US Attorney General Loretta Lynch Sworn In!

America, we finally have a United States Attorney General!

She had to wait over 160 days for it,  but Loretta E. Lynch is now officially the second woman, second African American and first African-American woman to become Attorney General.

She was sworn in earlier today, and here's that historic moment.

Laverne's On The Cover Of ESSENCE

To understand the significance of this ESSENCE magazine cover, I have to take you back to the late 80's

Tracy Africa Norman was in the process of shooting her sixth ESSENCE magazine cover for an upcoming Christmas issue.  At the time Tracy worked for the third largest modeling agency in New York, and she was a hot model with major contracts like Avon, Ultra Sheen and Clairol.

But Tracy was also an undisclosed transwoman, and her cover was about to be blown to ESSENCE editor-in-chief Susan L. Taylor by a shady individual from Tracy's old neighborhood who recognized her.

Tracy was outed, and the sixth cover shoot abruptly ended along with much of Tracy's US modeling career.  

So you can imagine my surprise when knowing this history, I saw this ESSENCE cover of Laverne with Alfre Woodard, Nicole Bahari and Dinai Gurira.   I'll have to admit I did shed a tear or two when I saw the cover because I thought about what happened to Tracy and just how far the African-American transfeminine ranks have come since then.  

But congratulations Laverne.   Looking forward to the day that ESSENCE gives a trans woman a solo cover be it you, Ines Rau or some other trans woman or trans model. 

Looks like that day may be coming sooner than I thought it would.  

Why Joan Rivers FLOTUS Comment Was Racistly Insulting

As an unapologetically proud Black trans woman, one of the cornerstones of this blog is working to build self esteem, confidence and pride amongst my sisters in being Black women of trans experience.

Joan Rivers'' transmisogynist comment aimed at First Lady Michelle Obama Wednesday pissed me the hell off on a lot of levels.  Here's why it wasn't humorous nor complimentary

There has been a determined effort by the conservafool slime machine and conspiracy conservawackos  to plant this meme in the media that the 5'11" FLOTUS is a transwoman.   While we in Black trans world would be proud to embrace her as one of our sisters if she was,  there is overwhelming evidence she showed up on this planet on January 17, 1964 in Chicago in a cis female body, has given birth to two beautiful daughters, and has spent the last 50 years of her life in that gender role.

Congratulations Joan, you just did the conservafools dirty work for them by taking that crap our of their cesspools of right wing crazy and injecting it in the mainstream media.

It's infuriating because this First Lady, even before her husband was elected to the Oval Office, has been subjected to unprecedented levels of disrespect up to and being compared to a simian, un-American, 'racist' , 'Stokely Carmichael in a dress', called ugly and having 'that's a man' shade thrown at her by comedian Jay Mohr in 2009. 

And yes, Rivers made a borderline racist 'Blackie O' comment in 2011, so this isn't the first time she's thrown shade at the First Lady.   Now she's weaponized 'transgender' and aimed it at the First Lady as an insult.

Another element of why I'm not happy about the comment is that it plays into the racist four century old pattern of whiteness and white supremacy pushing the unwoman meme that demonizes the femininity of Black women.

If you have a group of women that you put on a societal pedestal as the paragons of beauty, fertility and the femininity gold standard that all women should aspire to, then it stands to reason that you would set up a group of women as the ones to not emulate. 

Unfortunately Black women are the ones who have been saddled with that problematic situation for the last 400 years due to the toxic legacy of the Atlantic Slave Trade.  With Michelle Obama being the defacto public face of Black womanhood as the president's wife, her femininity has been under severe assault.

It also fit into an ongoing pattern of throwing transphobic shade at any Black woman you dislike whether that woman is Fantasia, Serena Williams, Brittney Griner or the FLOTUS.   Any woman who doesn't fit the critic's narrow designation of what a woman is get saddled with transmisogynistic insults or 'that's a man' shade to police her gender presentation.

The fact the comment came out of a white woman's mouth, and one of Jewish heritage who have struggled at times through their own  tortured history with being demonized, also heightened the insensitivity and offense level of Rivers' transmisogynistic comment when seen through the eyes of Black women.

