A Girl Like Me
This morning I stumbled on this video called a girl like me. Here is the link so you can watch it. http://www.understandingrace.org/lived/video/index.html
This video sort of bugged me. Let me start this post of by saying that I am not trying to say there is not any racism today. I know there is still racism I just don't think it is to the extent the media portrays it and I know there are more anti white crimes performed by blacks then there are anti black crimes performed by whites. Ok back to the video.
I was watching the video and the girls were all describing stereotypes. I don't think black females are the only ones with the problems they were describing. Many of the girls talked about being uncomfortable with their skin color and hair. I feel like most girls are uncomfortable with their skin color and hair. These are the problems that females face as a whole, the pressures to fit in by looking "pretty" according to our societies standards. It's not just pressure on black girls. The girls talk about how it is considered bad to have dark skin, but for white girls it is considered bad to be pale and girls go tanning all the time. The girls also talk about having to fix their hair all the time. I never go out unless I fix my hair somehow. The other day Tom told me I am the only girl he knows that has to do something to my hair before I feel ok leaving. But that's how tons of girls are because there is a ton of pressure on all females to have great hair. For the appearance portion of the video I feel it is more a woman's issue than a racial issue.
As for the girl talking about how she doesn't know much about her cultural background, she's not the only one. Not many Americans really do no much about their cultural backgrounds. Most of us are mutts. I know I am German but I don't know anything about German culture or anything. For the girl to act like only black people have a problem identifying with their roots sorta pisses me off. I've always wanted to know more about my ancesters and my family has been trying to find out lots of information but it's hard to find out that kind of stuff and so I really only know that I am German and Irish and Czech.
The next portion was showing kids with two dolls in front of them - a white one and a black one. The kids were asked to chose which doll is better. This section seemed very staged to me. The kids kept looking up for direction and a few looked confused. In my Cultural Diversity class we talked about how kids cannot identify with racial differences until about the age of 5 or 6. These kids looked 3 and 4 to me. That is another reason I think this might have been staged. At least a little. It is true that for a long time only white dolls were available. Children may just be used to having white dolls to play with. If I had seen this recently scientifically tested and it had gotten the same results I would have believed it. I know it had been tested by Dr. Kenneth Clark but I think that test is extremely outdated and now more and more diverse dolls are available. When the test was conducted by Dr. Clark there were probably no black dolls and kids just chose what they were used too.
There is some truth throughout this video. However, it really bugs me when people take problems they have and blame it on being in a minority. The whole "I feel pressured to have good hair and skin to fit in" crap is not because they are black, again it's because the are girls and women have tremendous pressures to deal with in today's society. Women's issues are never addressed whereas racial issues are talked about all the time. It drives me crazy. In my Cultural Diversity class nearly all the males were saying that feminists only attack men and are antimen and tons of other shit that really made me angry. It made me even angrier because I used to share those thoughts but when I finally decided to pay attention I realized how many issues there are for women to face that men will never have to worry about. These are the same guys who spoke out against racism and supported the blacks in videos we watched who were standing up for their rights. When will these guys treat sexism the same way they treat racism? When will they support women who stand up for their rights? We are fortunate to have mostly guy friends who understand and who realize the problems (you guys rock). It wasn't until I was out of the group of great guys we know that I realized how many guys I meet who do not give two shits about women's rights.
Anyway, that was my ranting post for the day.
posted by Reine @ 10:35 AM
18 Comments:
I watched the video and I've gotta say I completely disagree with you. Sure, white females have issues with their appearance, but most of us can fix our hair in less than an hour. When we do fix our hair, we're usually not trying to make it look like the hair of another race. Black women can spend upwards of 7 hours having their hair braided, or relaxed to look more like a white woman's hair because that is seen as more attractive, even by blacks themselves.
White women go tanning, but getting darker in the sun comes naturally, and I doubt the intention is ever to become "black." These girls were talking about taking baths in bleach to make themselves more socially acceptable, which seems to me to be a totally different story.
When it comes to heritage, all these women could say is that they were from Africa, and like one pointed out, each country has different culture, customs, religion, and values. If you don't know about German, Irish, or Czech culture, you have endless resources at your fingertips, even if you can't pinpoint the name of your great-great-great-grandfather.
I do agree that the white/black doll test seemed staged, even though they all looked at least 5 years old to me.
Racism today is not just about hate crimes or violence towards blacks or other minorities. There's so much ignorance. A black student at St. Michael's was told by her roommate freshman year that she just didn't like black people. It stuns me how people can be so close-minded. Especially in Vermont, once deemed "America's Last White Hope," I am disgusted by the segregation that is obviously no longer lawful, but still occurs every day. I feel lucky to live in St. Louis, where I feel diversity is strongly accepted, but we still have a long way to go. You can't ignore the fact that the KKK exists and is growing in light of recent debates on immigration.
To perhaps lighten the mood, I found these satirical websites pretty interesting and funny:
www.blackpeopleloveus.com
www.rent-a-negro.com
HEY EVERYBODY! HOW ABOUT WE STOP POSTING ABOUT ISSUES THAT MAKE US ARGUE WITH EACH OHTER?
