Point Two

Going into Columbus Middle School and listening attentively to the conversations of twelve to thirteen year old colored girls makes it hard to deny that the media can be detrimental to the self-images of people. As conversations drift in and out of the all female and predominantly Black classroom, the girls talk about music videos, news, and performances made by Black entertainers. While these conversations are (to them) mere past times, they reveal an often ignored but persevering issue affecting the Black community: the monolithic and oppressive images of Black women in the media today and how these images create mental barriers and psychological damages on young Black girls and Black women. As a woman who has had to deal with overcoming the sexualization and exotification of Latinas throughout the media as well as a person who has grown to be shaped by the girls in Columbus, I can no longer sit back and allow there to be no room for complicating media images.

To clarify, the media we are addressing is mainstream (specifically white mainstream) media via magazines, music videos, ads and news reports. This therefore gives us space to acknowledge those few individuals and communities who have worked diligently to create their own media images that add more depth to the understanding of Black women’s experiences. It also helps critique those media outlets that have been appropriated by whites and thus have constructed a superficial perspective of what it means to be a Black woman.

More significantly we do not want to simply take an oppositional view on all current images of Black women. Our goal is to complicate and diversify these images. It is very easy, for example, to brand all music videos as sexist and oppressive, leaving no room to discuss what that means and what social contexts and constructs have led to the creation of the music videos. We also want to be careful on how we go about identifying oppressive images without alienating the Black women who are portraying these images. For instance, Dr. Raquel Rivera pointed out in her discussion of Reggeaton and women that we cannot ignore the women who find it liberating to dance in sexy ways. The point we are trying to make is that the mostly undressed Black woman on a video or magazine should not be the only let alone the dominant representation of Black women. By creating one specific image of Black women, the media is also constructing rigid expectations for young Black girls and giving these girls little room to aim for other self-portrayals.

I will be mainly concentrating on the second point, which addresses who is making the “big calls” on what gets to go on magazines, TV screens and Ads. On one hand, I will look into who have historical decided the images of Black women. On the other, I will be advocating that Black women themselves become the CEOs, editors and leaders of media outlets. Yet these women must have sense of how media images affect the Black community. It is not just a matter of placing Black women into these positions but also a matter of placing women who consciously understand the need for control of Black women of their own media images and diversifying said images to 1) empower Black women and 2) give an extra layer of depth of what it means to be a Black woman in America.

At its roots, our goal is to politicize Black women via controlling and complicating media images while valuing Black cultural forms of entertainment.