sexualization

One in a Million

Posted on by karyn deshields

I recall wearing my hair down to school, it was long and curled. At the front half I had a ponytail and the back half was loose. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t cute!

I walked into school and one of the teachers, a Black lady, in a Catholic school full of nuns, said to me, hands in her hip…”Your hair is so pretty, but you know you look fast like that.” I was all of ten, and I was certain I wasn’t “fast” and didn’t look a day over ten. So I kept walking to my locker. I have a history of ignoring tomfoolery.

… but it was something I heard more than once. At my friend’s sweet sixteen with my fitted above the knee dress. Once from a friend of my mother’s after her daughter did my hair in a style other than braided ponytails. And in reference to my Black girl friends throughout elementary, middle, and high school. Likewise we were all the subject of far to many grown men’s attention from as low as the age of eight until adulthood. I assure you, the lot of us were very innocent and neither sexually suggestive or sexually active.

Our mere presence is sexualized.

The number of times I heard remarks about how my and my peers looks, bodies, hair, or long legs (they certainly weren’t talking about me because I’m the Corgi of the group) were going to bring attention, boys, and trouble. And we all know trouble was code for anything from attention to pregnancy in Black culture.

Trust, at 10, I was still into Jem and the Holograms. Sex was the last thing I was interested in. But black girls are still fighting Jezebel stereotypes. So there’s that.

…

My senior year of high school Aaliyah, the singer, and R. Kelly were alleged to have gotten married. I knew she was just two years my junior, and I couldn’t imagine that could be true… until Vibe magazine published the marriage certificate. The next time I saw Aaliyah on tv, on the Soul Train Awards, the crowd boo’ed her, but older Black women yelled and screamed whenever R. Kelly took the stage.

Had she not wore her hair down, over her eye, and crop tops… he would have never bothered her, but she enticed him with her fast ways.

That seemed to be the consensus. This girl was being a teenager, and he was being an adult sexual abuser. Yet she was seen as the problem. So much so, when she was finally separated from him by her family, she suspended her music career for awhile and he kept gaining popularity. He was more popular… WITEF?!??? How does that happen?

Well… Malcolm was correct.

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” -Malcolm X

This sick and twisted bastard was able to continue, as a free man, doing this to countless Black teenage girls. Countless. These girls, some of whom were basically handed over to him in exchange for fame and others of whom snuck to him were victimized well into adulthood. He psychologically wooed them, made them feel special, then groomed them, isolated them, and abused them physically and sexually for years. Abuse is this very complicated mind fuck. It’s not always as easy as walking away…

But the blame rests in adults. Black men and women who helped this man mistreat and sexually abuse these children, their parents, and fans. You cannot separate the man from his artistry… as a creative, I can assure you that all of who I am is poured into my art. Michael wanted to Heal the World. James wanted to get on the scene like a sex machine. Actors talk of becoming the characters they play. Poets speak of being able to feel the words emanate from their fingers. Dancers bodies translate how the music makes them feel. Stop that bullshit excuse. The bottom line is that, Black adults were complicit in his abuse by watching a video of him having sex with a child then supporting him buying his music and concert tickets. Nope. Children are to love, not fuck. Ever! Anyone who does is a criminal and I don’t want shit they are selling.

“We all noticed but no one cared, because we were Black girls.”-Mikka Kendall

Here is the real. Sexual abuse is wrong and damages people for life. He was abused and as a result abused children and women for sport. See how that works. Black girls deserve to be protected. They deserve to maintain their innocence and share their bodies on their terms. They also deserve to be seen first and foremost as young girls, children, despite the way their bodies curve, their hair tumbles from their heads, or the length of their legs. They deserve to explore their existence and sexuality in ways that are healthy and promote their happiness. Most importantly, they deserve to grow into the women they were intended to be, not the one you label them as because they have hips or he robs the innocence from because he has a problem.

So, let’s vow as adults, parents, teachers, mentors to protect and speak life into Black girls, and not diminish them because of our own fears, insecurities, and judgements. Let’s assure her…

She doesn’t have to sit on Uncle Horace’s lap.

She isn’t fast because she’s growing up and exploring her beauty, body, and sexuality.

She should alert an adult immediately if she is touched anywhere that makes her feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

She is worthy of and will receive protection.

She does not ever deserve to be spoken to, touched, or treated in a sexualized manner.

We will crack anyone’s skull who attempts to violate her.