It's also telling to note that Michelle Obama's documented 50 years of life on this space rock, delivering and raising two Black female children of her own and being the First Lady of the United States still didn't shield her from being attacked by the Black Unwoman Meme and having her femininity denigrated. 

And finally, when you look at it from my vantage point as a Black transwoman, I'm pissed off by the comment because it fauxgressively implied to the world by cattily weaponizing transgender as a insult you hurled at the First Lady, that being a transwoman is something to be ashamed of, or makes you less than you as a elderly white woman with multiple surgical enhancements.  

Let me emphatically state it is not insult to be called or something to be ashamed of to be a trans woman. Neither is it shameful to be a Black woman no matter how hard whiteness and white supremacy tries to sell those woof tickets to us. 

The only person that has anything to be ashamed of is Joan Rivers for parting her collagen enhanced lips to say something that jacked up in the first place.

Erika Harold Loses Illinois GOP Congressional Primary Bid

A few months ago I wrote about on these electronic pages former 2003 Miss America Erika Harold running for Congress in the Illinois Republican primary against current 13th District US Rep. Rodney Davis and getting racistly dissed for her trouble. 

In addition to that racist email from a GOP county chairman calling Harold “a streetwalker.” that led to his resignation, Harold according to Politico endured a bizarre snub at the Illinois state fair, flat out rejection when she asked the Illinois Republican Party to use GOP voter data and was denied, and constantly heard the frequent suggestion she would be better off running for some other office besides a Congressional seat.

You let bizarro world conservafools like Suzanne Atanus run for Congress, and she's your nominee against Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D).   So why do you Republicans have a problem with a 33 year old Illinois born mixed race former Miss America who spoke at your 2004 convention, at CPAC, got the endorsement of the Chicago Tribune and is a Harvard Law graduate? 

Oops, never mind.  I withdraw the question. 

She's an American citizen who can run for any office she wishes.  While I don't care for her conservative political stances, the only thing we see eye to eye on is that she's anti-death penalty.   But those conservative stances still didn't help her in this race. 

The Illinois primary election was held on Tuesday night and her challenge to Rep Rodney Davis fell short.   She did however serve notice that she has a bright political future in Illinois by garnering an impressive 41.2% of the votes (20,921)  in this primary to the incumbent Davis' 54.6% (27,773).

This race is a real world example of why Republicans don't have a snowball's chance in Hades of making themselves attractive to African-Americans. 

While I'm no fan of her politics because I'm aligned politically with 90% of the rest of the African-American community, I still didn't appreciate along with many left of center Black peeps seeing the sistah get dissed like she did in the GOP ranks.  

And if she's not "Republican enough' for you, who is?   You continue to reinforce what I have unflinchingly said about the GOP when I call it the political arm of white supremacy.  You have also reinforced by your treatment of her the well deserved reputation that you don't like women, and especially women of color.

She's also managed to do what all your cookie chomping kneegrow sellouts haven't been able to do in the history of the blog--get me to write a post about a Republican in which I'm not slamming them from the first syllable of it..   

This latest GOP rebranding effort will fail just like the previous ones when you continue to diss thoughtful people like Harold.  It's people like her you should be running to embrace and putting out there as your standard bearers, not batturd wing sellouts like Mia Love, Sen. Tim Scott and Allen West who have zero chance of getting our votes or our community's respect..   

But as a Democrat I thank you for continuing to be the stupid party. 

Lordy, Lordy Tyra Banks Is 40!

Well peeps, y'all know I have much love for multimedia personality Tyra Lynne Banks, who is having a milestone birthday today.   She was born on this date in Inglewood, CA in 1973.  

She first became know for her history making and lucrative modeling career that started in 1991.  Banks not only ripped the runways for Chanel, Valentino and Fendi among others, but was featured in advertising campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana, Yves St. Laurent, Nike and Ralph Lauren.

She became the first African-American model to appear on the covers of GQ, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue twice (1996-1997 solo), and in 1997 the Victoria's Secret catalog.   She was also one of the original Victoria's Secret Angels from 1997-2005.

