Good Hair

Good Hair, a wonderfully insightful and entertaining, yet remarkably serious, documentary about African American hair culture.*

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Angels Can't Help But Laugh

A trailer for a documentary of 25 of Hollywood's African-American actresses to discuss how they deal with being in today's entertainment industry.*

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Speak In Speak OUT! Documentary -- Conclusion

Speak In Speak OUT! Documentary -- Part Three

Strong Black Women

What role does the construction of Strong Black Women have in breaking other stereotypes of Black women, such as the Jezebel, the Mammy and the Sapphire?

In a conversation with Ashia Troiano '11, Sylvia Boateng '11 and Sable Mensah '11 (commenting on what strong means in the context of Strong Black Women) and Erika Slaymaker '11 (commenting on white middle-class consumption and assumed engagement), Kiss My Sass Radio discusses the song "What Would You Do?" by City High -- #8 on the charts in 2001.

Listen Here:

http://wsrnfm.org/media/shows/454_2009-04-17.mp3

Womanist & Empowering? Or Just Another Degradation of Black Women?

For those of you unfamiliar with Kiss My Sass Radio, it is a radio show hosted by me (Sable Mensah '11) and a friend (Sylvia Boateng '11). Every week we have a segment called Pop Reality: You Think You Know, But You Have No Idea, where we invite a guest star to talk about the lyrics, videos and personas that go into a current Top 40 song.

Two weeks ago, the focus of KMS Radio's (Pop 101 with an Honors Twist) Pop Reality was Love, Sex, Magic by Ciara and Justin Timberlake and Eva McKend '11 was our guest host. An anomynous caller provided some differing viewpoints.

Both McKend and anomynous addressed desireablility, sexualization of Black women and power dynamics in very different ways and I encourage you to let us know what you think in the comments section or via email: SpeakInSpeakOUT@gmail.com

The show starts about 6 minutes and 20 seconds into the podcast. Enjoy!

http://wsrnfm.org/media/shows/454_2009-03-27.mp3

Point Three: Explanation & Protest Action

Why I am doing this:

There is a lot of power within and amongst Black women. However, because “we’ve been conditioned from an early age by advertising, pop culture, and the news media… [and] surrounded 24/7 by images steeped in racial stereotypes, … there’s simply no way for [black women] not to be influenced by them.” These images have served as weights and chains that have restricted Black women’s movement and ability to exist as whole entities in open and personal spaces within American society. I believe that working to remove the weights and chains and to heal the scars left behind on Black women, their families and their communities is a means of and goal of social change in the Black Freedom Struggle in my generation.

Explanation:

I am focusing and expanding on Point Three: WE WANT DIVERSIFIED, COMPLEX AND NON-MONOLITHIC PORTRAYALS OF BLACK WOMEN.

We believe that the images of Black women constructed by our oppressors have been used to further develop a capitalist and racist agenda historically rooted in the enslavement of African people. We believe that these images have and continue to oppress Black women and their communities beyond the end of chattel slavery and the present day. We believe diversified, complex and non-monolithic portrayals of Black women in the media will break America's psychosis of Black women and free them from the mental and psychological bondages that racist and sexist imageries have entrapped Black women, their communities and America in since before the fruition of this nation.

Protest Action:

I will interviewing various people (academics, artists, students, mothers, etc.), where I will ask them to look at various images and representations of Black womyn, define and interpret them as they understand them and how the work that they do helps them define their own Black womanhood on their own terms.