Source: Zimbio.com

Just when I thought we’d survived the BET Awards unscathed this year, a video with white rapper Machine Gun Kelly talking all kinds of reckless on the red carpet before the event pops up. The comments he made aren’t the network’s fault but obviously he felt the environment was an appropriate one to make the statements in question and that, on top of what he was saying, is a major problem.

You probably don’t know who Machine Gun Kelly is and that’s both okay  and a good thing. As I mentioned he’s a rapper, and he’s most known for his single “I’m a wild boy,” with Wacka Flocka Flame. After his commentary with Baller Alert before the BET Awards Sunday, he’ll most likely now be known as an ignorant white boy who talked about black women and their apprehension to give 0-ral sex—which they do quite well when they actually do it—on the red carpet.

To be fair, the interviewer, a black girl, took him down this fetishized road to begin with by commenting that she’s chocolate and heard he likes black girls. MGK begins by saying his daughter is black (bi-racial for those who subscribe to the Morgan Freeman school of thought) and then without pause we went from “I have a black daughter” to “black girls give the best head.” Um, is that how he wound up with a black daughter or something?

The conversation went like this:

BA Reporter: Okay that’s funny because usually we’re told that we don’t.

Machine Gun Kelly: Okay, now this is what y’all do.  Y’all either give the best head or you say that you don’t give head.  White girls, they just give head so it just like….

BA Reporter: So the ones who say they don’t usually give the best?

Machine Gun Kelly: No, no, It’s not that you don’t give the best head it’s that most of y’all are saying, “I don’t do that unless you’re my man.” [Insert ghetto girl neck roll] You know what I’m saying? Where you girls just need to show your skills ’cause Black girls give the best head 100 percent. It’s just a difference.”

And now we’re going to interrupt this unscheduled program to bring you an angry white man rant because a black woman who overheard this conversation decided she wanted no parts of it and walked away.

Machine Gun Kelly: B**** walk the f*** away. F***ing dirty ignorant B****.  uhh b****. Weak a**dress and fake a** Louis Vuitton purse. I’ll go in on this b****. Lipstick all f***ed up, here everywhere. Get the f*** out of here. You look like you just got done giving h**d. But anyway motherf***er, that’s what needs to happen man.

Wait, she’s the one who’s ignorant? I’m curious if that’s how he goes about getting black women to give him head and it possibly could be because from start to finish the tall glass of chocolate milk reporter was all smiles for the camera, despite his ignorance and all out disrespect. What’s that line about people only treating you how you allow them to? I’m curious if in that moment she forgot how close she was to being the dirty, best head giving b**** on the other end of his taunt?

You know, at first you may want to take pride in your bedroom skills when MGK made his comment about black girls and head but that quickly fades away, if it ever even entered your mind to begin with, as you think about this man making a sharp left from talking about his black daughter to black women given good head and seemingly only being good for two purposes: oral pleasure and baby making. What else is new, right?

There’s really nothing cute or flattering about MGK’s comments nor the comfort in which he felt saying it and topping that off with the lashing out at a black woman as a dirty b**** only further elevates the image that we’re only useful for those two purposes I mentioned a minute ago. Our ancestors got used to being treated this way behind closed doors for 400 years, we unfortunately had to make peace with black rappers making us feel this way with their lyrics, and now it seems a new breed of white wild boys is assimilating that same degrading culture, although interestingly it’s not aimed at the white girls who, you know, just give head all willy nilly like he suggested. Once again black women find themselves being eveyone’s favorite target with no one to defend them, including the  black reporter who had an opportunity to do just that.  Where are Nas, The Dream, and Russell Simmons when you need them? Oh, my bad, they’re probably still making sure Gwyneth isn’t catching too much flack for being a real n*****. Meanwhile this man calls a black woman a b**** on camera and goes on about their mouthpieces and nobody says a word.

Thankfully, MGK is probably on minute 14 of his “budding” career so we won’t have to deal with him much longer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a slew of wild boys like him waiting in the wings to spout even more distasteful words the minute someone puts a mic in front of them. And let’s not forget the impertinent ilk of rappers already before us who want black women to do nothing more than bust it wide open for a real n**** before they go and wife a white one. Interesting how we’re all ho*s one minute yet get criticized for reserving our mouth game for select individuals isn’t it? The fact that most of us use our heads before we actually give head is in fact why what we do give is the best. How about somebody go make a rap song about that?

Brande Victorian is the news and operations editor for madamenoire.com. Follow her on twitter @Be_Vic.