She has acted in television shows, done several movies, music videos, and currently produces and hosts America's Next Top Model.  From 2005 to 2010 she produced The Tyra Banks Show, a talk show geared toward an audience of 18-35 year old women that won a Daytime Emmy in 2008.

Tyra is also a published author, releasing the novel Modelland in September 2011 that hit the New York Times Best Seller List in October 2011.  She co-authored another book that's on my shelf today called Tyra's Beauty, Inside and Out. 

One of the reasons I love Ms. Banks so much is that at the time I started my transition, I was still having issues about my height.  Tyra's blossoming modeling career taking off at the same time I was starting to go through my metamorphosis was a factor in helping me getting over my height issues and deal with the reality there are sistahs who are not only my height but taller.

And it was nice to know that one of the people I observed and liked as a feminine role model was not only as down to earth as she appeared to be, but also was a supporter and ally of the trans community.

She put her money behind her support when she helped a trans sister out who I have had the pleasure of getting to know in Isis.

So now that Tyra's hit another milestone birthday, is still looking fabulous and handling her business, what's next for our birthday girl?

Going to be interesting to see how this next decade of her life shapes up and if she can top what she has spectacularly accomplished in her 20's and 30's.  

Happy milestone birthday Tyra!   May you have many more. 

Transmisogyny Isn't Just Being Aimed At Black Trans Women Anymore

Y'all know I love my people and my culture across the African Diaspora.  But damn, I wish elements of y'all would grow up and join the 21st century when it comes to gender identity issues.

One of the things I get tired of in the Black community is the at times willful ignorance around gender and gender identity issues.   News flash, they just don't affect trans folks, they affect all of us because everyone has a gender identity and expresses it in different ways.

As I have pointed out before, you get half your genetic material from mommy, half from daddy.  We are all blends and combinations of traits from our parents. 

As medical science is increasingly proving, there's a thin line and series of events that happen during pregnancy that determines whether you come out of mommy's womb in a masculine or feminine body.. 

One of the things I'm also tired of is the scourge of transmisogyny being gleefully spread by the TERF's and clueless cis women for the last 40 years.   While we trans women are the main targets of it, because the right wingers are giving up on their War Against Marriage Equality, they are shifting targets and money to ratchet up the War on Transwomen.

And because they are doing that, their sliming of transwomen will also have collateral damage effects in terms of that transmisogyny backed by right wing money hitting Black cis women as well.  
What a lot of peeps don't realize is that when you transition, in addition to having to deal with sexism, being walking targets for sexual assault, and all the issues that come with walking Planet Earth in a feminine body,  Black trans women also inherit all the baggage that Black cis women have had to deal with for the last four  centuries in terms of the 'unwoman' meme. So what am I talking about when I say the 'unwoman' meme?

If society has set up one group of women (white women) as the paragons of beauty, virtue and fertility for all women to aspire to, then it stands to reason that you also have to come up with a counternarrative of women you point to that are the ones you don't want others to wish to aspire to be and hate on..

And guess what group of women got that narrative assigned to them?   Yep, Black women.

They are called every pejorative you can throw at them. They are called 'ugly', even by fools that are social scientists.  Even their own men, who are supposed to be their defenders and protectors join in the assault on Black womanhood by leveling a weaponized level of the b-word at them courtesy of gangsta rap music. 

And one of the words they'll get to throw at cis Black women as a weaponized insult since the b-word will increasingly come under attack is the t-word.

If you're 4' 11", 5' 11" or 6' 11" with your heels on, you don't have that classic Coke bottle feminine curves, are on the darker end of those 23 shades of Black skin tones, don't possess the sistah booty, are an athlete or don't fit the stereotypical standards of femininity, your femininity will get called into question, especially as a Black woman.

One of the pejoratives they will use while doing so is the t-word.  

And it won't be just Black men engaged in the process of doing so, it will also be Black women policing the femininity of other Black women using 'that's a man' shade.   

