Years ago, Black womanhood was caricatured in the media by the big fat black mammie types, only fit to take care of their white charges or cook in the kitchens. Later, it changed to the troubled drug addicted singer type. Nowadays, the caricature of Black womanhood is perceived through the media as a wig/weave wearing loose immoral being. The caricature has not changed much from the earlier one of half naked savage exposing her breasts and shaking her rear end, only now her grass skirt has been replaced by a bikini or a skin tight mini dress, and on her head she wears a weave. She is seen happy and contented, just to be part of a harem, bumping and grinding in cars or shaking her stuff around enjoying the delights of revelry.
This loose, immoral, exotic, and hedonistic Black woman is the type that is portrayed to us on a daily basis (in the video's) and is one which most of our men also buy into because they themselves have been conditioned to think on a superficial level; to think that flitting from woman to woman is the source of happiness, that the body beautiful is everything. Women also buy into this. A man's morals don't come into it so long as he looks good or he can 'do it right'. But they soon realise that it is the strength of a person's character is the prerequisite to happiness. We have been conditioned and therefore, we accept the superficial nature of people, relationships, and appearance.
A few days ago I was out shopping and ther was a little child, no older that 9 or 10 shopping with her mother. Some 'bwoy' not much older than herself was trying to 'check'her' not once or twice, telling her that he likes her and isn't she interested. The girl just blanked him, the mother did nothing to intervene and just carried on buying her shoes.
The point is, rather than thinking about an education or being a child, he, at the age of ten is already displaying a preditor's mentality. It does not take much stretch of the imagination to see where he will be in a few years time.
On another day, I saw three girls, one no older that 14 with a big belly. Once again, her education has stopped and what can she possibly give to a child in terms of guidance or economic stability?
I have a teenage daughter and I do not allow her to watch programmes that degrade a woman's sexuality because too much media exposure to those images can make her take in the negativity of Afrikan womanhood.
If that is what is presented to us, as to who we are, then we take it in, albeit, unconsciously and act it out. I also warn her against the type of men that have no substance to their character, other than the worship of their own phalluses and who see women as potential worshipers of that phallus, only to be discarded when they have had their pleasure. I come across such men every day. Outwardly, they may be attractive looking but inside, they are lethal, they drag you down psychologically, and some of them are potential death traps, talking 'bout 'Baby I like you' as it that is supposed to flatter me, when in reality, all they want to do is to make me another in a long line of conquests.
In a round about way, what I am saying is that by not seeing Afrikan womanhood in any other terms that the sexual energiser bunny mode, we lose sight as to what true womanhood is all about and we certainly lose sight as to what true masculinity is about. Because the one that is being offered up to us, and which many men perpetuate and we accept, is the rakish philandering type: the Mandingo's the Lothario's,and Casanova's. Yeah, I know all you players, know where I am coming from.
By not taking responsibility for our own identities, and by being complacent, by allowing ourselves to be swayed by media hype, a lack of community, and selfishness, our OWN moral degeneration is leading to annihilation. Remember, we are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Therefore, how we define ourselves as Afrikan women should not be dictated by the white media or brain washed irresponsible men folk, but by our own dignity, self-respect and self worth.