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Not one inch of this fucking rage leaks through.(One bite. Beware.)
how beautiful is black?

"Not one inch of this fucking rage leaks through."
"One bite. Beware."

Based on the play The Good Body by Eve Ansler

“What do you want to be when you grow up?  Good, I would say.  I want to be good” (3).  I can still see clearly the first time I shoved a toothbrush down my throat.  Certainly not because I was overly hungry.  Mostly because I had already eaten too much.  Being deemed “fat” is one of the worst things that can be said to a little girl.  Fat.  Obese. Overweight.  Big.  Large.  Large shirt.  Large pants.  Extra large pants.  Even in her own clothes does a girl feel big.  Not too big for the world as in “bigger is better”, but too big as almost become too small.  Unrecognized.  Looked over.  I can’t remember the last time I ran my hands over my stomach, hips, thighs and the word “thin” came to mind.  Why not?  I’m not “clinically” obese or overweight.  So why when I’m in a room do I feel like the largest person there?  I feel larger than the woman who can’t walk through the door frame.  Still – I’m the fat one.  Food is the only thing I ever think about.  When can I eat again so no one will think I’m eating too much?  What can I eat so the people who walk by won’t blame my gross body on my gross food?  I talk about eating disorders as if I pity those people.  I feel bad they once had to turn to that.  But, then I realize, I am one of them.  “The compulsion to be more and more” (77).  My obsessive compulsive side doesn’t want to be related to the word “disorder” – so I pretend.  Pretend I eat normal.  Pretend my body isn’t on my mind all day.  Pretend I don’t count every calorie, every Tic-Tac that enters my mouth.  Pretend I don’t pinch myself every five seconds as a reminder that I’m grotesque. 

I could never be good.  This feeling of badness lives in every part of my being.  Call it anxiety or despair.  Call it guilt or shame.  It occupies me everywhere. (4). 

Body dismorphic disorder.  I look in the mirror and see the ugliest girl in the world.  I don’t see a woman although I’m almost ten years past becoming one.  I don’t think I’ll be a woman until I see beautiful.  Thin.  I almost had an anxiety attack this morning.  I almost have one everyone morning.  A self induced anxiety attack.  I work myself up on whether or not I’ll ever find someone.  Will I ever get the dream wedding in the size five white backless?  And if I don’t can I make it on my own?  I can’t handle being alone.  My own home – a frig end some pantries packed with food.  No one ever watching.  What will become of me?  I’ll either eat everything in sight – since I can’t eat in front of anyone all day – or I won’t eat at all.  With no one around to hear the noise – will I step on the scale after every time I go to the bathroom?  I probably will. 

I’m addicted to eating in the night.  I come home 1am, 2am – Oreos with milk.  Five bowls of cereal.  Nachos with cheese – easy 2000 calories in one sitting.  And I count every last one of them.  My rationale? – well I couldn’t eat all day because people are watching me.  I run my tounge over my teeth.  Almost like a layer of food.  A bland tast in my mouth.  A combination of the five course meal I just subjected myself to.  I woner how no one notices.  My father.  I was with him everyday for eighteen years.  My sister too.  Another woman who watched me deteriorate, gain again, lose again.  Hair falling out.  Skin becoming pale.  Chubby cheeks.  Big sweatpants.  Big sweatshirts.  How does my roommate not notice – two years together?  Confession – I smoke weed.  Why? – so I can have an excuse to eat 4,000 calories in one sitting in front of other people. 

I didn’t get my period for two years. First time I got it – I was eleven.  I would get it for two months.  Not get it for eight.  No one was concerned.  Even at my first GYN appointment.  She gave my birth control – no concern as to why for six years my period was so radical.  Here’s an idea – I don’t eat right.  I never eat eight.  I don’t even know what that means anymore.  I always promise myself I’ll eat and be healthier – but I can’t.  I get sucked into this deep hole and I can’t stop my habits. 

It’s as if they’ve been given their own little country called their boyd, which they get to tyrannize, clean up, or control while they lose all sight out of the world. (5) 

I’m beyond being a perfectionist – although my friends see me as this person – I’m far from perfect.  At home – I had my own room.  I could be obsessive and anal 1000 times a day and no one would ever know.  I truly believe my dad doesn’t even know the extent of it.  I crave the days when my roommate isn’t home so I can binge.  One day, she left.  I ate – two bowls of cereal, an entire box of cookies, candy.  I can’t even remember it all. 