If you think I'm kidding about that, check out the Black gossip blogosphere and see the comments that get aimed at Wendy Williams, Fantasia, Brittney Griner and Joseline Hernandez

If Black cis women are getting their femininity disrespected, what hope is there for Black transwomen to even have ours acknowledged by the greater Black community?   Until we girls like us are recognized as the beautiful women we are inside and out, it's going to be difficult to bring down the levels of anti-trans hate violence the transmisogyny fuels inside our community.. 

Bottom line Black community is you need to cease and desist with aiming transmisogyny not only at us, but at Black cis women.   It's not cool, and the off the charts anti-trans violence directed toward is is spilling over to affect the lives of cis Black women .  

     .  

Kerry Washington Gets Emmy Nomination!

Y'all know how much I love Kerry Washington, and was happy to hear that she has received an Emmy nomination for her critically acclaimed work on my fave show Scandal.

She was nominated for the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category, but I was shocked and not surprised to learn that in the 64 year history of the Emmys, in this particular category only four African-American women have ever been nominated and NONE of them won.

In case you're wondering who those four women are, Debbie Allen (“Fame”; 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985), Alfre Woodard (“St. Elsewhere”; 1986), Regina Taylor (“I’ll Fly Away”; 1992, 1993) and Cicely Tyson (“Sweet Justice”; 1995)

What's even more disgusting is that no African-American woman has been nominated for this category since 1995 and Kerry Washington is the first African-American woman to receive a nomination in this category in the 21st Century. 

There have been others who deserved nominations for their work such as Jada Pinkett Smith for HawthoRNe, Khandi Alexander for Treme and Angela Bassett during the final season of ER but all were snubbed. 

That dearth of African-American winners is probably one of the reasons I tend to ignore the Emmys when they are on TV, but I won't be doing so this year because it could be a historic night.

Don Cheadle and Alfre Woodard also received Emmy nominations..

It will be interesting to see if Kerry Washington's stylishly dressed self will be picking up that Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series trophy on September 22.

Happy 105th Founders Day, AKA!

January 15 is not only Dr. King's birthday, but is also the 105th anniversary of the founding on the Howard University campus of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Proud AKA women  are celebrating this day along with the hundreds of thousands of college-educated women around the world who proudly wear the salmon pink and apple green colors of the world's first Greek letter sorority founded by and later incorporated for African-American women.

Those proud AKA women  include my mom, sister and several cousins.

AKA has expanded its ranks since its January 15, 1908 founding to include women of all ethnic backgrounds who have been invited to join, and I hope one day those invitations get extended to trans women down with the historic mission of the sorority.

AKA women can be found in many fields from education to sports to business to politics, and are trailblazing leaders in mine and other communities in the States and around the world.   You can bet that if an African-American woman is blazing trails in various fields, she is wearing salmon pink and apple green

Happy Founders Day AKA!

2013 Williams Watch- Australian Open Starts Today

Another tennis season is about to start with the first Grand Slam tournament of the year in the 2013 Australian Open and yep, my fave tennis playing siblings are in it to win it as the haters continue to hate..

It starts today on our side of the International Date line (Monday) in Melbourne and runs through January 26..

Serena finished 2012 on a Grand Slam roll in taking 'Williams'-don, the Olympic singles gold medal and the US Open and teaming with big sis Venus in taking the Wimbledon doubles and defending the Olympic doubles gold medal they won in Beijing. 

Serena starts off the chase for a 2013 calendar year Grand Slam in the best shape of her career, is seeded number 3 in the women's singles tournament and won the Brisbane International warm up tournament earlier this month without dropping a set .  Little Sis starts her quest for her sixth Australian Open title with a first round match against Edina Gallovits-Hall of Romania

Venus starts this 2013 Australian Open in pursuit of her first ever title seeded 25 and with a first round match against Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan.   She made it to the 2003 final but lost 6-7(4-7), 6-3, 4-6 to Little Sis. 

And yes haters, the Williams sisters are playing doubles in this tournament.  They are seeded number 12 on the doubles side and in pursuit of their fifth Aussie Open double crown and first since 2010.  They will take on in their opening round doubles match Camila Giorgi of Italy and Stefanie Voegle of Switzerland 

So good luck ladies, and may y'all have long deep runs in the singles and doubles tournaments. 

