Self-Exploration

In class on Wednesday we talked about self-exploration and how black women learn from experience. I agree. I myself being young black woman have learned a lot about myself through the things that i have experienced while in college. Some things that I have learned about myself are that I have a passion for African American culture, I love helping people even when I don't  know how to help myself. I also learnef to speak up for myself and say something when I am not being treated how i should. I asked my mother and my grandmother how and when they found who they truly were and they both said that they learned about themselves through the situations they experienced and the people they surrounded themselves with abd how they handled certain things.

From our list in class I would like to talk more about observational learning. There is a saying "young lady's should be seen and not herd" "unknown I believe this statement was said not to just get little girls to sit still and be quiet but to teach them how to observe their surroundings. When a person sits down and observes their surroundings they can learn a lot, they can learn what right fro wrong, they can even tell what type of people are surrounding them who is real and who is fake. Observational learning is as simple as watching being quite and watching others and your surroundings.

When reading the poem "The poem we have to write before thirty, because people will ask or I don't have a five year plan' by Jessica Care Moore I automatically could relate. I identified this poem as knowing through self-exploration because she spoke about different things that she could possibly do within the next five years but still never came to a conclusion. Everyone goes through that process when they are in school and have to decide whether or not they want to go to college or do something else after graduation. Not only do you debate about school but then you debate about what you want to study. I know from personal experience that throughout high school I changed my major of choice five times before I came to the conclusion of wanting to be a psychologist. Going through different experiences will cause you to change your opinion on future choices! 

Brittany Dozier

Black Women Ways Of Knowing

http://video.pbs.org/video/2181639247/

This was a form of signifying and subjective knowledge, where slaves would tell messages through spirituals. It was a spoken language that displayed codes for slaves to speak to one another, without the slave masters actually knowing what was going on. These spirituals would sound like one thing, but mean something else.

A scholar was quoted in The Legacy of Slavery " the slave woman was first a full time worker for her owner and only incidentally a wife, mother and home maker." This lead me to believe that the idea of slave women were seen as un gendered because they were forced to embody the qualities of masculinity and femininity. The black woman was seen more as an asset to bring wealth and pleasure to her master. Thats why i think gender roles are a social construct invented to put one gender above the other. This can be seen in Egyptian culture which started as a matriarch with women as the ultimate being then they made the switch to patriarch with put men as the head. The switch can be seen in the Summerion creation when Marduk killed the great mother. I thought it was ironic that he was born from wisdom which imply s that he was superior to her. But when it comes to sexuality i believe its a innate feeling a person is born with . If you are more masculine or feminine is not determine by male or female or your reproductive organs.

As we made our list in class on Wednesday for "Black Women's Ways of Knowing" I could not help but think about this spoken word piece.  In the context of the list, I feel that she is Signifying, and I think the poem is a result of Self-Exploration.  This poem is powerful. What makes it even more dope is the fact that the guy it is about was in the audience and she stares him down as she performs.  Nevertheless, I hope everyone enjoys the piece.

Black womans body as a site of new beginnings

  Throughout the novel Corregidora  the author refers to the womb as the start or the beginning, Ursa even refers to it as her birthmark. Ursa resents her husband and the doctor for taking away her ability to make generations which her mother and grandmother always told her was most important thing she could do to carry on their story. I found the novel to be very interesting because it brought up ideas like what makes you a woman? Is Ursa less of a woman because she is baron?

s

 

In Bell Hooks Selling Hot Pussy it is discussed that the black woman's body is a source of advertisement. It is used to draw in people and helps to sell products. For example, Beyonce and Kim Kardashian are two celebrities whos bodies are glorified! Kim Kardashian is known for her big butt and Beyonce is known for her wonderful curves. It is all about getting the consumers and "selling the product."

Brittany Dozier

Black Women Today

I chose this picture of Nicki Minaj because she is a major icon in today's society. She uses her body to sell her music. Her music is catching, but what is most talked about is her body. In Selling Hot Pussy, bell hooks uses examples of how black women use their bodies to sell to consumers. Another reason why I chose Nicki Minaj is because she is one of the black icons today who conforms to the ideal "black" look for women. Meaning they are light skin, with long hair, typically blonde, and smaller features.

