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Black History

FETISHIZATION & INTERRACIAL DATING : DATING AS AN AFRIKAN WOMAN AT UCLA

by Nyomi Henderson 03/06/2024

written by Nyomi Henderson

Dating as an Afrikan woman is comparable to competing in the Olympics; both are strenuous. Forbes recently classified fetishization as “the act of making someone an object of sexual desire based on some aspect of their identity.” Understanding the role of fetishization in our dating experiences, I want to emphasize that the humanity of Afrikan women deserves to be valued with the same regard and reverence as everyone else’s.

The combination of boredom and loneliness lures us to seek pleasures of external validation where we easily become dependent on the number of matches we get, entertain pointless conversations, and subject ourselves to fetishism.

Online dating apps like Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, and Grindr are more than familiar to students on campus. Suggestive messages like:

“Tbh girl you got some big (insert cherry emoji) I like that”

AND

“You got a voluptuous (insert peach emoji) and I’d like you to suffocate me with it”

from Bumble Member #4 have become a norm and even an expectation within the hypersexualized culture of dating apps.

It was comments like these—comments about our bodies, how dark we are, and if that is really “our hair”—that led me to understand that there was a layer on the dating fields we were experiencing as Afrikan women that our white peers didn’t.

Indy100, an online news site, recently wrote an article on a study by William J. Chopik. It quickly became even more apparent that “participants were 2.3 to 3.3 times less likely to swipe right on a Black person than a white person.” With swiping left meaning they were completely uninterested, it just wasn’t their “preference.”

While these statistics are jarring, it would be wrong to jump into the current issues of finding companionship as an Afrikan woman on dating apps without discussing some of the history and social factors that play a role in these conditions.

During slavery, there was a lack of autonomy over our relationships. We didn’t own love and we most definitely didn’t own ourselves. Love was a hard thing to pursue while balancing the multitudes of instability created by dehumanizing tactics and oppressive systems. From the selling of our children to not having the right to say no, in addition to the institution of marriage being nothing but a fleeting dream, we were often left to cut our losses.

And while we developed traditions of resistance like jumping the broom, we were still limited in our emotional freedoms, and that didn’t stop post emancipation traumas from occurring.

In “MAMIE BRADLEY’S UNBEARABLE BURDEN”, Koritha Mitchell summarized it: “Black coupling was non-existent and… white households were in danger, mobs “ku-kluxed” black homes, often raping successful black men’s wives.” White terrorists destroyed Black domestic and intimate success while insisting it never existed. Throughout history, both the relationships and the people experiencing Afrikan love have been rejected, neglected, and forgotten.

So when we ponder why Afrikan women, who are members of a highly stigmatized population and are considered the most unattractive race to date within the hierarchy of dating apps, we find our answers here.

White features have always been the main standard of purity and beauty. So, it made “sense” economically and politically for Black men to start dating outside of the community. They would soon start the search for someone they could show off to society, someone who allowed them to benefit from the external gaze and validation of others.

By others, I mean the very same white men who dehumanize them.

Afrikan women never had that privilege, nor did they benefit when it came to interracial dating. After the Jim Crow era came media tropes like the Mammy caricature where Afrikan women were portrayed as unattractive,

boring, and “motherly.”

This was a huge difference to Afrikan men who were fetishized as strong, manly, and “beasts” in bed. While both forms of fetishization are harmful, one has allowed for more social mobility than the other, even if misguided. Outside of the media’s influence on how Afrikan women are perceived by the rest of society, we still struggle to find love.

At UCLA specifically, the heterosexual male-to-female ratio is disproportionate, with the Afrikan male-to Afrikan female ratio being even more disparaging. It even led one to wonder if modern-day interracial dating has become the only choice left for cisgendered heterosexual Afrikan women seeking relationships on campus.

Second-year psychology major Ryen Clark shared her experience dating interracially. She says that after her interracial relationship (while still open to interracial dating), she felt more inclined to date within her race. It was exhausting for her, having to constantly explain her culture and deal with a multitude of microaggressions from her partner.

