Clutch: Screw Your Good Ol' Days
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 10:05AM 
Have you seen this cartoon? It’s been making the rounds on social media, at least among my uber-educated, well-connected circles, and surely yours as well. I ignored it the first time I saw it, rolled my eyes the second, and when a “friend” who I respect and thought knew better added it to her status update and declared herself a “’70s lady,” I finally decided to address it.
Um…. What it implies is bull$#@!. Earlier this year, I was on a 17-hour flight back from South Africa and killed time watching Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” which won Best Original Screenplay at the 2012 Academy Awards. Loosely, it’s about a guy (Owen Wilson) who idolizes the past and (whoops! )stumbles back in time to a period he thinks is superior. There, he meets this woman from that prior time who has also stumbled back to the era before her own and thinks that it is even better. It’s a cycle. By the end of the film, Wilson’s character realizes that there’s no time like the present, and he might as well make the most of the time he has.
That is the same point I’d like to make here. No disrespect to my mother’s heyday, or for some of the ladies reading, your granny’s. I’m sure there were lovely women galore, and I don’t mean to denigrate anyone in any way. But to pretend that the women of one era were so far superior and the values of all black women now have gone to hell in a Louis Vuitton hand basket (because we’re all sooo materialistic) is crap. That’s it. Crap.
I will give it to black women of that era; they had better PR. They didn’t have many images, and when they finally got put on, they presented their best — at first. The Seventies gave us the debut of Essence, the first widely distributed publication for black women, and “For Colored Girls …,” which was brilliance personified. But it also gave us free love (i.e., promiscuity) and Blaxploitation flicks, which prominently featured black pimps and “hoes” and cocaine use as iconic. It wasn’t all gravy.
I’ll join the chorus to say we, black folk, got problems: Piss-poor graduation rates, the number of children born out of wedlock or even into committed relationships, and the number of people incarcerated are issues that need addressing — not just criticizing — by us, even if we weren’t the ones who got that trend rolling down hill. I admit that. But to make lace-front-wearing gold diggers who don’t know the difference between a pot and a pan the face of the current generation of black women isn’t just unfair; it’s also inaccurate. So is linking submission to men as a virtue and labeling “strong” and “independent” women as a vice. Please explain to me how it benefits black women or the black race as a whole to have women who are weak and dependent.
I’ll wait.
Black women are as varied, contradictory, and multi-faceted as any other race of ladies. But when those other women get portrayed as loose, gold-digging, and otherwise unsavory, it’s presented as one representation of the women their race embodies, not the part that represents the whole. Of course, there are the women among us who could do better, who should know better, or who weren’t taught better (or just didn’t listen). But there are a whole host of us, too, who were raised by those good ol’ days and duly praised women of the Seventies who embody their likeness, literally and figuratively, and still carry ourselves with the best of their values, morals, and common sense. The intersection of our race and gender shouldn’t inherently have us all portrayed as ratchet.
Read more: here
Reader Comments (5)
T H I S !!!
"I will give it to black women of that era; they had better PR. They didn’t have many images, and when they finally got put on, they presented their best — at first. The Seventies gave us the debut of Essence, the first widely distributed publication for black women, and “For Colored Girls …,” which was brilliance personified. But it also gave us free love (i.e., promiscuity) and Blaxploitation flicks, which prominently featured black pimps and “hoes” and cocaine use as iconic. It wasn’t all gravy."
LOVED IT!
I agree.
In that same token I just want more discussion of how we can actually deal with the issues of the people who do in part hold some representation of the stereotype. Saying "not all of us are like that" and waving our degrees in the air while spewing articulate and thoughtful rhetoric in our defense will not change the minds of anyone who chooses to believe in the truth of the stereotype. To me, it almost feels like energy wasted. Stereotypes unfortunately are inescapable as long as it is human nature of the mind to categorize. As for the Black people who cosign media like the cartoon, I'd say they know better but don't know how to, or are just to lazy to separate the real issues underlying the stereotype, some of which you mentioned in your article. It's easier to copy and paste a picture to represent a few isolated thoughts than it is to take the time and formally address them. That's so ironic, choosing a misrepresentation used as a face for another misrepresentation.
Again, I get your stance and I too hate it. BUT I'm tired of discussing it if we're not really going to ever take responsibility and face the folks on the other side of the fence.
I completely agree with you. There are both types of women in all eras and it's not fair to protray the newer generation as being low self esteem, uneducated gold diggers. Truth be told, black women have come a long way from the seventies. There are a lot of educated, self loving independent women of our generation. But black people as a whole aren't going to get anywhere if we keep putting our own people down. I guess it's easier to make a cartoon with such ignorance than taking a stand and trying to solve the issues in the black community besides the way we look.
I don't necessarily disagree. I would like to offer my opinion that the majority of the portrayals of black women in the media present the gold-digging, materialistic, promiscuous, more fine than educated, booty-bouncing, black woman; which is most likely why the masses gravitate toward this representation of black women as a whole. If we just listened to radio, watched prime-time TV, or became privy to water cooler convos at the office--that is what's being shown, rapped about, and discussed. The images need to change to begin to address the problem.
"I just want more discussion of how we can actually deal with the issues of the people who do in part hold some representation of the stereotype. Saying "not all of us are like that" and waving our degrees in the air while spewing articulate and thoughtful rhetoric in our defense will not change the minds of anyone who chooses to believe in the truth of the stereotype. To me, it almost feels like energy wasted."
Thanks for your comment. I actually feel like the problems are mostly what get discussed, even on Black sites. Very rarely do I even hear mention of the women are doing what they are supposed to. It's like those women are invisible. No, you don't get a medal for doing the right thing, but I don't think anyone should be ignored for it either.
It IS important to say, "hey, there's a story that's not being told" and "sensible women do exist!" To me, silence condones the negative images.
I do think one HUGE issue which you allude to as well is that as much we talk about problems, we don't confront them. And too, talking about, or even critiquing, doesn't mean finding solutions. All the chatter needs to lead to some sort of action.
Thanks for reading!