Makers: Women Who Make America:
Black Feminist Icon Barbara Smith on Why the women's movement often alienated women of color like her, who experienced key issues differently.
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Domestic Violence. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Domestic Violence. Tampilkan semua postingan
Sabtu, 27 Oktober 2012
Rabu, 05 Oktober 2011
Pink Ribbons, Black Bruises
Pink Ribbons, Black Bruises
by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan
October is both Breast Cancer Awareness Month as well as Domestic Abuse Awareness Month and, on the surface, the two seem to have little in common except concern for the quality of women's lives. Most men understand that breast cancer and domestic violence represent forms of crisis in the lives of black women, but I'd like to suggest that our dismissive attitude towards women's health care issues represent a form of abuse itself.
According to the Chicago Foundation for Women "violence against women and girls is a cradle-to-grave epidemic." The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African-American Community at the University of Minnesotafound that black women were 30 percent more likely to be subject to domestic violence than white women and 250 percent more likely to be the subject of such violence than men. Additionally, black women account for more than 20 percent of the homicides associated with domestic violence despite only representing 8 percent of the national population.
Thankfully, there is now a generation of men, including activists and educators like Jackson Katz, Quentin Walcott, director of the CONNECT's Community Empowerment Program in New York, Ulester Douglass of Men Stopping Violence in Georgia and filmmaker Byron Hurt who are providing leadership in getting men of all races to understand their complicity in violence against women. It is still a struggle to get men to speak out against violence against women, but the aforementioned men represent tremendous growth in that regard.
Thanks to organizations like Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the foundation behind the pink ribbons and wrist bands so prominently featured during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, society is beginning to grapple with the disproportionate effect of the disease on black women, who, while less likely to get the disease than their white peers, are far more likely to die from it. Indeed it is heartening to see professional sports leagues like the NFL and Major League Baseball contribute to awareness efforts.
There are lots of reasons for the discrepancies between black and white women, but I'd like to highlight the roles that black women play as caretakers and nurturers in our communities. Also, black women are seemingly more willing to address the high incidence of hypertension and prostate disease among black men, often at the expense of addressing their own health issues.
Ironically, few black men seem to take the same interest in black women's health concerns, or their own health issues for that matter. Men have been socialized to think of diseases like breast cancer, fibroids and osteoporosis, as simply examples of "women's diseases." Some men are likely to dismiss diseases that disproportionately affect women, because they were told as boys that it was "mommy's time of the month," distancing them from women's health issues. Nevertheless, black men must take greater responsibility in increasing their awareness of diseases that afflict their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and friends.
For example, some studies have shown that 80 percent of all black women suffer from some form of fibroid disease, yet most black men are oblivious to the effects of the disease. Could you imagine a disease that afflicted 80 percent of black men that black women would be largely ignorant of?
In many ways our willing ignorance about black women's health issues represents a form of abuse. As healthcare issues remain critical to black America, it is incumbent on black men to get serious about finding out about the diseases that affect the women and men in our communities.
Rabu, 16 Maret 2011
Byron Hurt: Why I Am a Male Feminist
The word turns off a lot of men (insert snarky comment about man-hating feminazis here) -- and women. But here's why black men should be embracing the "f" word.
Why I Am a Male Feminist
by Byron Hurt
When I was a little boy, my mother and father used to argue a lot. Some mornings, I would wake up to the alarming sound of my parents arguing loudly. The disagreement would continue until my father would yell with finality, "That is it! I'm not talking about this anymore!" The dispute would end right there. My mother never got the last word.
My dad's yelling made me shrink in fear; I wanted to do something to make him stop raging against my mother. In those moments, I felt powerless because I was too small to confront my father. I learned early that he had an unfair advantage because of his gender. His size, strength and power intimidated my mother. I never saw my father hit her, but I did witness how injurious his verbal jabs could be when they landed on my mom's psyche.
My father didn't always mistreat my mother, but when he did, I identified with her pain, not his bullying. When he hurt her, he hurt me, too. My mother and I had a special bond. She was funny, smart, loving and beautiful. She was a great listener who made me feel special and important. And whenever the going got tough, she was my rock and my foundation.
One morning, after my father yelled at my mom during an argument, she and I stood in the bathroom together, alone, getting ready for the day ahead of us. The tension in the house was as thick as a cloud of dark smoke. I could tell that my mother was upset. "I love you, Ma, but I just wish that you had a little more spunk when you argue with Daddy," I said, low enough so my father couldn't hear me. She looked at me, rubbed my back and forced a smile.
I so badly wanted my mother to stand up for herself. I didn't understand why she had to submit to him whenever they fought. Who was he to lay down the law in the household? What made him so special?
