How many times have I heard someone say that and “I am not racist, I voted for Barack Obama,” or any other line similar to those two. One of the worst phrases regarding race that was ever created is the term “color blindness.” Unless someone is actually blind, there is no way that one cannot see what color another person is. I cannot actually go up to someone of another race and say “I have no idea what your skin color is,” because it is most likely obvious. We use skin color to describe everybody in so many situations that it would be impossible to say that. Yes, people often use it to say that they are not racist, but to me that term just refers to another kind of racism. Our society is so focused on race and pretends that it is not at the same time.

In our society color blindness does not equal color acceptance. It is a type racism that allows you to ignore or be oblivious to actual problems of race, refuse to have honest discussions about race, and be way too politically correct (it is about respect, not oversensitivity). Moreover, the “colorblind” term allows our culture to be more of a melting pot than a salad bowl. What do I mean by that? A melting pot means that I have to blend in and dilute my own individual characteristics and culture to the point that they are hardly recognizable; on the other hand, a salad bowl would be people coming together, still keeping their own individual characteristics and culture and would still be acceptable to mainstream society. However, our society expects you to fit perfectly into the mainstream mold and when you do not, you are punished or ostracized. It is not like seeing any color, it is a form of whitewashing (for lack of a better word).

Instead of honestly talking about the issues of race, such as not all races are on an equal level (despite many thinking this way and feeling that we are in a post-racial society), and that most of the problems in our society stem from the residual effects of a systematic social racist structure not individual flaws within a race, we like to tip-toe around it and do all we can to avoid it. James Baldwin said “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Admitting our racial/cultural prejudices and stereotypes and recognizing the social problems that still exist would help us to move on.

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a sociology professor, stated how racism still exist minus slavery and Jim Crow laws and with civil rights legislation: 1) the increasingly covert nature of racial discourse and practices, 2) the avoidance of racial terminology and the ever-growing claim by whites that they experience “reverse racism,” 3) the invisibility of most mechanisms to produce racial inequality, 4) incorporation of “safe minorities” to signify the non-racialism of the polity or the racial agenda in the discussion of political matters avoids direct racial references, and 5) the re-articulation of some racial practices characteristic of Jim Crow period of race relations. Avoidance of saying the race or skin color of a person in front of them (I have stupidly done that before) or taking some sort of racial terminology out of context and saying it is racist (e.g. a guy used the world “tribal” to describe indigenous people and they hounded him) are two examples. The claim of “reverse racism” is incorrect because if you are in the privileged group, you do not have a racial system that is meant to keep you down and racism usually refers to a structured system. Yes, any race can face prejudice or discrimination, but most of what minorities do are reactionary prejudices and discrimination. “Safe minorities” are those who look less menacing to mainstream society, i.e. I would not be one of them, especially with my darker skin, my locs and with most of what I am saying now. Other examples are how politicians often do not have in-depth talks about race, most times it is superficial, how there is an informal segregation that exist in housing and neighborhoods and how many schools are still segregated and minority schools are often inadequate.

These days, racism is hard to see. Immediately, we label things as being racist that are not really racist but just the truth at times and things that are racist we label as just another normal thing. I feel we jump to conclusions way too fast and do not think the situation through. Some people explain the cause as an economic, education and any other reason besides thinking about or wanting to think of underlying reason of race. Yes, I would love for everybody to be equal, but in the real world, not the abstract world, not everyone is on the same footing (that is for those who think affirmative action is “reverse racism”). Some of us need a little boost to get to the same level (but that does not mean one should act like a victim), while others tend to forget or pretend to forget the past and current discrimination and its effects, as if they are actually blind!

