I do not believe that Asher Roth’s comment reflect a postmodern approach to African American women’s identity.  His comment was racially insensitive, as Rebecca Walker’s blog video states it was both clumsy and hurtful.  In his comment he is negatively stigmatizing African American women.  I believe to often individuals try and use terms like that of the postmodern approach to cover up their bigotry and or ignorance.  I do not believe that Roth is a racist, however I do feel that he is insensitive to African American women’s identity by him stating that he was “Hanging out with nappy headed hoes.”  This is unacceptable terminology if we are suppose to be moving forward, as I believe if he was using a postmodern approach to African American identity, he would have known that such language was culturally unacceptable to use.  As the video from Rebecca Walker’s blog states, “As we progress we get more comfortable and as we get more comfortable some of us get extra comfortable.  We start acting as if coming closer together means not having to care how our words affect each other.”  In the closer we come together the more vigilant we should become of the language that we use because we should know how culturally relevant certain terminology can be and the negative impacts it can cause.  I believe that in a post modern approach one is more aware of culturally relevant language and Roth clearly was being disrespectful, and had to have known it was a damaging comment due to the backlash that was started after Don Imus initially used this language.

A postmodern approach to African American women’s identity does not encourage African American women to dismiss the legitimacy of Patricia Hill Collin’s notion of Black feminist thought but rather to embrace it in helping to transform Black feminist thought.  In her works Patricia Hill Collin’s notes how self-definition was a way to survive in a hostile environment, and this is clearly exemplified through Roth’s comment and how these women are openly protesting this and stating this comment does not define them.  As Rebecca Walker in To Be Real states, “young women coming of age today wrestle with the term because we have a very different vantage point on the world than that of our foremothers (p. xxxiii).”  Within this Walker is stating how times have changed and progress has been made and that women now see things in a different light than that of their predecessor, but as time is not static neither should Black feminist thought and with the change they should embrace past ideologies and use them as the foundation for expanding Black feminist thought.  Rebecca Walker in Being Real notes, “It is more important than ever to fight to be all of who we are.  Rather than allowing ourselves and others to be put into boxes meant to categorize and dismiss…(p.xxxix).”  As Walker notes we need to be able to express ourselves fully so that we can fight stereotypes and injustices.

A postmodern approach does not encourage White men, like Roth, to dismiss the legitimacy of Patricia Hill Collin’s notion of Black feminist thought.  Rather individuals like Roth misconstrue postmodern thought, by believing their comments are in a post racial world and can’t be seen as negative.  However this language is inappropriate and damaging to African American women.  In a postmodern approach there is an emphasis to embrace Patricia Hill Collin’s notion of Black feminist thought but to not be so rigid in the defining of Black feminism, but rather be more fluid in its definition so that it is not so stifling and confining.  In trying to embrace the idea of a postmodern approach white men like Roth can misunderstand the ideologies, and become to comfortable in speaking of race as the video from Rebecca Walker’s blog states.  Also that as a white man Roth does not fully understand nor could he ever for what it means to be an African American woman.  However he knows that this language can have negative implications as we have seen in the past.  As the film later states, “when people come closer together the boundaries change but you never stop having boundaries…and the whole process of getting closer is based on becoming more aware of those constantly evolving boundaries.”  In a postmodern approach Roth should be more aware of these constantly evolving boundary and respect them.  I do not believe that a postmodern approach would find the language that Roth used was appropriate by any means.  Rebecca Walker in Being Real notes, “the reality is there is no betrayal in being yourself, home must be made within, and the best communities are those built on mutual respect (p. xxxviii).”  Here Walker is exemplifying that in a postmodern approach we must work together and respect one another and Roth in his comment is being very disrespectful, and he did so with prior knowledge of how harmful these words had already been.  The basketball coach from Rutgers had spoke out about Don Imus’ comments and how it was very harmful and disrespectful to the basketball players.  I agree with what Walker stated about how for us to grow we need to respect these boundaries we have and treat each other with mutual respect to grow as a society.

My second blog, which I analyzed, was that of Aisha Upton.  She has a very unique perspective because she is not only an African American woman, but she also is Hispanic.  I found it interesting how she speaks about how when answering questionnaires how those are so limiting and she cannot express her true self, although she does find the label African American more apart of her identity than Hispanic.  Like Ms. Davis, Aisha too talks about the issue of skin tone, with how her grandmother despises her due to her dark tone.  She also discusses how within the African American community the lighter ones skin tone is the easier time they find when maneuvering through the world.  Also within this idea of lighter skin tone, the media often tries to lighten black women’s images.  We see this through the images of Beyonce Knowles and Michelle Obama’s and how recently in their media depictions their images have been airbrushed so that they look lighter than actuality.

Patricia Hill Collins’ discussion of the “power of self-definition” is relevant in understanding the ways in which middle class African American women define themselves in the 21st century.  The power of self-definition discusses how African American women use self-definition as a source of power to fight the hegemonic white produced images of African American women.  Collins noted, “resisting by doing something that is not expected couldn’t have occurred without black women’s long standing rejection of mammies, matriarch’s, and other controlling images (p.98).”  These images are too often seen in the media, for example films as Norbit, and through Tyler Perry’s famous character Madea.  African Americans through history have had to fight against this image, and today is no different.  Collins noted, “Black women’s lives are a series of negotiations that aim to reconcile the contradictions separating our own internally defined images of self as African American women with our objectifications as the others. Struggle of living two lives, one for ‘them and one of ourselves’ (p.99).”

