It is that time of year again. I'll be helping out with the frenzy before the 5th annual Blogging While Brown Conference. In case you didn't know, it is one of the largest gatherings of your favorite Black bloggers.

Many of your favorite Black bloggers including Afrobella, The Field Negro, Awesomely Luvvie,  and the founders of Black Girls Run will be speaking along with bloggers from Black Enterprise, The Grio, and The Root. Check out the full lineup and all of the speakers on www.bloggingwhilebrown.com

Because the Blogmother loves you, you can get a 15% discount off of the price of tickets when you use the discount code "blogmother." Register for Blogging While Brown 2012.

Anywhoo, I pointed out that the Body Mass Index - which is to sole determination fo health for determining "obesity - by programs such as Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign - is RACIST. Several folks on the WAOD Facebook Fan Page - which is piping hot right now on account of me making it rain fire these days- asked me to support my statements that the BMI is racist. Well don't take my word for it, the Washington Post knows it is biased against Black women:

"This scale was created years ago and is based on Caucasian men and women," said Molly Bray, one of the study's researchers and an associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "It doesn't take into account differences in body composition between genders, race/ethnicity groups and across the life span." - Washington Post

Here's another study about Race and BMI.

So I'm not making this up. Why on earth any Black person would embrace a definition of health based on a system that was inherently race-based discrimination, I'll never know.

I'll close with a popular post on the Facebook fan Page from Jerene:

I don't think anyone is using the BMI article as a justification to not be well. White folks creating some flawed standard of health has absolutely nothing to do with what may or may not cause illness in the black community - particularly black women. At one point I was mostly muscle and about 18% body fat and the BMI still claimed that I was overweight. It begs the question......

As I have stated in other posts, folks don't give two damns about the health and well being of black women. This is clear in the approach to medical treatment in this country and the fact that black women until recently have been ignored. Hell, you rarely hear about missing black women and girls outside of blogs. 

This whole idea that writing a bullet barrage of articles dissecting our pathologies as a way to motivate black women to be healthier is ridiculous. It doesn't solve anything. Instead pointing out the obvious - over 50% of AMERICANS are fat, perhaps we can have a conversation about the whys. 

Why are these types articles being introduced now? Why is this story being presented in the NYT, WAPO to an audience that is predominately not black? Why did the CDC state that most black women have herpes? Why is there a 20/20 special implying that most professional black women will die old and alone with 80 cats? Why is it that many urban areas don't have immediate access to fresh and inexpensive healthy fruits and vegetables? Why are folks still in denial about that? Why aren't black folks having a discussion with solution oriented action about the mental well being of black women? Why aren't the folks writing these articles and hocking books and television air time actively working on true ways to affect change? Why are folks continuing to speak on black women when their situation is just as, or even more messed up than ours? Why do folks feel they have the right to continue to prop themselves up at our expense as black women? Why aren't all black women on the same page asking these type of questions? Why?

What you know and what you do with what you know are two different things. I think when it comes to the media, historically it has been used as a propaganda tool. I personally think that black women as group need to critically think MORE about why these articles are showing up, what is the agenda and what is the end game? THAT makes more sense to me. 

If we are really going to go down the road of treating "mental health", then why is the NAACP or CRIC creating scholarships that promote blacks going into that field of study? Why are there not health professionals going into black churches to provide that service at affordable costs (most folks in church are women)? Again, people that are really interested in solutions actually DO. They don't write books, they create 20/20 specials to get viewers, they do post articles to get internet hits of adsense money. #actionishonestandtherestisBS WAOD Facebook Fan Page

Indeed.

Per the press release I received:

The Root, an online magazine featuring black news and perspectives, is launching a year-long series on the obesity epidemic among African Americans with an ongoing collection of interviews, articles and analysis.

Please consider linking to the "Black, Fit and Healthy" online series of stories from your web site  here:  http://www.theroot.com/views/features/obesity-conference

 

BLOGMOTHER TRANSLATION:

We at TheRoot.com are about to spend ANOTHER 12 months featuring stories about Black women's bodies and denigrating them for not fitting some arbitrary ideal of "health." We know that our sister publication, the Washington Post already opened a human petting zoo featuring Black women, but we don't want to be left out of the conversation or the ad revenue. Our entire series will be built around the BMI which is inherently racist because is does not take into account race-based physiological differences.

