Now before you go assuming that I am some radically honest neo-nazi racist, let me explain.
I don't really think that this country needs a month during which we study and honor the history of our black brothers and sisters. I think our school social studies classes do a great job of covering this. What our citizens lack is not an understanding of black history but rather a good handle on the present black culture. We need Black NOW Month!
Some TV network should take this cause up and do a 2 hour special to educate the rest of us. The broadcast should highlight things that the black community would like the rest of us to know as well as address inquiries posed by people like me. Like, what is up with black people's hair? Why are these women SO against getting it wet? How is it different from mine? Why is it okay for black women to wear their hair in a mullet fashion at times? I've been told that these aren't true mullets and that it is okay when the person is black but I'm still a little unclear.
Black NOW Month should be kicked off each February 1st with an announcement regarding which title is preferred for the year: "Black" or "African American". I keep getting mixed signals about this.
I will now take this opportunity to post one of my favorite pictures of our nation's leader, President Barack Obama. I'm no expert but it seems that he is becoming quite the (Black/African american) leader in this country.
Keep It Real!
Oh the black hair issue. Okay here's what I know, and it's not a whole lot, but for some reason this is an issue that fascinates me. I know that it tends to dryness issues, so conditioning is a must. And because of the texture, styling it is sort of a big deal, and I think that's part of the not getting it wet thing. It's a big culture issue, because a lot of women feel pressured to straighten their hair and try to get it to behave like it's got the texture that American culture tends to think of as "normal." But that's getting to issues that I can't quite coment on as an outsider.
ReplyDeleteIf you're really interested in black culture, there's always the internet. There's a pretty active community of livejournal that might answer some of your questions, but ... maybe not. http://community.livejournal.com/blackfolk/profile The tags are useful for browsing around. Oh this community might be more helpful. http://community.livejournal.com/racism_101/profile