black women – Susan X Jane

We’re More Than Mermaids and Murderers

The New England Patriots won the Superbowl (again!) in the lowest scoring game in Superbowl history. I don’t know if it was a good game because the NFL is racist and I can’t fuck with that, but I still enjoyed the other big game–Superbowl ads! For decades now the Superbowl has hosted some of the most expensive TV ad time; this year costS ran at 5 million for a 30-second spot. That means Cardi B has to make 4,201,681 Pepsis skruuuttt off the shelves to pay for ad time–and that doesn’t even include paying the celebrity endorsers or the manicurist who did that to Cardi’s nails.

There’s no room here for boring old My Pillow ads or long pharma lists of side effects. Instead, advertisers bring their A game to the big game. Critics Monday morning quarterbacking the ads this year said the ads, on the whole, failed to inspire much beyond the same yawn the game did but buried in the boring ads is a glimmer of America’s shifting gender landscape.

Taken together, the ads of the Superbowl serve as a snapshot of mainstream American culture, a night when Madison Ave translates the life of the Friday Night lights crowd and sells it back to them with the celebrities du jour. The tone of the ads is an echo of the mood of the nation, and the best ads push our imagination towards our brighter future. For much of the Superbowl’s 52-year history, the ads revolved around the man’s world–razor ads and beer ads full of “manly men’, women draped across their shoulders like scarves, mere accessories, or crave-worthy objects. As times changed, ads gave a wink and nod to the ladies who were expected to be at SuperBowl parties, but more interested in the snacks than the sacks.

Women make up an increasing share of the fan base of the NFL. Just like women are getting shit done in Congress, handling business in business, and pushing social change forward, they are also watching football. The big game means big chances for advertisers to not only speak to women viewers, but to position themselves as a brand able to address women as full humans. So how did advertisers do ditching the stereotypes and including women in the big game? Here are the big plays:

Same Ladies, New Era

Several of the ads that featured women could claim that they are catering to women viewers, but the ad is really just the same old same old. Anheuser Bush pitched a new sparkling beverage targeted at women (because real liquor would mess up our little lady minds!) with mermaids twirling beneath the sea. Mermaids are a hot trend and a cold stereotype. Sure undulating under the wave is sexy but you can’t run shit if you have no legs.

Stella Artois went for a land version of a mermaid featuring the demure damsel in a dress Carrie Bradshaw. Sex in the City aired from 1998 to 2004, just a year after the invasion of Iraq and three years before social media, and Carrie Bradshaw was a woman of her time kissing frogs and holding out for Mr. Big, a guy we would call problematic by today’s standards. Is this the best they could do for a poster woman to bring beer ads into the 21st century? And then there was Zoe Kravitz with the organic, gluten-free bedroom eyes. Sure ASRM is science, but its arousal factor is that same old sex-sells storyline. A beer ad with ear porn isn’t speaking to women, just whispering to the boys.

The call: fumble. Sticking a woman in an ad during a football game doesn’t automatically mean you’re shattering any stereotypes. Recycling the same old themes or celebs, breathless and prettily sipping their drinks misses the moment and the movement that women are in.

Fearless Women With Fight

Unlike undulating fish girls, several of the ads spoke to the power that women are taking on as we push towards gender equity. Two ads promoted upcoming streaming shows: a promo for The Handmaid’s Tale third season on Hulu and one for a new show on Amazon prime called Hanna. Both show women who are uninterested in being anybody’s sexy mermaid. Handmaid’s tale is a pointed critique of contemporary gender politics, pulling no punches for the Superbowl crowd, calling on America to wake up.

Hanna also paints a dark world for women, where a young girl is turned into a weapon and must fight to be free. While this certainly seems different from centuries of submissive and subjugated women, she is still a tool, shaped by a man to have only one strategy–violence. I don’t think this is what Helen Ready meant when she sang ‘hear me roar.’

Sarah Michelle Geller revises her role as potential home invasion victim as a masked intruder stalks her and her man. Hiding in the bedroom, her Olay smooth face is too lovely to open her facial recognition phone, but also disarming enough to charm a psychopath. No kung fu or social resistance here, just a beauty made more beautiful by Olay slaying and staying alive.

The call: false start. Whatever troubled world these three women live in, they have what they need to stay alive without needing to call on a sailor for rescue, but it would be nice if women could do something other than fight off sexual predators.

The New Power Brokers

Toyota chronicles the inspiring story of football phenom Toni Harris, East Los Angeles College defensive back–no kicker avoiding the ruffing here. As one of the first female athletes to place college football, her story is certain to motivate a generation of future football stars. Toyotas and features game footage and off the field shots standard for any up and coming football star a-la-ESPN. She is presented as powerful, positive, and inspiring without pandering or paternalizing. Here’s hoping we’ll see her on the field in the big game soon.