AAWW Post #3

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts. -Nikki Giovanni

I chose this quote because it reminds me of "Corregidora." The main character "Ursa" in this story experiences a traumatic event that is very life changing for her as an individual and as a woman. She becomes barren, and her inability to bare children causes conflict with the desires of her ancestors who expect her to "birth out" a new generation to carry on the legacy of those who once lived. The quote is prevalent to the story because Ursa is placed in a position where she must "give a response to the error" she has encountered.

Wale Ft. Nicki Minaj & Juicy J -Clappers (Official Video)

While reading Hooks' "Selling Hot Pussy" I couldn't help but pay close attention to her School Daze reference with EU's "Doin' the Butt":

"The popular song, 'Doin' the Butt, fosters the promotion of a hot new dance favoring those who could most protrude their buttocks with pride and glee...the black butts on display are unruly and outrageous. They are not the still bodies of the female slave made to appear as mannequin.'"

This reference spoke to me the most because EU was one of the first go-go bands to come out and their presence evolved music in Washington, DC forever. To think that the Black Woman's Body As a Site of Exhibition birthed the culture that I was born in and have forever loved has given me more than enough to think about. Wale, an extremely famous rapper from DC who has brought attention home, sampled "Doin' the Butt" in "Clappers" as a kind of tribute to EU and all that they did for go-go back home.

What I found most interesting about this video is the disparity between seeing black girls "Doin The Butt" and the "Other" doing this dance. It reminded me of our in class conversation on Wednesday about putting Black fantasies on other bodies, i.e. Miley Cyrus. I counted 5 times that African-American women were featured in this video and 18 times that the Other women of color were featured, excluding Nicki, as she is a feature on the song.

So, as I contemplated what I'd post this week, all I could think of was the hook from Kendrick Lamar's song "Opposite's Attract (Tomorrow Without Her)."  In the hook, Lamar says, "We hurt people that love us, and love people that hurt us."  From this I began to think about Johnson beating his wife.  She hadn't known of the day he had; however, because she hurt him, he hurt her.  Although there are a few parts of the song that can relate to both texts we discussed this week, I feel that Lamar's hook definitely brought it all together.

Black Woman's Body as a Site of Vulnerability

Vulnerability is defined as the inability to withstand the effects of a hostile environment. This bring to mind the inability to bear child. Due to whatever circumstances, whether it be extreme or mild, when a women lose the ability to bear child they become vulnerable in a sense.  Their body can not withstand/withhold bearing a child.  The ability to bear child is what makes a woman a woman, and to have that taken away can make one feel less of a woman..... hence the word vulnerability.

In the story "Like A Winding Sheet" Johnson allows the pressures of his daily routine to get the best of him. He can not comprehend that women can be the "BOSS" and he constantly throughout the day gets upset. He allows his stress to build up causing him to crack as soon as his wife makes a joking remark. This is the perfect example of how men feel when they are emasculated or have to follow the lead of a woman. Some men can handle it but others do not handle it as well. In today's society women are "suppose" to follow the lead of their man. This is especially the case when it comes to black women. The black woman is stereotyped to follow her mans lead so when they do not the man typically feels like they are not being respected.

--Brittany Dozier

The Black woman's Body a site of release

The story "Like a Winding Sheet" and this clip demonstrate the theme The black woman's body a site of release. Johnson is a black man in the 1940's working in a factory surrounded by women, when most men are out fighting the war, while Ike is a singer/manager in the 1960-1970. What both these men have in common are the stress of their jobs and everyone else around them. On top of being upset and stressed out by the rest of the world but they feel as though their wives are mocking them as well. A person can only take so much ridicule before they blow up. Striking their wives allowed them to release all of the built up anger they felt inside.

