Stereotypes of African American Women...

[cloudy]

Do you wear spurs when you ride, Windy?

One can hope, yes?

 

[Guest]

One can hope, yes?

I suppose it depends on what he's riding.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Do you wear spurs when you ride, Windy?

Air Jordan spurs

 

[Le Jacquelope]

So yeah, I think I'll just let an old phrase sum it all up.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

Wrong.

Words spoken by others about you, can get you denied work, among other things.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Ah yes the board simpleton speaks.

So now Cloudy is the board simpleton?
Oh hell, iggy time. If you're that way toward her, I know your trolling behavior is headed my way some time soon.

 

[Guest]

Air Jordan spurs

That's really hot, Zoot.

Er, Windy.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

The difference between white empty wagons and black empty wagons is other people's attitude towards them.

One is more subject to common racist prejudices and stereotypes and the other is less so.

Exactly. Figured as much. I can't wait until said prejudice holders are in the population minority...

 

[Belegon]

eh , Windy...

how abouts we mosey on over for a whisky and a roll at the saloon... I hear dey got some new gals from back east and some kind of Whiskey made by a fella named Daniels out in Tennessee...

Sorry. But playing on the cowboy name is more fun.

The stereotype exists. It could use some deflating. Was it Allison's purpose to get people talking angrily about it in order to do so? Perhaps.

But speaking as a white man who has dated black women and seen the resulting reactions from both sides of that cultural fence, it does exist.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Handing out Gold Stars to everyone sends a message to them that theyre official members of the Special Olympics. Everyone is special and no one is special. That's the existential delemma for every individual: Do I be a pioneer and find my own groove, or do I join the team and wear their colors?

 

[xssve]

I'm with Cloudy on this one for a change, emap, it seems to me that you're trying to assign a level of emotional and intellectual maturity to children that many adults lack - true, left to their own devices, children would probably sort this whole business out in no time at all, since they have no preconceptions.

Problem is, they are spoon fed these preconceptions by the adults that enculturate them - my son comes home every day with ideas that I didn't instill in him - "gay" as a general purpose insult for example. He picks it up from his peers, and they pick it up from older people in their social circles outside of school, parents, older siblings, etc.

Now I look at this, and then I look at my sons peers - there's one kid for instance who has a pronounced lisp, and I just know that kid is in for a world of shit over a speech impediment - how can you imagine this is not going to affect his development one way or another, ont he one hand, it could make hims stronger, on the other, he could end up suicidal.

And that is an empirical, and not an emotional assessment - minority children tend to have much higher rates of depression and suicide, there are literally physiological effects to homogeneously driven social aggression, itself driven and perpetuated by stereotypes.

Oddly, I have no such particular stereotype of Black women, they've always seemed a particularly diverse group to me, I tend to stereotype social classes because these groups often share a stereotype about themselves, how they are supposed to behave, their priorities, the stereotypes they themselves perpetuate, etc., i.e. it's a cultural thing that results in stereotypical behavior - individuals themselves simply adapt to the social conditions they're presented with, not necessarily a matter of "innate character" which is a more conservative cultural cliché.

In fact, I'd say Michelle Obama, a lot like her husband, is the product of two distinct cultures - her vow to "fight this stereotype" indicates to me that it's some sort of personal embarrassment to her the same way loud fat white women in lime green doubleknit pants are an embarrassment to White upper class women - "trailer trash" and "white trash" are more common stereotypes I encounter, and these of course are not racial, but class based stereotypes.

IOW, it simply reflects the usual educated liberal mistrust and fear of the colloquial, vernacular culture of working class "ignoramuses".

In fact, the working class is full of ignoramuses, every social class is full of ignoramuses - there is not shortage anywhere I can see, and I tend a little more towards that old school, working class liberalism, and expect to spend much of my time in the next years arguing with overeducated liberal ignoramuses - that attitude towards the working class is itself political suicide.

The republicans had to pretty much completely shit the bed and fall on their faces for a democrat to get elected, it ought to tell you something - much of the republicans appeal over the last twenty years has been to working class - mostly the white working class to be sure, they invariably keep the racial card up their sleeves, but they go to great lengths to craft that "plain folks" appeal, even if it is a crock of shit.

 

[redpaint]

Hmm I never knew there where any different in A/A Women and any other women. I did grow up in a mixed neighborhood. It was not untill the us kids went to school did we know that we where suppose to be different. imagen our shock.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

I'm confident there's intelligence in what you just posted, but it's as obscure as the ancestry of Romulus & Remus.

