- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
You make such an important point, I think people need to be able to put Ms. Kaplan's article in a historial/cultural context to be able to see the serious issues underlying her supposedly shallow article. You wrote:
"Black women’s big butts have historically been sexualized and objectified to such a degree, that the roundness of a particular black woman’s derriere has defined what she is like as a person, her very essence—that big booty signifies promiscuity, loose morals, being low-class and stupid. (I'm not lying when I say that people thought the bigger the booty, the more likely it was the possessor of said abundance was considered to probably be from the projects.)
Michelle Obama’s big butt turns this stereotype on its head exactly because, not only is she none of those things (Harvard graduate, high-powered executive, wife and mother), she will be the FIRST LADY. The author is screaming loud from the rooftops: I’m black and I’m proud!"
Thank you, TRenee. My post on the "Hottentot Venus" also tried to put this issue into historical/cultural perspective.