In addition, we are going to limit the definition to improving health narrowly to weight loss. Who cares if you lose the weight through exercise bulimia, anorexia, or smoking crack- weight is the ONLY thing that matters. Who cares if exercise-alone- can improve health outcomes. We won't emphasize the weight-independent benefits of exercise.

We won't talk about reasonable solutions to improve the wellness of Black women. We will gather together a group of ineffective "experts," who no one listens to,  to tell us that  y'all are all gonna die die die.

We're goign to cash a lot of checks from advertisers and at the end of the year, y'all are going to be just as FAT as ever. Because the only way we know how to address public health is by nagging, ostracizing, and promoting racist junk science and we're too lazy ( just like you fatties) to try something else. 

Now I know some of you are like:

Blogmother, you're fat, so you're biased.

Au Contraire mi Trollopian pest - the irony is that during all of these recent attacks on Black women's bodies in the name of "combating obesity" I've  been shrinking. The less fat I get, the more militantly fat I become. Why? Because having finally experienced some long-term lifestyle changes, I'm ticked off and realize that almost everything I've ever been told about "health" = "weight loss" is a LIE. It wasn't until I told myself that I wanted to run a 5K just for the hell of doing it, no matter how fat i was that I finally figured out the whole "lifestyle" change thing. And I'm still figuring it out.

Reactions from Readers on the WAOD Facebook Fan Page

Alas, nothing brings the clicks and cash like bashing black women, a pastime all that aren't black women can enjoy guilt free, like air popped popcorn (that us fat black women don't eat, because that's too low cal and we don't eat things that aren't fried). Call me when these concern trolls put their money where their mouths are and start up a chain of sliding-scale priced gyms in low income areas with on-site childcare and food co-ops attached. Saidah

 Funny, I don't see anyone in the root's lineup offering to watch someone's kids so they can get some exercise or cook a 'heart-healthy' meal or get extra sleep (sleep deprivation can make weight gain much more likely.) Tawonya

 It is all about ad dollars and not about improving health or wellness. Joy

I will end with this.  

We will not go quietly into the night while this racist BMI-based definition of wellness gets imposed to define our bodies as abhorrent. We will fight you on Facebook. We will fight you on Twitter. From every blogpost to every email. We will fight you in the streets and in the towers. We will fight you in the hills, the valleys, the alleys in front of Salleys... Beauty Supply. Viva la Resistance!!!!.... Oh wait, I'm retiring from blogging... eh hem .. We will fight you until I retire!

She basically said we're ignorant, stubborn, and reckless... "becuz of our menzeses" In support of her attack on we "less privileged" Black women, she offers only anecdotal evidence of her dysfunctional relationship with her husband and her own struggle with self hatred. There is noting more dangerous than a self hating person- if they hate themselves, what do you think they will feel about your. 

If you will recall earlier this year, the Black women who write for the Washington post and the Kasier Family Foundation defamed Black women everywhere.

Our most recent bigoted anti-Black woman carnival barker, Alice Randall, wants the world to know that Black woman are "fat" because we want to be. Mainly to please our parasitic mates who apparently want us all to die die die. 

Because too many experts who are involved in the discussion of obesity don’t understand something crucial about black women and fat: many black women are fat because we want to be. Alice Randal, Anti-Black Woman Propagandist. 

Did you ever long for the days when we were being publicly dissected because of our marital status, or skin color, hair texture, or the various STDs that must only afflict we Black shebeasts? Apparently fat is the new perpetual single hood. I don't know who opened the door on this most recent attack, I blame Kasier and the WAPO, but suddenly everybody wants the world to know that Black women are just fat fat fat and we're all gonna die die.

How many middle-aged white women fear their husbands will find them less attractive if their weight drops to less than 200 pounds? I have yet to meet one.

But I know many black women whose sane, handsome, successful husbands worry when their women start losing weight. My lawyer husband is one.

Another friend, a woman of color who is a tenured professor, told me that her husband, also a tenured professor and of color, begged her not to lose “the sugar down below” when she embarked on a weight-loss program.

Who are these Black people? She has to be making this up. Sounds like she's been hanging around Huggie Bear. 