I grew to resent my father's dominance in the household, even though I loved him as dearly as I loved my mother. His anger and intimidation shut down my mother, sister and me from freely expressing our opinions whenever they didn't sit well with his own. Something about the inequity in their relationship felt unjust to me, but at that young age, I couldn't articulate why.
One day, as we sat at the kitchen table after another of their many spats, my mother told me, "Byron, don't ever treat a woman the way your father treats me." I wish I had listened to her advice.
As I grew older and got into my own relationships with girls and women, I sometimes behaved as I saw my father behave. I, too, became defensive and verbally abusive whenever the girl or woman I was dating criticized or challenged me. I would belittle my girlfriends by scrutinizing their weight or their choices in clothes. In one particular college relationship, I often used my physical size to intimidate my petite girlfriend, standing over her and yelling to get my point across during arguments.
I had internalized what I had seen in my home and was slowly becoming what I had disdained as a young boy. Although my mother attempted to teach me better, I, like a lot of boys and men, felt entitled to mistreat the female gender when it benefited me to do so.
After graduating from college, I needed a job. I learned about a new outreach program that was set to launch. It was called the Mentors in Violence Prevention Project. As a student-athlete, I had done community outreach, and the MVP Project seemed like a good gig until I got a real job in my field: journalism.
Founded by Jackson Katz, the MVP Project was designed to use the status of athletes to make gender violence socially unacceptable. When I met with Katz, I didn't realize that the project was a domestic violence prevention program. Had I known that, I wouldn't have gone in for the job interview.
So when Katz explained that they were looking to hire a man to help institutionalize curricula about preventing gender violence at high schools and colleges around the country, I almost walked out the door. But during my interview, Katz asked me an interesting question. "Byron, how does African-American men's violence against African-American women uplift the African-American community?"
No one had ever asked me that question before. As an African-American man who was deeply concerned about race issues, I had never given much thought about how emotional abuse, battering, sexual assault, street harassment and rape could affect an entire community, just as racism does.
Read the Full Essay @ theRoot.com
***
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and anti-sexist activist.
Why I Am a Male Feminist
by Byron Hurt
When I was a little boy, my mother and father used to argue a lot. Some mornings, I would wake up to the alarming sound of my parents arguing loudly. The disagreement would continue until my father would yell with finality, "That is it! I'm not talking about this anymore!" The dispute would end right there. My mother never got the last word.
My dad's yelling made me shrink in fear; I wanted to do something to make him stop raging against my mother. In those moments, I felt powerless because I was too small to confront my father. I learned early that he had an unfair advantage because of his gender. His size, strength and power intimidated my mother. I never saw my father hit her, but I did witness how injurious his verbal jabs could be when they landed on my mom's psyche.
My father didn't always mistreat my mother, but when he did, I identified with her pain, not his bullying. When he hurt her, he hurt me, too. My mother and I had a special bond. She was funny, smart, loving and beautiful. She was a great listener who made me feel special and important. And whenever the going got tough, she was my rock and my foundation.
One morning, after my father yelled at my mom during an argument, she and I stood in the bathroom together, alone, getting ready for the day ahead of us. The tension in the house was as thick as a cloud of dark smoke. I could tell that my mother was upset. "I love you, Ma, but I just wish that you had a little more spunk when you argue with Daddy," I said, low enough so my father couldn't hear me. She looked at me, rubbed my back and forced a smile.
I so badly wanted my mother to stand up for herself. I didn't understand why she had to submit to him whenever they fought. Who was he to lay down the law in the household? What made him so special?
I grew to resent my father's dominance in the household, even though I loved him as dearly as I loved my mother. His anger and intimidation shut down my mother, sister and me from freely expressing our opinions whenever they didn't sit well with his own. Something about the inequity in their relationship felt unjust to me, but at that young age, I couldn't articulate why.
One day, as we sat at the kitchen table after another of their many spats, my mother told me, "Byron, don't ever treat a woman the way your father treats me." I wish I had listened to her advice.
As I grew older and got into my own relationships with girls and women, I sometimes behaved as I saw my father behave. I, too, became defensive and verbally abusive whenever the girl or woman I was dating criticized or challenged me. I would belittle my girlfriends by scrutinizing their weight or their choices in clothes. In one particular college relationship, I often used my physical size to intimidate my petite girlfriend, standing over her and yelling to get my point across during arguments.
I had internalized what I had seen in my home and was slowly becoming what I had disdained as a young boy. Although my mother attempted to teach me better, I, like a lot of boys and men, felt entitled to mistreat the female gender when it benefited me to do so.
