Pro-Social Media: I am a Black Girl that Rocks

 

Black Girls Rock is a non-profit organization that is a bout “youth empowerment” and is a “mentoring organization” for girls from the ages of 12 – 17 years old.  In 2006, Black Girls Rock was created by DJ Beverly Bond and is located in New York.   BGR was created to endorse the “arts for women of color, encourage dialog, and examine the ways women of color are portrayed in the media”. The purpose of BGR is to build “self-esteem/self-worth” of young black women.  BGR helps young black girls realize they do not need to “objectify” themselves.    

Black Girls Rock also teamed up with the BET Networks to broadcast the Black Girls Rock awards event.  This event emphasizes the accomplishments of extraordinary women of color.  Also at this event there are performances and awards given.  The awards include, Rock Star, Living Legend, Shot Caller, Social Humanitarian, Young, Gifted and Black, Star Power, Community Actives, and M.A.D. Girls (Making A Difference).  

At the University of Cincinnati the fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc . Beta Eta Chapter was so inspired by the 1^st Black Girls Rock televised award show they decided they were going to hold their own Black Girls Rock event to award women of color (students/ staff) for having “outstanding leadership and influence at the University of Cincinnati.  Last school year on February 16, 2013 I was honored at this event.

This is a photo of my sister and I getting invited to BGR and receiving notice that we are also being honored.

 

This is a photo of my sister and I receiving our Black Girls Rock awards last school year. 

When analyzing the Black Girls Rock event on television which was recently aired last Sunday, November 3,201, all I could think about was how inspiring all these women who are being honored are and how I could see myself in them when they were giving their thank you speeches after receiving their awards. Which is the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis, I see these inspirational women on TV and it makes me want to be like them because when they speak about all their accomplishments, goals, and what they are doing for their community helps me learn from them and makes me want to be as successful as them.  Somewhat they are my “new role models”.   

Tim Wise

I was very excited to attend the Tim Wise event after watching a video of him speak in class.  I arrived at the event early to get a seat. The room was packed with students and staff members.  One thing I found surprising was Tim Wise had a worried look on his face.  When I looked around the room I noticed there were police officers at every single exit.  This made me very nervous, because I had no idea on why there were so many officers in the room.  Later I was informed the reason there were so many officers present was because Tim Wise was getting hate mail and they wanted to make sure he was safe and also everyone who was attending the event was safe as well.  When I was going into the event I was expecting to hear the same speech that we saw in the video in class.  This was not at all what I found.  Tim Wise is such a funny man.  I like the fact that he can still have a sense of humor even though he is speaking about a very serious topic.  Some other things that surprised me was when he was us a background on his life and how he grew up with black people and how he went to daycare at TSU. I knew exactly what he was talking about because I took a tore at that university and almost attended it.  I loved the fact that he talked about some black history and I’m mainly referring to when he was speaking about Madam CJ Walker being the first black millionaire.  I loved this because I felt like he was helping give I like insight on African American history.  Tim Wise talked for over an hour, but I believe the biggest thing he said that stuck with me was when he was talking about “whitenss” and privilege.  It reminded me of our class lecture when we talked about the two and got to see him talk about it in his video.  The reason it stuck with me at this event was because of the analogy he used, which was basically white people verses black people on April 20^th.  He was basically saying that white people can get away with smoking weed on 4/20 but let that be a black person they would get locked up without question. I know that he has written many books and talked all over the country but I think it would be very interesting to see him as a professor speaking on this topic.  I would be the first to sign up for his course.    

“Higher Learning” (Race)

Summary: I am doing my race blog on the 1995 John Singleton film Higher Learning.  The film has a star-studded cast with people like Omar Epps, Jennifer Connelly, Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Regina King, Busta Rhymes, and Tyra Banks just to name a few.  The movie is about many different college students with different races and backgrounds going to a university together.  This movie shows many different stereotypes about race and how these different races are portrayed. In this movie one gets to see how these races interact when they are together and when they are apart.  There is a lot of racism in this movie that can be a little overwhelming with other controversial topics being addressed.  At the end of this movie there is a big tragedy but there is also a light at the end of the tunnel.

Analysis/ Application:  The first time I ever saw the movie Higher Learning was my freshman year of college when it came on BET on a Saturday afternoon.  During the movie I began to get upset because it was such a said reality our world still till this day has racism.  While I was getting mad I never thought about what the point of the movie was until I watched/ analyzed it tonight for this course.   When I was analyzing this film the first thing I notice was the director/writer of the film John Singleton was showing us social constructs of mediated constructions.  Through his characters he was telling us what race is and what we should expected out of every racial group.  For example, he shows African Americans as the typical stereotypes (an athlete, ghetto, hard, thug like, agree, stupid).  He also does this by the appearance he gives them.  For instance, he has Ice Cube’s and Busta Rhymes characters dressed in baggie clothes, hair in fros/ dreads, and they use profanity a lot.  With John Singletons Caucasian characters you can see the critical race theory’s “whiteness”.  Most of the Caucasian characters have privilege.  For example, in the movie you see them with big frat houses and nice clothing.  One scene in particular that reminded me of two different conversations we had in class was one when where watching TIM Wise speak about the police officers just automatically think a black person is a drug dealer.  This happens in the film when Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, and friends go to the white frat house and get into an altercation with them.  The other conversation we had in class after the Tim Wise video one of my classmates said he was from a small town and really never been around black people until he came to school, actually happened in the film.  One of the characters was basically a loner.  He never saw a black person before so he didn’t not know how to act around them. He was also not good at making friends. He ended up being recruited by a white supremacist group and shooting a lot of people at the end of the movie. 

Conclusion: This moves suggest that race is about mediated constructions, “whiteness”, and racial socialization. 

 

Higher Learning Trailer:

Gender

                The show I picked to watch was Gray’s Anatomy.  It has been airing on ABC since March 27, 2005 and is heavily watched on television.  The show was created by Shonda Rhimes as a medical drama.  It focuses on the lives of the interns and residents working in the hospital.  The main character is Meredith Gray who happens to narrate in every episode.  In every season and episode we the viewers see more drama and learn something new about each character each time. 

                In this television show masculinity and femininity are represented in many different ways and sexuality is portrayed very highly.  Shonda Rhimes allows her characters to be very promiscuous.  All of the characters in the show are very sexually attracted to anyone who looks sexy and they are very sexually active.  The women in the show are all beautiful women, but in my opinion I don’t believe they are being looked at through the male gaze.  I say this because I do not believe they are being displayed for the pleasure of male in the show or for those who are watching the show.  When I think of the male gaze I think of women who are like vamps and flappers.  Shonda makes the viewer’s take a step back and really evaluate how female and male doctors are. 

               Are they in real life these overly hyper sexual human beings?

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INtHUTycg_o