Now I know the sheeple will not be able to resist  coming up in here and sharing their "concern" about we fat Black sheBeasts, but I ain't buying what y'all are sharing. Alice Randall didn't write that editorial for Black women. She wrote that editorial so that other people could gawk at us. She wrote it to confirm every nasty negative stereotype about Black women and wellness she could think of. If I was Alice Randall's husband, I would be embarrassed to basically be called homicidal. I mean she's saying we're all gonna die because we're fat and she's saying she's that way because that's how her husband likes her. So she said it, not I.

It is a horrible slander on Black women that we, more than any other group of women, in this country don't give a rip about our health. Sure, we struggle just. like. every. other. group. of women and it's defamatory to imply that we don't give a rip. 

Notice how conveniently the WAPO and Alice Randall ignore the works of

Black Women Do Workout or Black Girl's Guide to Weight Loss  or Black Girls Run or Black Women Losing Weight or  as on reader pointed out on the Facebook Fanpage, even some young woman named Buffie the Body has a Youtube workout series and a website called Bodynomics.  (The name used to be Bootynomics, she explained on the WAOD Facebook Fan Page why she changed it.)

IN this video she talks about what her motivation is to stay fit. Notice she doesn't say anything about men.  Also wait for the moment when she speaks about her grandmother.... again, no mention of men.

She actually works out in what appears to be her breakfast room. No Gym required. Ingenious. 

I actually did this exercise in my office swivel chair and you definitely isolate your glutes and make it difficult to sit back down your office chair :) 

 HA! I bet y'all never thought you'd see a positive mention about someone called Buffie the Body up in here, but her videos are actually pretty good. I love the fact that she's not hyperactive and over the top bubbly. She's like- this is what you need to do and if it hurts you need to go sit down somewhere. She should do a  workout DVD. All you "concerned" anti-fat bigots need to help fund the production of Buffy's workout videos.

There is so much wrong with this current assault on the incredible Fat Black Womanicus - first there is the imposition of an arbitrary definition of health based solely on  weight.  There is the coupling of exercise with weight loss when it should be tied to wellness. There is the over reliance on the junk science of BMI. All black women aren't fat. All fat women aren't Black- the majority of fat women aren't Black. Just because you deem another woman fat doesn't mean she's not fit.

Then there is the lunacy that attacking, shaming, nagging, irritating, annoying, judging fat people will lead to successful health outcomes. How about all you concerned anti-fat bigots try the tactics of sisterhood, camaraderie, competition,  fellowship ? Or heck what ever happened to how much FUN some movements can be? But no, it's always shame shame shame. Judgement. judgement. judgement. How's that working for the fat haters?

When can we start talking about how hopelessly single Black women are again? Remember the good old days of the Great Unmarriagable Black Womanicus Singlesaurus?

And to all the concern trolls who can't miss an opportunity to feel morally superior to another woman by hiding about behind "health" concerns, have a seat. If fear was a motivation to wellness, then we wouldn't still be writing these articles. 

Previous Posts:

Washington Post and the Kaiser Foundation to Black Women: Y'all Are A Bunch of Zoo Animals to Us!

War on PROFESSIONAL Black Women: OVARIAN BOMBS, APPEASEMENT, THE REGIME and MARITAL MOGADISHU

This film stars a little Black girl named Quvenzhane Wallis who plays a character named Hushpuppy.  It won at Sundance and is going to be featured at Cannes and the commentators at a certain Black film blog are doing their best to tear the movie down and rip it to shreds. What happened to "supporting Black actors"? Which is the standard line they throw at US when we point out how poorly Black women are being treated in "Black" films.

According to the comments section at a certain Black film blog, the sole basis for not embracing this  film is that was written and directed by a non-Black man named Benh Zeitlin. Ha! Ha! Ha! Chile BYE! Go somewhere with that mess. I've got one response to this argument against non-Black writers and directors and the treatment of Black actresses. RED TAILS! RedTailsRedTailsRedTails! You know, the war movie where every single Black actress was EDITED OUT! 

I can't comment on Beasts of the Southern Wild and I don't trust critics' assessments of films featuring Black women. You know the critics just loved Lee Daniels pathology porn, Precious. I admit I have my own reservations about Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Once again, we've got a down trodden Black woman or girl living in poverty in a single parent household. I might end up HATING this movie. I said, I may very well not like this movie at all. But one thing I'm not going to support is the LIE that the race of the writer director somehow impacts the fortuned of Black actresses or the depictions of Black women on screen. 

