Day 11- Reading Response (my b-day :])

Women and Race issues was the topic of today’s class. I really enjoyed today’s class. The topic was interesting and the material was much easier to relate to and read.

I liked the video on youtube because it was the first thing that we saw for the class it really illustrated what we were going to be learning about. The images that were presented drew a picture of the stereotypes that African-American women have been type casted into. It really seems that in all of the pictures and animations that there are two categories. There was the larger older African-American woman who was either cooking, or cleaning or eating. Then there was the objectified younger African-American woman who was very slim, usually with a lager bottom and portrayed very “sexily”. Now it seems that there has to be more than these two very precise views, but in reality that is how African-American women have been illustrated in the media. The articles that we read in connection with the video, “Panel probes invisibility of black women in media” and “Who(se) am I: Identity and Image of Women in Hip Hop” talked about this idea further.

Both the articles talked about how black women have gone from being a commodity that was sold as slaves, to a commodity that is sold as sex. It was really interesting because you don’t think of it that way but in reality that exactly what is going on. I never had drawn the parallel between the two until I read the article. It seems like for African-American women they have never been given a “fair-shot” when it comes to being represented in the media. However, I think that it is good that the article it talked about women who have broken the “sexy” role. Women like Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keyes should be the role models for African-American women and children. They are doing a great job of demonstrating how women don’t have to be objectified to get somewhere in the hip hop world.