Audrey Ohwobete, a freshman at UCLA says, “It’s nice to talk to people and get to know everyone, but in college, people aren’t looking for relationships. Just vibing, no titles.” Third-year communications major Ayiana Scott follows that same concept by saying, “Dating within hookup culture is neither hard nor easy. If you like it, good for you, everyone should at least give it a try.”

From the Afrikan women interviewed, it seemed that there was a mixed review of what dating is like on campus. Many of us are like Ryen and Audrey. With Afrikan women being the most loyal to dating within their race, interracial dating has always been a hot topic within our community.

This doesn’t excuse the category of people who hide behind terms like “preference” and “attraction” to continue having misogynistic and eurocentric views on the type of women they choose to validate.

But I do believe it’s time we broaden our horizons beyond the Afrikan community at UCLA. It’s not worth being alone because we fear how we will be perceived. There needs to be a change in the way Afrikan women are approached and treated not just by Afrikan men, but by ALL men.

Dating in this society IS racialized. While we can’t control systematic conditions, we can control what we allow. We create safe spaces already by calling out and challenging inappropriate behavior from our peers.

This looks like no longer embracing the colorists, sexists, and racists in and outside of our community, friendship circles, and families. Taking time to delve further into the history and roots behind the divisions in our community is important when we are all searching for some form of the same thing: love.

The goal of this article is to first bring awareness to the dating climate of UCLA while also humanizing Afrikan women and validating the experiences and struggles we face dating within a predominantly white institution. To everyone reading, you are more than just your body, more than your looks, and you are definitely more than your dating experiences.

Sometimes we think that the things we go through are unique to us, but these experiences are universal to everyone. So block that man who commented on whether or not that “nyash” is homegrown and seek the love and pleasures in life that should be given to you as a human being.

Afrikan women aren’t a commodity.

Afrikan women most definitely deserve love.

03/06/2024 0 comments

Black History Culture Lifestyle Opinion

“Onwards and Upwards”

by Xavier Adams 03/06/2024

written by Xavier Adams

It is no secret that peering into the past affords us a more illustrative picture of the present and allows us to grapple with pressing issues of change, liberation, and one that I find particularly interesting, progress.

My enthusiasm may then come as no surprise once I was granted access to NOMMO’s historical archives which date back to half a century ago. The burning question in the foreground of my mind was: How does the past compare to the future?

As I dug through the archives, the headlines read: “The Perpetual Rape of Africa: The Scramble Continues” “Gates Wants it All: Battering Ram Not Enough” “The Coming Racial Struggle and the Crisis of Capitalism” “Radio Stations Refuse Airplay of Anti-Apartheid Single” “African Self-Determinism Through the Arts”

Not to mention a flier that read, “We are Promoting the Complete Unification of All Africans. We Understand this to be the Prerequisite to Liberation.”

Although these articles were published decades ago they are, in a sense, uncanny – all too familiar despite the celebrated notion of progress.

Here we witness calls to end colonial rule throughout Africa, South America, Asia, and the Middle East; editorials concerned with the increasingly repressive police apparatus; unrelenting social and economic racial disparities under capitalist regimes; popular media, grounded in a white standpoint, refusing to shed any spotlight on the subjugation of the subaltern; the need for independent Pan-Afrikan voices to reveal the gravity of their own oppression; and calls for nation-building through the unification of the Afrikan diaspora.

Decades have passed and yet these issues reverberate perfectly in today’s world. Neo-colonialism is well alive (a struggle that especially resonates in Palestine, the Congo, and Sudan, whose people routinely suffer from atrocious acts of injustice). Mass incarceration and police violence as instruments of oppression are well alive. The social and economic inequalities wrought by capitalism are well alive. The widespread neglect of the marginalized experience is well alive. The need for independent Pan

Afrikan voices is well alive. The fragmentation of the Afrikan diaspora is well alive.

