I am a culture bandit like Vanessa Hidary. "A festive fruit platter on the inside." It took me a long time to come to terms with that.
When I was a youngin', I was told to be black. I grew up in a house full of caucasians... acting anything but what I knew, was simply impossible. When I was older, I constantly wrestled with the idea that color showed through on content and not just hue.
It should have hit me the moment I asked my chicas to teach me Spanish. It should have hit me when I set out to learn French on my own. Several classes on history and human studies later, I should have taken it as a hint.
I am neither black nor white. I am a mixed child. Physically black and white with a diverse heritage behind it. I am yellow, brown, and red too. Avenging my dead relatives by loving myself for all of my history. Growing up is confusing and I guess it has to be for us to become the full circle cultural bandits we were meant to be.
Adios. Ciao. Peace.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Being A Goddess Means Embracing Ourselves
It is safe to say that every woman has an inner goddess. I like to think of myself as a feral goddess. I am feral because of where I came from. I feel the strength of my ancestors pouring through me daily. I feel the African need to celebrate life and the European need for family in my daily world. It is the embracement of this amalgamation that makes me a goddess. Of course, I can’t walk on water, deem judgment upon humanity, or shoot fireballs from my hands, but I can feel good about myself. That’s all a goddess really needs to be powerful after all.
As children we are taught certain standards of beauty, inside and out… characteristics that we must all have to face the world head on with strength and wisdom. Somewhere along the way though, these characteristics are depleted. We become something less than what we were meant to be and it hurts us in the long run. Instead of running towards the light, we hide from it in the hopes of it just going away and us remaining “normal.” As a child, I didn’t feel any good sort of esteem about myself. I felt it about others, but never myself. Instead I passed my flat nose off as humungous and misshapen, my eyes were too brown, and my skin too dark. Growing up in the nineties, I’ve only watched the idea of beauty get more obscured over the years. At first it was people like Cindy Crawford and Tyra Banks that washed over the covers of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Sports Illustrated. The term natural beauty was thrown around quite relevantly during these years. A vast shake in society was taking place… similar to the vast shake that is taking place now and making every girl who ever had a body like Tyra Banks or Cindy Crawford shed pounds and become more or less like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
Women of all ages need someone to look up to. It’s hard to be a woman in society and look up daily to the new standards of beauty and success. When I was in middle school, I found my own standards of beauty to look up to. These have only grown over the years, but the ones I saw at the tender age of eleven are the same ones that I see today. Back then, I didn’t know how to emulate the power of Bettie Page or Marilyn Monroe. I had no idea that women could be beautiful in all shapes and sizes. I wasn’t even sure what a plus-sized model was (Marilyn Monroe was a size 12… just barely over the line!) I’m not saying Bettie Page and Marilyn Monroe are the ideal models to look up to, both led lives that could be considered depraved by “normal” standards. They were no one else but themselves though. If that sentence seems wrong, just think about it. They did a lot for the feminist movements in their own ways. Bettie Page’s attitude has allowed women all over the world to realize their inner dominatrix and Marilyn Monroe has allowed women to embrace their curves. Both are the power of embracement, something every goddess needs to feel good about who they are. Yet, we don’t have to make the same decisions as they did, but we can learn from them.
In reality, there are lots of women to view with a beacon of hope such as Oprah Winfrey, Julia Child, and Beyonce Knowles. These are women who used their natural talents to get them where they are instead of relying on sex and a dash of charm. There are also women in modern fiction with a penchant for rocking the world around them. The X-man Storm was suggested to me by a friend for the impact she had on black culture in comic books. Not only was she the first black female X-men, she was the first black woman superhero for comic book readers of all colors to look up to. Storm helped the spread of racial harmony. She wasn’t as sexually aggressive as her colleagues and it’s really woman’s power when you have that under control. Wonder woman was the first comic book heroin. She wore star spangled britches and was an Amazon, but a woman none the less. It is safe to say that women are not always Ophelia. As more time passes, the more we learn how to embrace who we are and be strong, like Annie Oakley.
We learn from what we see and read. If we’re going to be anything, it is the reality of others that gets you there. My mother is a woman who has faced much adversity in her life. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say if I ever have half as much strength and endurance as she does that I will be a very blessed individual. Then again, I come from a long line of strong women. From an aunt who chose to let her sexuality be known despite popular opinion, to a grandmother who worked hard all her life to support three kids on her own for most of it. This is the kind of character that is lost in modern times. Strength is something not taught physically in schools. It is something every child regardless of race, color, or gender should learn though.