As far as racism goes, we have come along way since the days of slavery, Jim Crow laws and other overt forms of discrimination. However, the day when true color acceptance has yet to come. When we get to the day that we can look at people, notice their physical and cultural features that define race and ethnicity and not have any stereotype or expectation attached to it, it will be nice, but probably far into the future. What we can do now is, according to Bonilla-Silva, “make visible what remains invisible” and take the dust out from underneath the rug. We are all humans, but we are all different, too, and the “colorblind” ideology implies that everyone is the same, which we are not. Until we realize that and come together as people with both sides working hard and keeping it in mind to achieve it, we will not get the change we hoped for. Yes, it will hurt and it will not be easy, but that is the only way. We are all part of the problem and we all need to be part of the solution.

Although many people might disagree with this next statement, I am going to say it anyway: we do not live in a vacuum and many of the decisions we make are in some way influenced by society. Someone can say that “the choices I made was me being me” or “that is who I am” or “I did not do this to look like or be like someone else”, but our choices are a conscious or subconscious manifestation of what we experience and what we observe from the media, school, church, parents, friends and other social mediums from the time we were young. This includes even the choices we make with our hair and one of the most debated issues among black people, especially women, is their hair.

Since the days that black people were brought here on slave ships, we have been made to feel less then and that includes in beauty. We have been told that our noses are too big, our lips are too big, our skins is too dark and our hair is too kinky. We have heard it so much that we started to believe it ourselves and did everything we could to look like the white standard of beauty. From fat grease to lye (which was also used to wash clothes and as a skin lightening wash!) to ironing just to have straighten our hair and that coiled, curly, kinky hair became “bad hair.” The way our hair was styled became as significant to us as how dark our skin was. Our first black millionaire, Madame CJ Walker, made her money on hair. However, like many other females at that time, she also felt the need to straighten our hair through the use of the hot comb. At that time, it was for survival, but one would think that after slavery and Jim Crow was over and the Civil Rights movement began that we could go back completely to our natural roots. But no, our natural hair was reduced to a style, a fashion, a trend that was relegated to the late 60s and 70s. Just another style like a weave, a wig, a permed hair, the jheri curl (I still do not get that one!). As soon as the black power, black panther, Blaxploitation, Funk music era was over, it was back to the relaxers and the hot comb.

Madame CJ Walker created her hair care business because she wanted black women to be able to care of their hair and promoting hair growth. However, there is a difference between taking care of your hair and conforming to what mainstream society wants you to look like. The best way to take care of your hair is to take care of it when it is natural. Yes, I understand that we did not have the tools (e.g. wide tooth comb) to take care of our hair in the past, but today, especially with globalization and information technology, that is no longer an excuse. The idea that we have to relax our hair or straighten our hair because we need to and we do not want the “naps to be showing” shows us that as black people we still have low self-esteem. Not only is it having an effect on us in loving ourselves the way we are, but also a generational effect on our children.

Remember when you were a young girl and you had to get your hair relaxed or pressed. Oh, the memories! Having to sit there while your mother took out the “Just For Me” package, put on the gloves and stirred the relaxer mix. Then sitting there while your mother put the petroleum on your head to lessen the burning (but it still did anyway) and after that harrowing experience of feeling like your scalp is on fire, you had straight hair. Next, the hairdryer and the hot comb (or curler), from which you had to put your ears down to prevent getting nicks on them. After a while, I had to go to the hairdresser every month to get a “touch-up” or get my “hair done” (for those who do not know, that are the terms for getting a relaxer). I have been through it all. I also went through hating my hair — having it breaking all the time, feeling the damaged patches at the side and the back, feeling like the bob hairstyle I had was the most boring thing ever and getting frustrated that it never grew past my neck area. But I kept doing and why; it was because I felt I had to and it was what I felt everyone else wanted. Growing up I barely had a choice; my mom never told me about having my hair natural (she relaxed her hair too and still does it) and I saw very few examples in media to show me any different. Being straight was the way to go. Until one day my hair was so damaged that my hairdresser said it needed to be cut and that’s when I realized “why am I doing this to myself.” I saw my cousin with her locs and I said I could do that. So, I did and I never looked back.