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Swarms of black women are chatting with their friends, puckering their lips, posing for pictures, and signing their daughters up for college scholarships. If it sounds like a lot is going on, that’s because it is. The “My Black is Beautiful” convention center booth at Essence Music Festival is truly popping.

In case you’ve been living under a rock the ”My Black is Beautiful” campaign is a part of Procter & Gamble’s long-standing commitment to touch and improve the lives of African-American women everywhere through beauty brands and standards.

And now that the campaign has partnered with the United Negro College Fund and Black Girls Rock, it’s more than just beauty, it’s about a bright future. The organizations are trying to encourage young, black girls to “Imagine a Future” of possibilites. And what better way to do that than by using education as a tool?

In order to make education more accessible to young black students, The United Negro College fund is providing scholarships. If you’re in the New Orleans area, be sure to stop by the My Black is Beautiful booth. If you’re not in New Orleans, show your support for the campaign and the good work their doing by liking their Facebook page or following them on Twitter @MBIBMovement. 

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The idea that television shows dramatically affect children isn’t just a theory. We often talk about how violent images make kids more aggressive or catty women turn teens and adolescents into mean girls, but a new study has shown that the depictions kids are witnessing on the television screen also dramatically affect their self-esteem—unless you’re a white boy.

“Children who are not doing other things besides watching television cannot help but compare themselves to what they see on the screen,” said Kristen Harrison, professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan who conducted the study with Nicole Martins, an assistant professor of telecommunications in the IU College of Arts and Sciences.

In the paper published in Communication Research, Martins and Harrison surveyed a group of about 400 black and white pre-adolescent students in communities in the Midwest for a year, specifically focusing on the correlation between time spent in front of the television and the impact on their self-esteem. The more television white girls and black boys and girls watched, the worse they felt about themselves. But the more white boys watched television, the better they actually felt about themselves.

“Regardless of what show you’re watching, if you’re a white male, things in life are pretty good for you,” Martins said. “You tend to be in positions of power, you have prestigious occupations, high education, glamorous houses, a beautiful wife, with very little portrayals of how hard you worked to get there.

“If you are a girl or a woman, what you see is that women on television are not given a variety of roles,” she added. “The roles that they see are pretty simplistic; they’re almost always one-dimensional and focused on the success they have because of how they look, not what they do or what they think or how they got there. This sexualization of women presumably leads to this negative impact on girls.”

For black boys, we don’t have to look far to see how they are criminalized, whether they are being shown on the 6 o’clock news or a scripted series.

“Young black boys are getting the opposite message: that there is not lots of good things that you can aspire to,” Martins said. “If we think about those kinds of messages, that’s what’s responsible for the impact.

“If we think just about the sheer amount of time they’re spending, and not the messages, these kids are spending so much time with the media that they’re not given a chance to explore other things they’re good at, that could boost their self-esteem.”

Though video games have been increasingly singled out for encouraging young kids to be violent, the researchers say television is still the entertainment medium kids are spending the most time with; and therefore the area that needs to be curbed most. This is yet another case for not letting the TV raise your child.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Source: Austin360.com

Apparently the folks over at HBO decided not to wait until season 2 to get around to adding some diversity to the cast of its new show “Girls” after all. Jezebel uncovered a casting notice for the new series and it looks like execs plan to add a little black and Asian flavor to the all-white mix. Here’s what they’re looking for.

[TAKO] FEMALE, AFRICAN AMERICAN, 23-26 years old. Adam’s best friend. A tough, tiny lesbian. RECURRING. Likes: biking without a helmet, making her own soap and preserves, bar fights, Brigitte Bardot. Hates: needy girls, most of Manhattan, the messages her mom leaves on her machine, when Adam lames out and stays home.

[SAKE BAR WAITER] MALE, ASIAN, 20S-40S, delivers sake that Marnie and Jessa did not order…(1 LINE)

[JUNKIE WOMAN] FEMALE, PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES, WORN 30S/40S. Woman yelling loudly in the Emergency Room, demanding vicodin for pain. (1 SCENE)

[GAVIN] MALE, CAUCASIAN, LATE 20S, BURLY GUY, plays Adam’s overacting scene partner in his play. (2 SCENES)

Jezebel writers went in pretty hard on the not-so-outside-the-box casting of an Asian serving sake and a tiny butch black lesbian but I’ll just leave these details as they are and see what you think. One thing that seems to be apparent is HBO heard the cries for more color and they responded—quickly. Now we just have to see how its executed.