Jemele Hill Gets Racist Letter

The latest episode of the 'Post Racial America My Azz' department involves ESPN columnist Jemele Hill.

I love watching her live up to the long, proud legacy of siatah sportscasters with her commentary on all things sports related on the various shows and platforms on the ESPN network .

In addition to her ESPN.com columns and appearances on ESPN Radio, she appears on the shows First Take and Around The Horn and just completed her first season appearing as a sideline reporter for college football broadcasts on ESPN and ESPN2. 

Was not to happy to find out some pointed hood wearing waste of DNA took his time to go old school with his hatred.   He took the time to write Jemele a racist letter that she shared with her Twitter followers.

She's shown her sense of humor about the whole incident, quipping that homeboy accomplished the feat of racially insulting her without resorting to the n-word.  But it's still no joke she even received that stank letter in the first place, much less homey felt vanillacentric empowered enough to write it in the first place. .

And as I like to say about a lot of my haters, he hates you because he wants to emulate you.

Live Long And Prosper, Nichelle Nichols!

Today is the 80th birthday of iconic actress and space enthusiast Nichelle Nichols who was born on this date in Robbins, IL in 1932.

All us Trekkies know of her most famous role as Lt. Nyota Uhura of Star Trek and have heard the story of how she nearly quit the show after the first season but was convinced to stay by a Star Trek fan by the name of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. 

In addition to making American television history with th first interracial kiss, in the later Star Trek movies her character was subsequently promoted to Commander in the movies involving the original cast.

She has been an inspiration for people of my generation and subsequent ones to not only follow their dreams, but reach for the stars.  

She was Dr. Mae Jemison's inspiration to become a NASA astronaut and was recruited by her during the 70's when Nichols worked for NASA as part of a program to not only encourage African-American youth to consider math and science careers but recruit women and minority astronauts.

Two of the people she recruited, Charles Bolden and Lori Garver are the current administrator and Deputy Administrators of NASA.

She also recruited Dr. Sally Ride, Col Guion Bluford, Dr Ronald McNair and Dr Judith Resnik

She has served since the 1980's on the Board of Governors for the National Space Society and is considered part of the NASA family.    She and many of her Star Trek castmates were on hand when the space shuttle Enterprise was christened.

Whoopi Goldberg was inspired to become an actress because of her and there are numerous women born in the late 60's and 70's who are named Nichelle or have it as a middle name.

Live long and prosper Nichelle, and happy milestone birthday!

Meet Tia Norfleet-NASCAR Driver

Move over Danica Patrick, there's another female driver about to hit the NASCAR circuit and she's a sistah.

She's 25 year old Tia Norfleet, the first and only African-American female driver in NASCAR.  She's the daughter of Bobby Norfleet, a NASCAR racer in the 90's who was mentored by legendary African-American racing pioneer Wendell Scott. 

Tia fell in love with racing early, and has competed in the drag racing and short track late models circuit in which she earned two top 15 finishes.

Her goal is to not only win the Daytona 500, but expand NASCAR's popularity beyond its current demographic base.  She also want to see more person of color get involved in NASCAR and become drivers, pit crew members and even engineers.


But I'll let Tia talk in this video.

.


Norfleet received her NASCAR racing license in August and for now hasn't released her racing schedule, but when she does, I might be tuning into a NASCAR race or two to watch my fellow Taurus' historic car number 34 compete instead of bypassing any channel that a NASCAR race is on now.
 

Black Trans Women Became Visible Because We Had To Be

Was sent a link by reader Segmoh Hareema Akinak to a Clutch magazine story by Ella Vincent discussing how Black LGBT women became visible.  

Was surprised to note that it included me and Janet Mock in it since when they discuss women in these online heteronormative and cisgender oriented spaces, far too often trans women get left out of the discussion or dissed when people try to include us in it..

I appreciate the shout out, but I do need to expand on the #girlslikeus portion of Vincent's piece.

