Day: April 1, 2019

To continue the story of the importance of black women in the 2020 elections, Richard Fausset from The New York Times wrote an article on recent Democratic appeals (particularly from Senator Harris and Mr. O’Rourke, but from many candidates) to black women as a voting bloc, who many Democrats consider a key demographic for winning the democratic primaries.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/black-women-voting-south.html. The article traces how many of the major players are currently either appealing to certain issues or campaigning in specific locations geared at gaining the support of black women voters. Many of these appeals call upon identities of the candidate and relate them to specific struggles—either arguing ‘I can help you because I am like you’ or ‘I can help you even though I’m not like you.’

“Watching in the back of the crowd were Kadara and Kaywon Nelson, a black couple in their 30s, who had come out to learn more about Mr. O’Rourke. They were anti-Trump, but otherwise undecided. The biggest issue for Ms. Nelson, the campus safety compliance officer, was the cost of health care…They both said a candidate who could address the country’s issues was more important than finding one who represented their race. ”

As conversations surrounding the 2020 election continue to circulate, what is most important? Descriptive or substantive representation? Issues or the person pursuing them? Does treating black women as a ‘voting bloc’ in electoral politics disregard individual experiences and black women’s individual autonomy?

In class we’ve talked about how black women have historically been pushed to the back and often times forgotten about. In many instances the history of black women is distorted and disregarded. This also stands true when it comes to the conversation of art. Many art pieces in modern day have been whitewashed and continue to diminish the existence of black women in historical art. In an article by Sophia Smith Galer, Galer uses many examples of historical black skinned females in mythology and history that have been whitewashed in art. Andromeda, who was a originally depicted as a black princess from Ethiopia, has been made to be a white woman in many art pieces. She was in fact a black woman, but many artist went on believing she was white. In addition, in many paintings of the old testament the queen of Sheba is depicted as white. Gale notes “the Renaissance saw a whitewashing and sexualization of the Queen of Sheba”. This quote stuck out to me because as we’ve discussed in class black women are often unnecessarily over sexualized. I found this article to be very relevant to our class because of the discussions we’ve had about how black women are forgotten or the last in line for respect. It is important to realize that this idea can be applied to other disciplines that aren’t usually discussed. Art is one of those disciplines and examines this idea closely.

Link here

Today, March 31, marks the celebration of transgender visibility. The purpose of Transgender Day of Visibility is to acknowledge transgender and gender non-conforming people around the world and their accomplishments as well as continue the conversation about their frequent struggle for equality. For the purposes of this class and for spreading general awareness on the issue, black trans women and their experiences with discrimination not only for their gender identity but also in terms of race needs to be addressed. An analysis titled Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey was recently released and contains startling statistics about the lives of transgender people in general, emphasizing even further the impact discrimination has on trans people of color. I encourage everyone to look into the findings of the study and I will provide the link. However, a few key findings are: 49% of black respondents had attempted suicide, 34% reported a household income less than $10,000 per year, and 41% reported being homeless at least once in their lifetime- and this is more than 5 times the U.S national average. A clear conclusion of this study is that transgender people are victims of harassment and discrimination in larger numbers, but black trans people are fairing even worse. Until black trans women are free, none of us are free.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleefowlkes/2019/03/31/transgender-day-of-visibility-honoring-the-visible-and-the-invisible/#5103bd7c5b04