What do you think about “Girls” adding these characters?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Source: Jillstanek.com

The media and tons of critics have taken HBO and Lena Dunham to task for its new series “Girls” which is essentially a younger, broker 2012 “Sex and the City,” for its lack of diversity, or as Slate contributor and cultural critic Debra Dickerson put it, having “an abundance of chicks with normal bodies, but somehow no negroes.” The issue is that the plot centers on four white main characters who are surrounded by white people in the midst of the melting pot mecca of New York City. I get the absurdity of women being in NYC (and in their residence of Brooklyn) and not ever coming into contact with any people of color—or the three that one writer counted in one episode—but I also think we’re grasping for straws by making a big deal out of the so-called whitewashing of this show.

We live in the world of niche media and though the broad use of the term girls would suggest you could turn the show on and see the girl you are on-screen, that’s not the case as far as skin tone, although interestingly everything else seems to be there. Rebecca Carroll, wrote on The Daily Beast:

“As relatable as I find ‘Girls,’ I can’t also help feeling, well, left out. There are no black girls in ‘Girls.’ I feel somewhat cheated. While I have decided that the show is for me, it has decided that I am not for the show.”

I wouldn’t take the omission of black characters quite so personally, although having seen the backlash the series has created, I wouldn’t be surprised if the show did try to ignore race altogether to avoid the inevitable criticism it would still receive. If this show were to throw in the token black girlfriend we’d still be having a fit about her skin tone, her hair texture, the lack of a developed storyline, etc., and I actually respect the fact that the network didn’t even go there if they weren’t going to execute it well. Furthermore, I find the mention of the women in the series having “normal” bodies as evidence that this show aimed to be sort of the anti-thesis to the “Gossip Girl” type of NYC shows we see on-air and everyone knows there’s just as much work to be done on the representation of healthy bodies as there is black women, this just isn’t the show that will break down the latter barrier and that’s OK. We can’t expect every show to be all things to all people.

Furthermore, it’s not our job to say what’s real to some people and not to others. I’m pretty sure the white circle of acquaintances shown in “Girls” is the reality for the creator Lena Dunham. If these girls were black, the immediate people around them would be black as well, despite whatever multiculturalism is in their backdrop. Yes, diverse cultures are all around you in NYC but that doesn’t mean everyone lives them. That’s not the focus of this show and I would venture to say that that’s not inherently problematic.

Others have argued that a simple change in the name could have made all the difference; that had the show been named “Some girls” or even “White girls” then there would be nothing to argue with. By the very appearance of four white women and the obvious realization that all girls are not a monolith, we know this depiction is only some girls. And calling the show white girls would place unnecessary emphasis on the women’s race much like the criticism against it has.

I’m fully in agreement with Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic  when he suggests we shouldn’t be asking for inclusion on this show but to be represented on our own version of ‘Girls’” because after all, the response from the series’ writer, Lesley Arfin, to the criticism on Twitter was “What really bothered me most about Precious was that there was no representation of ME.” As he states:

“I think it’s only right to ask whether you really want black characters rendered by the same hands that rendered that tweet. Invisibility is problematic. Caricature is worse.”

Maybe HBO missed an opportunity with “Girls” and maybe it didn’t. Diversity isn’t on everyone’s agenda and that’s because white people simply don’t have to think about it. I’m sure if we were coming up with a series we wouldn’t think to throw in a token white character; the same is true for the other side. And while I know the history of exclusion is far deeper for us, I don’t think it runs that deep for this show. Debating “Girls” is a lost cause and a battle that really doesn’t need to be fought. The bigger picture is to create our own narratives and find a place for them on television not be threaded into a white one.

Do you take issue with the lack of black characters on “Girls?”

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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It’s not often black women are the object of one’s affection in the mainstream but an American Indie pop group is attempting to change that one song at a time while breaking down a few other taboos all at once.

In the video for the first single off of their upcoming album, Chester French admits they’ve got a thing for “Black Girls” and what makes the declaration more striking is that the singer is a white woman. Italian photographer Francesco Carrozzini, who directed the racy black-and-white video said:

“The video’s purpose is to celebrate the female form, the beauty of black women, interracial, and same sex love. We approached it with simplicity, trying to make the images speak for themselves in the arch of the very simple story told.”

The imagery will no doubt cause some to have strong reactions to the homosexual, interracial love being openly displayed, but the group of Harvard graduates who have collaborated with artists like Janelle Monáe, Rick Ross, and Solange are just fine with the “unapologetic portrayal” of love for black women that the world is about to witness.

