Euro in Us.

EURO IN US.

YASMINE AKIM, SHADES OF NOIR.

In a talk titled, ‘Are You Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body’, (held at Eugene Lang College: New School) Bell Hooks opens the discussion by saying, ‘All my life I wanted to be free, In order to claim that freedom, I had to resist my parents I had to resist the imperialist, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, every step of the way...’ For me freedom means being able to accept oneself without fear, resentment or judgment.

I ended up straightening my hair as I was sick of being called ‘shit locks’ at school. My mother was aware of what was happening on a personal level, and was traumatized when she saw my hair for the first time, she always praised my hair and said that I was blessed – unfortunately I couldn’t see that at the time and felt as if she was holding me back. This is due to the fact that in the big bad world, I was literally bullied, called disgusting and gross for having twists in my hair. I instantly gained an abundance of male attention as soon as I did it, which was confusing. This rejection of self was especially damaging for me personally, as I felt frustrated and constantly objectified by taking this step to ‘beautify’ myself; Boys would grope and spank me in school and call me a Black Barbie or Back-off, I knew from that point that those boys wouldn’t of had the same sense of entitlement if I were white. As Nora Chipaumire put’s it - ‘Is my body subject? Or object?’ What about blackness vs. Africaness? Obviously, hair means different things for different people - it’s just that I felt as if it was something that I had to work through personally – and having a space to talk about this is hard, yet incredibly important for women of color. Subconsciously, I

was trying to look more white, this is something that people experience with skin bleaching – which is commonplace for the same issues related to acceptance.

Even before I was bullied about my hair - My personal experience of ‘not being good enough’ as a child happened subconsciously, for me this confusion started when I realised that I wasn’t as fond of my black doll because I thought that she wasn’t as beautiful as the others. This is my first memory of internalising racism; I challenged this response within myself when I got older but the first time it happened I was too innocent to realise what had been cast over me. To be frank, although my mother is highly intelligent and a woke, critical thinker herself, my father was incredibly racist towards Indians in the 90’s and was judgmental of black men even though he had lots of black friends loved black culture, and had a mixed race daughter. To be fair - He was in and out of prison when he was younger which had had a significant effect on the way that he depicted racial stereotypes, he told me that prisons are literally segregated in terms of race, and everyone of the same race has to stick together in fear of violence.

Growing up, Scary Spice was a massive role model for me, and although all of the spice girls were highly sexualized - it was especially damaging that Mel B was seen as the ‘scary’ one. As a naïve girl, I perceived her image as being an outcast which was upsetting as I felt as if she represented me, I dressed up as her frequently and all I wanted to do was be seen as beautiful like everyone else.. It was frustrating because I

only had the option of being Scary Spice, whereas my white friends could switch roles. Also, Mel B inspired me, but I felt as if she carried the burden of being more sexualized than others, more ‘primitive’ in her leopard print and huge hair. On that note, her hair was powerful and a positive symbol regardless of those systematic assumptions.

Later on in the ‘Are You Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body’ talk Fictional writer, Marci Blackman went on to say, ‘It’s like you say - self representation, and putting it out there counteracts all of these other images that we are confronted with.’ So, bearing this is mind, it is interesting to look at the link between the acceptance and rejection; as well as the juxtaposition between being inside and outside of the box of the expectations of a black women as both an object and as subject. Women of color are seen in varying ways within popular culture, in relation to their skin tone they are often seen as more desirable as light skinned. This can be seen in hip-hop music videos where most of the dancers are ‘lighties’. This rejection of blackness leads to the objectification of darker skinned women as more primitive or readily available due to the fact that they are not as close to the white supremacists view of purity.

frame, this ‘acceptable’ version of blackness is imposed on us when we are socialised as children. What I find really tough is how women of color are sexualised in a way that impacts the confidence of young girls. Empathy is an important tool for social change, and this maddening portrayal of the black female body impacts us all in a twisted manner. We need to create space for ourselves, and our children as change stems from within, with healing and sharing we can rise above these problems and create a new reality equipped with the tools of agency, compassion, reflection and progression.

Sources: in Bibliography

We need an authentic representation of marginalised bodies because authority, or in other words, what Bell Hooks would describe as ‘White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy’ - is conveyed through either the invisibility or fetishization of ‘the other’. Black beauty is constantly commodified and inserted into a toxically idealistic Eurocentric