Serena Williams starred in an ad for social app Bumble and served as co-creative director off camera for the campaign as well. Neither mermaid or murderer, Serena plays a real authentic version of a contemporary woman in the ad, doing real things like working and spending time with family and friends. She is not a magical creature, or a fictional femme fatal, just a person looking to succeed and thrive, using a connecting app to connect all the parts of her life, not just dating. The ad speaks to real women’s needs: the need to get shit done without waiting for Mr. Big, the need for empowerment that relies on fresh, decolonized ways of being powerful. Of all the women we see featured in their own Superbowl ads–including the lovely and underutilized Cardi B–Serena seems the most authentically human, and the one that many women who work hard and want to watch the game with her girls are likely to recognize themselves in. The ad speaks to women in a way that is free from typical patriarchial narratives, and one that doesn’t center sex as a selling point. The ad really does speak to women as if they are full humans, though I wonder if the NFL would have given Serena a 3/5ths instead.

The call: touchdown! The push to topple patriarchy means women are moving to take their rightful place in our culture; advertisers must keep working to write the new narratives that reflect our changing gender landscape in America. If the Superbowl ads are any indication, we still have a ways to go to shed the centuries-old stories dotted with damsels and doll-eyed beauties. One thing I know is that when we have women behind the camera and in leadership roles on creative teams we stand a good chance of getting more authentic images, the kind that will woo consumers and inspire girls looking for images that fell like them

#MeTooButNotYou for Grammys

This year’s Grammy’s promised to be the most diverse Grammys ever! There was lots of great music this year from a wide slate of artists, so it shouldn’t have been difficult to break the Grammy’s long tradition of marginalizing people of color, particularly in the Hip Hop community. The night was looking good when Kendrick Lamar, current throne holder, kicked off the night with this en-fuego performance.

Not only was it dope, making raptastic mincemeat of Eminem’s much-heralded performance, but it was woker than Chris at the end of Get Out. Dave Chappelle even had to check in to let people know they were witnessing peak black excellence.

Hi, I’m Dave Chappelle and I just wanted to remind the audience, the only thing more frightening than watching a black being honest in America is being an honest black man in America.

And he would know–watch the Bird Revelation for Dave’s own brush with honesty.

And that was just the opening. The night closed with a planetary-sized sweep of top awards by Cardi B dance partner Bruno Mars. Top song, album, and record awards went to Mars along with a few others, netting him 6 total wins for the night.

Blacks. Check. Latinos. Check. Woman. Check. Bet the Recording Academy is feeling pretty good about itself right now. It checked all of the awards show boxes, right? Grammys are now officially Not Racist or Sexist!

Hold on, not so fast. We Saw Bey slaying with hubby Jay z. We saw SZA heating up the red carpet with her five nominations after a red hot year. We saw Cardi B and Rhianna backing up the boys that won. But no major Grammys were won by black women.

None.

But hey, maybe that’s their fault for not being creative enough. Bey you slacker. Rhi you lackluster sad sack! recording Academy President Neil Portnow has this advice to you:

It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level… [They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome.

That’s right, if only Rhianna and SZA and Beyonce and Cardi and Remy worked from the heart, were more creative, really leaned in to the industry, then they could get awards like the boys do.

In the era of #MeToo, the Grammys continue to look as modern as the Macarena. Black women were shut out in all but the Gospel category (thanks, Tay), and women were largely absent from the winner’s circle. Portnow’s comments are out of step with what’s happening in our country, and amongst the music buying audience. It’s time for the music industry to catch up with the times.

While Hollywood applies itself to the task of moving beyond lip service to legal and cultural shifts towards equality, the music industry is lagging behind, stuck in patterns of pumping out patriarchy and normativity. Music audiences already have more choices than ever before to access artist both in and out of the mainstream. If the music industry hopes to hold on to Millenials and their younger siblings, they will need to open up to be more inclusive. I’m sure they will have their own tidal wave of sexual assault allegations, and the industry is still a long way from being racially conscious, but beginning to recognize and promote the amazing talent of black women is a good first step. After all, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step–and a great playlist

Gentrifying Shampoo

This week Pantene rolled out a beautiful ode to black women to artfully showcase what they present here as a line of products for natural hair.