The notion of progress within the Pan-Afrikan community is a slippery one: it is widely assumed that we have significantly – though gradually – progressed toward freedom, effectively severing ourselves from 20th-century ills. Yet, it must be asked: how much progress have we enjoyed?

To my disappointment, this all too attractive idea of significant progress is, for the most part, a

mistake. The present is marked not by linear and gradual progress but by its absence.

The ills of the 20th century are the ills of today.

03/06/2024 0 comments

Black History Culture Lifestyle News Opinion

The Sexualization of Afrikan Girls

by Nyomi Henderson 03/06/2024

written by Nyomi Henderson

Because we are simultaneously Afrikan and woman, we have become accustomed to our natural bodies being oversexualized in society. Since the beginning of institutionalized racism and the colonial empire’s enslavement regime, Afrikan women’s bodies have always been associated with the idea of a promiscuity that was foreign and erotic. Institutionalized racism is defined as: the perpetuation of discrimination based on “race” by political, economic, or legal institutions and systems like education and the legal system. Now, some could argue that as a woman “lucky” enough to be living in a society with things like the #MeToo Movement and Title XI, the treatment of “colored” women has come a long way. I beg to differ…

While I want to acknowledge the work of Faye Wattleton, Elaine Brown, and so many others who were pioneers of social justice and advocates for the reproductive rights of Afrikan women, it doesn’t erase the violence we have endured. There will never be a justification for forced reproduction for profit and pleasure or the immoral study of the female anatomy through dissection and nude physical auctions.

To ground our discussion on the sexualization of Afrikan women, I want to remind of us Sarah Baartman and how her body, to this day, is still fetishized and sexualized. The constant violation of her rights and autonomy throughout history challenges us to consider how sexual violence is used as a tool of colonial power, intimidation, and dehumanization. In an opinion column done by Hope Moses titled “Oversexualization of Black Girls and Women Must Stop,” they hit the nail on the head by mentioning how:

A 2017 Georgetown University study discovered that Black girls as young as 5 years old are already seen as less innocent and in need of less support than white girls of the same age. This presumption leads teachers and other authority figures to treat Black girls as older than they are and more harshly than white female students, with the disparity being vast for 10- to 14-year-olds.

Focus on the phrase “less innocent.” Most people tend to associate that phrase with immorality, or the quality of being impure and sinful. Through this language, we begin to understand how sexualization functions to erase and delegitimize the innocence of Afrikan girls—the very same innocence our white peers gain by simply being alive. In a theory I heard from one of my favorite video essayists, Tee Noir, called the “Pink Nipple Theory”, she discusses the difference in how white womanhood is received in comparison to Afrikan femininity. In essence, white women expressing sexuality and sensuality is deemed acceptable, as their sexuality is understood as separate from their identity. This wildly contradicts the rhetoric formed around Afrikan expressions of sexuality, which is seen as less of an act and more of an identity. This creates a world in which Afrikan women’s bodies are weaponized against them through institutions of white supremacy. We are hypersexualized as a condition of the violence used to justify and aid in institutionalized racism.

So when we start to think about the adultification of Afrikan women at a young age, it’s easy to see how girls as young as 5 years old are being dress-coded and sent back home for not wearing “appropriate attire.” These institutions of racial violence cause young Afrikan women to experience a different childhood than their peers, lacking the freedom that comes with acting their age, without hyperawareness of their sexualization.

Our families can also function as institutions of violence because they foster our primary socialization. This is important because our parents can indirectly and directly internalize adultification, whether it’s by punishing us or by making side comments about our bodies and our intentions, on the basis that we should “know better” or just want to “act grown.” Even the textbooks we read in school fail to mention the historical menticide and generational traumas that have impacted the way that we see our bodies. As a result, structural violence against Afrikan women has become the status quo.

I couldn’t relate more to the feeling of being seen through someone else’s eyes. This is why in the Afrikan community it’s so important to challenge the normalization of sexual violence in our society and investigate how impunity is often grated to perpetrators of violence against women, men, and nonbinary people. It can happen to anyone, at any time, yet the punishment and repercussions are low. As more and more of us realize our autonomy, we recognize that this has to change as we, in our essence, are inherently valuable.

