blackacrylic:

23.01.11

I had a really interesting discussion about identity, self hate, cultural capital etc with my BFF today and it got me thinking of Margaret Bowland’s selection of paintings of young black girls in white face. When asked to comment on ‘Kenyetta and Brianna’ Bowland that ‘It is a commentary on how women still have to jump through all these hoops to be desirable. These girls are still visible beneath all those layers of crap … they’re still looking back at you.’ I think that a lot of black girls looking at Bowland’s paintings would say that the metaphor transcends beyond the art world. For many black girls Bowland’s paintings are a life metaphor - reflecting a reality where black girls are often marginalised by European standards of beauty. I agree with Cherise Kramarae when she states that ‘For women of color who are viewers, trying to achieve idealised femininity entails not only adjusting or refining one’s body, but also rejecting one’s identity and certain characteristics altogether. To resist this artificial standard is to stand apart from beauty as defined by society’. The frustrating thing for me is that even if you put the fact that there is very little aesthetic diversity across all media platforms to the side, in the black community we impose European standards of beauty on each other with a vengeance. It’s black men that make fun of Alek Wek and it’s black girls arguing about natural hair v relaxer/weave war (e.g ‘These little nappy headed hoes need a terminator’ - Nicki Minaj) etc. It’s this infighting that is the real tragedy.

Somebody told a lie and we believed it.

(via revgoomba)

Source: blackacrylic

5219 Notes/ Hide

  1. spoonfulofequity reblogged this from kairia
  2. inspiremyarts reblogged this from blackacrylic
  3. unconventionalmoose reblogged this from mooglets
  4. sweetthug reblogged this from veramor
  5. socialreciprocitynetwork reblogged this from jphilippe
  6. jphilippe reblogged this from ediblecrayons
  7. maiautopsi reblogged this from guerreragrrrls
  8. lifted4ever reblogged this from dopeeaddicted
  9. toughcookiex3 reblogged this from dopeeaddicted
  10. dopeeaddicted reblogged this from yourcaptaintorrence
  11. yourcaptaintorrence reblogged this from tayroks
  12. tayroks reblogged this from weirdthink
  13. weirdthink reblogged this from guerreragrrrls
  14. aheartofhammeredbrass reblogged this from wickedhorror
  15. wickedhorror reblogged this from expecto-pafr0num
  16. expecto-pafr0num reblogged this from guerreragrrrls
  17. gossamergrins reblogged this from guerreragrrrls
  18. guerreragrrrls reblogged this from blackberrylitmag
  19. eesha reblogged this from afroriot
  20. afroriot reblogged this from cakedonuts
  21. blackberrylitmag reblogged this from cakedonuts
  22. cakedonuts reblogged this from beautiful-ambition
  23. amerindifavouriteimages reblogged this from blackcontemporaryart
  24. explicitpsyche reblogged this from simplesoulfulkush
  25. naturalmadness reblogged this from mandyjane
  26. mandyjane reblogged this from blackacrylic