[faerietails]

Reading in another thread about what is feminist/not feminist got me thinking about how people perceive women of color. For me, being black, I have constantly spent most of my life being told that I am not black enough. Even my grandmother has said that to me.

I remember sitting in my hairdresser's chair and asking if we could turn the news off. I simply found it depressing. She then said that "my grandmother was right, you do think you are a white girl". I was crushed. It still hurts to think about because I just want to be myself. I am just me, yet it's not good enough.

Sometimes I wonder if I should call myself feminist or womanist. Am I betraying other WOCs if I call myself feminist? Do I really think I'm white?

I can totally empathize with you. I've been called a coconut more times than I care to remember and been told I'm not Mexican my entire life. It's weird what constitutes as "Mexican." And a lot of times, I think my feminism as it odds with my a lot of cultural aspects of "Mexican-ness." I remember being in college with my first boyfriend, who happened to be actually from Mexico. He was insulted that I didn't get jealous or didn't try to check up on him every 10 seconds. I won't do that, ever. It would feel ridiculous, and in my mindset, if I'm going to be that insecure in a relationship, where I have to keep checking up on my dude, I'd rather just be single. And I was telling my friends, you know, I don't see the point in being jealous. Their response: "It's because you're not Mexican." WTF?!

There are other aspects where my identity feels completely unstable and at odds with my gender/environmental/social politics, too many to count, actually. At the same time, I don't think that feminism and racial politics have to be necessarily at odds. I don't see feminism as this one big (white)blanket entity, although it certainly feels like it with "mainstream" feminism. There's black feminism, Chicana feminism, Marxist feminism...the list is endless. Unfortunately, I think people in general do seem to equate feminism with white, middle-class women. A really great book that covers the some of the history and theory behind WOC feminism (in a very accessible way) is Seperate Roads to Feminism by Benita Roth. I highly recommend it.

I have a lot more to say, but I need to think about it a little more and figure it out first. Plus I feel like I'm writing a book!


ETA: greenbean, there was a good article in the current issue of bitch (the green issue), exploring the racial politics of magazine covers through this one episode of Tyra Banks' talk show when Naomi Campbell was a guest. i don't remember the specifics because i read it a couple of months ago, but it was really insightful.

as a sidenote, you know what used to annoy the hell out of me with magazine content? i used to read seventeen, etc., and the makeup tips for "dark" skin featured the whitest-looking "dark" girls ever! grr.

[greenbean]

(cross-post with "Pop Culture Feminism")

I have a question for you ladies, but first I have to give some background:

Besides Bust and Venus, I don't buy any "women's" magazines. I think they are stupid and generalize women as vain and rabid consumers. I do remember hearing (and it has become quite obvious) that women's mags practically never have a woman of color on their covers because "they don't sell". I also realized that when dark girls win America's Next Top Model, they get featured inside a mag but don't get the cover, yet Nicole and Caridee (white girls that won) DO get a cover. What the hell is that!?!

Because this pissed me off so much, I started to purposely buy any major mag that had the guts to use a woman of color as their cover girl. I got a TeenVogue with a black covermodel a while back, and recently bought Lucky cuz Rosario Dawson was on it. I skimed through the mags, and I felt lobodimized! The content was sickingly vapid! So it made me ask myself if I had the right decision. Does buying these mags when they have a dark covergirl really making a difference? Or am I just supporting these stupid magazines by buying them at all? I'm really interested in other opinions.

[bustygirl]

My best friend gt the 'not black enough' thing all through school because she was born in London and speaks with a british accent.

The ironic thing is she got this from a deeply suburban community who decided around '92 that they were all about the ghetto, despite having never been 10 miles near the city line.

She eventually went back to London to get her degree, married a lovely portuguese man, and is now writing her dissertation on African/West Indian Immigration in Europe. She probably knows more about her actual heritage than any of the mushmouthed idiots who mocked her for her alleged 'whiteness'.

I've never been a fan of Clarence Thomass or Condi, but the sellout thing has always bothered me a little bit.

F'rinstance, this warehouse I worked at was 85% black, 25% vietnamese, me, and one mexican guy. There were no black managers until the chick who worked with me in the Vintage department got promoted. (Which she damn well should have--she could have run the whole place if they'd have let her) The minute she became management she got shit from every black worker there. Every one.

She got shit I didn't even get for being white. Shit the vietnamese didn't get for being asian.

I won't even talk about what they had to say when she bought a house with her husband and kids. It always seemed to me that they resented her for doing better for herself and not smoking crack all weekend (which most of them did--literally). They thought she was somehow a race-traitor because she didn't want to make $5 an hour and live in the projects and worry about her kids getting shot.

So from the outside, at least, the 'acting black' thing can sometimes seem to be counter-intuitive.

[kickitkickitkick...]

Also, in what ways does the feminist movement still exclude women of color?

I had a long conversation with my boyfriend about minorities as feminists. He has made some pretty good points in saying that western women really don't need to fight for themselves, but should focus their attention on bringing aid to women overseas whose cultures bind and oppress them. I then asked him if it would be the right thing to do by stiring up cultures and trying to change the way things have been for thousands of years. I can understand wanting to help these women, but it's their culture all the same.

[lilyblue]

see, i have a trouble with the phrase sell-out. i mean, yes, she totally knocked the ladder (affirmative action) down after she got up, but is that what people mean? for me, the whole "they aren't black" thing means toeing the line. like we have to have the same thoughts and opinions. i don't agree with them, but i have to say that that's part of the diaspora (maybe not the greatest part, but still a part).

re: kwanzaa being american, i agree. big deal. president's day is american too. the whole point was to celebrate being black americans in a country that says it's a bad thing to be.

i'll keep african american, only because my dad is from nigeria. but i still prefer to use black. it's easier and a lot less to say and type.

