negative roles that society unjustly cast her as such as the prostitute, the immoral sexual deviant and unfit mother. Even black men themselves stood in her path believing the lies spread upon them through centuries of degradation. The text declares that "we have many colored men who hold degrading opinions of ignorant white men that all colored girls are alike. They lose sight that colored girls are apt to be just as pure, noble, sweet as the best of our men insist upon them being." With the disillusionment of black men of rejecting their own beautiful sisters black women persevered once again. Their struggle remains till this day to have the up most respect they deserve. The obstacles placed upon their feet was done out of fear as the world has known what black women have known since she gave birth to men. She is thee most beautiful, strongest, and magnificient women on Earth. No matter what detours is thrown her way this truth can not be denied.

Black Women Taking The Reins

Black women such as Anna J. Cooper, Mary Terrell Church and Sojourner Truth criticized black men for being complacent in the advancement  of the black race. Preaching a rhetoric that education was the best most productive way for African Americans to advance in American society. Thinking that black men weren't doing enough and spending too much time in gambling halls they themselves took the pulpit and laid the foundation to advance the black race. This was an unheard of during the 1800's and they were not only stalwarts of early black intellectuals but pioneers of women's rights by filling the power vacuum left behind by black men. Ida B. Wells spoke for black men being lynched. Silenced by a murderous, racist act of lynching that the government black men was rendered powerless. Wells put herself at risk and took the reins to demean the the brutal institution. She questioned the hyprocrisy of whites saying they were civilized while taking pleasure and doing such brutal acts against their fellow beings. Black men who took power and advanced the race such as MLK. Malcolm El-Hajj Malik Shabazz, and Barack Obama owe these ladies thanks.

Hottentot Venus

The documentary on the Khoi Khoi woman who became Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, demonstrated the immoral need of trying to demean and degrade people and cultures you don't understand. Instead of trying to understand Sarah's culture the Europeans immediately demeaned it because it was different from their own. Difference in skin color, language, clothes, and culture were preconceived to be inferior because it didn't resemble their own. The cruel manner of displaying her as a sub-human being in freak shows denigrating her character as a human being and reducing her humanity as an attraction to be put on display is the theory of the "other" being put on in full display. To justify yourself as superior you must put others who are different from you down in the harshest ways possible. Slavery and later colonialism thrived due to this perverse reasoning. Psuedo-science of emphasizing small differences such as Sarah's buttocks in contrast to European women was justified to the dissection of her organs as if she was some kind of animal after her death. The documentary demonstrated that we as human beings look for ways to divide ourselves for power and exploitatation of each other instead of uniting to tackle bigger problems such as hunger, poverty, and war to uplift ourselves. Sarah Baatman deserved better. She stands as a reminder of the progress we made as a people and the obstacles black women must overcome due to the stereotypes implemented on them due to Europeans morbid curiosity on people of color. Black women are extremely resilient and overcame many obstacle. Sarah Baartman is a matyr for not for her denigration but because of her beauty. Today her beauty withstands the test of time and even through exploitatation black remains beautiful.

The Concept of Race

Race is a social construct invented by Europeans in the 16th century. The question of what race is extemely diverse to many people because people of all "races" have different ideas of what it is. Race to be is who do you phenotypically and culturally relate to the most. I identify as African-American even though I also have Cherokee and Caucasian blood due to my Grandmother and Great Grandfather. Why? Due to my brown/reddish skin, I, as a minority in America, will be identified by the majority in this country as black/African-American. I have no problem with this because my family raised me to be black and proud to be black. Culturallly I have a lot in common with African-Americans as I do with other "races" of people. My beliefs, slang, heroes, and history connect more with African-Americans than any other "races" even though I'm extremely diverse in music taste (I love hip-hop,I'm like a walking encyclopedia from 1991-current rap in all forms-gangsta,conscious, West Coast, Dirty South, NY street hop,,neo-soul, and R&B, but also am a huge alt rock fan esp. Radiohead, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT, Black Keys, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, etc), and ideologies differs from some African-Americans. The concept of race to me is mental. You're raised in a society, a world, that pushes race at you through media and politics so its ingrained to your head. By the time you see what race really is its too late, its already part of your conscious too.