Let's play a game called, Supposing a Black Filmmaker made this movie:

 If Lee Daniels had written and directed this, Hushpuppy would have probably had to endure every type of violent criminal sex act at the hands of her father before we hit the midpoint in the movie.

If Red Tails, Anthony Hemmingway had directed this, Hushpuppy would have been cut out of the movie entirely in the final edit. 

If Tyler Perry had written and directed this film, Hushpuppy would have been played by a little Black boy dressed in drag.

Shall I go on?

If John Singleton had written and directed this film, Hushpuppy would have been a loud mouth angry screaming banshee.

And NONE of these directors would have dared to include freaking computer generated mythical creatures.

You've got a  film featuring an adorable little Black girl and these hateraid swilling Black film critics are whining because a Black filmmaker didn't write and direct the film. Chile BYE! 

Y'all would have some credibility if you had spoken out forcefully when Anthony Hemmingway edited each. and every Black woman OUT of the movie Red Tails. I'm not saying Black women and girls are better off with non-Black writer/directors. I'm just saying that you can't even say with a straight face that Black actresses are worse off. 

Again, I haven't seen this movie, so I might end up hating it, but it won't be because it wasn't written or directed by a Black filmmaker. Go sit down with that mess!

P.S. Red Tail! Red Tails! Red Tails! I'm never going to let folks live down the cinematic genocide on Black women that was Red Tails!

PPS. Red Tails!

Anywhoo, I have wondered over the past year, what it was about the Carol's Daughter post that causes people to want to rehash a debate that was over approximately 48 hours after the post published? I can only assume that the folks wanting to tell Carol's Daughter's side of the story actually have a connection to Carol's Daughter. I mean who else would care about a post that is a year old. 

The original post wasn't about excluding any group of Black women from Black womanity. The point of the post was that Lisa Price and Steve Stoute were boldly disassociating themselves from the Black women who made them rich, by declaring that Black women no longer existed and coining an idiotic term polyethnic.  I wasn't the only person that called Steve Stoute on his anti-Black woman color struckness:

Carol's Daughter-No Darkies Allowed?

Represent, Represent Carol's Daughter

Plenty of brands expand from their original market without insulting the customers who brought them to the big game. Steve Stoute has his own separate colorist agenda separate and apart from Carol's Daughter and it bled over to Lisa Price. 

I guess in either an attempt to sooth bruised egos or to POACH off of the success of natural hair bloggers, Carol's Daughter jettisoned its polyethnic agenda and has now launched a website called the Transitioning Movement. Don't be fooled readers and fellow blog sistren. 

Lisa Price never apologized for Steve Stoute saying Black beauty didn't exist. If Black beauty didn't exist, Lisa Price would still be sweating away in her basement.   I question the sincerity of Carol's Daughter being interested in a  transition to "natural" hair a mere year after their "polyethnic" stunt.

Everyday Black women are invisible. People don't see us and when they do, it's in some ridiculous narrow stereotype. We're not on the big screen. We're not on TV unless we're fighting and acting a fool. There's one Black woman who is an MC on the radio getting air time and she is running around saying she's a "Barbie" and associating herself with a blond plastic doll. The other R&B pop singer who is a Black woman is more well known for her public spiral into drug addiction and self-harming behavior ( looking at you RiRi). When we go missing, no one cares an on and on... invisible. So yeah, I think Black women ought to feel some kind of way when they single-handedly build a company like Carol's Daughter and then that company goes out of their way to disassociate themselves from the Black women who built it. 

Lesson?

Our lesson for Carol's Daughter fans and interns is this- The longer I go without writing a Carol's Daughter post, the lower in the Google search the post falls. Now you've irritated me to the point of writing a second post reminding people of Carol's Daughter's shenanigans from a year ago and restarting the clock. Not only that, but the original post is now bouncing around on Facebook, again.

I don't know Lisa Price. I'm sure she's a lovely woman, but every time Steve Stoute says some color-struck nonsense in her name, Black women ought to call him on it publicly. Notice you haven't seen that polyethnic nonsense since people called them out on it. So stop whining to me about Carol's Daughter launching an IDIOTIC and tone deaf campaign. 

