The Castration of the African American Female Body

The Castration of the African American Body is a constant theme that I will continue to refer to. Castration is the removal of the ovaries or testes. This will be our functional, definition of castration; however I would like to use castration in order to refer to, the attempt to dismantle the physical and emotional core of African American People. However, we are resilient people and that will never happen; although attempts have been ample.

I think perhaps what really got me passionate about starting this Blog was a small portion of bell hook's book Killing Rage. She writes about how during slavery, the operation on the female genatalia on enslaved women was very common. She sites one particular, women, I cant remember her name, if you know, please post it. Anyways, this woman's vagina was operated on 30 times. This passage moved me to tears. And I soon began thinking about the ways in which African American Women have subject to castration. Currently, while female castration is not literal in America their are different outlets in which we can see the fascination and objectification of not only the African American female body but the entire community. Historically, there is no better example of the severing of the human body then public lynchings. In which the African American Body was put up for display and then killed by hanging, where large groups of people watched. Another very obvious example of the butchering of the African American Body is their depiction in music videos. Usually, the focus is one particular area of the body(and I am sure we all know what area I am talking about). I will primarily comment on clippings or films that do this. However, I think it should be interesting to follow Michelle Obama during her time to see if she is subject to this type of objectification.

Nevertheless, A professor that I heard lecture one day, went into depth about this sick fascination with the need to monitor and cut up the African American Body when discussing the prison industrial complex. If anyone has more information about that or could point to sources involving that, please post. I am still developing my thoughts as to ways in which the Castration of the Female Body is present. Let me know what you think...

Redefining and Reshaping Images of Women of Color

The function of this Blog is to continually reshape and question the representation of Women of Color within the media. Hopefully, this blog will help to raise issues that not only question but challenge the system in which Women of Color are marginalized. I will do this by addressing the types of roles that Women of Color predominately play in the acting industry as well as follow the current news, and blogs to see how others perceive their roles. However, this blog will not be limited to following the current trends of representation within the entertainment industry. This blog will cover a vast amount of fields relating to the representation of Women of Color. Lastly, I hope to contextualize most of my finding historically. This Blog...may be funny....may be problematic....may be thought provoking. All I ask for is thoughtful comments and suggestion towards the future in order to promote gender and racial equality.