American Media, Can Black women get respect?

 These are the faces of victims of America's campaign against Black women. Quvenzhané Wallis received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Beasts of The Southern Wild. Wallis is a 9 year old, Louisiana native that donned her beautiful dress to walk down the red carpet at the 2013 Academy Awards. The Onion Newspaper twitted "Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a cunt, right?#Oscars2013 ". CUNT is the most degrading term imaginable and to use that in reference to an African American child is deplorable. Would The Onion has called Dakota Fanning, a cunt?



The America media has systematically lowered the self esteems of many Black women by presenting images of Whiteness ( blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin) as the only true form of beauty. The images of Black women in/on the media are often negative and the "positive" imagery of Black women is reserved for light skin African American women that can nearly pass for Caucasian. Let's be clear, The Onion's assault on sweet and innocent  Quvenzhané set a precedent! American media could now break and kills the self esteem of young Black girls before they could even bloom, without any form of atonement. The Onion issued a lame and standard apology BUT the damage was already done. The Black community accepted the apology but I did not.

Robin Rihanna Fenty was beaten and assaulted by her boyfriend, Chris Brown. There were speculations by the media that Rihanna may have assaulted Chris first, which lead him to defense himself. The America media desensitizes its' viewers towards degradation and  violence against Black women.  In the case of Rihanna, I read blog post and Facebook statuses where members of the African American community said she needed to be beaten!

The female members of Rutger University basketball team were called "nappy headed hoes" by radio personality Don Imus after they won a championship game. In his defense, Imus stated that rappers use the word and disrespected Black women all the time and NOONE goes after them! He is right!    THINK ABOUT IT- Hip Hop, near its' gangsta rap phase clearly promoted violence and degradation of Black women.

 Can Black women get respect?

We are disappearing from mainstream media and commercials. When we are in mainstream media, we appear in the familiar context of the oversexed Jezebel ( Kerry Washington in Scandal), the unmarried, unloved intellectual (Tamala R. Jones in Castle), loud and ghetto with a PHAT ASS ( Sanaa Lathan in The Cleveland Show) and, the mammy ( Yvette Brown in Community).  We are the butt of jokes by White and Black comedians alike with “ No you didn’t girlfriend” and finger snaps included. 

Historically since slavery,White males has “owned”, “ raped” and disrespected Black women! Now American media wants to demoralize and erase Black women. We need to protest until major network include positive and uplifting images of us!