Oh goody!
Many people are commenting on the this is bad satire aydayadyad ayppy ish of this but , I am gonna comment on the hair.
You see the hair bothers me on multiple levels.
Now for this exercise or at least part of it I am going to " accept" the premise that this "satire"
Now my focus is of course the hair. Now his satire implies that this image of America is RIDICULOUS
We smart east coast liberals and our scaattered syncophants I mean people we agree with know that these " terrorist" versions of the Obamas are the silly product of stupid backward minds.
I mean never would a cultured and politically intelligent couple be like this .
This being teh worst terrifying image in our minds as jingoistic white supremacist asshole "intelligentsia" and non intelligentsia alike?
Now Obama's sketch to me is so painfully racist and Islamophobic as to make me not want to analyze it so much as start screaming .
OOh he's dressed like a middle easterner AHHHHHH. That's the satire that we shall comment on the racism of folks by using racism? That we shall call viewing him in this way silly because essentially he's not one of those , we know he's a " good " one hereby rendering this culturally specific scare tactic stupid, not because our American racism is in and off itself ugly and ineffective but because in THIS CASE it's silly.
Are we chortling over port yet, being appropriately witty over our bravery and wit in our gentrified areas of Brooklyn?
ANd then Michelle I mean who would ever thing she would be this horror show of black woman terrorism exemlified by
* ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP*
ahh here's where it gets sticky.
UH se eMIchelle the BIG difference the one that signals TERRORIST!!!!!!!!
The fro
You see who could ever believe that Michelle Obama would be that scary angry black militant by doing something as FRIGHTENING as
LETTING HER HAIR GROW IN WITH OUT A LYE RELAXER.
LEt's get this straight in case our friends in the back don't get it . The way we typefy scary in black women form Cynthia McKinney to now Michelle Obama, is to say she doesn't have a perm.
* Blackamazon runs her hands through her head and realizes she ain't SMELT lye since say 2004*
Let's make it plain that in the mind of a LIBERAL EAST COASTER the most he could do was to take out the perm
This is how WOC are judged as bodies and how our conformity is measured. From Glamour's wack ass to haters to not knowing the " real problems"
The minute we show any rejection or refusal to be subjugated to any standard we are possible terrorists and should we screw around and reject beauty standards we are ACTUAL terrorists.
This is funny to teh author not because these stupid assinine tropes are racist fear mongering or wrong but because
IN ONLY THIS CASE it's un true.
In his wee mind a Michelle Obama with a fro IS a terrorist , but s he ain't got one so funny.
So while everyone trips the hell over themselves going this is so bad , let's remind ourselves taht as we start yellinng about it being racist and tastelest that we literally in our good liberalism agreeing that natural hair represents terrorist leanings!
and that's when we ACCEPT it's satirical.
But you know what really just makes me less mad and more how do we fix this smug shit.
This kind of attitude not even the editorial decision buta ttitude that black bodies are up for analysis and mocking
IT's hitting the kids
Kids can't have clubs and be in place without the smug commentary we're just being jolly isn't it funny cause it's not true but people think this but lets be honest we think we have a right to speculate and consume black bodies for our jollies ( or defend them for our consciousness) as PROXIES to mock, belittle or communicate with OTHERS
means kids can't even graduate in peace.
OR feel good about their natural bodies.
Cause that makes em terrorists and punch lines
Monday, July 14, 2008
I AM My Hair
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10 comments:
Wow, you articulated thoughts out of my brain I only felt!
Yes, this is the other reason why I felt so despairing in the reactions I was seeing to that cover.
Because really, REALLY? THIS is what is so terrifying to some people?
It's not just the lies and that people believe the lies it's what the lies are and how absurd it all is to be scared of!!!
<3
You rock.
Another note about hitting the kids: one of the fifth graders I worked with this year (my um secret favorite. i know, i know, we're not supposed to have favorites when we work with kids. sssh) started crying one day because the kids at school were making fun of her for having short hair (which, wtf? kids will mock anything, especially the smartest kid in class, ESPECIALLY when the smartest kid's a girl), and as she was crying about this to me, she kept trying to emphasize that she didn't REALLY have short hair, she just has to keep it in braids because otherwise she'll have an afro and her mom says she's too young for a perm.
