I typically don't approach the topic of racism on this blog for two reasons: 1) there
are bloggers out there already doing a great job bringing attention to these
issues, and 2) The MasculineCurves motto
is “a space to embrace men of all cultures,” so I tend to focus the content on
matters that explore the good things about diverse cultures. My hope is that EVERYONE feels comfortable
reading and contributing to this blog.
So
I was a little baffled on Monday when activist Jasmyne Cannick posted a
commentary on the supposed racism this series of t-shirts
represented:
"Since
when did the struggles of Black people, that by the way haven’t ended (Jena 6, hello!!!), become
fashionable? Everything is the new Black, not the new white, brown, or
yellow.The
new Black WTF is up with that?" [full commentary here]
Am
I naïve, or was Jasmyne being a bit too reactive to the word “black”. I just could not see the connection between
the phrases on these shirts and racism. To me, they are obviously playing off the old fashion cliché “such and
such is the new black.” As we all know,
whenever something becomes trendy it’s coined “the new black.” Every good girl
has that little black dress and every good boy has that tailored black suit –
they never go out of style.
Now
don’t get me wrong. I have a great deal
of respect for the work Jasmyne does, and I often find the content on her blog
informative and relevant (in fact, it’s made the MasculineCurves A-list). But this particular commentary seemed a little
off-base to me. There’s nothing on these
shirts that is derogatory to African Americans or our culture. Is it possible that we sometimes become so
sensitive to racism that we actually go on a witch hunt searching for it. In this case, it looks as though Jasmyne
merely overlooked the fact that black is not only a race, but a color too.
On
the other hand, The Jena 6 and Genarlow Wilson are two blatant examples that are
disturbing matters of concern for the current state of race relations in this
country. For the latest developments and
commentary on these cases I recommend we continue to follow Jasmyne’s blog as
well as Rod 2.0.
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