I want to expand on the black women’s bodies quote.

rosasparks:

I regularly hear this crap, from so-called enlightened folks.

My step MIL ALWAYS manages to insult me, as do many women, who I know through mom-hood.

My fave comments include, ‘well, it looks good on you, but wouldn’t look good on me.’

‘You carry your weight so well. I could never have a chest or ass like that, I’d look like a blimp/chubby/any other obnoxious word.

‘Your booty/butt/ass is so amazing, how did you get that?’

It has always been interesting to me that there is such a focus on a Woman of Color’s body, when in fact, ALL WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT, regardless of their race. There are plenty of white women with booties. There are plenty of black women with no asses.

bubba’s sister just adopted our nephew, a biracial boy, and the comments flying around were so ignorant and yet so predictable, I finally took his sis aside and gave her some well-pointed words. I also gave her some pointers about how care for the baby’s skin and hair, which was so dry, it was falling out and he was so ashy and patchy, his skin was starting to crack.

While I understand that since she’s white and she’s not have first-hand knowledge as to how to care for him, but still? Why are people so lacking in gathering information? If you googled caring for African-American hair, you’d be 12 gazillion listings and what to do. I bet she could figure it out. Same with his skin. The poor child was in PAIN and she was just wondering when someone was going to TELL HER WHAT SHE SHOULD DO?

Recently, I had an interesting encounter. I sat next to 2 older women, coming from donwtown, going home. The white woman, pointed to me and nodded at her black companion said, ‘she have a lovely figure.’ (or some such) She continued with, ‘most white women don’t have such curvy hips.’ Her black friend practically exploded, but simply said, ‘I’m sorry’, to me. The white woman had NO idea, none, as to why what she had said was offensive. She truly thought she was paying me a compliment.

1. I’m brown so, OOPS, LADY!

2. She just played into this whole bullshit we’re talking about. Sad part? She has BLACK FRIENDS! You know, she’s one of those women who says, ‘I’m not racist, my best friend is black!’

I nodded and pulled out my book. I sat quietly, as did the 2 friends. I hope the African-American friend gave the other a talking to, I hope she implored her to reflect on her utter idiocy. Who knows? Maybe they will never be friends again.

Regardless, all of this reminds me that women, regardless of color, have such a battle and internalize so much of the nonsense flying around related to body image and race. The two are intertwined in such a complex way, it’s hard to determine intent. It saddens me that I even have to think about this crap.