In class we talked about the idea of black love from this excerpt of "Corregidora":

"You haven't seen the scar." He said he hadn't looked. "You can feel it," I said... "You can feel it, can't you?" He said yes. I thought he was going to take his hand away, but he waited for me to. "

I believe black love is extraordinary because when you face oppression and hatred with someone and feel the same pains, it builds a bond that is compared to none. I chose to post this song by the rap group Goodie Mob called "Beautiful Skin" because I heard it a bunch when I was younger. It gives a man's stance on the idea of black love and the beauty in loving a black woman. This idea was instilled in me at an early age so black love has always been more than just love to me.

Vulnerability and Black Love

During the discussion in class on Wednesday, we talked about different themes that are found in Corregidora. Under the theme "Recovery-trauma", we listed: scar-story, sterilization, doctor, barren/surrogate, and vulnerable. Beside vulnerable, we placed black love. After listening to the different comments on the scar, I became interested in the scar, vulnerability, black love and how they all come together in the story.
In my opinion, the scar could represent all the pain that she was going through. Asking him to feel the scar could mean asking him to not only look at all the pain that she has gone through, but to feel it. When he wants to remove his hand, but doesn't could be because he cares for her. This is the same with love, but it is especially present in black love.
African Americans go through a lot, and can tend to have a wall built up that is hard for someone to break. People can see their pain, see the things that they go through and have sympathy, but they never truly know until they experience. It is believed that the black woman is angry and bitter, and this could cause difficulty when trying to date one. The same goes with black men. When the walls that are built up for protection from more hurt and pain are knocked down, it means a lot. In the story, she is opening up to him. In a way he opens up to her by keeping his hand on the scar and not moving. If he would've removed his hand from the scar, it would've shown that he wasn't ready to be there for her, and she probably would've felt as if he rejected her in a way. People believe that love is hard to find, but once each person is willing to open up to the other, it can and work out.

Black Woman's Bodies as a site of...

"The womb is the center of a woman's being."


      I believe this quote is very powerful, because the virginity of a women to me, is a sense of her identity. Another form of her femininity and every woman should take pride in themselves. It also can distinguish a sort of character about a woman's being, depending on how she uses it or the way that it has been taken advantage of. Overall, the most important feature I see of a woman's being is that it is the start of child birth.
      In regards to this quote, I felt was quite interesting was the novel "Incidents by a Slave Girl", by Harriet Jacobs, which was about a Caucasian slave master that took advantage of a woman's being as well as her womb. Her name was Linda Brent and she was nothing more than a sexual desire and an experiment for her slave master, Dr. Flint. He pressures her into having sex with him numerous times and she fights it. Instead of being raped by Dr. Flint, she preferably starts sleeping with her neighbor, Mr. Sands. She hoped that Dr. flint would sell her to Mr. Sands in disgust, but she hated that she had to use her sexuality and pray that she receives what she wants. She realize that being a slave girl and a free woman were not on the same standards of morality. She had to forcefully use her woman's being to stray away from her being taken advantage of. The womb is the center of a woman's being an quite in fact very powerful.

Evidence

The story of Corregidora has many themes, one of them being the removal and permanence of evidence. Ursa's great grandmother, grandmother, and mother continuously expressed to her the need to continue on generations, as they were to be her forms of evidence. Ursa, is now barren and does not have this traditional evidence to give. However, she does harbor the spirit of the matriarchs before her and the evidence of their abuse "...even though they'd burned everything to play like it didn't ever happen" (pg. 9).

In the above clip from the movie "Crash" (2004), Thandie Newton's character, the wife of an African-American television director, is essentially molested by a white police officer who has pulled them over.  To spite she and her husband her for objecting to his treatment, the police officer fondles and touches her extremely inappropriately on her legs, thighs, breasts, butt, and vagina.

The pain on her husband's face is her evidence. The shameful feelings that he cannot protect himself nor her is evidence. The fear in her eyes as his hands travel up her dress is evidence. This black woman's body, is now a site of evidence. And even though the officer and his partner will drive away, "only issuing a warning", they are metaphorically "burning everything to play like it didn't ever happen".