Thanks for calling me a girl. :-) As someone who is celebrating my 49th birthday this year, anytime (even if meant in an insulting manner) someone confuses me with being young is a compliment.

Have a great weekend.

P.S. And also, you and another blogger have brought up my "ivy league education" I don’t know where you got that gem. I certainly never said I went to an Ivy league college…..but thanks, it makes me sound far more impressive than I am. :-)

L.C.  First the study out of Harvard, showed young black girls had a better self image than white girls of the same age only between the ages of 9 and 13 and then it fell off drastically. In the 60’s during the "Black Power Movement" many blacks for the first time were able to travel to Africa and what a surprise as we arrived in our Afros and Dashikis..to find "real" Africans in bad red wigs and western clothing. The grass is always greener. Africans did not always embrace American blacks. Race in this country is a political construct started in the 1700’s. The real frame work of race in this country happened when whites decided that they needed the a workforce to build this country. Few know that in the early 1800’s in many places blacks and white indentured servants from England were in the same boat. The worked side by side. They were both indentured to whites  who used and abuse them. However, at this point in history they were treated just same. Race at this point was not the determining factor in the workforce. However, after years of mistreatement blacks, Native Indians and white indentured servants went on a killing spree in several counties in Virginia killing whites who had misused them. When the posses’ chased them down, blacks and indians were quickly hung, but some of the white men in these posse could not do the same to the whites. Out of these events came the decision to make policy changes in the laws  (divide and conquer) so that the two groups were treated signifcantly different going forward, and it was based on the color of their skin this time. These policy changes help drive a wedge between workers who heretofore  paid the same unfair poll taxes and who had even intermarried in the past.  The uprisings had coincided with other issues related to the growing cotton industries and the growing slave trade. It was a business decision to take the enslavement of blacks to the next level and strip them of all their humanity leaving them no rights whatsoever, while encouraging indentured whites, that their white skin put them a level above the blacks who had been their work mates .

All blacks wanting to be white even in those days is simply untrue. I have been researching my family’s ancestors for years now. Several years ago I went to interview an 90 year old cousin. Virginia was known as "Sis" and when I told her I would be in the same State and wanted to come visit her, she said Ok honey, "but you know I look like an old white woman, so don’t walk past me when you get here" And indeed she did, albeit a beautiful old white woman. She was artculate, smart and thank goodness had a lot of her memories still in tack.  But because clearly no one could have told she had a drop of black blood (all black folks think we can always tell somebody who has any black blood, its a funny arrogance) I asked why she didn’t pass for white. She looked at me like I was crazy and said and, Why would I do that? Why folks are crazy".  I also read a series of articless in a magazine written in the mid-late 1800’s where the reporter wrote about mulattoes who looked white. And he asked them the same questions. Many of them said, "them white people don’t have no fun." And truth be told many who escaped to the north, had for so many years been subservient to whites, they did not have the guile to pretend to be white when challenged. Few people know that at one point there were so many bi-racial, but clearly white looking ex slaves in Philadelphia, Boston and New York, it got so if a white person was angry at another white person, he/she might accused them of being an escaped slave and they had to prove that they were in fact legally white.  The history of slavery and racism in this country is fascinating reading even though much of it is heinous,barbaric and inhumane. 

P.S. Please note I’m speaking specifically about J. Youngs first post. In her first post she offered another perspective and in no nonsense simplistic terms. In drinking terms it was straight no chaser.

Ms. Hodgman, I left this post in reply to Belinda’s post to me, however, I am going to address you directly.  It is long, however i wanted to make sure you got this after reading your response.  Thank you.  As Belinda is a guest, so are we, guest posters and should be treated with respect.  Afterall, that is what a blog is for to invite discourse about a topic.  Most of the topics on this blog were insightful and answered what we thought was the question put to us.  No one was "tip toeing" around the issue of racism.  I know I addressed it directly.  Perhaps this is not what you or Belinda wanted to hear, but hear it you did.  Thank you for the opportunity to respond.

Ok.  How do I respond to something like this?  WIth patience, with a reluctance to engage?  Belinda, (Sista) I think the best way is two-fold.  First, I am, in answer to your question 54 years of age.  One of the first lessons I learned from my family was that you do not under any circimstances refer to an individual as "ignorant".  You are a host interviewee for this Blog and for you to even insinuate because I refered to you again in what I was taught as a proud black woman, is a term of endearment towards Black Women just as "Brother" or "Bro" is a term reserved for Black men.  Why would the term "Sista" cause you to define me as a "loud mouth sereotype of Black women" when you yourself termed it as a stereotypical degrading term?  Why would the term ‘Sista cause you to become this enraged, feel insulted and result in behaviour that belittles your level of education.  What is Yale teaching our younguns these days! 

Whew!  Honey chile, I never show my ignorance about a subject like this.  Without being redundant, I logged on to the site saw the question posed and dealt with it in a brief and concise manner.  I think I made very good points.  There was no compliment in your response to me at all.  The first dig was when you made a reference to "nasty exchanges" and we had to "tip-toe" around the issue of racism.  Why was there a need to tip toe?  And where was the nasty exchange?  I’m still looking for it.  There was nothing nasty, or belligerent about my response at all and if you took exception to being referred to as a "Sista" then I have to tell you, I think you are suffering from exactly what you are accusing other women of color as being diseased with…self hatred.  Further, you then go on to state…"I may not be able to relate or express myself in the manner in which you do…." exactly what manner was that?  We both used the King’s English?  I wasn’t speaking a foriegn language, nor were any of my post in all caps, so why would you make a statement like  …"I see I am not dealing with an intelligent and savvy outspoken Black woman, but instead what I define as a loud mouth. The "sista-sista & I’m Black 24-7!" stereotype of Black women…"  I really think that you suffer from what you accuse others of suffering from.  Why would I suddenly become the "loud mouth" sereotype of Black women and why would you as a woman of color use such terms to define me?   So I will address this issue for clarity. 