So this is the part of the post where you think I’m going to praise Pantene for dope visuals, a rainbow of brown skinned lovelies, and a little finger-snapping slam-lite–wrong. Sure this video brings the love of natural hair to the mainstream, making visible the black women who have been so ignored by the hair care industry. Sure the video chants a little manifesto singing the praises of black beauty and power. But don’t sleep, Pantene didn’t wake up one day with visions of Angela Davis for the masses. Pantene is just gentrifying the natural hair product neighborhood and throwing some shade in the process.

If You Build It, They Will Come (And Take It From You)

Natural hair care products are a $946 million dollar industry, a sector of hair care that has seen explosive growth over the last few years. Long before Pantene Gold started growing dreads, hair care for natural hair was nowhere to be seen on the mainstream scene. Even the brands that did cater to unprocessed hair were few and far between. As the natural hair movement grew, there were attempts to grab a share of the market with products like an early attempt for women of color called Pantene Naturals. The problem was that these products were more about marketing, with formulations that were not markedly different from the rest of the brand’s lines. The product packaging targets women of color but sulfates and dyes destroy their hair if they use it. Now that the natural hair care market can’t be ignored, Pantene is back for another slice of the African (hair)pie.

Meanwhile natural brands like Miss Jessie’s, Shea Mountain, As I Am and others did the real work finding ways to truly care for black hair–working directly with the women who used their product, learning from the ancestors secret recipes, and redesigning the natural hair care regimen with modern formulations that actually work for a diverse group of often ignored customers. These companies, many owned by women of color, did the hard work to build a cottage industry into the natural hair juggernaut that it is today.

And then here comes Pantene. Like a Starbucks in Brooklyn. Sure, it seems nice at first until you can’t afford to live in your own apartment. Or until you can’t, as a small business owner, compete with a huge corporate entity like Pantene and you get knocked out of your own market. The natural hair movement is democratic with hundreds of bloggers, businesswomen and home product developers following in the steps of Madame CJ Walker, but it looks like this nation is about to be attacked by shamPutin Pantene.

By the Way, We Still Think Your Hair Sucks

Pantene_Gold_Series_Repairing_Mask_-_7_6_oz___Target

Pantene_Gold_Series_Moisture_Boost_Shampoo_-_9_1_oz___Target

I couldn’t help but notice when I looked at the actual product that is celebrating black women that nowhere on the product packaging does Pantene Gold say that is its designed for natural hair, or black hair beautiful in that many ways the commercial described it. The line is aimed at “dry, damaged hair”. That’s right, you snapping-your-fingers-as-you-snap-up-Pantene-queens–they just called your crown dry and damaged. All that lovely poetry isn’t on the package. Instead, just a reminder that the world still sees your hair as fundamentally flawed.

Other natural haircare lines use language that celebrates natural hair on the product line itself, not just pays lip service to it in ads. Without the ad above, you wouldn’t know that Pantene was even trying to connect with the black community–and frankly, that wouldn’t be anything new. I’m going to skip the hype on this one and keep supporting the business that cared about me and my hair, not just my wallet.

Pass to Power: What is Race and Passing?

Update: I posted this 666 days ago but blue eyed devil Rachael Dolezal is back in the news with her snake oil version of racial identity. She got a book deal and all I have is this blog so I’m reposting this in hopes someone may share it with her and ~~read~~ educate this white woman-Rachel, please have several seats, and be humble.

Busted: Rachel Dolezal, Howard Graduate, Head of the NAACP in Spokane, and outspoken black community activist is white. Outed by a local reporter and mercilessly–and hilariously–taken down on twitter Rachel has sparked lots of chatter about what is race and who can be which one. Passing points to the essential function of race–that it structures power, not color. People who pass are not trying to look different, they are trying to change their status.

Race is not in our DNA, it’s a social construct. That means, despite what your eyes see, there are not different races of people. In fact, there is no gene for race in the human genome. Biologically, humans are all part of one family.

So, if race isn’t real, then we can just say racism is dead, yell, “Black President!” and get on with it right? Wrong. I mean, have you read this blog before? Since the birth of America, race has been used to structure, economic and political relationships. Prior to the 1600’s race really wasn’t a thing. People had and still have different cultures, but not different racial categories. The first time the word race even appears in the English language is 1508, so the Ancient world did not have the concept of different races.

With the conquest of the Americas and a fresh addiction to sugar, European conquerers needs many hands to make the hard work of sugar, tobacco and cotton farming light. But, since the America’s were little more than a handful of rough outposts, they couldn’t attract a voluntary workforce with crazy benefits like being allowed to live free and get paid. Thus begins the transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest events in all of human history.

Race as a social construct was created essentially to protect this labor force. Many laws–not just one–over hundreds of years were used to keep one class of people–black people–enslaved. Politicians traded power for allowing the perpetuation of the institution of slavery, even our conflicted founding father Thomas Jefferson. He wrote all men were created equal, but could not build the country he desired without those free hands to do the work.

