The Black Girls Rock! Foundation was founded in 2006 as an organization dedicated to the empowerment of young women of color; a foundation committed to helping black and brown girls overcome the myriad of obstacles a misogynoiristic society places squarely in front of them. The Black Girls Rock! Awards are now featured on BET as a way of recognizing role models, encouraging teachings of self worth, and emphasizing the talents of extraordinary women of color who are otherwise unseen in American media.[/'b]

Let me emphasize that last part. "Women of color who are otherwise unseen in American media." We need Black Girls Rock! because black girls and women are almost invisible in American media. Because if you were a black girl growing up in this country, watching TV and movies and reading magazines like every other kid, looking for some representation of yourself as something beautiful or heroic, you would be sorely disappointed.[/b]


Let me tell you something, white folks. From one white person to another.

You are in everything. 99 percent of Hollywood movies feature your faces. 99 percent of magazine covers are covered in you. The Emmy Awards and Oscars are almost entirely you. If you Google "beautiful people" the screen is covered in white faces. Black girls (and boys) are taught from birth that there is one version of beauty, and it is you. Many black girls go their entire lives thinking they are ugly, thinking they need to be lighter, straighter, whiter in order to have value. Everything that you see every day that reaffirms your whiteness; every commercial that has a nice white lady embodying the perfect "mom;" every magazine that has blue eyes and bone-straight hair; every Hollywood blockbuster that has a leading lady with skin never darker than Halle Berry... all of these things are reinforcements of your identity that you take for granted.

You may be fat. You may have hair that curls up at the ends. You may even have acne. But your face is everywhere. Your people are everywhere. What in your heart recoils when you see Black Girls Rock? What bone in your body sees empowerment for black girls and thinks "that's not fair"? Where is your bitterness rooted? What do you think has been taken from you when women of color are uplifted?

All of the things you take for granted are what you're protecting when you shout down Black Girls Rock: your whiteness, the system that upholds your face as the supreme standard of beauty, your place in the center of a culture that demands people of color remain hidden in the margins, present but only barely and never overshadowing the white hero/heroine. Your discomfort with black girls who rock tells me that you prefer the status quo: you prefer for black faces to remain hidden, you prefer for America's heroes to have white faces, you prefer for black actresses to wear aprons and chains.

This is not to say that white girls don't rock. I'm white. I kind of rock. But this conversation isn't about you, it isn't about us. Why must everything always be about us? It doesn't have to be. And it shouldn't be. From one white person to another... please sit down. Queen Latifah is on and you're blocking the screen.


SOURCE

This article so point and I'm glad a white woman wrote this. I am so tired of some white folks complaining why there is a BET awards or a Blackgirlsrocks on BET when everything else on TV is about white people. As a white person, not everything is about us.

Originally posted by Vespertine Literally the biggest messes ever are people who believe in "reverse racism." Oh and "misandry"/mens' right activists

Originally posted by TikiMiss this comment is a little ignorant

Originally posted by Vespertine ... explain how?

Originally posted by TikiMiss Racism is hating another race. There are certainly people who hate white people, so it's not far-fetched in the slightest to say that reverse and/or anti-white racism does exist. It's not as prevalent as racism against black people, but it does still exist. And men deal with a different set of issues from women. If you were specifically to compare men with women on issues of careers or reproductive health, then sure. Women are more oppressed. But when it comes to mental health, violence, drug abuse, and things like sexuality, men have it significantly worse. There's no "less oppressed" gender in a broad term. What you see as being less oppressed: having the chance to get paid more (which isn't even true, increasingly, nowadays as women are controlling more of the wealth in the U.S.) does not necessarily bode true for someone who may see how men are oppressed by other factors into being more heavily affected by drugs, gang violence, etc.