Learning is, after all, a key reason we’re put on this earth, no matter what you believe in. We are here to progress. The truth is, no progression really takes place until we accept ourselves. There are so many women to look up to in this world. From single mothers to Oprah Winfrey… there’s a hero for everyone. We are defined by who and what we emulate. Never be an imitation, but take the qualities you see in others that you admire and hold them close to yourself. That’s the only way to grow and learn… and blossom into a goddess.
As children we are taught certain standards of beauty, inside and out… characteristics that we must all have to face the world head on with strength and wisdom. Somewhere along the way though, these characteristics are depleted. We become something less than what we were meant to be and it hurts us in the long run. Instead of running towards the light, we hide from it in the hopes of it just going away and us remaining “normal.” As a child, I didn’t feel any good sort of esteem about myself. I felt it about others, but never myself. Instead I passed my flat nose off as humungous and misshapen, my eyes were too brown, and my skin too dark. Growing up in the nineties, I’ve only watched the idea of beauty get more obscured over the years. At first it was people like Cindy Crawford and Tyra Banks that washed over the covers of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Sports Illustrated. The term natural beauty was thrown around quite relevantly during these years. A vast shake in society was taking place… similar to the vast shake that is taking place now and making every girl who ever had a body like Tyra Banks or Cindy Crawford shed pounds and become more or less like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
Women of all ages need someone to look up to. It’s hard to be a woman in society and look up daily to the new standards of beauty and success. When I was in middle school, I found my own standards of beauty to look up to. These have only grown over the years, but the ones I saw at the tender age of eleven are the same ones that I see today. Back then, I didn’t know how to emulate the power of Bettie Page or Marilyn Monroe. I had no idea that women could be beautiful in all shapes and sizes. I wasn’t even sure what a plus-sized model was (Marilyn Monroe was a size 12… just barely over the line!) I’m not saying Bettie Page and Marilyn Monroe are the ideal models to look up to, both led lives that could be considered depraved by “normal” standards. They were no one else but themselves though. If that sentence seems wrong, just think about it. They did a lot for the feminist movements in their own ways. Bettie Page’s attitude has allowed women all over the world to realize their inner dominatrix and Marilyn Monroe has allowed women to embrace their curves. Both are the power of embracement, something every goddess needs to feel good about who they are. Yet, we don’t have to make the same decisions as they did, but we can learn from them.
In reality, there are lots of women to view with a beacon of hope such as Oprah Winfrey, Julia Child, and Beyonce Knowles. These are women who used their natural talents to get them where they are instead of relying on sex and a dash of charm. There are also women in modern fiction with a penchant for rocking the world around them. The X-man Storm was suggested to me by a friend for the impact she had on black culture in comic books. Not only was she the first black female X-men, she was the first black woman superhero for comic book readers of all colors to look up to. Storm helped the spread of racial harmony. She wasn’t as sexually aggressive as her colleagues and it’s really woman’s power when you have that under control. Wonder woman was the first comic book heroin. She wore star spangled britches and was an Amazon, but a woman none the less. It is safe to say that women are not always Ophelia. As more time passes, the more we learn how to embrace who we are and be strong, like Annie Oakley.
We learn from what we see and read. If we’re going to be anything, it is the reality of others that gets you there. My mother is a woman who has faced much adversity in her life. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say if I ever have half as much strength and endurance as she does that I will be a very blessed individual. Then again, I come from a long line of strong women. From an aunt who chose to let her sexuality be known despite popular opinion, to a grandmother who worked hard all her life to support three kids on her own for most of it. This is the kind of character that is lost in modern times. Strength is something not taught physically in schools. It is something every child regardless of race, color, or gender should learn though.
Learning is, after all, a key reason we’re put on this earth, no matter what you believe in. We are here to progress. The truth is, no progression really takes place until we accept ourselves. There are so many women to look up to in this world. From single mothers to Oprah Winfrey… there’s a hero for everyone. We are defined by who and what we emulate. Never be an imitation, but take the qualities you see in others that you admire and hold them close to yourself. That’s the only way to grow and learn… and blossom into a goddess.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)