What would get good God fearing people to support the systematic violent oppression of their human brothers and sister? A story, a narrative that normalizes terror as truth. At the center of the narrative was the concept that blacks were not humans, and therefore did not deserve human rights. While the institution of slavery ended 7 generations ago, America still struggles to shake this narrative.

Racism is supported by personal prejudice. Individual beliefs about different groups of people perpetuate the kind of thinking that allows police to kill young people unchecked by the electorate. But even if every person in America woke up tomorrow firmly antiracist in their heart, the laws that structure education, housing, economics, justice and other systems would still have racial bias in them. Like a zombie–we may be the body, but if the zombie brain of racism lives, terror ensues.

Over the centuries, hundreds if not thousands of people have tried to game the system by “passing”–taking on the identity of a race other than their own–mostly white. Whites were able to be free, vote, own land–and slaves–and a host of other privileges that came with whiteness. These privileges–which still exist in different ways today–helped keep people bought in to systems of oppression. Black people willing to give up their culture and their ancestry could take on all the benefits of whiteness as long as they stayed hidden.

Anita Florence Hemmings passed as white in oredr to attend Vassar in 1897 — Anita Florence Hemmings passed as white in order to attend Vassar in 1897

Given our history of race and racism, and ignoring the self-hate of abdicating your culture, there were some legal and societal benefits people gained by passing as white–not the least of which was freedom. But what could Rachel Dolezal possibly gain by passing as black? Everything.

In a country where whiteness is too often invisible to white people, Rachel wouldn’t be the first white girl to long to have a (different) culture. No boring suburbia for her, Rachel takes cultural appropriation to a whole new level. No matter how many Mileys and Iggys try to beg ignorance, appropriation is real–and real simple to understand.

Imagine culture is an iceberg. Certain parts of it are visible–food, dance, dress, festivals–while the foundation of what makes a culture are buried deep below the surface–beliefs, values rituals, shared lived realities and ways of being. Millions of people of African decent, shipped abroad during the slave trade or settled here in America carved out a way of surviving , a way of being in the face of unstoppable cruelty, a way of thriving within a system built to destroy them. The soul food, and the blues and the style and hip hop are the visible parts of the legacy of this ongoing struggle, but the deeper elements are essential to making sense of those expressions. Cultural appropriation is when you break off the top of the iceberg and wear it around like a costume. You can dress up, dance, and even bite the rhymes of a culture….

But when you do, you leave behind the larger, more important part of culture: the deeply help beliefs, shared experiences, values, ancestry and destiny-the truth of what it means to be part of that group. This part of the iceberg can’t be pulled out of the water and worn to the VMA’s. They can’t be weaved onto your ends like Hawaiian silky. They can’t belong to you, Rachel, or you either, Iggy.

All of these women cover themselves in a carcass they call blackness made out of stereotypes, stolen hairstyles and narratives that they’ve nicked to make themselves feel cool, beautiful, feel like they are a part of something. At the same time their white privilege gives them entrance into public spheres often denied actual black women, taking their voice and supplanting it with a white fantasy version.

And Rachel was a teacher, someone paid to tell other people how to think about and construct black femininity. This is not how you love a culture–this is how you erase it. Far from helping the community as some–including the NAACP–have suggested, her actions show the worst kind of white privilege–the privilege to define blackness with a white voice.

(Be sure to read upcoming part 2 about the difference between transgender and transracial)

When Your Choices Are Someone Else’s

Recently I had the pleasure of taking a helicopter ride over Boston. Apart from being super fun, the trip, riding high above my usual haunts, gave me a different perspective on the world I live in every day. In my normal existence, I do things you might do: I go to work, I get the items I need to eat and live, and I make an effort to get off the beaten path and enjoy nature.

What I saw from the air was that every livable space was designed, pre-planned. Every place where I could take a step had been planned and designed for the movement of humans and human activity. There was no “free” space, no place that I could go that someone else–a thousand some one else’s–hadn’t already gone. I experienced my day to day world as a place where I decided where I would go, but in fact, my space, like my activities are programmed and structured by any number of systems and institutions around me. What I experience as freedom is really just a very large maze designed to engage me in pro-social choices, like going to work, buying consumer goods, and contributing to the tax base.

It was with this fresh in my mind that I read an article about black women’s bodies by the fab Gail Dines. The article is a solid review of the “issue” of the black booty, placing hypersexual images of black women’s backsides in a historical context. But Gail reports that the push back to her article comes from third wave feminists– women who care deeply about women’s rights and who believe it is a woman’s choice to use her body freely in any way she chooses, including using it in hypersexual displays, pornography, commodification, etc. Women do have the right to express themselves as they see fit. But critical thinking requires that we examine the result of that expression–especially when done in public for money.