I was raised in the South and hale proudly from a highly educated African-American family of African, Irish, Scottish, Cherokee Indian and God knows what else stock.  My family, all the way back to just after the days of slavery, have been well educated, WELL EDUACATED.  My Grandparents and Great Grands were the contemporaries of Booker T. Washington and other bright stars of the Black Movement, the movement that really got things done.  We were never allowed to address ourselves in deroggatory terms.  So yes in terms of your question, Yes, I have NEVER experienced from the women in my family nor the women in the neighborhood in which I was raised, nor the community, women who were ashamed of their hair, their skin color or anything else and that is why I can speak in the manner in which I speak.  I am a product of that type of mentality, which is why I can write the way I do and have little patience for imprudence.  I am able to know it when I see it and address it in kind.  A poster admonished you earlier about being confused with using colloquial terms of endearment as opposed to seeing it as a manifest for being immershed in self hatred.  Preposterous! 

You then continue on to say that you were the "living proof of a Black woman who wears her hair in many different ways, color or length that you want, without the slightest care of what others think, but how you think on this subject and those around you and in your family…’You’ are in the minority.." Your quote not mine. 

I believe I asked for clarity on what you meant by that because the way I interpreted that statement and I do believe I got you right, was that you were in the minority about feeling pride about your hair, which infers that the women in your family and around you do not feel the same way.  So my dear one, why should I feel embarrased because I do read with comprehension.  And you stated it was "YOUR" opinon, (excuse me while I clear MY THROAT) that Black women almost always feel to the contrary.  My guess (sadly) in America, many Black women would chose the white doll. 

So as an older African-American women who comes proudly from African-American, Cherokee Indian, Irish, Scottish family, who have men and women in our family who’s skin is as black as ebony and as white as snow and hair as soft as lamb’s wool and in color, tawny as strands upon a harp, or as golden as a morning’s dawn.  I have lived a wonderful life, and learned the lessons of my mothers and fathers and the lessons set aside for me in this life. 

I take great exception to your response to me, but given I am the olde rand wiser of the two, I would respond with gentleness and wisdom.  But I have to say and I say this gently, you should be ashamed of yourself.  I have read a lot of the responses to this post and there have been some exceptional ones.  I dont’ know where you were educated throughout your educational journey as I am sure it was not just Yale who educated you but your mother, father, perhaps and your extended family.  You had to have had a brain before you entered Yale.  Yale was not a gift to you my dear, but precisely the opposite.  You were a gift to Yale.  My Uncle Ezekeial taught us never to call anyone "stupid, ignorant nor crazy", it is by my family’s yardstick blasphemous before God and and a slight against Gods gift, the human being my child. 

If I can pass that on to you I will.  I believe very strongly the pen is mightier than the sword, but never allow discourse to make you become small and caustic against those that are responding from the wealth of experience or lack thereof, as to make you so unsure and inadequate that you lash out with name calling. 

Now there has been tremendous information on here from real "Sista"s who don’t take the term as deroggatory at all, but embrace it.  Why you seem to have a problem with it again points to self hatred. 

Here’s a poem from Delta Sigma Theta’s album Roses and Revolution

I’m not a young girl, nor do I wish to be,

I’m not a young girl,  except inside you see,

I’m not that old I’m sure you know,

I just believe that as you age, you grow,

and I have lived this long and made it to this place,

Black Woman I struggling to be brave, Black woman I and yet a girl afraid,

I’m not a young girl, nor do I wish to be,

Hey, I am a WOMAN, healthy, shaped and READY

Consideration…is key.

Okay Ann, you’re inviting us to pick on you, so I will.

You are incorrect when you say "If someone chooses to relax her hair, it doesn’t mean she is rejecting her race" sometimes it does. Not always, but sometimes it does, and there in lies the sensitive issues that underlie the topic of Black hair care. If anyone is making the argument that a White person wanting to know how a Black woman straightens her hair, or how braids or dreadlocks are created is racist, I would disagree. 

However on a broad basis the topic of "Black hair" vs. "White (or straight) hair does indeed translate to sensitive issues that most American are not comfortable talking about. I can talk about race and racism in America and depending on who is listening it is a productive conversation. But not everyone has that ease or comfort. We learned this during the Presidential campaign with Barack Obama and his family. The remarks made on this site about Michelle and Barack were disgusting. So you and I agree Ann that racism is not something we should have to tiptoe around, but clearly we as a society do.

Look at the comments posted from White women who have biracial children. My family has biracial children and I know MANY biracial men and women. If not raised correctly and the subject of the difference in how their hair is managed compared to their White mothers (and possible White siblings) these individuals grow up scarred mentally. They develop inferiority complexes. They (again I will say not always, but sometimes) feel a need to make sure their hair is straight at all times, because they feel to have curly or kinky hair is not attractive. How you and others don’t make the connection to racism is beyond me.

But I will say this as I have said on other posts on this thread, this was an excellent topic for discussion. You have seen a wide array of divergent opinions. But the beautiful thread between (almost) all the posts is the belief that we as a people need to get beyond the physical judgements and learn to accept each other for what is within instead of with-out.