Check out the music video here and tell us what you think.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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This photo, taken in the late 1930s, is of the first African-American troop in the Dixie Region, which covered the Southern states. Source: Girlscouts.org

Isn’t it fitting that the one hundredth anniversary of the Girl Scouts, which is today, falls during Women’s Appreciation month? How kismet! If you were never a part of a Girl Scout Troop, do know that the organization has made significant strides throughout its 100 year history to include girls of various races and backgrounds (including disabled girls, girls with mothers in prison and most recently a transgender girl). The Girl Scouts has also sought to empower young girls to eventually become well rounded, self sufficient women. Even when the organization was started in 1912, girls around the country had the opportunity to explore arenas that had previously been “off limits” to us double X types.

Barbara B. Wilborn, pictured here as a Girl Scout troop leader in a parade… Source:chicagotribune.com

Seeing that organization got it’s start at a time when our country was still largely segregated, the first Girl Scout Troops were made up of white girls only. But in 1917, five years after its inception, the first troop of African American girls was formed. From there Native American girls formed a troop in New York in 1921, Mexican-American girls formed a troop in Texas. By the 1950s, the organization made a national push to desegregate its troops, eliciting praise from Martin Luther King Jr for helping to end segregation in other organizations across the nation.

By 1975, the Girl Scouts had elected their first African American woman, Dr. Gloria D. Scott, to serve as the National President for the organization.

In honor of a great organization and its 100th anniversary, find your local girl scout and buy a box of cookies or three. You can rationalize that it’s going to a worthy cause.

Source

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Last week’s episode of the “Braxton Family Values” wasn’t a good look for sister Trina. She admitted to having an “oral transaction” with a band member, but unless the definition of the word transaction has changed, what Trina did was more of a donation considering she was the only one giving anything.

Trina received a lot of backlash for coming out on national TV, although I think more people—like her sisters—were concerned with the fact that she didn’t get anything in return, rather than the fact that she cheated. But maybe the critics feel the way Trina does about “slobbing the knob,” as Tamar said: oral sex just isn’t sex.

Trina opened up to Sister 2 Sister magazine about her situation and when Jamie asked why she didn’t have full intercourse with the band member, she said this:

“Honestly, Auntie Jamie, I’m one of those people, I don’t have but so many notches on my belt. When it comes down to it, numbers mean a lot to me, and I’ve never been the type of woman to spread myself thin and let every Tom, package and Harry—or every Tom’s hairy d***—to associate with me and my body; not to sound vulgar.

“I don’t allow that with my body; I just don’t. I do not. I did not, and I will not.”

I know there’s a difference between letting a man stick his you know what you know where and doing what she did, but in my mind, the notches all add up pretty much the same. What’s funny is Trina is sort of reversing the discussion that typically surrounds black women and oral sex, as exemplified by her sisters saying black girls don’t usually “do that.” Trina, on the other hand, told S2S that she doesn’t understand why the act is so taboo, and from her comments she sounds as though she thinks she’s better for not laying it low and spreading it wide, as her mama would say. But like we teach girls in grade school, oral sex is sex, and drummer boy definitely still associated with her body in some way.

Oral sex shouldn’t be any more taboo than cheating but it seems as though it might be in the Braxton household and maybe still among black women at large. I thought the whole “we don’t do that” trend had gone out the window, but from listening to these 30- and 40-year-olds, it might still be in full effect. Even the whole “knotches on my belt” comment suggests Trina’s got a long way to go in terms of sexual liberation in some ways, and surprisingly not in others, as her kiss and tell moment shows.

I definitely think if you’re going to serve somebody you should get yours as well, but if you’re married the only one you should be serving is your husband. Oral sex isn’t really a black or a white thing, but if you want to make it one, let’s not make going down on another man while your still married because you want to get your freak on but still keep your numbers low a black thing.

What do you think about Trina and her oral transaction? Do you think a lot of women still feel like she does about not engaging in intercourse to limit the notches on their belt? What about her sisters and their “black girls don’t do that” comments?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Academically, professionally, economically—black women continue to outpace black men. And, I can’t help but wonder if much of that could be attributed to how some single black mothers raise their daughters in comparison to their sons.

In recent years the percentage of black children born into single parent households, an overwhelming majority of which headed by women, has skyrocketed. Nearly three-fourths of black boys and girls are being raised in broken homes—brokenness stemming from the fact that fatherlessness often creates imbalance.

Women understand womanhood. Mothers know what it is like to be a little girl—a teenager, a young adult. We connect with our daughters and, in a sense, often push them to heights we have never reached. Despite our own successes or shortcomings, it is that personal understanding and connection that enables single mothers to raise women.  We know how, when and where to utilize discipline and praise to guide them in the right direction.