And it just made me so, so sad, because nothing I could say about internalized oppression or beauty ideals or anything like that could possibly be helpful, at all, to this amazing brilliant girl who was crying hysterically, and as much as it broke my heart that in FIFTH FUCKIN GRADE she literally thought she could not show her natural hair, that would be too horrible and shameful, that wasn't what people DID, period, all I could do was hug her and tell her kids will choose any reason to be mean and I thought her braids looked great.
On a different note, the yearbook story reminded me of how uncomfortable I've gotten with how okay a LOT of white people are with making fun of "black" names. I didn't used to notice it (bad, I know) but like... seriously what is so much inherently weirder about Shaniqua than Alexandra? or Tayshaun than Jonathan? I've never had the guts to actually ask someone that (because I am a huge wimp in real life and afraid of confrontation) but I mean, I basically know the answer anyway: one of them is "normal" (i.e. "white") and one of them is "not."
BA, glad to see you back over the past few weeks! I hope all is well.
That cover was uncool -- I don't think whites being ironic about racism works. Kinda like men being ironic about sexism. Just -- it doesn't work.
I'm not sure about that this was the intent though: "I mean never would a cultured and politically intelligent couple be like this." I think it was more like "here is how ignorant people imagine the Obamas as scary." So the afro was more a statement about what ignorant people would find scary, not supposed to represent objectively scary thing, IMO.
Still doesn't validate the concept, of course. Or mean that your larger point isn't true about the symbolism of black hair and how it's used against WOC (about which you know much more than I but I know enough to agree). I think part of how the cartoon failed is that reasonable minds can disagree on this point. But knowing that publication, I think they are making a failed attempt to make fun of people who judge hair consistency rather than doing it themselves.
Thanks for this post, BA.
I just looked at the cover - I don't mean to be precious about it, I just still am not over the image of Michelle Obama being tortured by the Klan, and I just never want to fucking look when I hear there's some new attack afoot.
I don't feel like I am necessarily all that sensitive to what gets labeled "political correctness" (which term I hate and type with snideness), in that something can actually be in bad taste and still make me laugh. I have plenty of bad taste, is what I mean.
So it is impossible for me to discount the gut reaction I had to this cover, as well as to the other referenced "cartoon."
This cover... it doesn't feel in bad taste or like misfired humor to me at all. It just feels - I can't articulate it like you and others have, but there is something very unsettling to me in the specific ways that people feel entitled to own - it feels like ownership entitlement - the personhoods of the Obamas.
I know that people will likely argue that "hey anybody in the public eye..." And I get that that's true, in terms of not having expected that people would roll out the respect-carpet for the Obamas while continuing to target any and everybody else.
Like I said, I don't know how to articulate why this feels different and disturbing to me.
And, I am not fooled by especially any attempts to ignore or recast the depiction of natural hair on Ms. Obama as threatening.
I hope it is not obnoxious for me to say this - I mean that I am not thinking I speak for anybody - but it is how this feels to me:
Afros on black women are and seem to me to always have been considered a threatening gesture in and of themselves, not at all just part of some *happenstance* uniform from the Black Panthers back in the day or something.
I mean, to cast it as if it were just like putting her in a beret - I don't feel that's accurate.
Also I don't say this to comment on what any given woman does or doesn't do with her hair, again I just have this feeling about this white supremacist culture and how it specifically targets black women as the most problematic members of society:
A black woman with natural hair is, I believe, taken both consciously and unconsciously by an anti-black-woman culture to be in a state of open rebellion against anti-black-woman-ness. By white people especially, is what I mean, by white supremacist brains, of which I believe all white brains start out as and many/most remain.
It is disingenuous at best for any white person especially to wave that fact, and its implications, of this "cartoon" away.
And I am forever grateful to you for not having any of that shit.
Thank you for this... I hadn't thought of it that way but it makes a lot of sense.
BA, I think you and are on similar wavelengths. I completely agree with your assessment. Thank you.
well said sis :)
Great post. I have been waiting for someone to comment on the Michelle Obama portion of the New Yorker. Thanks!
means kids can't even graduate in peace.
OR feel good about their natural bodies.
Cause that makes em terrorists and punch lines
*sigh*
What bothers me is that we do not have a legitimate right to our militancy. It is as though accepting the status quo of second class citizenship is a good thing and we know that has harmful effects. Even if Michelle is radical which she is not would she still not be entitled to her feelings considering the systemic nature of racism?
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