It’s my most serious committed relationship.  It has protruded through my clothes, my confidence, and my ability to work.  I’ve tried to sedate it, educate it, embrace it, and most of all, erase it. (6) 

We both love movies on eating disorders.  They intrigue her while I pick up tips.  That’s where I learned the toothbrush method.  That’s where I learned to empty my garbage multiple times a day so no one can see what I’ve eaten.  “Pits were evidence of eating.” (25)  I bet you if I told her about this she’d think I was joking.  I’m not joking when I can’t leave food on my desk in fear someone, especially her, will know I’ve eaten.  My “habits” – I choose habits.  I don’t like “disorder” – become worse and worse everyday.  Today, I had to convince myself to buy a Diet Coke.  That’s right a DIET product.  I can’t even buy those anymore.  I think that someone is watching.  Blaming my weight on everything they see me inhale.  Laughing at me.  “He looks at me with pity and punishment.” (9)  I have a wonderful group of guy friends – I stopped eating dinner with them.  I can’t.  They will know why I’m fat if they see me eat a fucking salad.  I know I’m getting worse.  But – you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. 

Skinny bitches don’t deserve to be thin.  They have no personality.  They’re just Skinny Bitches.  They’re always trying to make us feel sorry for them when their entire torso could fit up my sleeve. (20) 

I used to have this journal.  It had pictures of skinny girls.  It was from those pro-ana websites.  I’m not anorexic.  I just use anorexics as an example.  I don’t wanna be anorexic.  I just envy their sense of control over what they eat.  “Let me be hungry.  Let me starve.  Please.” (7)  Anyway, in the journal I had pictures of the skinny girls and pictures of extremely overweight people.  I was convinced, even back then when I was the average size 5, that I was that fat.  I know I was wrong.  You know how I know I was wrong?  Because I’m not a size 5 anymore – now I’m officially that fat. 

I find myself getting more and more miserable everyday about my appearance.  When a girl puts on makeup, she typically feels prettier.  When she dresses up nice, she typically feels prettier.  Gets a haircut.  Gets a compliment.  Little things – they just don’t cut it for me anymore.  Last night I was thinking about how I haven’t gotten a compliment in so long.  What if I have?  I just don’t hear them.  No one can change my mind anymore.  I’m beyond change, I think.  “I am going to go and find the woman who thought this up.  Maybe if I listen carefully, she’ll reveal the secret.” (10)

“Fat girls do everything double.  We have to be funny.” (21)  I used to think I had a great personality.  I always thought that no matter what happened I would always be funny, hilarious even.  I think I’ve lost that.  Yea – I can still make people laugh.  Laugh so hard they cry almost.  But, I think I’ve lost it.  I’ve lost something.  That pizzazz I used to have.  That ability to make myself laugh.  Yea – that’s what I’m lacking.  The ability to make myself laugh.  Who gives a fuck if anyone else is laughing?  I want to laugh.  I want to feel happy, strong again.  I want to think that I have something that sets myself apart from everyone else.  Oh yea, I already do – I’m fat.  What happened to that nice, funny, no hilarious, girl inside?  I think she’s lost in mounds of fat.  “Fat girls are good people too.  Aren’t we Eve?  We deserve to be skinny bitches.” (22)

You’re probably thinking – “Hello.  Reread this.  You’re crazy.  You need help.”  I know I do.  I just can’t bring myself to do it.  Perfectionists do that.  We want to handle things by ourselves.  We think we can even when we know we can’t.  I want to yell from the rooftops half the things Eve had to say.  I want to sound a little something like this:”

I'm too angry to be good.  I don’t have the good to be good. 
So I’ll just be bad.  I’ll go for it.  I’ll celebrate it.  I’ll flaunt it. 
Have belly, will show it.  Watch me. (41)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m my own perpetrator,
I’m my own
victim. (10)
I accept this terrible condition.  It’s driven me to be disciplined
 and successful. (12)
You spend all your time fixing and renovating it.  You’re
missing the rest of the world. (86)
We look so much better naked than in those made-for-skinny-
bitches bathing suits. (21)
I let my hair be wild.  I didn’t blow it dry or make it right.  I
stopped wearing makeup and I didn’t diet or even care. (31-2)

“I crave a meltdown.” (46)  A nice mental breakdown.  So I could away for a little while.  Only a month or so.  Stop worrying about everything.  Relax.  Sleep.  Eat.  Just chill.  Speak out.  “When I spoke out, I expressed my unhappiness.” (26)  That’s all I want to do: express my unhappiness.  Too bad I don’t know how.