You are more than your body and what you “bring to the table.” You are whole and flooded with adoration. You are someone worth getting to know, not because of how you look externally but because of the traits and quirks you have that you think no one else sees. If this message triggered anyone, I would like to drop some resources such as the National Sexual Assault Hotline, which is available 24 hours at 1-800-656-4673. I also encourage mental health practices, such as journaling, community circles, and therapy.

You are more than your story, you are more than your abuse, you are loved.

03/06/2024 0 comments

Arts & Entertainment Black History Culture Lifestyle Opinion

The Negro Is Still in Vogue

by Xavier Adams 03/06/2024

written by Xavier Adams

“The 1920s were the years of Manhatten’s black Renaissance,” writes Langston Hughes in his memoir The Big Sea, recalling the time “when the Negro was in vogue:” A time of “Countee Cullen, Ethel Water, Claude McKay, Duke Ellington, Bojangles, and Alain Locke,” of those “New Negros,” and of great strides for the Afrikan body: “They thought that the race problem had been solved through Art.”

Of course, the period of great progress was permeated with irony: consuming the performance and entertainment from Afrikan bodies while simultaneously degrading said bodies through strict segregation policies. As Hughes recalls, “Some of the owners of Harlem clubs, delighted at the flood of white patronage, made the grievous error of barring their own race, after the manner of the famous Cotton Club.” The Afrikan body undoubtedly occupies a zone of commodification.

But, what is equally concerning is the fascination with the Afrikan body, a provocation to speak about it: the increasing amount of Afrikan plays performed, books published by Afrikan authors, and, importantly, “the white writers [who] wrote about Negros more successfully (commercially speaking) than Negros did about themselves”.

Here, one is drawn back to Hughes’s remark about the great progress of the black Renaissance: “I don’t know what made any Negros think that–except that they were mostly intellectuals doing the thinker. The ordinary Negroes hadn’t heard of the Negro Renaissance.” This knowledge of the Afrikan body, and its prominence in media, far from reflecting the experience of the ordinary Afrikan body, was created by the white imagination.

It would be a mistake to place degradation in contrast to fascination: they stem from the same history casting the Afrikan body into a commodity. In the latter case, the Afrikan body as an object of fascination functions not merely to perform and entertain, but more so as a blank canvas whose history becomes implanted according to the white imagination: the great “Negro Renaissance” which cements itself a rendezvous of cultural identification and pride.

A fundamental link therefore emerges between the Afrikan body, media presence, and the white imagination, a link that functions to further regard the Afrikan body as a commodity.

Upon reflection, Hughes implies that that time has passed, peaking “…just before the crash of 1929, the crash that sent Negros, white folks, and all rolling down the hill toward the Work Progress Administration.” Whether Hughes was mistaken in suggesting the end of the vogue or not is irrelevant, for today, the Afrikan body in popular media continues to function as a commodity of fascination placed within the white imagination in the guise of progress. Today, fascination with the Afrikan body often manifests as an uncritical narrative of equality that equates representation to progress: great strides in movies, shows, and advertisements as if “…the race problem had been solved through Art.” In the final analysis, the negro is still in vogue.

03/06/2024 0 comments

Arts & Entertainment Black History Culture Poetry

orchestrated chance

by Nicole Crawford 02/23/2024

written by Nicole Crawford

configuration

perspective as reality

chronically aware

consistent contradiction

you shape the world around you.

you are the world around you.

in everything,

i choose what i see

who i am,

where i go

i know you, i’ve been here before.

—

we are an orchestra

battling, colliding

we are harmonious,

a symphony

overlapping,

dancing as waves carry light

swaying as branches of the same tree.