Congrats WAOD audience, you are being featured in Black Enterprise's Black Blogger Month. I say this because  any recognition I receive from this blog is the result of WAOD readers being willing to act to stop funding foolishness and any number of campaigns we've engaged in over the last 5 years together. 

There was a time when these "awards" made me uncomfortable. But as we prepare to part ways, I now recognize that every award I've gotten is the result of the willingness of WAOD readers. 

I have not read the profile for WAOD, I hope it makes your proud. If not, I know you'll let me hear about it. 

If you live in LA, NYC or Atlanta, Restless City, the latest movie being released by the group spearheaded by Ava Duvernay is coming out TODAY. If you live in LA, NYC or Atlanta, you can purchase tickets on the AFFRM website.

It's called Restless City - to be honest, I have no idea what the movie is about- the trailer doesn't really spell it out. :) - I'm just impressed by the pace at which Ava DuVernay is releasing other people's movies. 

Was it just over a year ago that we first wrote about Ava DuVernay when she worked to launch AFFRM. The African American Film Releasing Movement.

Infrastructure Building! Ava DuVernay Builds Her Own Movie Distribution System, March 2011

The reason what she did is important is that she established a way to distribute Black films outside of the traditional moive distirbution system. If you make a movie and no one gets to see it does it really exist. 

Well she was no one-hit wonder--- and she meant business and now about a year later not only has she released two of her own films, I Will Follow and the upcoming Middle of Nowhere, but she's also releasing the films of other Black filmmakers. That's pretty deep. She wasn't just working to be first, but working to be the first of many.

So about the film: 

RESTLESS CITY tells the story of a young man surviving on the fringes of New York City, where music is his passion, life is a hustle, and falling in love is his greatest risk.

I'm not from New York, but should it come to a theater near me, I will go to support what AFFRM is trying to do AND to be entertained. 

 So are you going to go see it? If you've seen it, what did you think?

It opens more widely next week in Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, Philly, DC, Denver and San Diego. 

WE DON'T KNOW ALL THE FACTS of this specific incident and Mr. and Mrs Sanders are both doing too much,(they've both now been charged), but I want to address the mocking Mr. Sanders received on Twitter for calling the police instead of mimicking the behavior of Chris Brown. Here is a sampling:

Many are shocked that Deion Sanders didn't hit his wife after she attacked him. Why the shock? He never hit any people on the field either.

@Deionsanders is pressing charges. Aren't you glad you're not married to half a man? 

Dog peep Deion Sanders timeline. Pure jokes.

I'm sorry but I'm not ok with Deion Sanders coming on twitter & telling us anything about his altercation w/his wife! MUMS THE WORD!

It would appear that Twitter would have preferred if Mr. Sanders had done what Chris Brown did or what all of the casts of the current crop of reality TV would have done. he was mocked.  Mock Mr. Sander's for his clothing. Mock him for being a tweeting septuagenarian. Mock him because he is country. Mock him because he wore a jheri curl in the 80's. Mock him because he's been seen in public with Tracey Edmonds. Mock him for any number of reasons, but let's not mock him because he called law enforcement instead of beating up his wife in retaliation for her alleged assault. Yes, he's been charged with some type of simple assault, but if he'd wanted to, he probably could have inflicted significant damage.

Also, I don't fault him for attempting to get ahead of the story by tweeting, though I find his involvement of his children APPALLING. You and I both know that had the media reported that Pilar had been taken to the hospital in a domestic disturbance. The world would have assumed that Deion was the aggressor. 

We can't have it both ways. We can't be angry at the Chris Browns of the world and then turn around an mock Deion Sanders for not beating up his wife. 

And of course Deion is manipulating this whole situation to his advantage. Fine, that's fair.  Yes, I said that it's fair because both of these fools decided to air out their dirty laundry before the public. Pilar could have probably have negotiated a more generous financial settlement, pre-nup or no. She still would have had custody of 4 minor children and that monthly support would not have been chump change. She could have leveraged the notoriety she gained from being the former Mrs. Sanders into some commercial enterprise or brand. Shoulda, coulda woulda - she could have moved on past her meglomaniac husband and his ego. Let Tracey Edmonds have him! Move on.

