I Am A Black Girl Magic

935 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of black women in civil rights movement

I am a black girl and I am very magical. No, black girl magic isn 't something tangible yet every single black girl has some. #BlackGirlMagic was created by CeShawn Thompson about 3 years ago via Twitter. The platform in which Thompson used was very creative and non-traditional for the time. Three years ago there weren 't many hashtags on Twitter especially for African American women. I believe this was created to uplift and empower African American girls who are widely judge and made feel less important in today 's society. Personally, I believe that this hashtag is by far the best approach to empower and uplift since it is created on a platform which is used by teen and adults, which allows it to be easily accessible to anyone. The purpose of my paper is to explain how black girls are magical in every aspect of life despite the oppression that we face. What is black girl magic you might ask? Black girl magic is everything about us, from the coarser textures of our hair, to the melanin in our skin. #BlackGirlMagic is just an appreciation of us in general. We have read numerous articles that show appreciation to our African American girls for doing them and succeeding at whatever they do, for example the Giorgis "Carefree Black Girl" article. This article depicts how even though Rihanna is oppressed by societies thoughts and expectations of her she still manages to express herself without caring about all the backfire she may receive while doing so. Rihanna 's actions, the way she dresses is all against what society deems as lady-like. She demands authority over her body, narrative, and career. (Giorgis para. 4) This is the true definition of black girl magic, the ability to push through stereotypes and accept yourself just ... ... middle of paper ... ... empower each other.When this hashtag was originally created it was very non-traditional. It wasn 't common to see people connecting from different parts of the world talking about positive things about a group of people. This approach was very effective in my opinion, it was able to reach a large group of people and was easy to relate too which caused it to be so successful. In this paper, I used the works of Giorgis, Heldke and O’Conner and Lorde, and Davis to show the ways that African American girls have and use their #blackgirlmagic. From dehumanization from different races, to the mistreatment from our own government us African American girls still seem to push through and be great. Yes world, we are black girls and we are magical in every way. Although, African American girls have faced all of these different types of oppression, we have not succumbed to it.

Show More
Related

  • Patricia Hill Collins '' Intersectionality Is Not Neutral'

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    As both Tracey Reynolds and Audre Lorde have emphasized, Black women are not perpetually passive victims, but active agents. It is totally possible for Black women to seize a form of empowerment, whether that be alternative education, or the creation of organizations that weren’t situated in either the Civil Rights movement or Women’s

    Read More

  • Kellner Intellectual Analysis

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    Collin thinks “race, class and gender represent the three system of oppression that most heavily affects African American women”. She also believes there are other groups than Black Women being affected by this oppression.

    Read More

  • Leith Mullings' On Our Own Terms: Race, Class, And Gender In The Lives Of African American Women

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Author of this book (On our own terms: race, class, and gender in the lives of African American Women) Leith Mullings seeks to explore the modern and historical lives of African American women on the issues of race, class and gender. Mullings does this in a very analytical way using a collection of essays written and collected over a twenty five year period. The author’s systematic format best explains her point of view. The book explores issues such as family, work and health comparing and contrasting between white and black women as well as between men and women of both races.

    Read More

  • Lifting as We Climb

    3002 Words  | 7 Pages

    ... the strength black women have mentally as well as physically. Their involvement in various Women's Groups has also helped to create a better image for black women. Throughout their lives, they have shown that whatever obstacles a good black woman may face, you can never keep her down!

    Read More

  • Anotated Bibliographies for The Bluest Eye

    1994 Words  | 4 Pages

    For my research, there was no specific parameter set on the range of dates in my research. The researched sources used in this set of bibliographies date between 1987 to 2003. These annotations will be found most useful by high school and post-secondary undergraduate students who are researching similar topics to the ones outlined in my study. The resources used are very intellectual, but not overly complicated or hard to understand. There were few limitations set towards the type of resources used, although Internet sources were avoided for the most part. Most of the resources used in this set of annotated bibliographies are articles, essays, and chapters from book-length studies, found mostly at the Queen Elizabeth II library. Trends that can be noticed in these entries are the main focal point, which the authors all seemed to cover, that is racism and the social-cultural problems created for young African American women. Many of the authors seemed to blame white culture, or the colourist culture for the problem of lost identity in black girls. They seemed to take the same direction in their articles, but many taking different routes in explaining and proving their point. These ideas seemed to be arranged by the stating that Pecola Breedlove is a lost little black girl, who because of her idea that being white would solve all her family and life problems, looses her true self. The authors would then blame the white culture for this deficiency in the young mind of an African American girl.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Joan Morgan From Fly Girls To Bits And Hos

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article “ From Fly to Bitches and Hoes” by Joan Morgan, she often speaks about the positive and negative ideas associated with hip-hop music. Black men display their manhood with full on violence, crime, hidden guilt, and secret escapes through drugs and alcohol. Joan Morgan’s article views the root causes of the advantage of misogyny in rap music lyrics. In the beginning of the incitement her desires shift to focus on from rap culture condemnation to a deeper analysis of the root causes. She shows the hidden causes of unpleasant sexism in rap music and argues that we need to look deeper into understanding misogyny. I agree with Joan Morgan with the stance that black men show their emotions in a different way that is seen a different perspective.