– rawest forms

02/23/2024 0 comments

Arts & Entertainment Black History Culture Poetry

untitled 002

by Nicole Crawford 02/23/2024

written by Nicole Crawford

i find your theories misaligned

with what you practice and what you preach

like predatory men who write good poetry,

and student activists with telfars

and no smiles for their communities,

and those kids back at school

who would snicker at the sight of me.

although we could have never

been cut from the same cloth,

even if they tried to understand me

(and they didn’t).

you see, the illusions in which you have

chosen to reside and manifest your lies

are killing us slowly.

and the cognitive dissonance

that you work to maintain is proof of

where your priorities have always been:

in self interest, far from the unity our ancestors need.

their recollection failed to sense

my father’s rage and my mother’s contempt

grounding myself as i visit my favourite

tree to make sure she hasn’t changed,

they found me ten toes down

in the soils that made me.

this was the day that i realized

i was named for the victory of my community

and so to think that no justice and your peace

could coexist in front of a revolutionary

tells me all i need to know

about you and your beliefs

so i stand firmly on what i said

i find your theories misaligned with

what you practice and what you preach

like predatory men

who write good poetry

– rawest forms

02/23/2024 0 comments

Arts & Entertainment Black History Culture Poetry

martin’s peace

by Nicole Crawford 02/23/2024

written by Nicole Crawford

the remnants of martins peace died twice in our hands

on pages left unturned

as love was indeed greater than hate

but truth was often ignored

and we marched blindly like prey

speaking of dreams we had never seen

letting them fool us into believing

we had a right to white man’s peace.

asking how high when they told us to jump

thinking the league was gonna save us

some leftovers of this make-believe

we were three times left behind

in chains no one could see.

encapsulated by shame

and these burdens of knowing

he led us astray

guilt hardened martin’s heart

long before the bullets took its beat

he built us burning houses using massa’s tools

left in calloused hands, then given to you

lesson one

we must never mistake our oppressors for anything less than our enemies.

lesson two

fires must be tended to destroy lives

and your hands are coated in ashes and distant memories.

i see black zombies pouring gasoline

on untamed flames asking why it had to be us again

screaming through deafening blazes

that their compassion for our excellence

could save us this time if not the next

while they treat us like dogs and we still asking for polite freedoms

with kind smiles filled with cavities

and evidence that we still can’t afford nonviolent dreams

see i tell you those last pages are necessary reads.

lesson three

Martin Luther King said,

“I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house”

which is why i tell u these truths

lighten burdens of betrayal

as love is made in the rawness of silence and our desperation to be free

free from contradiction and grounded in reality

so please remember

martin weeps in his grave when we speak

of nonviolent dreams turned to nightmares

with which he has yet to make peace

02/23/2024 0 comments

Arts & Entertainment Black History Culture Poetry

seventeen

by Nicole Crawford 02/23/2024

written by Nicole Crawford

seventeen is smashed glass

almost but not quite

mistakes

chasing demons accidentally

crying without sound

a head swirling with shapes and works

no clarity

music inside out

needs ,,, so many needs

it’s wanting to be close

disappearing .. distance .. insignificance

it’s falling from silver linings

floating through the abyss

losing the ability to force smiles

fading

overwhelmed

silent.

seventeen is not knowing and never finding out

glass ceilings

death and numbness all the same

laughter is painful

unachievable

deep breathing

is suffocating

seventeen is an enigma

escaping

hidden in the depths of most unwanted desires

being unwanted

sometimes unspoken.

but seventeen is not final

it is not the end

it is not even the beginning

a mandatory stepping stone

a fall into grace

favor ,, love

it is fear of the unknown

comfort, belonging

finding you in me

me in you

completion

almost but not quite

the light but not the end of the tunnel

a saving grace

it is you, me

redefining peace

everything, nothing

finite familiarity

it is the first breath

maybe the last

it is always and forever

it is promises broken

and everything it needs to be, for you, me

abundance

change

clarity

the ebbs and flows of shallow ocean waters

serenity

this is, was, and always will be

seventeen

-rawest forms

02/23/2024 0 comments

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