I was all set to post about this whole Glamour magazine issue with the assistant editor (now former) who dissed Afros and dreadlocks. In short though nothing here is surprising. Folks always have issues with black hair. Accept it. I do wonder how they were able to hide this from the Glamour editor for two months though? They are doing their best P.R now to distance themselves from the rogue editor who made the comments as well they should but damage has been done.
That said I thought that this article was a better use of my blogging time. Check it here.
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
Sigh! Is it just me or has this year seemed like the year that racial tension and racism have jumped back into the spotlight? Hanging nooses, torture, Jena, lots of questionable comments. Not that things were great but I guess it just seems like blacks have been attacked left right and centre of late. The 60's must be wearing off.
I seriously think that the civil rights movements gains are being eroded and alot of it is because black folk have gotten too complacent and lackadaisical. We've always had to work harder to prove ourselves don't forget that. Now the closet racists are jumping out the woodwork because we're getting sloppy and we haven't built on what we gained. We take alot of stuff for granted. Go talk to your parents or grandparents if you don't believe me. Ask them about some of the shit they dealt with back in the days.
Actually maybe you wont have to ask cause the way things are going we'll be experiencing that stuff again sooner than we think.
15 comments:
shame on me for missing the scoop here first. it is tiring, isn't it? there's something weird going on, a kind of slow b(l)acklash. i'm feelin a pressure to up my game.
re the civil rights movements gains are being eroded
I disagree.
I think people are feeling free to say all kinds of stupid things. And it is the price we pay for free speech--it won't always be enlightened.
However, I can vote, educate myself, sit anywhere I please, and buy property wherever I like so long as I can afford it.
I feel the racist things that are keeping me down in this day and age are harder to detect, nearly impossible to root out, and have less to do with civil rights and more to do with opportunities and privileges on a person to person or organization to person basis.
Yeah our movement has been losin' momentum for years. IMO, since time doesn'y stand still, there's no stagnation, we're either progressin' or we're reversin' (i.e, movement erodin'). Florida voters' disenfranchisement thru de not-so-subtlety of "hanging" chads was a foreshadowin' of nooses, then bodies. By de time our achievements are erased, de erosion woulda been complete. Re that article: just thinka what Venus & Serena went thru, bein' called 'Medusa Head' for wearin' braids -- champions. As GC's last paragraph is reminiscent of: "Babylon release de chains but dem a use dem brains."
Our movement get push so far back it's a shame, but you know why such things are happening? because the young people of today have no purpose, well not all of them, but the majority. The whole generation X does not know the meaning of the struggle to acheive what we the baby boomers and our parents fought for. They were given everthing on a silver platter so it has no worth to them.
As for the white folks, just does just give their mouths too much liberty and since we don't do much about it den dey feel dat dey can say whatever about us.
The vale placed on identity is eroding. Will it be too late when we all want to do something. The Muslims are surely staking their claim and grabbing back their identity.
I want to slap that former editor into oblivion. Who is she to come diss my locks? SERIOUSLY? I ain't buying GLAMOUR's story...they need more people. She reflected them exactly!
Less intelligent? Probably more opportunities but don't really see how they gauge that.
The institution has suspended Watson. I'm sure they will reinstate him when this dies down.
This is just another in a very long line of stupid comments by a once brilliant doctor.
Black hair uncool? I would simply point out that it was a fashion magazine that pointed this out. The most shallow and superficial industry ever!
Holla.
Well I don't think the gains made during the Civil Rights era are being eroded. I agree more with GC... people are starting to feel more comfortable saying what they think. That and the shock jocks are in force this year.
I do agree with you that this year has been particularly harsh on blacks. Maybe this generation of whites are so removed from the Civil Rights era that they just don't see the racism in certain things.
I dunno... it is disconcerting though. Do you suppose we might be headed towards a race war?
you should go to jezebel.com and go back a few entries for more details on that glamour incident. the comments got very heated. but, i'm surprised she was so bold to voice her opinions on black hair as some type of authority when YT is usually afraid to be labeled racist nowadays.
and i do agree with you that some of the civil rights movement gains are being tampered with as of late.
that proposition 204 or whatever the hell number it was a few years in cali.. University of Michigan admissions standards and a sleu of other legislation has been passed in the past 10-15 years that have indeed taken back some of the gains.
Don't sleep people.
hi,
back to say you've been tagged!
Side note: I for one would love an Afro.
I love people who speak their ignorant mind, at least I know how ignorant they are upfront, than the sneaky ones, that pretend.....
Statements like those really pisses me off! I will not even comment on those racist comments, not worth my time.
[shakes head] Thanks for the update. Why is news like this swept under the mat? Aside from the obvious reason. I am truly disappointed in that fellow. Just goes to show you. An ass with a Nobel Prize is still an ass.
I am feeling you on this post, Jdid, I have been feeling the same way on the erosion of the gains of black people for some time.
Someone was telling me about a black yute who was recently locked up as a pedophile or sup'm so because he, at age 18, had consensual sex with a white girl who was a minor (age 17, by the way) and they wanted to give him 10 years! Despite the fact that the girl told the court that it was consensual! Nuh must be because him black!
Luckily for him, the supreme court overturned the sentence and he is free now.
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