After graduating from college, I needed a job. I learned about a new outreach program that was set to launch. It was called the Mentors in Violence Prevention Project. As a student-athlete, I had done community outreach, and the MVP Project seemed like a good gig until I got a real job in my field: journalism.
Founded by Jackson Katz, the MVP Project was designed to use the status of athletes to make gender violence socially unacceptable. When I met with Katz, I didn't realize that the project was a domestic violence prevention program. Had I known that, I wouldn't have gone in for the job interview.
So when Katz explained that they were looking to hire a man to help institutionalize curricula about preventing gender violence at high schools and colleges around the country, I almost walked out the door. But during my interview, Katz asked me an interesting question. "Byron, how does African-American men's violence against African-American women uplift the African-American community?"
No one had ever asked me that question before. As an African-American man who was deeply concerned about race issues, I had never given much thought about how emotional abuse, battering, sexual assault, street harassment and rape could affect an entire community, just as racism does.
Read the Full Essay @ theRoot.com
***
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and anti-sexist activist.
Sabtu, 16 Oktober 2010
50 Cent's Twitter feed: Brilliant marketing or irresponsible behavior
We want to meet the real Curtis behind the $500 million empire.
50 Cent's Twitter Feed:
Brilliant Marketing or Irresponsible Behavior?
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) has a Twitter account. Given the rather mundane content of most of his recent recordings, no one should really care. But more than 3 million people do care enough to follow 50 Cent and the travails of his rumored love bunny Chelsea Handler. He rarely has anything of substance to say—which is not to say that some of his observations aren’t funny. It is perhaps marketing genius that the rapper-mogul has become a Twitter celebrity—separate and distinct from his real life celebrity.
50 Cent’s use of Twitter is the perfect example of the ways that mainstream celebrities, particularly rappers, have sought to distinguish between their branded selves and their individual selves. For example, as Snoop Dogg continues to sell music, it was Calvin Broadus the doting, Cliff Huxtable-like father who was the star of the E!’s Fatherhood.
While California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rarely has to distance himself from his Terminator character, rappers are almost never given the opportunity distance themselves from their rap personas. There are also quite a few rappers who invest in those personas 24-7, because they are so lucrative.
As such, I’m grown enough to know that that the music of 50 Cent, which I largely despise, is not the sum total of the man named Curtis Jackson, who by-the-way, is worth more than $500 million. With the help of figures like Chris Lightly, Jackson has become a savvy businessman and 50 Cent’s presence on Twitter is just an extension of his acute sense of how to effectively market his persona.
Even 50 Cent’s dog—Oprah Winafree—has gotten in on the act, as 50 Cent presumably ghost-tweets the dog’s twitter alias OprahtheDog. Perhaps even Jackson’s team is behind Twitter’s @English50Cent, which translates 50 Cent’s tweets into “standard” English. As a whole there’s a Bakhtin-esque quality to 50 Cent’s tweeter presence, that suggest high satire more than utter ignorance.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21
50 Cent's Twitter Feed:
Brilliant Marketing or Irresponsible Behavior?
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) has a Twitter account. Given the rather mundane content of most of his recent recordings, no one should really care. But more than 3 million people do care enough to follow 50 Cent and the travails of his rumored love bunny Chelsea Handler. He rarely has anything of substance to say—which is not to say that some of his observations aren’t funny. It is perhaps marketing genius that the rapper-mogul has become a Twitter celebrity—separate and distinct from his real life celebrity.
50 Cent’s use of Twitter is the perfect example of the ways that mainstream celebrities, particularly rappers, have sought to distinguish between their branded selves and their individual selves. For example, as Snoop Dogg continues to sell music, it was Calvin Broadus the doting, Cliff Huxtable-like father who was the star of the E!’s Fatherhood.
While California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rarely has to distance himself from his Terminator character, rappers are almost never given the opportunity distance themselves from their rap personas. There are also quite a few rappers who invest in those personas 24-7, because they are so lucrative.
As such, I’m grown enough to know that that the music of 50 Cent, which I largely despise, is not the sum total of the man named Curtis Jackson, who by-the-way, is worth more than $500 million. With the help of figures like Chris Lightly, Jackson has become a savvy businessman and 50 Cent’s presence on Twitter is just an extension of his acute sense of how to effectively market his persona.
Even 50 Cent’s dog—Oprah Winafree—has gotten in on the act, as 50 Cent presumably ghost-tweets the dog’s twitter alias OprahtheDog. Perhaps even Jackson’s team is behind Twitter’s @English50Cent, which translates 50 Cent’s tweets into “standard” English. As a whole there’s a Bakhtin-esque quality to 50 Cent’s tweeter presence, that suggest high satire more than utter ignorance.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)