After reviewing the article about
exploring the images of African American women and the new racism, it opened my
eyes even more about how blacks and other minorities are being treated in
society. Since blacks are known as the most degraded race in the U.S., the black
women are known to be at the bottom of the hierarchy scale. Sociologically, the
men are known to be the more dominant gender. They are the ones who are supposed
to be protective of their families and provide for their needs. A woman is
supposed to be caring and nurturing to their children and significant other.
They are known to be the subtler gender between the two. Going back in time
during slavery, Africans were considered as beasts to White Supremacists. To
them, the women were seen as very promiscuous from their womanly body
structures, but their structure really enticed the White supremacists into
forcing themselves on the African slave women do sexual favors for them against
their will. After they forced these women to act this way, this is where they
considered the African women as sexual beasts and degrading them because of
that. Ever since then, centuries have gone by, and black women and other women
of minority races were seen in a different light. Majority of the time, it
wasn’t pretty. White women were considered as the face of beauty, innocence and
considered as the trophy wife. If women were not apart of the white race or
didn’t have the features of a white woman, they were considered as obsolete.
The only way women of the minority race were considered appealing is when they
are either dressing provocatively, acting seductively, using drugs, being
degraded from others, or degrading each other.
From Marci Bounds Littlefield’s
article, “The Media as a System of Racialization: Exploring Images of African
American Woman and the New Racism”, she discusses how women are majority of the
time degraded by what is shown in mass media. Things such as black women being
shown half naked and now sometimes even fully naked dancing in hip hop music
videos, is very degrading and it also relates to how African women were being
treated in the past during slavery. Now we see music videos of rappers who
often like to rap about sex, drugs, and money, but also talk about women like
they are tools or calling women out of their name. Bounds even mentions how the
hip hop music videos are attracting the young people today and music
entertainers are making profit because of these young people and this is what
is making them rich. In the meantime, these entertainers do not realize that
they are doing the White Supremacists a favor by doing their work for them and
bringing the negativity into the black communities and continue to degrade
black women. Music is not the only thing that is controlled by the White
Supremacists. They also have something to do with sports and politics. With
politics, minorities are slowly representing the U.S. governments and the ones
who are already a part of the government are always being monitored because
they are a minority and one slip up could jeopardize their position working for
the federal government.
The White Supremacists do not like the fact
that minorities have the opportunity to be a part of a big position working for
the U.S. because they feel like the minorities should always be inferior and
should only be controlled by the white man. With sports, it relates to the
beginning of how Jim Crow first began. Basically the Jim Crow meant that blacks
were only good for entertainment and will forever be an inferior race. Whites
looked down on blacks and made fun of them during minstrel shows. Many of the people
in entertainment are black and that is how they are able to make money
especially being a puppet working for the White Supremacists being controlled
by invisible strings. They are the trendsetters who are causing the blacks and
other minorities to act the way they do. The music videos and television shows we
see today are controlling black people and make it seem as if it is okay for
people to degrade black women. In reality, it influences the younger generation
especially black females, that it is okay to do these negative things but, it’s
really not okay. For example, such as unwanted pregnancies, spreading of
diseases, and declines in marriage. Since black women are degraded majority of
the time and act malicious towards each other, we aren’t doing anything but
hurting ourselves. We let whatever we see in the media control us and doing the
White Supremacists a favor by acting this way. Maybe if blacks ignore what is
represented of us in the media and determine our own values and beliefs for
ourselves and not follow what is being said about us negatively in the media,
we could be seen in a positive light. If not, the White Supremacists will keep
doing their job. From this we are going to keep falling backwards, when we
should be moving forward.
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