Black trans women are visible because we had to be for our own survival, political evolution and our sanity.  We face anti-trans violence aimed at us that we will sadly be memorializing this week in TDOR events here in the States and around the world.  We were getting ignored not only by our own transpeople and our African-American family inside and outside the community, but being erased from the trans and LGBT history we helped make.

Don't even get me started about the Black unwoman meme that is magnified when it focuses its negativity on African descended trans women and slaps us with a definition of Black trans femininity that is not who we see when we look in the mirror. 

In the face of that, it amazed me when I read about the Gallup survey that noted that 4.6 percent of African-Americans identify as LGBT along with 4 percent of Latinos and 4.3 percent of Asian-Americans while only  3.2 percent of white Americans say they are LGBT.   But the media faces representing the LGBT community and dominating the leadership ranks of professional TBLG rights organizations lobbying for it are far too often white ones.  The minuscule numbers of transpeople involved in those Gay, Inc organizations far too often aren't transwomen of color either. 

It's been glaringly obvious to me since the 90's that we desperately needed out and proud Black transwomen telling our stories and offsetting the disco era hate speech pushed by radical feminists about trans women. 

I've been part of that effort since 1998 and I'm happy I now have help in this vital visibility project from a new generation of out and proud trans women such as Janet Mock, Isis King, Laverne Cox, Rev. Carmarion Anderson, Bali White, Danielle King, KOKUMO, Dee Dee Chamblee and countless others around the country.

It's also wonderful that in addition to the new attitude we Black trans women have about fearlessly telling our chococentric truths about our transfeminine lives and stepping up to leadership roles in the various communities we intersect and interact with, we also have our trans elders such as Cheryl Courtney-Evans, Gloria Allen, Miss Major, Tracie Jada O'Brien, and Sharyn Grayson passing on their hard won knowledge and community history to us so we can pass on that history to future generations of African descended trans kids and our allies.

As New Black Transwomen, we not only had to become visible to attack the shame, guilt and fear that deleteriously impact our lives, we needed to do so in order to own our political and personal power, love ourselves and build pride in becoming and being who we are as proud African descended women. 

Black transwomen have become and are visible in this second decade of the 21st century because for the sake of the transkids wishing to walk in our pumps, we had to be.  

 

2012 Women's Media Center Social Media Award Voting Commences

As part of this year's Women's Media Awards, the Women's Media Center is opening the voting of its Social Media Award to the public.  

I wasn't nominated for this one (this time) but I do want to get the word out about this and get you to cast your votes before the October 29 closing date for one of the nineteen incredible bloggers, social media gurus, activists, and new media makers for gender justice.

The winner will be honored at the Women's Media Awards on November 13, 2012 in New York City.

I do have a tough choice to make before the voting closes .  I personally know four of the nineteen outstanding nominees for the Social Media Award. .

Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend,  Tamara Winfrey Harris of What Tami Said , Janet Mock of JanetMock.com and Kimberley McLeod of ELIXHER.com are all deservedly nominated in what is a high quality competition chock full of deserving winners..

You can cast your votes here and you can only do it one time     

Last Dance: Donna Summer Passes Away

You peeps who have been longtime readers of my blog know that I long ago revealed my unabashed love for all things disco on the electronic pages of this blog.  

One of my favorite singers during that period was the Queen of Disco, LaDonna Adrian Gaines, better know to the world by her stage name of Donna Summer.  Of course, Donna could sing any style of music with her mezzo soprano vocal range as she repeatedly proved throughout the late 70's and 80's, but she made her name and rep during the 70's 

Summer was an NAACP Image Award winner, a five-time Grammy Award winner and the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the US Billboard chart.   She also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a thirteen-month period from 1977-1979.

She was also nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 and 2011 but to mine and many of her fans disappointment wasn't chosen for enshrinement.   Hope they will rectify that oversight soon.

I was shocked and saddened to hear that Donna Summer passed away this morning at age 63 after a battle with lung cancer.

My music collection runneth over with many of her CD's, and there was more than a few times on my way to work I played or sang off key She Works Hard For The Money and countless others of my favorite songs of hers.

