Popular images of black women - Essay Example

Partly, women engage in these acts due to the expectations of the society and such expectations can be quite limiting and soul crashing. So long as women are not decided on doing what is right for them, they will always face such discrimination. In Harris-Perry’s notion of “black women standing in a crooked room,” Janie is one such woman who decides to curve a life that suits her life desires, and refuses to be intimidated by the society. The argument is when placed in a crooked environment, one has the right and discretion to find their way out in terms of what is good for them (Harris-Perry 13).

In the mainstream media, the black woman is portrayed with all the negative traits as opposed to the white woman who is portrayed as the good one. In the media such as movies and hip-hop videos, the black woman is degradingly presented as the half-naked human. Most parts of their bodies such as breasts and butts are exposed – an act which is greatly inhuman (Vaz 111). In movies, they are given societal characters and they are the ones depicted to be fostering wardens of the white women and their children.

They are coerced into doing this and in some instances to portray some normal human acts such as being angry, the black woman is portrayed as the type who will hurl insults and wage physical war against their male partners in as much as they are educated. This picture shows the black woman as one who is not in the position of reasoning well and furthers the notion of irrational anger on such women (Benshoff and Griffin 88–95). The black women in the mainstream media and other forums have been assaulted with a variety of negative images.

They are shown as stereotypical mammies, matriarchs, and welfare recipients; all these are oppressive acts towards the black woman. The women are represented in this manner not because it is the reality but because such individuals want to express some disguise, mystification and malicious objectives in the social fronts (Smith 223–5). The mainstreaming images of the American black woman are the right justification for oppression and discrimination in terms of race, gender and class in the society.

This is because the way the woman has been treated borrows a lot from the definition of oppression and lack of space for expression. This makes the representation of the black woman of African origin inaccurate because the images of the women as shown are exaggerated and degrading to the human race (Vaz 156–8). The stereotypes perpetuate the oppressive nature to the extent that they create binary opposition thinking. They create feelings towards the black woman in the societal context to the extent that such feelings retard thought while generating a negative view of the black woman (Benshoff and Griffin 102).

The values placed upon the black woman give a completely different view of the woman, hence the facts of who the real woman is are covered completely. The impacts of the manner in which the women have been treated run as deep as objectifying the black woman. This denies them their outright right of being in the position to define what reality is as they establish their identity and trace their roots. Instead, they have been placed in the position