first_page

Making Black Girls “Ladylike” Discourages Achievement?

The woman power behind Beautiful, Also, Are The Souls Of My Black Sisters, preserves a very important news story, “New Study: Making Black Girls ‘Ladylike’ Discourages Achievement?,” from the Gender Public Advocacy Commission. This article, here in the rasx() context, is hard evidence of the neo-missionary system (that is literally godless) limiting and crippling the imagination of ‘my’ women:

Based on two years’ observation at a Texas middle school, the Ohio University study found that teachers’ class- and race-based assumptions of black femininity made them more likely to discourage behaviors and characteristics that lead to class involvement and educational success. The teachers’ actions appeared to be less the result of conscious racism or sexism than an unwitting tendency to view the behavior of black girls through a different lens than that of their peers.

Among the findings of the study: black girls who actively sought out the positive attention of their teachers in class by asking questions were reprimanded by teachers, while boys and girls of other racial and ethnic groups behaving similarly were rarely disciplined in the same manner for their actions.

Buy this book at Amazon.com!As a male “of color”—especially one living outside the good state of Texas—I am not supposed to be genuinely concerned about this issue. But what dumb-asses of my grouping who are truly unconcerned with issue don’t know is that this problem has devastating effects on our social lives—everywhere, from Senegal to San Francisco. When Black women are ‘properly assimilated’ into sophisticated ladies they are the most bizarre mixture of docility and violence topped with an arrogant, condescending lack of imagination. We as a people do everything with intent to overachieve—this includes being hideously oppressed.

Since I am the guy who wrote “My Three Sexist Assumptions of the Apocalypse,” “My Theory of Girl Chasing”—and many more—it should be clear that I am through with considering myself qualified to rehabilitate adults. So my next move is to look vigilantly for ways to keep my daughter from getting beat down by the “real world”… These are the hell holes my daughter (and my sons) I pray will avoid:

  • Somehow coming to a self-destructive understanding as a teenager (or younger) that women who speak about thinking and other intellectual topics are not welcome by the attractive, dominant females and males.
  • Losing the joy of openly discovering what she does not know. This joy is the optimism by birthright that it is only a matter of time before she will understand—even when the understanding is of knowing what she does not know.
  • Becoming smugly satisfied with being secretive about just how much she actually knows. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The problem with this adept hiding is that hiding becomes the skill—not sharing—not teaching. To me, there is no English accident that the word “hideous” had the word hide in it.Lord, make my actions help my children prosper and exceed me in every way. I never hate to get all Biblical on your ass so there is this great legend about Solomon and Makeda. Dig this:

And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to prove him with hard questions.

Buy this book at Amazon.com!Since I was a little boy I have never, never, never took the idea that a Black woman of Old School grace coming to prove me with “hard questions” is something unpleasant or unattractive—quite the contrary! Since I had this story planted within me, I have looked and looked for the day to be inspected so closely, explicitly, formally and systematically by all Black women. My flippant, playful thinking asserts that there are millions of properly assimilated Black women who would read the previous sentence, find out it was written by a Black man and eventually assume that the words are from some kind of a lie—or just a laugh. What is even more horrible is for the Black woman to reach 60 years of age, after the flower of her youth is rent, and through a serious of voodoo events find out that rasx()—just like that other do-right Black man in her life she hid herself from—was telling truth. Woman courage is the most important kind of courage in my life. I don’t think a woman can even have orgasms in the presence of another person that she regards as ‘different’ without courage.

Too late now, G.

Comments

lrj, 2008-09-23 05:56:58

this is a general comment since i've been poking around your blog, looking at different things since i found out about it via the black snob.

i must say that your POV is interesting, and i like the fact that you consciously catalogue almost everything and dissect your thoughts--not many people do that. also, if i'm reading you correctly, it seems that you are one of a few black men who see the humanity in black women, celebrate and expect it. that, to me, is a breath of fresh air in today's world. thank you for that, if that is the case.

keep on doing you...with your positive intellectual vibe - but of course, i know that's not an option.

rasx(), 2008-09-23 19:09:09

I appreciate the appreciation! Your feedback is most welcome. And I also know that being "one of few" means living in a world where 'my' women are not prepared to meet the real me. In the extreme, being perceived as unique can be horrible because one is not prepared to properly receive you and you end up being kicked to the curb while the children of lesser men get the spoils.

rasx()