    Read More

  • Sisters Of The Yam Analysis

    2054 Words  | 5 Pages

    Often times in the black community we like to avoid talking about topics that effect us because of the fear of “scaring the community”. Hooks shows the readers of Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery that we shouldn’t be worried about scaring the community and we need to inform the community to prevent them from being ignorant of the issues that are prevelant in the black community. This book allowed me to open my eyes to the issues that all African American women are facing on a day-to-day

    Read More

  • Cultural Representation In Taylor Swift's Shake It Off Video

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    Taylor Swift’s Shake it off video contains elements of cultural appropriation that exhibit stereotypical tropes which have been used to define African American women and, in particular, their sexuality for years. The video perpetuates the negative stereotypes that have placed Black women on the opposite side of respect for centuries. The video involves White women twerking in a way that conforms to the male gaze, for profitable success. Twerking involves thrusting hip movements, low squatting stance, and shaking of the derriere‎. White women are able to perform the twerk without being socialized as hyper-sexual, whereas Black women are. Hence, the different conceptions of White and Black womanhood. The inability for Black women to escape their skin color is the one of the many reasons they are ridiculed. Their skin color assigned them to the category that defines them as unholy, dirty, and promiscuous White women have the ability to hide behind their skin color, which classifies them as pure, and innocent in society eyes. The cultural appropriation of twerking is an exercise of White women’s privilege. Black women are judged harshly for

    Read More

  • Essay On Colorblind Intersectionality

    1799 Words  | 4 Pages

    In other words, Carbado meant to prove that not only Black women fit into this definition of intersectionality, and therefore there are other groups of people, aside from Black women, who can share their same experiences. Carbado’s theory about gender and colorblind intersectionality comes close to being able to explain Audrey Lorde’s understanding of the Black women identity. But applying Carbado’s theory it becomes more inclusive towards other oppressed groups of people, and it highlights Carbado’s expansion of intersectionality within Lorde’s essay.

    Read More

  • Discontented Black Feminist Argumentative Analysis

    577 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the weekly readings for week five we see two readings that talk about the connections between women’s suffrage and black women’s identities. In Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s Discontented Black Feminists: Prelude and Postscript to the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, we see the ways that black women’s identities were marginalized either through their sex or by their race. These identities were oppressed through social groups, laws, and voting rights. Discontented Black Feminists talks about the journey black feminists took to combat the sexism as well as the racism such as forming independent social clubs, sororities, in addition to appealing to the government through courts and petitions. These women formed an independent branch of feminism in which began to prioritize not one identity over another, but to look at each identity as a whole. This paved the way for future feminists to introduce the concept of intersectionality.

    Read More

  • Stuart Hall's What Is This Black In Black Popular Culture?

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Stuart Hall’s “What is This “Black” in Black Popular Culture?” the historical implication of popular culture in the U.S is examined and the influence that blackness has in it is deconstructed. According to the text, the departure of European concepts of culture after WWII sparked a hegemonic shift as the United States emerged as a world power. Due to this, the U.S. became the epicenter of global culture production. However, since America has always had a large ethnic population due to slavery, the true face of American popular culture was black American vernacular traditions. Even today, slang that emerge from black ghettos and communities become highly popular with people of other races. In fact, much of black culture is not just our culture,

    Read More

  • A Historical Perspective: The Wage Gap

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    It is believed by the author that the feminist movement in many ways parallels the struggles faced by African Americans in the US during the same time period. The authors will offer ideas on where the pro...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Dozens By Rachel Wiley

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the month of March 2016, Women of the World Poetry Slam had Rachel Wiley, a poet and body-positive activist, present her now viral poem called “The Dozens” (Vagianos 2016). This poem was about slams white feminism as a clear indication of whiteness self-defense mechanism. In this poem Wiley included various kinds social events that have occurred in the past years and just to name two: Raven Symone on blackness and Miley Cyrus and Nicki Manji at the VMAs. White feminism continues to become more problematic as the media continues to allow it to be because whiteness makes money; however, intersectionality about race, public imagery, and actual feminism also continues to go viral as the diversity of American become more and more productive.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Don T Touch My Hair

    2413 Words  | 5 Pages

    Don’t touch my hair: this should be a sentiment simple enough to understand. However, for many black women this establishment of boundaries can be broken repeatedly and without any regard for personal space. Solange Knowles’ song “Don’t Touch My Hair” and accompanying music video takes this declaration of self and creates an anthem for the empowerment of black women and dismissal of microagressions, white beauty standards, jealousy and appropriation. Her lyrics emphasize the emotional connection that black women have to their hair. But, beyond this pride is an act of self-love militant and radical against white standards of beauty; or is this self-love subscribing to the notion that black women’s hair is an object detached from their personhood- objectifying themselves to other’s gazes and not subverting them? In order to answer this question, theories from Helen

    Read More

  • Ethnic Identity Essay

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    African American people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. Slavery was a significant time period when African/African American individuals endured massive oppression, which refers to the feeling of being deprived of their human rights and dignity (Reed, 2016). Knowing that my ancestors had to conceal their feelings along with their cultural values, makes me feel more entitled to express my ethnic identity as an African American woman. My ethnic identity has increase my sense of belongingness because it gives me the ability to share and live amongst individuals with the same physical appearance and in some cases, the same obstacles. Society has placed its’ social norms on modern day women, which allows men to make more for the same labor, or that stop successful women from achieving their goals by installing the glass ceiling. However, there is a higher increase of risk for African American women, such as decrease in the male head of household, along with urbanization. Which caused African American women to work long hours that resulted in a devastating shift in the family structure (Reed, 2016). Past, present and current experiences of African American women is why my ethnic identity is so important to me, because it is used as a constant reminder of the struggles that I have to overcome for my daughter and the generation after

    Read More

More about I Am A Black Girl Magic

Open Document