NEWSFLASH

Every living soul on this planet struggles with the doubt that maybe their critics are right about them, and maybe the pretty gold star they got from the people with smiling masks is bullshit.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

REDPAINT

You must be blind and cant smell.

 

[xssve]

JBJ? Oh never mind.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

Just because your mouth can form the words is no proof of intelligent thought.

 

[xssve]

Lemme explain it to you in words you might understand - teachers do what they can to provide some individual reification of self worth in a system that everybody knows is an assembly kine designed to produce obedient little corporate/consumer worker bees.

Naturally, cnservatives bitch about results that system is not designed to produce, i.e., the goal was only ever functional literacy and the ability to make change, not to create it, and in doing so seem to forget that couldn't none of them read nor write when they started.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

Here's where you and I differ: I dont believe teachers have the power or the abilty to increase anyone's self esteem. I believe people increase their self esteem from competence and successful performance.

I'm reading William Faulkner's SANCTUARY. In it he speaks of a half-wit who digs holes around his yard searching for imagined treasure. You'd award the boy a gold star for digging holes.

 

[Shwenn]

I'm reading William Faulkner's SANCTUARY.

For those of you unfamiliar with Faulkner's work, this is the one truly easy to read novel he wrote.

It's the "See Spot Run" of Faulkner's ouvre.

And there's a very interesting scene with a corn cob.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SHWENN

Maybe so. But Stephen King recommended it for horror related writing in the book. I'm not a Faulkner fan.

On the other-hand Faulkner and my grandfather lived next door to each other at the University of Mississippi in the early 1900s. Faulkner's father and my great-grandfather were faculty/staff there.

 

[Shwenn]

Nobody cares.

Sorry.

 

[xssve]

XSSVE

Here's where you and I differ: I dont believe teachers have the power or the abilty to increase anyone's self esteem. I believe people increase their self esteem from competence and successful performance.

I'm reading William Faulkner's SANCTUARY. In it he speaks of a half-wit who digs holes around his yard searching for imagined treasure. You'd award the boy a gold star for digging holes.

That is where you and I differ - the costs of this are negligible, I like to think I'm not so avaricious as to neglect a simple human gesture, for whatever it's worth.

It almost sounds like you have a bit of a self esteem issue, you come across as a very bitter little man, and life is just too short for it.

 

[off2bed]

Michelle Obama is the last person in politics who has stereotypes to worry about. The left has stereotyped all Republicans (Bible thumping hypocrites). Democrats also have a stereotype (Marxists). That's life.

 

[CharleyH]

I just saw a piece on CNN (transcript here) about stereotypes of African American women and how Michelle Obama is going to shatter them.

But what caught my ear was this statement from Allison Samuels of "Newsweek":

SAMUELS: We still have that negative image of black women being overweight and very loud and rolling their eyes and talking back and having these sassy one-liners all the time. And that's just not the entire community.

I think what Michelle Obama will be able to do is just show you a different type of African-American woman.​

(Let's set the "overweight" thing aside for the moment).

Instead of defending African American women (by saying, for example, that they are strong, independent, self-confident, able to think and speak for themselves, etc.) Samuels tells us that "... that's just not the entire community."

In other words, Michelle Obama is an example of a woman who doesn't "talk back", doesn't "roll her eyes" and isn't "sassy".

I was confused by Samuels' statement and had to re-wind it to hear it again. It took me a moment to remember that "talking back" is are supposed to be a bad thing for a woman to do.

You see, us white women know our place and maybe Michelle Obama can be an example of a black woman who knows her place too.

Thankfully, the rest of the article wasn't quite that sexist.

Maybe my problem is the fact that I'm not white enough to understand how a woman is supposed to act. Yeah, that must be it. It's that brown skin thing. [/dripping sarcasm]

Men in power hardly differentiate between a white, black or green woman. Let's get that straight. If she wears a skirt, then she's interested in Gucci and not Giulinai. I don't know anything about Michelle Obama, except she is a woman and will probably never be known outside the fact that her husband is president.

 

[off2bed]

Men in power hardly differentiate between a white, black or green woman. Let's get that straight. If she wears a skirt, then she's interested in Gucci and not Giulinai. I don't know anything about Michelle Obama, except she is a woman and will probably never be known outside the fact that her husband is president.

Who's stereotyping, now?

 

[redpaint]

REDPAINT

You must be blind and cant smell.

I was a child back then. My whole world was a 6 block area. We where not thought any different. I know it was the 60's and there was a lot of civil unrest at the time. But that how it was in the small town where I grew up. The lessons I learned then, stick with me now. I don't judge people by the color of their skin, but by their actions

If that means I am blind and can't smell.... Well then I guess I am.