Can’t you just break out it of the chains of narrative and do what you like? Of course you can. You can do anything that you want. But while you are yelling, “Yolo!” and waving your shirt over your head–why not? you have the right to!–consider that if you do it in public–say, on camera–and you do it for money you have gone from just expressing your self to being a part of the massive chain of production that is media. And you don’t get to decide alone how people who see your tape will make sense of it. Mass media uses all kinds of visual and verbal codes to tell stories, frequently shuffling out old ideas from history dressed in new duds. Just like those paths I saw from the sky, we should understand that media messages travel along lines planned out before we were even here, referencing–and reinforcing– history, symbolic codes and dominant ideology.

When it comes to Nicki Minaj, or any other recording artist for that matter, we have to remember that “she” is not simply the human born as Onkia Maraj , she is the commodified, processed version of herself, created by a multi-pronged corporate team and packaged for mass consumption in order to make a profit. Sure Onika is some part of that construction, but she and hundreds of other pop stars are part of a very large system, one designed for the primary purpose to make cash.

The surest way for the pop industry to make money is to stick to the low-hanging fruit–sex, scandal, salaciousness. We are cheeky monkeys after all. When we see Nicki posing butt out, its not because her label said, “We want you to explore the deeper aspects of your sexuality in a way that gives voice to your womanhood.” They said, “Sex sells.”

Her displays are calculated business maneuvers designed not by Minaj alone but by a team, one which she herself has said is mostly male. In fact, when the initial cover for her latest single Anaconda was released many were shocked, and Minaj tweeted out that the cover art would be changed. Hmmm, just like when Kanye West leaked his Monster video–where Minaj guest-spit–only to add a disclaimer to it after everyone was shocked by the content. Artistic freedom? Nope, just a clever marketing strategy to drive eyeballs pre-release.

No doubt Nicki is an interesting artist and we can’t dismiss all of what she makes as sheer profiteering–but that Roman phase, tho, dismiss dismiss! She is not always bubble gum barbie, and love her or hate her she is engaging to watch and super creative. Beyond the mass marketed hits we occasionally glimpse other dimensions to the character Nicki Minaj, some unexpected, like this sweet video off her upcoming album The Pink Print with The Game.

Most of what we see from Minaj, though is hip-pop designed to reach a massive audience for maximum profit complete with wild outfits and an over the top persona. What makes her popular is her mashed up expression of contemporary cultural tropes–sex, barbie and bubble gum raps

Think of this horrible idea for comedy: Russell Simmons produced this sketch where Harriet Tubman agrees to sleep with master in trade for cash. Hey, it was just an humorous expression playing with the narrative of slavery and redefining it, right? Nah. The skit was roundly condemned, and even Hustle had to apologize.

Propagating idea that slaves had agency in their own oppression via mass media is tricky to say the least: even if you have the artistic right to play on old tropes, to do so for mass entertainment in a era still so rife with racism, keeping the old narrative alive in new clothes, is calculated profiteering at best and racist at worst.

Leaving slavery days behind, we can look at our own ~~post racial~~ still racist world. Black women are free, have the vote, and are the fastest growing demo in college. Sounds pretty free right? The legacy of racial oppression in this country persists, despite the good news. Nickki Minaj is popular in part because she represents typical media representation of black women–hyper sexual, wild and unpredictable.

Few casual fans will even dig deep enough to find a more complex expressions of Nicki Minaj, leaving us simply with her most visible incarnation-a new era Jezebel. Even as she talks about her new natural look, she reveals the calculated way that she thinks about her image, and that her previous incarnations are not a reflection of her playing with power, but masking insecurities.

We black women are treading paths that have been set up in this country for centuries. Even as we choose new destinations, and walk with more power in our stride, we still live in a country rife with racial inequity. While many of us as individuals may have freed ourselves from slave mind, we live in a country where the image of blacks has been deeply carved in a fresco of oppression from slavery, through Jim Crow to our own modern, sublimated Jim Crow 2.0. We’re individuals and we live in a culture and are a part of democratic and capitalist systems at the same time. We can’t ignore the ways those levels constantly interact. While the power of the individual has primacy in our culture, taking the macro view to better understand the paths that we’re treading will allow us to move off the paths of the past and blaze a truly new future.

You Can’t Handle the Twist

The Army wants you–as long as you don’t have a natural. Even though the calendar reads 2014, and natural hair for black women is more popular than ever, here are the army’s updated hair rules.