Before we get into a nother huge discussion, I would like to say a couple of things.
Gun control is nothing compared to a race discussion, so I suggest that we nip this in the bud before people start saying things that might make the rest of us think little of them.
I don't consider this blog a soapbox from which to preach nor a personal journal in which to put our rationalizations. This is a way to keep up with people and to talk about what is going on in each other's lives. It is a way to share funny things. In the past couple of months, most of the posts have been from Hovis (no offense intended, I commend you for actually attempting to keep this blog going).
I guess what I am trying to say is, we should all think before we post, and if we check the page more than once a day and we aren't posting anything at least once a week (whether it be a comment or whatever), then maybe we should try and do that.
After reading my comment, it sounds a tad bitchy, but it's what I think and i'm not changing it. You know I love every single one of you guys.
Braided is not like a white women's hair. That is stereotypical black hair. Not many women of other races wear their hair like that. And I have spent up to three hours fixing my hair for parties. Straight hair is not necessarily the hair of any race. Most white people don't even have straight hair. And when white people fix their hair it might not take as long but they have to do it every single day. Black people can get their hair fixed and it can stay fixed cute for weeks. Because of that, white women probably spend more time straightening/curling their hair because they do it for maybe an hour every single morning.
Getting darker in the sun does not come naturally. Many times people burn and peel right away. Whether you are trying to lighten or darken your skin you are still trying to change yourself. What about people who rub chemicals all over their bodies for artificial tans? Pretty similar to getting into bleach to lighten skin.
And after teaching my swim lessons and being a camp counselor for kids ages 3-9 I think I have got a fairly good assumption of age. Maybe I'm wrong but those kids did not look 5, maybe one or two of them looked like they could be five but that was it.
And like I said I'm not denying racism. I know it exists. I feel I will never know the true extent to which it exists because it is grossly morphed in the media to become what people want to see.
I saw this documentary that was talking about racism in a town. The whole story was centerred around how a long time ago the black church was burned down and how blacks were getting threats and whites were getting threats for hanging out with blacks and it talked about how racist the white people were in the town. It continued by talking about recent racist events. One scene showed the reporter and a black man in the middle of the street in a subdivision (there were houses on both sides). The black man was claiming that on one side of the street lived the whites and on one side lived the black. He said that only the white side of the street was able to vote. The reporter was like "Let me get this straight, only the white side of the street is able to vote?" The video later talked about how a black man is now the mayor of the town.
After the documentary they showed a group of people talking about it. One man was a Professor who studies the media. The Professor asked the reporter if the voting line was drawn between the houses. Turns out the houses on the one side of the street that had been only blacks living in their were actually outside the voting district or whatever and that's why the couldn't vote not because they were black. And this town elected a black mayor so even though racist things did happen in the past I feel bad for the town now because it's a mostly white town and they got a bad rep because of what happened years and years ago that they had nothing to do with.
I agree there is tons of ignorance there are tons of jerks. I have seen movies before that have address racial issues that I agree with. I've gotten angry at people before for saying racist things. Just the other day in class I called a girl out for making the assumption in her argument that poor areas had only blacks living there. I didn't want people to think I don't think racism doesn't exist, I just wanted to talk about the video.
As for you George. If I hadn't been posting there were have been nothing for like a month. When I have nothing else to do and nothing good is on tv and its late at night I like to post. I don't care if anyone reads it. I don't really care if this starts a debate or not. I don't mind I can debate and not let it affect my feelings for other people in any way. If that's not the case for you, then don't read the debates. I saw something that bugged me and I wanted to say my opinion about it. I didn't even so much intend it to be about racism as sexism. Sorry if you think less of me sorry if people don't want to debate if you don't want to then don't. I'm not sorry about debating, because there is nothing wrong with it. I'm only sorry for being incosiderate to Stephanie.
And the blog may be for keeping up with people but seeing as no one really posts and few people comment anymore then how can we use it to keep up with people? We've lost a lot of people who used to post regularly and comment regularly and so obviously only posting about things that are strictly "keeping in touch" is a bad idea. Then the blog will go down the same road as conglomoblog most likely. No offense to conglomoblog, but no one really postst there anymore.
One last thing - no one responds to the posts that are just about how people are doing. At least for the most part. Wouldn't that show that people don't really care or have anything to say about each others lives?
tl; dr.
whoa. calm down everybody.
Ok let me just say I'm not angry at anyone. I guess its really hard to tell people's emotions over the internet. George I am not angry at you at all just defending myself and pip I respect your opinion. So just for the record everything I've been saying has not been angry or spiteful or anything.
ps Pip you are right about the heritage thing
I'm certainly not mad at anyone about anything, and don't think of less of someone just because we happen to disagree. I like reading what people have to say about these sorts of issues. If we can't discuss this sort of thing without getting at each other throats, we can't be very good friends, huh? I am personally in love with Laura Hovis, even though we happen to disagree on an issue or two (or three, or four, who's counting?). It doesn't stop us from being great friends.