Yes, at first I was freaking out because I did not know how to handle my own natural hair and it took time to get use to. After almost 11 years of relaxing my hair, natural hair was foreign to me. Barely anyone teaches us how to do our hair the way it naturally comes out of our heads (not to mention some people of other races who do not know what our real hair looks like) . Moreover, there are few salons and beautician schools that actually can or teach students how to do natural black hair. So, over time I had to learn and as the months went by, my hair got longer and better and now I cannot stop touching it and I look better. I am proud of my hair because it is unique in its texture and no other race has my type of hair. What some black women do not realize is that when you go natural, it is not a style, it is not “political hair” as some call it (again with the whole 70s Black power movement), it is a statement of love, love for oneself the way I am. I see so many black women with their hair looking weak, brittle, and messed-up and have the possibility to look good natural, but they still want to keep perming and putting in the weaves because going natural is too scary or too hard to do. It is a shame that being natural can be so unnatural for black women. Why is it that being natural is considered a sub-culture, deviant, rebellious, but as a black women having my hair relaxed is the norm?

The media, and the corporations and people in charge of the media do not help either. Have you ever seen a TV show for kids in which the lead person was black and had natural kinky hair (not loose curls as some characters have, e.g. Sister Sister’s Tia and Tamera Mowry, although they are beautiful too). On Tyra’s show “Good Hair Vs. Bad Hair,” the little girl with the bubbles in her hair made me cry because she hated her hair and wanted to wear the blonde wig from Hannah Montana. That was all she saw on TV and so she felt that she herself was ugly. Commercials for natural hair products rarely appear, but commercials for relaxer kits like “Just For Me” and “Dr. Miracles” are all over the place. In music videos, do you see the natural sisters or the permed and weaved hair sisters? At the office, why is it my hair, which naturally comes from my head, is considered “unprofessional.” I would not tell a white girl with straight hair to get a perm to look more “professional.” Certain hairstyles are, yes, not professional, but the way that God made my hair is not a style, it is my hair!

About a year ago, there was a degrading illustration on the New Yorker portraying Barack Obama as a terrorist, but what was also insulting but very few people noticed was that Michelle was in military combat with an afro on her head. Why is it if a black women is portrayed as rebellious or militant, she has to be wearing an afro or locs. She could be just as militant with straight hair! Also, do you see the black women in high places supporting natural hair looks often — Tyra, Oprah, Beyonce, Michelle Obama (although she does not use relaxers, why can’t she change up the look and wear curls), Condoleezza Rice, Gabrielle Union — ? No, often it is put on the alternative acts, like Neo-soul, including Angie Stone, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, India Arie, Amanda Diva, Janelle Monae, Lauryn Hill. What about black models with natural hair? Getting the picture. I am not saying that wearing your hair natural all the time is a must because other races change their texture too, but there has to be a balance. We need more natural hair role models for the future generations of this country or we will have a perpetuation of feeling that as black people we need to change ourselves to look good or love ourselves.

Now finally, let’s talk about the health and economic reasons to not use a relaxer. I do not care what you say about “as long as my hair is healthy I can put a relaxer in my hair” because you are still putting those chemicals in your hair. Your hair may look healthy, but with a closer look, it is weak on the inside because all of the proteins in your hair are killed off to make it straight. Doesn’t matter if it has lye or no lye, it is still hydroxide (main ingredient) being placed in your hair. It is equivalent to bleach and draino being placed in your hair. I doubt you would want to drink that, but you put it in your hair. Also, unless you forgot, your scalp has pores in it, meaning anything liquid can easily seep through. Why do you think they put the petroleum on your scalp and at the sides before hand and why do you think it burns? I wonder how a person can be careful about what they put on their skin, but not their hair? Then when their hair starts falling out (as with my mom), black women are reduced to putting weaves in their hair, wigs on their head and using re-growth formulas instead of stopping the use the “creamy crack.” And I did call it that because if someone feels the need to have to consistently use a dangerous chemical and heating to make sure her hair looks “good” and put weaves and wigs on (which sometimes looks fake and jacked-up), she is ADDICTED! It is more like a “straight-jacket” than a freeing agent. Economically, it is just as bad. Black women are known to spend the most money on our hair, from relaxer kits to hairdressers to shampoos to products to grow our weak and brittle hair to weaves to wigs and the list goes on. On the other hand, I barely spend $30 dollars in four weeks on my hair (shampoo, olive oil, hair conditioner [glycerol and yes it is natural] and WATER!) and it looks good! Despite what anyone says it is not low-class to have natural hair, it saves money and do you see people telling any other race that their hair, the way it comes out of their heads, is lower class. Nope!