But unfortunately we won't get to hear her sing them live any more because another one of our iconic singers and part of my teen years has unfortunately made her Last Dance. 

Rest in peace, Donna Summer.   Your family, I and your devoted fans around the world are definitely going to miss you.  

Condoleezza For VP?

About two months ago Renee of Womanist Musings and I were having a conversation about the 2012 presidential race, in which we are as of today 200 days from Election Day.

We were discussing the jacked up Republican primary, agreed that Mitt Romney would probably be their nominee and then started musing about who would be his vice presidential pick. 

One of the names Renee mentioned was Condoleezza Rice, the former Secretary of State in the GW Bush misadminiistration.  While it was an intriguing idea as she laid out the case for why he'd do it, I dismissed it at the time.  I told her that if Condi were going to run for office, it might be for one of the US senate seats in California because the Republicans in that state want to defeat Sen. Barbara Boxer (and Sen Dianne Feinstein if she doesn't retire) in the worst way.  If current Cali Attorney General Kamala Harris decided to run for the US Senate or the governor's chair they would want her as a counterbalance to that..   

I also opined during our political conversation that if Mitt was going to take a chance on a non-white VP pick, it would probably be a Latino like Sen. Marco Rubio who the Tea Klux Klan likes since he is trailing badly with Latino voters and has to close that gap ASAP to have any chance of winning.

Well, my favorite Canuck may be on to something.   While I was perusing Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word show on MSNBC they talked about the Veepstakes and who peeps would like to see as the VP nominee.  Interestingly enough,  the person topping a CNN poll was survey says, Condoleezza Rice. 
 
So my Timmy's Icecap loving homegirl was ahead of the political curve (as usual).  But before you tell me I told you so Renee, Condi says she isn't interested in the job.   

But if she does take it, your next icecap is on me.

What's The Black 'Unwoman' Meme?

I've written a lot of posts in which when I talk about femininity and how it's expressed in Black women, I mention the 'unwoman' meme.

But what is the 'unwoman' meme I talk about?

It refers to the fact that in the way society is set up, the white woman is considered the paragon of virtue, fertility, beauty and femininity.   Those cool points for white womanhood go up if she has blonde hair, blue eyes, a flat behind and a classic hourglass figure.

She is held up by whiteness and white supremacy as the beauty standard by which all women no matter what their ethnicity should aspire to and that all men regardless of their ethnicity desire.

Well, if you have one group of women held up at the standard of what positive womanhood is all about, it stands to reason that conversely another group gets demonized as an example of the women you don't want to emulate. Thanks to the slave trade and other factors, that demonization fell upon African descended women.

For the last four centuries African descended women have had their beauty denigrated.  Pseudo science has been created and aimed at them designed to justify and reinforce the stereotypes hurled at them as Satoshi Kanazawa recently demonstrated.

Black women have been called less intelligent even if they have multiple degrees earned with summa cum laude grades.  They have had their talents downplayed, dismissed or had it presumed cheating occurred  to get them to whatever level of success they achieve.

They are hypersexual, 'angry', transsexuals ..well, you get the drift.  It's so bad that even our own men participate in our demonization.

It has had a deleterious effect on African descended women and their self esteem at times, especially when you throw colorism and relationship drama into the mix.  Don't even get me started about the effect of the unwoman meme on African descended transwomen and our self esteem as well

Despite knowing we are women who didn't get the body at birth, we not only get painted with the same 'unwoman' brush our cis sisters do, we get additional crap and disrespect hurled at us specifically aimed at transwomen. 

It sets up a never ending battle for Black cis and transwomen to 'prove' that we don't fit the unwoman stereotypes, and even when we don't, we still get whacked by them as the First Lady of the United States and anytah, no matter what her status can tell you.

'Dark Girls' Documentary

All Black women get smacked with the 'unwoman' meme, but it's even worse on the dark skinned sisters.

Check out this clip from the documentary Dark Girls, directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry which explores the biases and deep seated attitudes inside and outside African American culture about skin color.


Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.