And just a note of clarification, I didn't meant to say that black women braid their hair to get it to look like white women's hair. I thought it might seem like that, and I hoped the comma helped to make the distinction clear, but I suppose it didn't work.
thank you hovis.
i know that all of you who commented on my post meant no harm, and i'm glad that it allowed for discussion to occur.
but thank you again for being considerate and letting the issue drop, it really does mean alot.
Lol I ignore commas half the time. Besides Pip, you are my favorite person to debate with. So. Um. wOOt
Since prejudice is such a horrible thing to endure, since racism is so horrible, since sexism is so horrible, imagine being a) black AND b) a woman and maybe even c) a lesbian, for example? There's more than one issue at play (in any situation), and they all sort of exacerbate the others, I think.
Related to the video (which I haven't watched yet), many Asian girls use eyeliner to try to make their eyes look more "normal," which in this case means more Caucasian. Since whites are generally the dominant force on mainstream culture, a woman of color not only is insecure about trying to reach an unrealistic standard, but also is insecure because no matter how hard she tries, she can never be that standard.
-Anna
I don't know if that's true. In my experience none of the Asian girls I have met here even wear any eye makeup. I was getting ready to go out with some friends and we were all doing make up together and of the two Asian girls I was with they both only put on eyeshadow, foundation, and lip gloss.
Besides black and white people have the same eyes. Saying they want their eyes to look more "normal" doesn't necessarily mean caucasian. Most races have the same eyes. Perhaps "normal" just means not Asian looking as opposed to caucasian. I constantly am trying new ways to make my eyes look bigger. I feel the exact same pressure to have big beautiful eyes.
Today people are straying away from having white models. I've seen on modeling shows (and I watch tons of modeling shows) white people getting turned down because their is nothing unique about them. They may have all the qualities of a model and take really good photos but because they are not "unique" they get turned down. Where as I have seen many many many girls straight out of Africa immediately given jobs because they have a different look. I've literally seen on Janice Dickenson Modeling Agency an African woman walk into her agency not even have to take photos and get the job. White may still be the dominant culture in the media but I feel we are moving away from that.
I just think that we are not moving away from sexist attitudes. Every time I turn on the radio I hear guys singing or rapping about how they want to fuck 50 women. I see tv shows where it's ok for the guys to sleep with as many women as he wants but if the girls sleeps around shes called a whore. We are not moving away from these attitudes, if anything, things are getting worse.
I'll see if I can dig up the study I read for class about the eyeliner thing. And here's a video I really liked: http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/6/ (click on #1)
I really meant that comment to broaden what we were thinking about and offer another example of racial pressures. It's great that your friends there don't feel pressured to change their eyes, but that's not necessarily true of everyone. Also, two of your comments stood out to me:
Girls "straight out of Africa"?
"Perhaps "normal" just means not Asian looking as opposed to caucasian." Well, they're certainly not trying to look more African.
That's all for now.
-Anna
By "Girls straight out of Africa" I mean literally girls who hopped on a plane to America for a modeling career and within WEEKS had a modeling career started.
I think adjusting ones eyes is the most universal problem for girls. Everyone spends tons of time trying to make their eyes look different. Perhaps Asians have a harder time looking "normal" which I still don't think means only caucasian. All girls try to make their eyes bigger, rounder, they try to make their eyes look different colors, etc.
Today the ideal body is a mixture of elements that women can rarely get naturally. What about the pressures on white women to have the ideal body? White women feel the most pressure to have a stick thin body more than women of other races. There was this article in the paper that talked about these two black women who opened a work out gym to attract minority women to work out. After it had been open like half a year they really only got white women working out. They were trying to figure out why only white women would work out. They realized that black culture actually idolizes bigger women who have curves. The work out center was even in a community where the majority was black women.
Like I said, today the ideal body is a mixture of all groups. Dark skin (tanning) for whites, light skin for blacks, itty bitty body but with big boobs and a big ass, big eyes, nice hair and skin, etc. These ideas are not really specified at one group. They are problems women have to face and maybe the problems vary with the different races but I do not think that minorities deal with more pressures to look good than caucasians do. Not to say they don't have other pressures/problems to deal with, because they do, but I just think the issue of body image is a universal one for women and instead of pointing out who has it worst perhaps work together to try to abolish the pressures and standards that ALL women feel they have to live up to in order to be accepted.
I definitely agree that there's lots of pressure on all women, but I did a project in Ms. Turk's Eastern Cultures class about a craze in Asia (and also in the US) where women were actually getting surgery to make their eyes rounder.
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1950/
But not only Asian women do that!!! My sister Christie has spent hundreds on makeup and reapplies it like five times a day for one reason - to make her eyes look rounder and bigger. I've actually given up trying to make my eyes look rounder and bigger. I spent most of my life trying to figure out a way to apply make up to fix my eyes and have never been successful. Round eyes is not a trait of Caucasians. I know more white people who don't have round eyes than I do white people who do have round eyes.
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