I need to stop.
I need to breathe.
I need to be here.
I want to be able to do my work.
I really don’t want to disappear. (71)

~Christa Liotta~

Work Cited
Eve Ensler. The Good Body. New York: Random House, 2004.

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how beautiful is black?

I was conceived in the struggle, when Black Power and the Women’s Liberation Movement mated    in a hotbed of social unrest.  When I was born in the dawn of the new decade I cried “Black is Beautiful!  Sisterhood is powerful!” Khephra Burns~ Essence 25

The emergence of the phrase “black is beautiful,” marked a revolutionary time of social change and unrest.  Author of Ain’t I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race Maxine Leeds Craig elaborates: “For a brief span in the mid-1960s, ‘black is beautiful’ expressed the spirit of self-love and exuberance felt by a generation that had found a new way to see itself” (23). Yet, as time passed, these words lost the spirit of empowerment they once quintessentially captured. Slowly but surely, these words have “shaped the internal conflicts that have arisen within black communities” (Craig 25).  These three words that were once the source of healing for many have unfortunately been misconstrued to the point where I am now forced to question their validity: “How beautiful is Black?” For African American women, coping with the hegemonic ideals of feminine beauty held in today’s society, where does “black” really rank? When even within the black community the women deemed most beautiful are those who are fortunate enough to possess Eurocentric features—light skin, straight long hair, thin lips, and a narrow nose, can we as black women honestly say that black is beautiful?  Because it seems that by us placing the most value and admiration on the physical attributes that are not indigenous to our own people, we serve only to participate in and perpetuate our own oppression.  We drive the notion that black is beautiful but only when it resembles white.

Patricia Hill Collins, author of Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, suggests “race, gender, and sexuality converge on this issue of evaluating beauty” (79).  The question that this suggestion raises is how can we evaluate beauty?  Webster’s New World Dictionary defines beauty as a quality attributed to whatever pleases or satisfies the senses or mind. If no two minds are alike, how then can beauty be measured when it is by definition something that varies from person to person?  Yet, there exists a standard by which all women must succumb to in order to be considered beautiful.  A standard established by a dominant force, namely “white supremacists” that have obtained power and in order to maintain that power have used the age old tactic: “divide and conquer.”  When used in the context of this text the charged term, “white supremacists” takes on new meaning.  “White supremacists” does not refer to one who believes that white people are racially superior to others and should therefore dominate society, rather it represents the force that has authority over all others.  This force happens to be white men, who happen to have control over almost everything in society from government to media, and consequently the power to dictate the manner in which all other groups live their lives.

Black men and women, as well as white women are all members of what Collins refers to as “subordinated groups.”  These groups separated by gender and race share one similar characteristic: oppression at the hands of white supremacists; these members of society have establish ideals that all must adhere to with the exception themselves.  Black men have been oppressed on account of their race, white women on account of their gender, and black women on account of their race and their gender. Collins comments:

Judging white women by their physical appearance and attractiveness to men objectifies them.  But their white skin and straight hair privilege them in a system in which part of the basic definition of whiteness is its superiority to blackness.  Black men’s blackness penalizes them.  But because they are men, their self-definitions are not as heavily dependent on their physical attractiveness as all women.  But African-American women experience the pain of never being able to live up to externally defined standards of beauty- standards applied to us by white men, white women, Black men, and most painfully, one another. (79-80)

This concept of “double oppression” is what makes the plight of the black woman particularly arduous and more complex than any other oppressed group.  The oppression of the black woman is such that only those who have experienced it, only those who have carried the burden, only those who have been held down by the weight of being both black and female can fully grasp the concepts of subordination and oppression. Writer Trudier Harris declares:

Called Matriarch, Emasculator and Hot Momma.  Sometimes Sister, Pretty Baby, Auntie, Mammy and Girl.  Called Unwed Mother, Welfare Recipient and Inner City Consumer.  The Black American Woman has had to admit that while nobody knew the troubles she saw, everybody, his brother and his dog, felt qualified to explain her, even to herself. (  qtd. in Collins 67)     

Reading this, I smile in affirmation.  People think they know, but they have no idea.