So what was my point in this rant on natural hair. Basically, to love yourself the way God made you. Living in America does not mean that you have to conform to a certain standard, it is about choices and the choice to be yourself and the only way to gain respect is to respect yourself. When you take off the makeup, the fancy clothes, the fake hair (or cut off the perm), the fake nails, or whatever is artificial on you, can you look in the mirror and still say I am a beautiful person inside and out. Changing your look is okay, but the real you is just as wonderful whether you were born with straight as a bone hair or kinky as a slinky hair. My other point is to refer back to beginning and to tell you to question the decisions you make and why you make them; do not just go with the flow (and that include hair). As Marcus Garvey said, ““Do not remove the kinks from your hair–remove them from your brain.” So, to everyone, whatever you call it, I am nappy, natty, kinky, coiled, curly and I like it! Peace and Love.

The matrix of domination is the union of different social factors, including gender, race and ethnicity, sexuality, age, social class, disability, handedness (I am left-handed), religion, and citizenship status, that have a large impact on a person’s social status in a society. Three of the most prominent ones are racism, sexism and homophobia. Racism is the belief that one race is superior to others and the others are naturally inferior. Sexism is the belief, mostly by males, that one sex is superior to the other. Last, homophobia is the fear or prejudice against homosexuals. All of these are the product of a straight, male, youth-oriented, capitalistic, and WASP (white Anglo-Saxon protestant) dominated society in which we live. Every factor in which we are not the dominant in gives us less choices and opportunities, and affects our social interaction with others.

Both Espiritu and hooks describe parts of this matrix in their articles “The Racial Construction of Asian American Women and Men” and “Gangsta Culture-Sexism, Misogyny: Who Will Take the Rap,” respectively. In Espiritu’s article, she discusses the different stereotypes of Asian American women and men, and how it affects our view of Asian Americans and how they view themselves. Through these “controlling images,” as Patricia Hill Collins calls them, the dominant group is able to validate economic exploitation and social oppression, creating a group of low social class (Espiritu, Page 83). These images naturalize racism, sexism, poverty and homophobia. “As indicated by these stereotypes, representations of gender and sexuality figure strongly in the articulation of racism. These racist stereotypes collapse gender and sexuality: Asian men have been constructed as hypermasculine in the image of the “Yellow Peril,” but also as effeminate, in the image of the “model minority,” and Asian women have been depicted as superfeminine, in the image of the “China Doll,” but also as castrating, in the image of the “Dragon Lady”” (Espiritu, Pages 83-84). This gender polarization and “gendering of ethnicity” (Espiritu, Page 84) makes Asian women and men become characterized as both genders and at the same time no gender at all. In result, Asians as a whole can be seen a dangerous threat to white Americans or a subservient, weaker group for their benefit, which justifies white male’s domination because both threaten and offend their masculinity.

Even further, since Asian women were often excluded from America and there were anti-miscegenation laws, Asian men formed bachelor societies, which turned the view of their masculinity from “hypersexual” to “asexual” and homosexual. The asexual and homosexual views made Asian men more effeminate, weaker and more passive, furthering dominant white culture and increasing discrimination against Asian men socially and economically. An Asian man can be either the homosexual villain (Fu Manchu type) or the sexless sidekick (Charlie Chan, Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid, and Kato in the Green Hornet), thus continuing the image of the Asian man who is always frail or submissive. On the other hand, Asian women are seen as only sexual and exotic, but untrustworthy, through the images of the “servile Lotus Blossom Baby, “ geisha girl, or “China Doll,” and the “Dragon Lady.” Asian women are sexualized and at the same time criticized for their sexuality. Once again, sexuality is used to prove white man’s power and leaving women very little economic and social mobility.

