The War over the Souls of Black Girls (repost)

"Too often our girls do not rise to their full potential because they are so affected by the image that others project of them". Dr. Dorothy Height

We are in a war over the souls of Black girls.

So far, we have been losing this war horribly. Our dead litter the brothels and the crack houses, our prisoners of war are held captive by the porn industry, and our would-be warriors are enticed away to serve the destroyers of the souls of Black girls. Our survivors wander through a wasteland of damaged social standing, reduced life choices, and meager economic opportunity; many become locked in a cycle of self preservation.

In order to turn the tide around, we have GOT to look at the reasons why we are losing the war over the souls of black girls. It's really hard for me to look this ugliness in the eye, but I'm going to state it as plainly as I can:

Black women are losing this war because we never really understood who our enemy was; we only recognize our enemy’s infantry.

We are losing this war because we only play defense, and consistently fail to play offense. Our defensive strategy is as follows: “Gird and re-gird yourself with “strength,” -- with the impossible goal of becoming an impervious statue: ‘The Black Woman of Steel.’” We have become women celebrate the fact that we can continually absorb earth-shattering, soul-smashing blows to the spirit and still manage to waveringly get up again.

We are losing this war because we confuse “strength” with “longsuffering.”

We are losing this war because Black women take counsel and advice from people who have an economic or social stake in our losing the war over the souls of Black girls.

We are losing this war because we continue to wage wars against amorphous nouns. We rail against beliefs and concepts without neutralizing the people who conceptualize and promote those beliefs and concepts. We heap ridicule on the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror” strategies, but use precisely the same method to declare wars like the “War on sexism” or a “War on hip hop”, leaving the specific purveyors of the War over the Souls of Black Girls untouched.

We are losing this war because we confuse arguing with fighting.

We are losing this war because we fail to see with our Second Set of Eyes. We reject the “ I did not start this war” argument from white racio-misogynists, but accept or excuse it from black racio-misogynists. (Black Pass)

We are losing this war because we bunker down in our own safer territories, and rarely enter the enemy’s territory to take their cities.

BUT THE WAR IS NOT OVER.

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If we are going to win this war, we are going to have to make some serious changes about how we address all of the points above. Today I'm hoping to just scratch the surface:

Point 1: “We fail to recognize the true enemy, and only see it’s infantry.”

Most of us recognize that ‘the media’ is heavily to blame for the ‘self-image disorder’ of black girls that is described by Daphne Valerius, creator of the documentary The Souls of Black Girls.

But who, specifically, are the key decision makers in the media, and what can be done about them? I will throw out a few names to get the ball rolling:

Our more aware readers know that folk like Bob Johnson, Debra Lee, and Philippe Dauman have made billion dollar empires that are fueled by distorting the souls of
Black girls.

However, none of those people would have the power to do major damage to the Black female image without the assistance of people like Kevin J. Martin.

Look at this picture on the left, and memorize the face. Who is this guy who looked like he just stepped out of high school? He is the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He is the biggest reason that people get away with ridiculing and degrading black women in media.

Appointed by George W. Bush, he forced through changes that plummeted media ownership by minorities in the past few years. He is the person who has been arrogantly handing over massive market share to the very people who profit by portraying black women in the worst ways imaginable.

In a nutshell, Kevin J. Martin’s job at the FCC is supposed to protect the public’s interest in communications. Astonishingly, Mr. Martin has done exactly the opposite, using every trick in
the book to pave the way for media consolidation. Although has was fought by media watchdogs, Mr. Martin has managed to make significant progress:

From October 2006 to October 2007, the number of minority-owned
commercial TV stations decreased by 8.5 percent -- and African American TV
station ownership dropped by an astonishing 60 percent. (source)

Future minority channels are in greater jeopardy, because they will find it difficult to compete with mega-conglomerates who will stop at nothing to squeeze them out of the market by leveraging their media assets in other areas -- assets that they should not have had in the first place.

Many people do not know this, but the TV and radio airwaves are not owned by private
companies, they are public and owned by American citizens. By handing access of our airwaves over to media consolidation, he has effectively exercised a form of eminent domain and given our most precious asset, to an oligarchy that has a proven record of misrepresenting African American women.

What can Black women do about this?

For starters, we can demand that our Presidential candidates actually do something for us in exchange for our votes. Here are a few things that I expect from Barack Obama and John McCain in exchange for mine:

1. Fire Kevin J. Martin the day after inauguration.

2. Appoint a new FCC chairperson who has a proven record of defending the plurality of voices on television, radio, and in print.

3. Vow to veto any bill that's designed to give even more territory to to large media conglomerates.

4. Vow to use your presidential power of persuasion to encourage legislators to write laws that will increase the diversity of media OWNERSHIP (not just representation), especially WOMEN OF COLOR.

5. Use presidential power of persuasion to admonish media corporations to refrain from using the tools of propaganda to profit from stereotypes of women of color.

There are many more things that we can do ourselves -- we have more weapons in our arsenal than boycotts, votes, and protests!

But whatever we do, we must begin to FIGHT for the souls of Black Girls.