E Badu in VIBE Mag

I haven't seen the "Window Seat" video, but I love the song. However, Erykah's interview in this month's VIBE magazine is largely about that video and her decision to be nude. I had to pull these quotes out from the article because I loved them:

"Society has a problem with female nudity when it is not packaged for the consumption of male entertainment. Then it becomes confusing."

She reiterates it later: "People are uncomfortable with sexuality that's not for male consumption."

BUT HERE'S PERHAPS THE REALEST STATEMENT I'VE HEARD IN WHILE:

"We're just not fashioned for [nudity]. Especially the Black women, the 'Hottentot Venus' women, big-booty women, the large posterior, with no shoes on and a scarf on her head, you know that ain't sexy."

SPEAK for us, E. Badu! Cuz that's the absolute truth. Yes, you can find pictures of those kinds of women on the cover of King or Smooth magazines - but that's hardly what we mean when we say the black woman's body is not celebrated as sexy in the mainstream media and in American culture.

Don't Forget to Remember

Don't know if you can read this or not, but I'll sum it up for you - It's an advertisement for a slave auction.

Yup - I'm at a flea market last week, looking for items to fill my apartment, and I see this framed poster for $35. Once I read it, it blew me away. I started to buy it, just as a reminder because seeing something like that, ladies and gentlemen, reinforces how real it is.

It says something like, "Uncommonly Prime and Orderly Gang of 89 Negroes accustomed to the culture of rice, cotton and provisions Amongst them are valuable carpenters. Will be sold at public auction, by P.J. Porcher & Baya, On Monday, the 6th day of February, 1860. at the mart in Chalmara Street."

It goes on to say that you can pay for them over one, two or three year-periods.

This is the kinda thing, when you get that office or big house that you dreamed of, that you hang up just to attest to how far we've come...