Racial stereotypes still thrive

Black women in America... are still widely governed by a set of old oppressive myths circulating in the White-dominated world.

Based upon those fictions, if a Black woman is strong, she cannot be beautiful and she cannot be feminine.

If she takes a menial job to put food on the table and send her children to school, she must not be intelligent. If she is able to keep her family together and see her children to success, she must be tough and unafraid.

If she is able to hold her head high in spite of being sexually harassed or accosted, she must be oversexed or promiscuous. If she travels the globe, she must be ferrying drugs rather than simply trying to see the world. ///

While most people of color, and African Americans in particular, are perceived through a distorted lens, Black women are routinely defined by a specific set of grotesque caricatures that are reductive, inaccurate, and unfair.

Bell Hooks of the City College of New York enumerates these “gendered racist stereotypes” that include the emasculating Sapphire, the desexualized Mammy, and the scheming temptress Jezebel.

Today, in the twenty-first century, these and other stereotypes, so prevalent in old Hollywood movies and black-and-white television reruns, have mutated into contemporary versions of their old selves....

Indeed, society’s stubborn myths continue to do tremendous damage to Black women.

They often seep into their inner psyches and become permanently internalized, battering them from within even if they’re able, for a time, to wriggle free and live the truth.

Stereotypes based on race, gender, and social class make it hard to trust oneself and to trust others who look or behave like you do.

They set confusing parameters on who you think you are, and what you believe you should or can become. They often dictate what you expect, what seems real, and what seems possible.

> photo of Kumea Shorter-Gooden from book site blackwomenshifting.com

> book: Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America - by Charisse Jones, Kumea Shorter-Gooden

"USA Today reporter Charisse Jones and clinical psychologist Kumea Shorter-Gooden conducted a comprehensive study involving 400 black women of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds to learn what it’s really like to be African American and female."

On gender differences
in giving & taking criticism

When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit, giving a kung fu kick to any diabolical mastermind who merits it. ...

There's an intense debate going on now about why newspapers have so few female columnists.

Out of what will soon be eight Times Op-Ed columnists - nine, counting the public editor - I'm the only woman.

In 1996, after six months on the job, I went to Howell Raines, the editorial page editor, to try to get out of the column. I was a bundle of frayed nerves. I felt as though I were in a "Godfather" movie, shooting and getting shot at.

Men enjoy verbal dueling. As a woman, I told Howell, I wanted to be liked - not attacked. He said I could go back to The Metro Section; I decided to give it another try. Bill Safire told me I needed Punzac, Prozac for pundits.

Guys don't appreciate being lectured by a woman. It taps into myths of carping Harpies and hounding Furies, and distaste for nagging by wives and mothers. The word "harridan" derives from the French word "haridelle" - a worn-out horse or nag.

Men take professional criticism more personally when it comes from a woman.

Energy vampires are people who suck our energy dry. Everyone can benefit from skills on how to cope with them. 

You can especially benefit if you are an "intuitive empath" who absorbs the pain and negativity of others into your body, and become exhausted by it.

Our relationships are governed by a give and take of energy. Some people make us more electric or at ease. 

Yet others suck the life right out of us. As a physician and energy specialist I want to verify that energy vampires roam the world sapping our exuberance. ...

Here are some types of energy vampires to watch for at work and ways to deal with them.

Vampire #1: The Sob Sister

Every time you talk to her she's whining. She adores a captive audience. She's the person with the "poor me" attitude who's more interested in complaining than solutions.

Vampire #2: The Drama Queen

This vampire has a flair for exaggerating small incidents into off-the-chart dramas. My patient Sarah was exhausted when she hired a new employee who was always late for work. 

One week he had the flu and "almost died." Next, his car was towed, again! After this employee left her office Sarah felt tired and used.

How to Protect Yourself: A drama queen doesn't get mileage out of equanimity. Stay calm. Take a few deep breaths. ... At work, set kind but firm limits. ....

I want to be a good feminist but I worry about the state of the female nation. Today, I am especially concerned about Courtney Love. 

Love was hospitalized for a miscarriage over the weekend and missed a court appearance in Los Angeles. 

Failure to appear has tripled her posted bail, made them issue another warrant for her arrest, and gave even more cannon fodder to the media. It has raised the stakes on the celebrity death pools and brought out all the people who 'love to hate' her. 

This is unfair. I was speaking to another feminist, whose opinion I hold in high regard. 

She admitted, quite casually, that she hated Courtney Love. When pressed for a reason why, she stammered over her words, not realizing that she might be taken to task for her own misogyny.

She couldn't come up with an acceptable one, other than "I just love to hate her."

But what for? Courtney Love is an incredible artist who has endured public derision and scorn for well over a decade.

What man could survive that? Yet in any real way, the feminist majority has yet to come to her defense. 

No one has come forward with the simple statement "Why is it with such ease that I am hating another woman?" 

I want to know why this hatred is casual and unquestioned.