bell hooks Leads Discussion Entitled: “Are you still a slave? Liberating the black female body.”

http://livestream.com/thenewschool/slave 

Introduced as an “esteemed visionary leader, radical thinker, poet, writer, and cultural critique”, bell hooks, along with Janet Mock, Shola Lynch, and Marci Blackman, sat on a panel entitled “Are you still a slave? Liberating the black female body” at The New School last May. The panelists discussed the black female body and its relation to sexuality, beauty, identity, creativity, and creating an image all the while being constantly policed and politicized by outside hegemonic forces. Because the video is very long (almost two hours,) in this piece I will focus on specific topics that resonated with me most and I will include the corresponding times. I would urge you to listen to the panelist introductions at the start of the video, if only just to get a short background on each woman.

7:25

bell hooks begins the discussion the topic of black female bodies in the film “12 Years a Slave.” hooks describes Patsey, a slave woman in the film played by Lupita Nyong’o, as voiceless throughout the film. Her only role was as a sexual servant, a victim, a woman whose only duty was to satisfy the needs of others. She says that not many critics commented on Patsey’s sexualized presentation because as an audience, we are so use to viewing the sexualized black female body as a non-issue, as normal, even. hooks mentions that some of the sex scenes in the movie are fictive, in that they were not included in the novel. She argues that if the director had the artistic and directive power and imagination to create any fictive scene to include in this true story, why not make it a scene that shows black women as empowered instead of degraded?

While I agree with hooks that too many images of the black female body we view in the media are oversexualized and oftentimes confined to that role, I think the director’s choice to depict the sexualized black female body, even if not true to Northup’s biography, was critical in understand how brutally horrible slavery was, and specifically how much black women had to endure. Several scenes in that film, including women being raped on the slave ship, Patsey’s rape by her master, and even Northup himself raping another slave (fictive!), show the truth in how both white and black men have brutalized, used, and demoralized the black female body throughout history. The director’s choice to include these scenes are significant in expressing where the legacy of the degraded black woman’s body comes from, and unfortunately also in showing those who are implicit in causing this legacy to persist. It is also important to note the distinction between a woman’s willingness to have sex, and a woman being raped. I think that part of hooks’ frustration and indignation toward how black women are portrayed by others, (and how they portray themselves, which I will get to next,) stems from her wondering why anyone would possibly want to continue to view black female bodies as sex objects subject to rape, vulnerability, and powerlessness. It will always be tricky to decide how much of a violent history, such as black women’s subjugation to rape and other terrors, to continue to portray in media as a didactic tool, without having that violence persist into today’s world.

31:00-32:15

This portion of the discussion shifts to talk about Beyoncé’s TIME Magazine cover. hooks describes Beyoncé as looking like a deer in headlights, and in a panty and bra set that some of us may have worn when we were 10 or 12—basically summing Beyoncé up to be sexualized, but childlike, going back to the ways in which black female bodies are oversexualized but also easy to control. hooks says that it is “interesting that she’s being held up as one of the most important people in our nation, in the world, and yet…what is that cover mean to say about the black female body?”

37:15-41:40

The Beyoncé topic returns a couple minutes later, when hooks asserts that this image of a super rich, very powerful female is used in the service of imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and white patriarchy, and that Beyoncé had no control over this. Mock disagrees, saying that Beyoncé surely had control over what she wore, and as manager she had the agency to create an image she wanted. From her “deconstructive point of view,” hooks contends that Beyoncé is then colluding in the construction of herself as a slave, because that image is not a liberating one. Blackman argues that Beyoncé is using the images used against herself and against other black women to reclaim and in turn makes money off of her own image. hooks brushes this off as fantasy, saying that we cannot use a violating image to reclaim ourselves. She says, “the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house,” meaning “we cannot destroy an imperialist patriarchy by creating our own versions of it.” hooks also challenges people to consider if the fascination with Beyoncé would be the same if she were not rich. hooks argues that the combination of Beyoncé’s physical appeal mixed with her wealth and celebrity cause her to be even more eroticized.

I wonder if hooks’ viewpoint and its contrast to the other women on the panel has something to do with generational differences. The other women on the panel are younger than she, and they all seem to think that Beyoncé’s image is overall empowering. I have to say that I agree with the other women: Beyonce’s image on the cover of TIME exudes confidence along with sex appeal (even though she probably could have still been sexy in something other than underwear). Considering that along with all that I know about her music and power as an artist, her choice to break away from her father’s management in order to really become her own artist, and the fact that she does all this while being a black woman makes her a role model, not someone who is colluding in the construction of slavery.

32:20-35:15

After hooks posed the question about Beyoncé’s TIME cover and the image of the black female body, Lynch introduces a term called symbolic annihilation. She defines symbolic annihilation as “1) not seeing yourself, and 2) only seeing yourself denigrated, victimized, etc.” The psychological and emotional effects of constantly seeing those who look like you in a denigrated position are enough to cause serious damage. Lynch gives an anecdote about her daughter, describing how after her daughter saw the trailer for Lynch’s film about Angela Davis, specifically after her daughter saw Angela Davis’ afro, she was then happy to have “big and puffy Angela Davis hair.” Lynch tells this story to support the assertion that creating positive images in the media that black women can relate to and feel uplifted by has more importance than it may appear.

In a similar vein, I want to share some thoughts about relatively new hashtag on twitter, called #blackoutday. Blackoutday usually occurs on Fridays, and it is simply a time and space created by “black twitter” to post pictures of themselves being black and beautiful/handsome. The pictures can literally be of anything, but the purpose is to demonstrate the beauty in blackness and to support and celebrate ourselves and our culture. I searched the hashtag, and I found a tweet from white man that said, “so blacks can have #blackoutday and whites can’t have #whiteotuday? Talk about injustice…smh.” The simple fact that this user is too blind to see that every day is #whiteoutday is frustrating, to say the least. This is not to say that there are not white people who may not feel affirmed, loved, and celebrated on a daily basis. However, generally speaking, white culture dominates, and this tweet is an example of how more often than not white people (in general) refuse just let other cultures celebrate themselves and their importance, without having to have a say in it (a recent example: #blacklivesmatter –> #alllivesmatter. Especially because black people often have more negative stigma than positive imagery attached to their being, celebrations of self, even in small ways such as posting pictures on Twitter, have endless potential to build the self esteem and pride necessary to uplift a race of people who are constantly told they are not pretty enough, not smart enough, not _____enough. If we do not celebrate ourselves, who will? Rather than exclusionary, creating black spaces is a method that we use to create self love in a nation which is structured to, oftentimes literally, erase us. I challenge my readers to search the hashtag on Twitter to witness the overwhelmingly positive images of black and brown people who choose to partake in this uplift, paying attention to the responses, and to then look at the hashtags that are trending around it (for example #blackoutday white people, #blackoutday racist, #blackoutday ugly).

In conclusion, I am glad that I finally got a chance to watch this discussion, as I have come across it many times within the last year. As a black woman, there is no way that representation of the black female body will ever not be important to me, so I embrace the opportunities to listen to and learn from other black female perspectives, academic or otherwise.