Bell hooks’ “Gangsta Culture—Sexism, Misogyny: Who Will Take the Rap?” is about how the African-American gangsta culture is a product of the larger white, male dominated society. The criticism against gangsta culture is a way to degrade black youth culture and neglect the similar behaviors of White dominant culture. Black people, especially black males, are viewed as a threat to society and behaviors that are misogynistic, like rape or abuse, are seen as a black male behaviors. However, the misogynistic views in gangsta rap reflect the misogynistic culture in America that keeps males in power. For example, it was only a little over 100 years ago that domestic abuse was declared illegal. In addition to that, gangsta rap hypersexualizes black males, so they can appear more tough in order not be seen as homosexual, reproducing the homophobic attitudes. Has anyone ever heard of a gay rapper? Black women are also hypersexualized and seen only as sex objects through words like “hoes.” Moreover, it is usually white males who are the head of the labels, pay these rappers, market these albums, tell them the type of songs to produce and buy the songs. Also, the gangster films, like Scarface and the Godfather, made by white culture, usually inspire these rappers. Black males are willing to produce the songs and black women are willing to degrade themselves in the videos and album covers as long as there are material rewards for them. Race, gender and social class are reflected in the whole gangsta culture.

Both of the articles have the same dominant group tactic of blaming the victim, especially with the women. Male culture has over-sexualized women, for example Freud calling us sex objects, and then turning it around to criticize us for being over-sexual. In “Gangsta Culture,” hooks speaks about her interview with Ice Cube and how there should be respect towards women, but he also justified anti-woman lyrics saying that some women carry themselves in a way that determines how they will be treated. What do you expect from a male dominates society that treats women as sex objects in general no matter how they dress and gives women fewer options than to dress like that. Usually, non-White women are criticized more for their “hypersexuality” than White women, which is a way for dominant culture to make both their race and gender inferior. Rappers, like Snoop Dogg, and even Rock stars still put half-naked or naked women on albums and videos, but black rappers get more criticism for it. Pornography featuring Asian “China Doll” women and bathhouses with Asian women are still promoted and sold. This tactic of blaming the victim is what keeps the males dominant over females because whatever they do in regards to females can easily be put as a responsibility for females to deal with. Also, it makes it harder for the reverse; there are no “Guys Gone Wild” videos or very little videos and albums with guys who are half-naked or naked along with the women.

However, both articles differ when it comes to the stereotypes of African-American and Asian American men. Black men are often seen as these big, dark, and intimidating figures that threaten White women. Their stereotype has to do with hyper-masculinity and looking dangerous. They are often seen as the rapists, murderers and drug dealers. On the other hand, Asian men can be seen as hyper-masculine or effeminate. Asian men are either a threat to white women or passive men who cannot please or protect any women. Bruce Lee or Jet Li have been labeled as the hyper-masculine types, while monks, Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid, and more extreme Yoda from Star Wars are labeled as passive, asexual types. Both groups are stereotyped based on exaggerated views of actual physical features of African American and Asian American men. African-American men are darker and usually taller and more muscular in appearance than Asian American men, so they are seen as more aggressive and frightening. Still, the stereotypes of both male groups are used to keep White men as the “normal” ones.

No matter what how it is discussed, none of the parts of the matrix of domination can be discussed alone. They do not live in a singular vacuum by themselves and they all have an effect on each other. Just imagine if you were considered the inferior of all the parts, life would be to say the least, extremely difficult. Despite what others may say, the matrix also affects our daily lives from the decisions we make to behaviors to the way we look (come back later for my post on how racism affected black women’s hair choices). The only way to overcome the matrix is to stop hiding it and open it up for discussion. As James Baldwin said, “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”