[girltrouble]

hey i didn't get a copy either. damn.

as for condi... well to me she's a sell out. she and clarence thomas are two peas in a pod.

i was kind of thinking what it means to be black the other day, they were showing these old black and white musicals, like "stormy weather" with the nicholas brothers (love them) lina horne, and fats waller. they had this "tribal" dance scene, and it was all of these cliches. but i think it's odd that black people in this country think of ourselves as 'african american' in so many ways we are disconnected from our various non-monolithic african cultures. where i live there is a black, (but first gen african) writer who wrote an article years ago about how kwanza was an american concoction, since according to him there is no african coraliary. and while the white citizens seem to talk about the article every holiday season, my view is, "yeah? and?" who cares? i look at all the things that black culture has given this country and the world with only vague, foggy memmories from africa, and cast offs, who cares if kwanzaa is made up. so was the blues, and jazz, soul and hip hop, graffitti and break dancing, jitterbug, and swing, beat boxing and mcing, zoot suits, reet, petite and gone. hand jive and the bump, power fro's tap dancing and soul power, handshakes and cornrows. all made up from our imagination and creativity. what is my point? i dunno, i guess i am in favor of jettisoning the african in african american in favor of black. most of us don't really know much about africa. it was stolen from us, but we do know black culture. we make it up everyday. each of us, everyday....

[lilyblue]

I like that song, I gotta find it somewhere.

I've been thinking about that whole acting black crap. When you really think about it, what the hell does that even mean? Is there some book of black that I didn't get when I was born?

Its just so nebulous and yet people hold on to it so tightly. I can't wrap my brain around it really.

For example, for as much as I don't agree with Condi Rice, I can't ever say that she's not black. It just doesn't make sense to me. Is it what I do makes me black, or is it just what I am? If someone saw me and I said I wasn't black, they would think I was crazy. Yet, because of the way I talk or act, I lose that. That doesn't allow me my full humanity if you ask me.

[girltrouble]

your post made me think of this song


Artist: Murs
Album: Murray's Revenge
Title: Dark Skinned White Girl

She got that mocha-chino baby on the back of the bus
If you close your eyes and listen she would be one of us
Never did trust, her family at home
So she kicked it in the hood, raised her self on her own
She talk with that tone, but she white to the bone
You would swear she was black if you spoke on the phone
Some say its overgrown, but she don't give a damn
All the black girls think that she want they man
But it's not your fault that they attracted to you
That you blessed and got as much back as you do
Most white boys say that you're way too thick
And some brothers might say, you're the number one pick
You say [psh], girl...Roll your eyes twist your neck
But it comes from the soul you don't mean no disrespect
And even when they check you, you just keep it movin'
Cuz in your heart you feel you ain't got nothing to be provin'

[Chorus] 2X
Whether chocolate or vanilla, or you're somewhere in between
A cappuccino mocha or a caramel queen
Rejected by the black, not accepted by the white world
And this is dedicated to them dark skinned white girls

[Verse II]
Now she like, Dismissed, The Cure, really into Morrisey
Heavy on the rock never fooled with jodici
You would notice she was never really welcomed by the others
Hard to find a date when there was only ten brothers
In the whole damn school, and they thought she was weird
Cuz she wore her hair different, and she never joined cheer
A melancholy dolly with a Polly want-a syndrome
White step-father black daddy never been home
And when on the quad she could hear em' say
Look at how she walks, why she talk that way
But girl it's okay, your black is beautiful
No matter how you dress, or no matter what music you like
Forget what they say, you're doin' it right
No more grabbin' on your pillow as you cry through the night
Stand strong, hold your ground at any cost
and know that everyone who tries to put you down is lost

Whether chocolate or vanilla, or you're somewhere in between
A cappuccino mocha or a caramel queen
Rejected by the black, not accepted by the white world
And this is dedicated to them dark skinned white girls
2X

[Verse 3]
Now for you half-and-half and mixed girls, I know what the battle be
Every time you go out, it's what's your nationality
Everybody always wanna dig up in your background
You don't look _____, now how does that sound
I couldn't tell you or...(tell you or...)
Oh, is that right
Do you take it as a compliment or start up a fight
Venezuelan and Indian, Rican and Dominican
Japanese or Portuguese, quarter a Brazilian and.
White and Korean, Black and Pinay
I could find out later it don't matter you're fly
It really don't make a difference to most of us guys
We just need an excuse to get close and say hi
I know they call you stuck up, you think you're too pretty
Spreadin' rumors about you, all throughout the city
So much attention, so many haters
But don't be bitter, you'll be better for it later and...

Whether chocolate or vanilla, or you're somewhere in between
A cappuccino mocha or a caramel queen
Rejected by the black, not accepted by the white world
And this is dedicated to them dark skinned white girls
2X

thanks for the invite, lilly. thanks for the thread too. i'm sure i'll be here often.

[lilyblue]

I wanted to resurrect the Busties of Color thread. Allies welcome.

Reading in another thread about what is feminist/not feminist got me thinking about how people perceive women of color. For me, being black, I have constantly spent most of my life being told that I am not black enough. Even my grandmother has said that to me.

I remember sitting in my hairdresser's chair and asking if we could turn the news off. I simply found it depressing. She then said that "my grandmother was right, you do think you are a white girl". I was crushed. It still hurts to think about because I just want to be myself. I am just me, yet it's not good enough.

Sometimes I wonder if I should call myself feminist or womanist. Am I betraying other WOCs if I call myself feminist? Do I really think I'm white?

It's been the bane of my existence for years. I've been depressed over it and I would love to discuss stuff like this.

Also, in what ways does the feminist movement still exclude women of color?