But, when it comes to boys the journey isn’t so clear. Mothers do not have firsthand experience walking in the shoes of men. While this world may be a cold place for men and women alike, the lives of young, black men can be especially challenging—dealing with everything from drug-dealing stereotypes to the anticipations of failure, intellectual inadequacy. When little black girls go to school teachers do not expect for them to fail in the same way they do little black boys. Black women are not profiled by law enforcement the same way as black men. And, employers are much more inclined to hire us.

Still, too many mothers coddle their sons through life—loving them as boys but not raising them to be men.

My three children are very young (14 months, two and three to be exact).  However, I have experienced some of what it is like to train up little girls versus boys and how mothers subconsciously render their daughters differently. My two sons are the oldest, daughter is the baby girl, and our household operates very much in the way one would expect—which is why I am grateful to have my husband there for balance.

Offsetting discipline with praise and reward comes easier with my daughter than my sons. My expectations for all of them are high but enforcing rules and maintaining consistency seems to come naturally with her. It is somehow more emotionally taxing to see my boys cry or get reprimanded, and I can almost always come up with a way to their excuse poor behavior. However, it is that mama’s boy inclination that fosters irresponsibility, unaccountability and laziness. It is what creates the imbalance in households minus dad and ultimately stunts the developmental process.

Think about the mothers who work two jobs to buy expensive video games for their teenage sons who make no effort to keep a steady job and bring home subpar grades. Think about the mothers whose adult sons live at home and have multiple children of their own being raised in others homes. Sadly, the situations are not as uncommon as they should be.

All the while, we are also teaching our daughters to expect more of themselves than the men around them—to give what they do not deserve, to pawn their faults off to circumstance.

Granted there is no cookie-cutter way to parent and there is only so much one person can do. Nevertheless, it is important that we start consistently holding our sons to higher standards and placing the same boundaries on them as we do our daughters.

If anything, we should probably be more stringent and utterly expectant, as more is required of them—everything times ten.

LaShaun Williams is a Madame Noire contributor and columnist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and across several popular sites, such as HuffPost Black Voices and the Grio.  You can visit her blog at lashaunwilliams.com or follow her on Twitter @itsmelashaun and Facebook.

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By the age of 18, 60% of black women have been sexually abused by a black man, according to an exclusive News One report on a study conducted by Black Women’s Blueprint.  The finding is based on data collected from more than 300 black women nationwide.

In the article, Farah Tanis, Co-Founder of the New York-based organization and co-author of the study, points out that just seven years ago, a similar study conducted by The Black Women’s Health Imperative found the rate to be 40%. “That means there is an increase and we need to stop neglecting that issue,” she said.

One way her organization is hoping to address the problem head on is by advocating for language that specifically allocates funds to communities of color to be added to legislation introduced this week that would reinstate the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Although VAWA does include language that allots “grants for outreach and services to under-served populations, no racial language is written into the act because Federal law prohibits legislation that earmarks government funding based on race. In 2005, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)  unsuccessfully fought for race-specific language to be kept in a final draft of the act when it was being reauthorized.

Traditionally, smaller domestic violence organizations have had greater success helping women of color, says Rita Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“Reports from these local communities to their national representatives have made it clear for some time that victims who are Latino, African American, Asian and Native American have not been served adequately by mainstream programs. For some communities it is important to establish services that address the cultural, spiritual, or immigration status needs of victims, and while some mainstream programs attempt to respond to those needs, they are not universally addressing them in sufficient numbers.”

Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) agrees, but says she’s often been in domestic violence sessions with mostly black women where, despite her years of experience with women of color, she was forced to take a back seat to a young white women who perhaps held a graduate degree in the field, but still couldn’t relate to the victims culturally or emotionally.

“By addressing domestic violence in these communities in a way that understands their culture and honors their values, we greatly increase the chances of making a difference for women of color who are being abused,” she said.

The advocates are calling for black women to write and call their congressmen to support the reauthorization of VAWA, but they note that black women often get hung up on one point of their proposed language that includes encouraging and educating black men in particular about domestic and sexual violence.

Kereen Odate, Acting Director at the Center for Women’s Development at Medgar Evers College in New York, says black women often fear they are “vilifying the black man” if they discuss such issues.

In leiu of the alarming rate of abuse black women have been subjected to, Tanis says it’s time for us to get over that hump. “Its critical, whether or not we feel comfortable talking and doing something about it.”

Are you surprised by the large number of black girls who have been abused by the age of 18? Do you think speaking out against sexual and domestic abuse vilifies black men?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.