From news coverage to entertainment, the media shapes, reflects, reinforces and defines the world in which we live. In publishing, theatre, films, television and popular music--industries largely controlled by white men--Blacks continually struggle for both a voice and representation.  Whites have used the fact that they have control over most media outlets to promote the notion that black is not beautiful.  Craig writes:

For centuries Blacks have been stigmatized on the basis of their skin color, the texture of their hair, and the shape of their lips.  Countless reproduction of derogatory images of blacks in the form of cartoon drawings, figurines, or burlesqued portrayals by white actors in black face established and reinforced the widespread association of dark skin, kinky hair, and African facial features with ugliness, comedy, sin or danger.  (24)

It should come then as no surprise that inside most black women, there is a hint of self loathing that plants itself firmly on her psyche. Sixty percent of black women today suffer from depression which is due most likely to the image complexes they develop.  The seeds for this internalized self loathing were planted centuries ago and can be found rooted in the evils of slavery.  Frederick Douglass describes in his autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom the psychological effects of slavery. Douglass writes:

The frequent lash was a means of breaking down my spirit…I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there; but a few months of discipline tamed me.  Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me.  I was broken in body, soul and spirit.  My natural elasticity was crushed; My intellect languished; the disposition to read departed; the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!...I shall never be able to narrate the mental experience at Covey’s…that ever gnawing and soul devouring thought “I am a slave-a slave for life- a slave with no rational ground for hope of freedom.”(137-138)

  Just as Douglass slowly came to realize that he was “a slave-a slave for life-a slave with no rational ground for hope of freedom” so too have I experienced an epiphany of sorts: Once we as black women realize that no matter how many hair relaxers we get, no matter how much skin lightening cream we use we will always be black and therefore always excluded from the beauty ideal as held by society.  Author Jamaica Kincaid in her book A Small Place, captures the essence of exclusion and how ironic it is to change ourselves to fit the mold of something we can never be a part of.

…The thing we were before the English rescued us, that maybe they weren’t from the real England, one we were not familiar with, not at all from the England we could never be from, the England that was so far away, the England that not even a boat could take us to, the England that no matter what we did we could never be of.  (31)

However we must realize that our exclusion does not mean that black is not beautiful or that blacks who resemble whites are beautiful, it only means that we have to redefine the concept of beauty, the concept of black.  Poet Audre Lorde wisely notes, “the true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us” ( qtd. in Collins 229).   

I cannot stress enough the importance of redefinition.  Webster’s New World dictionary defines “black” as: opposite of white; of the color of coal; totally without light; in complete darkness; soiled; dirty; wicked; harmful; disgraceful; full of sorrow or suffering; sad; dismal; gloomy; disastrous; sullen or angry; without hope; humorous or satirical in a morbid or cynical way.  After reading this definition I turned to the word white and read the following: having the color of pure snow or milk; of the color of radiated, transmitted, or reflected light; opposite of black; lustrous appearance (said of silver and other metals); morally or spiritually pure; spotless; innocent; free from evil intent; harmless; happy; fortunate; auspicious.  Hmm… interesting I thought, I turned my attention to another book: The Holy Bible.  The first sentence of the first page reads:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  And God saw the light, and it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. (Gen.1.1-4)

Just by the definitions that I have provided, it is obvious why no one would consider dark or black beautiful.  God Himself has ordained light and white good, than dark and black must be bad. 

 To be perfectly honest, in retrospect, being black was not something that I embraced.  Most dark skinned women are encouraged to excel at school, to work hard and focus on their education since the likelihood that they will find good husbands to take care of them will be slim, on account of their dark skin. (Craig 18).  For me, this particular issue really hit home since my sister happens to be considerably fairer than myself.  “Imagine, then, the bitterness and the shame in me” (Kincaid 41).  Bereft of the quality that would render me worthy of being called beautiful, I hated my dark skin the bane of my existence.  Writer Asali Solomon comments, “Everyone knows that the most valuable capital a woman can possess is a beauty other people can readily perceive.”  In an article entitled “Hey Gorgeous, Here’s a Raise! As for you fatties were cutting your salaries.”  Columnist Steven E. Landsburg describes the rewards that beauty gives. 

‘I know what wages beauty gives,’ said the poet William Butler Yeats about a century ago. Modern econometricians know more precisely. In their published research, Professors Daniel Hamermesh and Jeff Biddle estimate that if you're perceived as beautiful, you probably earn about 5 percent more than your ordinary-looking counterparts.