Patricia Hill Collins’ discussion of the “sexual politics of Black womanhood” also is relevant in understanding the middle class African American woman of the 21st century.  In the past African American women’s sexuality have been used as a tool against them.  Collins noted, “Black people experience a highly visible sexualized racism, one where the visibility of black bodies themselves reinscribes the hypervisibility of Black men and women’s alleged sexual deviancy (p.130).”  This is all to often reinforced through the images of the Jezebel.  These images are often rewarded in the film industry too, as we saw Halle Berry’s awards for her performance in Monster’s Ball (2001).

The Daughters of the Dust (1991) by Julie Dash is a portal into understanding the concept of black feminist thought.  Collins’ noted, “despite common challenges confronting U.S. Black women as a group, diverse responses to these core themes characterize U.S. Black women’s group knowledge or standpoint (p.25).”  Within the film we see this in how each of the women have very diverse responses to the struggle they encounter.  Collins noted, “Many contemporary Black women intellectuals continue to draw on this tradition of using everyday actions and experiences in our theoretical work (p.33).”  Dash in Daughters of the Dust brings these everyday actions and experiences to a larger audience so that a large audience can see how everyday actions and experiences inform black feminist thought.  The film gives us a larger array of images of African American woman that the media usually are lacking.  Although these women vary in differences they all have had common experiences thrust upon them by an oppressive white culture.  Daughters of the Dust gives us a new perspective on Black feminist thought that we haven’t been given by most films.

Mark Anthony Neal in his blog “Broken Social Contract” is discussing how the Spelman women are frustrated with the social contract with the Morehouse men.  The social contract as Neal states is that the social contract is for African American women to service men socially, politically, economically, socially, and sexually.  The women are frustrated for being treated as second rate to the men.  Through this video we see through women’s discussions that men are not seeing their actions as wrong.  One example is that of the sexual incidences when women are too drunk and men are initiating sexual relations and when they women wake up they don’t remember anything that happened.  The women at Spelman believe that the men at Morehouse need to abandon this age-old silent social contract and need to defend their counterparts at Spelman.  They feel that the sexual assaults on African American women are not being properly addressed, and so the Spelman women conducted a protest march at Morehouse College.  Some believe that the protest was a negative move because the women acted out of too much emotion and did not work together with the Morehouse men for a common goal.  The counterargument to that is that the Spelman women believe these women saying this are still in the mind frame of following this social contract and still being the backbone to black men and to stand behind them.

Crystal P. Smith in her blog “What if Michelle Obama Was White?” opens with the argument of how American is still heavily against interracial relationships and how these relationships still hold very heavy stereotypes.  When discussing interracial relationship, Mark Anthony Neal was quoted stating, “I think that for black voters, he would have had to overcome more than he did around the question of authenticity,” Interracial relationships have been portrayed negatively in American society and have been treated with much hostility.  Such an example of this could be Emmett Till’s murder for whistling at a white woman.  Smith affirms that Obama’s color played a large role in his acceptance whites.  Within this argument Smith states that yes an African American fist family is acceptable, but an interracial family is too much for American society to accept.

In trying to mend the broken social contract, we need to take in consideration the historical significance of race, class, and color dynamics of black women and men; these have all played a large role in constructing this social contract and will play a large role in reconstructing it.  These issues are illustrated in Mark Anthony Neal’s blogs, “Breaking the Social Contract” and “What if Michelle Obama was White?”.  In Deborah Gray White’s text Too Heavy a Load she addresses these issues.  White discusses these matters and how they are still being played out today, and she does so in the example of the Clarence Thomas hearings.  White notes, “The way the issues were put, the way they debate spun out, forced me to take sides against myself, to choose between my blackness and my womanhood (p.15).”  Here White is noting that within the race women are often forced to chose are they black or are they women.  This issue of the Clarence Thomas hearings is similar to this broken contract in Mark Anthony Neal’s blog, in that often women are forced to either chose to support the race or be women.  The women are often made to choose to sit silently and support their men, and this silent contract has been historically present and women want men to back their movements also.  This is illustrated through the National Association of Colored Women’s slogan  “A race can rise no higher than its women (p.63).”  The issue of sexual exploitation has also been an issue plaguing African American women, White notes, “The entire issue of sexual exploitation, then, spoke to the issue of class (p.69).”  The clubwomen put the protection of black women upon themselves.  White believes, “They were unlikely to choose the NACW because its leaders often seemed out of touch with ordinary black women (p.132).”  Class issues were also a large part of the problem within the clubs.  White notes, “ Like the NACW, the Council exacerbated class problems within black female America…Classism was inherent in the networking strategy that made the middle-class black professional women the conduit through which resources flowed in the black community.  They were the immediate beneficiaries of the Council’s work (p.157).”  Here the women of the lower classes saw that they were only benefactors only after the middle-class women accomplished their success.  These women saw the clubs as only looking out for the interest of the middle class women.  These issues also occurred with the perception problems of the sororities as being elitist. White notes, “One of the very few closed membership organizations in the Black community, and the only one that required a college education (p.159).”  This perception of being elitist created a divide among these middle class women and the lower class women.  As White is noting in Too Heavy a Load these problems in the social contract have to be looked at a considering the the historical significance of race, class, and color dynamics between African American men and women.