As for R. Kelly, I hope he rots in jail. And we owe Aaliyah , and every little Black girl we dismissed as asking for it or being complicit in their abuse, mistreatment, disrespect, or sexualization, an apology.

Eunuchs got us Twisted

Posted on by karyn deshields

This won’t be popular with some men, and I don’t give a fuck. I’m stating facts… and if the facts fit, smoke ’em (if you got ’em)!

——

European men started the colonization of the Americas in the early 16th century. During that time, the predominant thought was that the areas of the world formally owned by the Roman Empire, particularly those in the East, were uncivilized until Romans brought their intellect, order, and laws to those regions and made them civilized. That shit was wrong… civilization started in Egypt… but it was the popular thought.

So in that same vein, when European men set foot upon American soil, despite being welcomed, fed, and taught to sow the land by Natives, they soon sought to impart similar rules, laws, traditions, and values into the American fabric during colonization. The chastity of the female was one such social construct that sexualized everything under a woman’s clothing. The same men who had images of bare breasted goddesses in every square foot of their most revered institutions, wanted those women under their control, afraid of how they would lose power if women, their most wanted treasure, were free to empower themselves. That was civilized.

When feminism erupted into social consciousness, women who dared burn their bras were labeled as wild, promiscuous, man-less, even lesbian… in some attempt to force their own women to remain under their sexual and social control. Aside from the penis, men’s bodies were acceptable to be displayed publicly. Women, were expected to cover themselves ankle to collarbone. The absurdity… But absurdity is the hallmark of patriarchy, born out of fear of loss of power and ego.

So it goes, just the other day, I had to free myself from absurd conversations about whether women should cover themselves in the presence of men while they breast feed… because men are so titillated by breasts they cannot control their stares and certainly not their inadequate thoughts EVEN when a woman is using her breasts, her mammary glands, her milk-secreting organs by definition, to feed her baby… MILK. Go figure. Breasts relegated to sexual objects because men say so. How apropos.

So, I get it.

Some of ya’ll men are afraid if you give women any credence, value, power that you will effectually castrate yourselves. Your dicks will cease to be the powerful weapons of mass destruction your egos have fooled you into thinking they are. Those notches in your bedpost will no longer read like battles won but boyhood foolishness you have dragged along behind you like Linus’s blanket, as protection of your fragility. You are weakened by the yoni, so you call us bitches to relegate us to our parts, then find every imaginable way to keep us socially, professionally, and politically barefoot, with our legs up and our hand stirring a pot, as possible. And better yet if our breasts are out, but only when you deem it appropriate.

But I got news for you… we will be titty free when we deem it appropriate, not you. Nips at attention… about face… FOH!

Women are the life force.

Your little armless and legless soldiers have to infiltrate our very own version of the sun to start life. We carry every person on the planet in our womb. We decide what you ingest the first nine months of your life, and often until you learn the word NO, we continue to. But clearly we didn’t leave some of you in your shitty diaper long enough for you to smell it’s stench. Yep, your shit smells. These same breasts you cannot control yourself in front of, fed you nutrients that strengthened your brain, your bones, your muscles.

I am raising a male child. I care about his education, health, and overall well being. But specifically I care a great deal about what kind of man he will be. That he will respect women. That he will value women. That he will lead a woman in family, but not attempt to control her to make himself feel more like a man. Instead, supporting her choices, feeding her what she needs to be the best woman she can be, will be a measure of his manhood… not his ability to dictate to her. He likes breasts already, that’s cool, but he’s seen a woman nursing her child he knows that there is nothing remotely sexual happening, it is a nurturing act not a sexual one. I don’t play that HAN mess in my home!

What is civilized is not oppressive. Condemning adult women to a level of purity even you don’t require of your male children is the stuff of peonage. Respecting women includes freeing yourself of these ridiculous notions of patriarchy. Women are not your property, our bodies and their ability to be controlled by you are not measuring sticks for your little penises. Your dick doesn’t make you powerful, your heart and mind do. So while you are still living in medieval times, women are out here feeding our babies without scratchy and suffocating blankets over our babies heads, wearing what we want, doing what we want, and expecting you to support us like we have been supporting you for the past 2018 years AD. If you aren’t interested in that, we will just be Kings our damn selves… the kind with breasts, making eunuchs (pronounced yoo-nicks) of you clowns. Off with his head.

“You know I give you life” -King Bey