Women represent the majority of patients when it comes to cosmetic plastic surgery. More than 5.6 million women (85 percent) and nearly 1 million men (15 percent) had cosmetic plastic surgery in 2002 (www.plasticsurgery.org).  Of the 5.6 million women undergoing cosmetic procedures the overwhelming majority are Caucasian.  The women that African American women have strived to emulate in a futile attempt to even be considered when discussing beauty, embody the largest group of people who change some physical aspect of themselves through cosmetic surgery.  We must now ask ourselves whom does the established standard of beauty represent?  And for those white women who are fortunate enough to meet this standard of a thin waist, blond hair, and blue eyes does the pressure of maintaining such characteristics really vary from the pressure felt by most black and white women to obtain them?

I must admit that I do find some fault in the aforementioned quote in which Collins refers to white women’s privileges in skin color. I provide the following anecdote: Native Americans, Jews, and Blacks are three very different groups that have all been oppressed.  Would we say that Blacks had it better than Jews since they were not placed in concentration camps, or that Native Americans had it better than Blacks since they were not enslaved only displaced?  A contention based on the extent of suffering is insignificant because all suffering is relative.  In reference to women and their constant quest for beauty, Collins holds that for white women “their white skin privileges them” (229).  It is this way of thinking that will keep all subordinated groups separated; this lack of solidarity makes it easier for white supremacists to maintain their power as the dominant force in society.  Although most individuals have little difficulty identifying their own victimization they can not see the relatedness, the connection between other victims included in the larger scope of this system of oppression. 

Blacks continue to participate in their own oppression when they drive the notion that black is only beautiful when it resembles white.  Black parents rid their children of their nappy hair and with that their roots.  They dishearten their children about their dark skin and shatter their sense of self.  One woman comments “I never had a problem with hair--if I wanted it straight or permed; I never asked for it, they just put it in.”  Another woman commenting on her damaged hair states “I used to have thick hair, I always thought being nappy was nasty; I couldn’t run my fingers through it, now I’m longing for that feeling of health, to feel it (thick nappy hair) and feel my roots.”  If we were to instill in our children the concept that their views of beauty do not have to be the same as those popular culture holds, or even other members of the black community hold, would they not be far better off?

 “What man can make, man can unmake” (Douglass 63).  We as women can choose to succumb to the inane standards of beauty established by members of society who choose to dominate others through oppression or we can choose to form our own standards of beauty.  Just as those pioneers of the 1960’s redefined black as beautiful, we as cognizant beings of the negative effect beauty as it is defined today has on society as a whole, must seek to redefine it as well.  By raising consciousness to the “philosophical problems in concepts of knowledge and truth” we free ourselves and no longer can beauty evade us (Collins 202)  

…I had emerged full-grown, the real Aphrodite. And had a nine-inch Afro to prove it. Fact is, I was fine and for the first time, I knew it. Knew that I was stunning in all my licorice-black, cocoa-brown, caramel and cafe'-au-lait skin tones. I turned 400 years of pain into pride as for the first time I was loving the soft contours of my African nose, my full, luscious lips…

~S. Berry~

Works Cited
“Beauty.” Webster’s New World Dictionary. 3rd ed. 1988.
“Black.” Webster’s New World Dictionary.fdsa 3rd ed. 1988.
Burns, Khephra. “Essence 25.” HarambeeCo.fdsa 19 Feb. 1997. America Online. 29 Mar. 2005 .
Charles, Marvinia, and Melissa Etienne. Personal Interview. Mar. 2005.
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall,1991.
Craig, Maxine Leeds. Ain’t I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. New York: Oxford UP, 2002.
Curphey, Shauna. “Black Women-Mental Health Needs Unmet.” Women’s eNews. 24 June 2003. 24 Apr. 2005 .
“6.6 Million Americans get a Nip, Tuck, and Lift with Cosmetic Plastic Surgery in 2002.” American Society of Plastic Surgeons. 15 Apr. 2003. 24 Apr. 2005 .
Douglass, Frederick. My Bondage and My Freedom. Ed. William L. Andrews Chicago: Illinois UP, 1987.
Holy Bible: The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984.
Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Landsburg, Steven E.. “Hey Gorgeous, Here’s a Raise! As for you fatties, we’re cutting your salaries.” Slate-Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. 9 July 2001. MSN. 24 Apr. 2005 < http://slate.msn.com>.
Solomon, Asali. “Black Fuzzy Thing.” Essence. May 2005:272-274.
“White.” Webster’s New World Dictionary. 3rd ed. 1988.