PS. Brian McKnight needs to be banned from Twitter.

PPS. Tracey Edmonds needs to stop tweeting about her alleged married partner's marital problems.. he's still married.. and if he didn't want to be, trust me, he wouldn't be. 

PPPS. Pilar. You're still relatively young. Loose that man and let him go. 

Because I never can mention this ENOUGH...

If you will recall, Mr. Hart once tweeted:

 "Light skinned women usually have better credit than [sic] dark-skinned women... Broke @$$ dark hoes...lol." - Kevin Hart

He then got mad when Black women had the nerve to be offended.

So Sister 2 Sister S2S, just declared that Kevin Hart "Loves" Black women. I wonder who their post could be in response to?:

He felt the heat recently after he posted some anti-Blackwomen hate speech on his Facebook page... ooops excuse me, his cousin posted it while he was in the restroom .. or something. 

Apparently, Kevin's fans didn't get the joke, and the comedian had to do some damage control. "I saw it, like, two days later and I see a lot of negative flack from it, so I had to fire him and let him go," he explained.

Charlamagne pointed out that people shouldn't take anything Kevin does too seriously since he's a comedian. The funnyman doesn't think that's an excuse because he knows that certain topics are just off limits among his fanbase.

"I know what they're on me about now," Kevin explained. "From, like, when I said the thing about the dark-skinned chicks a long time ago, I learned my lesson from  playing around."

He added, "I know the line that I can't cross." S2S.com

I'm sorry, y'all need more people.

In other news, on the heels of him insulting Black women everywhere... again, ESSENCE is proud to announce Kevin Hart has been added to the lineup of the ESSENCE music festival. 

Brilliant!

Previous Posts:

Think Like a Man's Kevin Hart Threatens to Sue EVERYBODY for Pointing Out What HE Posted on HIS Facebook Page

UPDATED: UPDATED: Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man's Kevin Hart Hates Black Women and Water is Wet

Can you believe it has been 5 years since the very first Blogging While Brown Conference?

Many of your favorite Black bloggers including Afrobella, The Field Negro, Awesomely Luvvie,  and the founders of Black Girls Run will be speaking along with bloggers from Black Enterprise, The Grio, and The Root.

There will also be heavy hitters like Elisa  Camahort Page co-founder of BlogHer, Inc, Jimmy Hammock the International President of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., Tyrha M. Lindsey  the Director of Public Relations at UniWorld Group,  and Tamika D. Mallory  the National Executive Director of National Action Network.

Because the Blogmother loves you, you can get a 15% discount off of the price of tickets when you use the discount code "blogmother." Don't worry if you can only make one of the two days, this year there are DAY PASSES in addition to the full conference pass. If you haven't had the chance to see The Blogmother in action before she retires, this conference might be your last chance before she returns to a life of obscurity and intrigue. 

Register for Blogging While Brown 2012.

Behold as these people giggle and laugh at simulating a female circumcision as Makode, in drag and Blackface, screams in agony. Yeah, you gotta see the video.

One WAOD Facebook Fan page entry tried to argue that the artist had made a sucessful point:

Its interesting how publicity headlines The Prime Minister of Sweden cutting and eating the cake freely, laughing and what have you, in a way that shames her and the others involved. All except the creator of the piece himself Makode Linde, the artist an Afro Swede whose work often depicts old black caricatures (blackface). Judging from his facebook page, his purpose was to show how the situation in Africa concerning genital mutilation is not taken seriously by those who have no interest in it. And by the headlines he has accomplished this purpose. WAOD Fan Page

I concede her half a point. Yes, he got to make his point. Just like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne, and Gucci Mane( sp) Steve Harvey, Kevin Hart, Lee Daniels, and Tyler Perry. Black men who needed to make points so they appropriated the images and likenesses of Black women for wealth, notoriety and INDIVIDUAL gain.

As I stated on the WAOD Fan page -> It's always "art" when you're not the one being treated as if you are not a human being with feelings. We're real- dad gummit. We have feelings just like anyone else. We're not a cartoon character or an object for amusement. They feel no pain at all at seeing this. And THIS is how genocide happens. No empathy.

Go read the debate over on Youtube. Black women areound the WORLD are in serious trouble. 

Yeah he made his point... at OUR expense. Must be nice.