An elevation of consciousness will make The United States, and The World a better place.

Imagine a life where our every observation encouraged, empowered, enlightened, and uplifted our fellow brothers and sisters.

Imagine a life where everyone understood the truth, and loved everyone else AS their brothers and sisters.

Why imagine? Create it now.

It appears Kaplan took time to reflect on the reprimands and scolding she received from her readership. Her follow-up article actually accomplishes what her original article did not.

The follow-up offers a measured, thoughtful, insightful perspective of what Michelle Obama’s ascendance to First Lady means to the author. The follow-up portrays the First Lady as a human being worthy of the respect she has earned around the world and here at home. Then the author describes why she is offering that respect after having taken the time to consider the reasons why since her editor at salon failed the author by settling or perhaps even requesting a shallow perspective on the First Lady.

While Kaplan still remains slightly defensive, I believe she has come to understand that Michelle Obama is not someone she can treat lightly. Also, that if Kaplan herself is to receive respect from her readership, she too will have to earn it by taking her writing much more seriously regardless of her editor’s allowances or demands.

Let’s all continue to watch and read Kaplan’s work and hope that she continues to raise her expectations of herself and the power of her pen.

Good luck!

http://threebrothersandasister.blogspot.com/2008/11/exclusive-first-ladys-got-back-author.html

But someone on this blog said a while ago, that when she watches Oprah she just can’t see why the topics of Oprah’s shows can’t be applied to black women at all.

I agree, so black women need to fly to Chicago and get on her show when they can and when they’re ready to and that’s all LOL!

I only care about My opinion first and THEN I’ll listen to the opinions of other BLACK WOMEN second.

I really don’t have the time or patience to consider black men’s opinions about anything especially anything regarding any woman. So no thanks to that.

When I want to read black men’s opinions, I’ll visit a blog that a black man started writing.

In respect to your comments at the beginning of your last post, I re-read your contributions twice to make sure I had gotten a full grasp on what you were saying.

I don’t know why you THINK I’d be hating on you because you are in favor of Black Female empowerment. In addition, no disrespect to you but I couldn’t care less about gaining allies or enemies during this conversation or others that are similar.

Being a Black Man myself, I know a little about being or at least feeling oppressed. As for the patriarchal system in place…yes, I’m aware of it and can sympathize, but because of my gender, I cannot empathize. It is a struggle that can more clearly be approached in all aspects by women.

I’m about self empowerment. Believe me…that’s more important than any group movement. One of the most important factors regarding self empowerment is that if finger pointing is not warranted, refrain from doing it.

One thing that I most generously disagree with is the coupling of “angry” and “strong” to describe the black woman. It’s for a very logical reason though. If there was nothing left in this world that black women generally could be angry about, does it then cancel out their strength? The answer is a very bold “NO!!”. Therefore, I for one will never couple those two characteristics together as if black women absolutely have to be ANGRY and STRONG simultaneously. There are definitive catalysts that have made you “ANGRY”, but you are “STRONG” by design.

In addition to that, you mentioned gangsta rap being misogynistic. To an extent, I agree. A good portion of it is, while other parts of it don’t even make mention of women at all. Gangsta rap has MANY problems with it. misogyny being only a part:

The blatant focus on materialism,

Glorified violence,

Glorification of weaponry and being armed.

Glorification of drugs both sold and used,

Disrespect of elders,

The movement which makes it uncool to “snitch”,

Advocation of thievery,

Advocation of murder,

misogyny,

and all of the above being filtered to the children that listen to this music. However…

I’m not too far gone to realize that the people making this music are DEFINITELY and without logical argument, making music either based on what they’ve experienced and seen, or mimicking others that have come before them. In either case there is TRUTH connected with this music, and so there is a reason for it to exist. If one thinks about it clearly, one can see that if this kind of music was not made, there would be so many issues that have either been brought to light or have been made more clear of the extent to which they infect our communities, that would still be in the dark. I’ll never be angry that gangsta rap’s NEGATIVE ELEMENTS exist. I’m angry because they HAD TO EXIST.

As far as Mr. Hughley goes, what he said was unquestionably directed toward one specific group of women…the basketball team. Though it’s still should have warranted more thought in choosing his words, what he said was no more meant to be a commentary on ALL black women any more that when Joan Rivers calls Rod Stewart “ugly” is it a commentary on ALL white men. Which brings me to your comment on David Bowie and Iman. I have to assume that you may have brought him up because he’s a white man that obviously finds black women attractive and has married, loves and respects one in particular. This indirectly proves that you (as black women) have choices and don’t have to put up with any group of people that don’t respect you. I read that and laugh…but not for the reasons that one might immediately think. The FACT is, that there are so many men of many different races that absolutely adore black women, that bringing ONE up is not going to prove your point. It is laughable…do you think black men don’t know this? Do you feel this is new information? The answer is again “NO!!”. That information should be a given, just like the earth being round and black women constantly bringing up FACTS like that as if its breaking news, just proves one of the points you made in your last comment. You as black women, sadly, have no idea of just how much you are worth. So you tell me…if we as black men already know these things, but you’re bringing them up as if we don’t, then who really is out of touch?

I just realized while typing that this may be coming across a bit harshly. But I’m a guy that wants the petty bickering to stop and for BOTH SIDES to focus on the ROOTS of the problems, not the results.

There just seems to be a problem in recognizing reality like when you say that society believes Lil’ Kim represents everything they believe Black women to be. I don’t know any part of society, and I do mean any part, that considers Lil’ Kim to be the Class A standard benchmark for BLACK WOMEN. I’m almost prompted to ask if you and I live on separate earths.

If you spend time worrying about the results of a problem and are not willing to sever it AT THE ROOT, the problem will always exist in some fashion.

Sever from the root, THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL YOU BE EMPOWERED!!!

Dorothy from grammology
http://grammology.com

Thank you for your comments, but I don’t really think you’re getting where I’m coming from. I think you see me as an ally where if you really thought about my stance, you’d be seriously “hating on me”.

You see, I’m all about black female EMPOWERMENT. I’m about wresting our physical, emotional and psychic/spiritual selves from over 200 years of oppression and patriarchy. I’m about black women looking out for themselves FIRST–because we seem to spend entirely TOO much time looking after others at the expense of our health and sanity. Shirley Chisholm said it best: “black women are a part of everyone else’s agenda but our own”.

Who are we? Black women today cannot answer that question, but you can bet practically members of every other ethnic/gender group has an answer.

We’ve run away from the idea of the “angry/strong black woman” because other people (including SOME black men) have made those terms to mean something negative. Personally, if black women stayed angry, there wouldn’t be any of the misogynistic thug/gangsta rap that is not only demeaning to black women, but to our community. You can bet that singers like Lyn Collins or Roberta Flack back in the 70’s wouldn’t have put up with some loser with fake teeth in his mouth talking about “pimps and hoes”. And DL Hughley saying that black women are “ugly” isn’t comedy–it’s a slap in the face to his wife, his mother, and every single black woman in the world. However, David Bowie obviously doesn’t think Iman’s a dog.

So my take on Kaplan’s article has more to do with viewing it from celebrating a woman of both intelligence AND beauty that does not conform to the limiting eurocentric ideal. I understand some of the ire from the posters who are offended, but my belief is that because black women feel this almost stifling need to be careful in how we present ourselves to the world, we limit ourselves. Yes, Oprah is beautiful, articulate, talented and graceful–but she also seems neutered–and therefore safe. Contrast her with Lil Kim, who represents everything society believes black women to be like.

Black women are stuck in the false dichotomy and it’s stifling. Everyone seems down and determined to define who we are BUT US.