Aunt Jemima, Black Women Expected to be Assertive, Natural Hair, PTSD and Other Important Stories You May Not Know About
New Racism Museum Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Aunt Jemima
David Pilgrim was 12 years old when he bought his first racist object at a flea market: a saltshaker in the shape of a mammy. As a young black boy growing up in Mobile, Alabama, he’d seen similar knick-knacks in the homes of friends and neighbors, and he instinctively hated them. As soon as he handed over his money, he threw his purchase to the ground and shattered it into pieces. To continue reading at the Atlantic, click here.
Black Women Leaders are Expected to be Assertive
A new study finds that black women are expected to act assertively in the workplace. Researchers say this behavior is also condoned for white men, while black men and white women are often penalized for being too forceful. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. To continue reading at Psych Central, click here.
Kerry Washington, Actress, Scandal. Image via Wikipedia
‘Scandal’ and ‘Styled by June’: Allison Samuels’s Prime-Time Saviors
Horrified by the depiction of black women on TV, Allison Samuels shunned prime time for years. But two thoughtfully produced shows, Scandal and Styled by June, offer a long-overdue change of scenery. For the last six years I’ve actively avoided prime-time television. I have no interest in supporting shows or networks that ignore women of color in their storylines, and I’m usually scared to death of what I might see if I do stumble across a black woman on the small screen. In my experience, the sight of a black woman on TV has meant one thing: trouble. My tried-and-true nightly consumption has been old episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. To continue reading at the Daily Beast, click here.
Naturally Flyy: Detroit sisters celebrate ‘rocking hair natural’
Charise and Jennifer Thomas believe African-American hair isn’t something to be tamed, weaved, or ironed into submission. The Detroit sisters want black women to embrace their hair’s natural texture — and their aim is to offer the practical and social support needed for them to step out with confidence. Enter Naturally Flyy Detroit’s natural hair meetup — a group hug for hair dreamed up by the Thomas sisters, who are co-owners, with their parents, of the west-side bakery Sweet Potato Sensations. To continue reading at the Detroit News, click here.
Black women struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Of the 150,000 women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, Twenty-three percent are African-American. Fruigivore reports that many of these black women soldiers are experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at alarming rates. Besides the lack of resources available to treat these women, they may be experiencing higher rates of PTSD because of the amount of assaults that go unreported. In growing numbers, African American women are entering the armed forces, and putting their lives on the line, both literally and figuratively to serve the United States. As many know, countless members of the armed forces have died serving their country. But few people recognize that soldiers also sacrifice their mental health through their service as well. To continue reading at the Grio, click here.
Women as Breadwinners? Nothing New for Black Folks: Time Magazine’s “Big” Story Is Very Familiar—Old News, Even—When It Comes To Our CommunityA recent Time headline proclaimed that women were “The Richer Sex,” set to overtake men in a generation as financial breadwinners. The story indicates that over the course of the next 25 years more American families will be supported by women instead of by men. While that shift is making headlines in the mainstream the woman as breadwinner and head of household just might be old hat for Black women. That may be in part because a higher percentage of African American women are achieving college degrees. This could mean that over the next generation the overall shift in female run households, already felt in many Black households could be even more dramatic in our homes over the next generation. To continue reading at Ebony, click here.
Image via Clutch
On Being a Dark-Skinned Black Woman
I am a dark skinned Black woman. Or at least I think I am. Not that I often define myself as such, nor do I’ve ever remember being defined thus. Which is to say I try not to think about it. I was never teased for not being particularly light, nor is my skin so obviously dark that it is ‘blue-black’ like my younger brother, my father, or the complexion of my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on my dad’s side. Theirs is skin with a gloss finish, it sucks in all surrounding light and sends it back out as a flat glow, mine is a much plainer, matte. I know that by popular standards of beauty and in the unwritten rules of women invited to grace the covers of magazines, dance in music videos and appear as love interests in general releases I am dark. Which is to say, the ladies that regularly occupy those roles are usually much lighter than me and if I ever found myself in a room with them I would know for sure I was the dark one. To continue at Clutch, click here.
Black female politicians working in a male-dominated political world
Austin state Sen. Kimberly Lightford (7th) was the youngest African-American woman to be appointed to the Illinois Senate and says sexism was evident, but being intimidated by others now has disappeared. “There has always been some general disrespect and resistance to treating me as an equal. I overcame most of this, but it has been a process of working hard to gain respect,” said Lightford, who is assistant majority leader in the state senate. “In focusing on my mission to improve education, I have felt some negative feedback, but I don’t see it as negative anymore. I see it as my job and I have grown in that way.” To continue reading at the Austin Weekly News, click here.
Top 13 job fields for new graduates
New college graduates who are flexible, willing to go where the jobs are and seek positions in growing fields will have the most luck over the next decade, the New Mexico Business Weekly reports. That’s according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a national outplacement firm. CEO John Challenger said job creation has been up and down, but the trend has been upward. To read more at the Memphis Business Journal click here.
Thanks Ken