Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Is there a reason you feel the need to attack me?
I have known about, read about and been interested in the sotry of Sarah Baartman for a while. When I said I googled the "Hottentot Venus" it was not because I had never heard of her (in fact, how I could google someone I'd never heard of is beyond me) it is because before I posted something on here I wanted to double check dates, facts, etc. My point is that it would be great if everyone did that before publishing. It is easy on my screen the google search tool is up there waiting to be used. And, since I usually only devote 3-4 minutes to each letter and look at some of the googled material of course I can't claim any intellectual or scholarly rigor for my letter. I know I've barely scratched the surface.
I am sorry if I gave you the impression that I put myself out there as some sort of expert. (I doubt there are many realy experts writing letters on Salon - I don't mean this to be snarky but because they are busy working in their areas of expertise.) I do not think that I did and clearly I am not. But do I have to be an expert to analyze and comment on a subject? Do I know everything about this issue? No - I maybe know .001% of what there is to know. But I have a reading list that I am going to take on my weekly library trip and read more. I never intend any of my letters to be PhD thesis proposals. Although it would make interesting reading for someone to look at the story of Sarah Baartman with post November 5, 2008 eyes - add another chapter or more to this story.
One final thought:
I recently had the insight that the four most important words are:
"I do not know."
Followed by: "But I am open to learning."
I am making an effort to always remember that "I do not know" and to try to find out before I act or speak. It isn't easy because we've all been taught that the quick response is the correct response.
"My advice, get over yourselves. -- JudgeMental"
Physician, heal thyself. It's 2008, and black and white people are not as ignorant of each other as you'd like to think.
While I certainly understand the complexities of body image, especially as relates to issues like weight and race, I really felt this particular article went over the line. It felt personally disrespectful to me. Does Salon really support intimate and detailed assessment of women's bodies these days? Unbelievable.
I woke up this morning with the audacity of hope and Joan and Salon would either remove this cheap pulp fiction sleaze about Michelle Obama but I forgot my history Joan and Salon were never in favor of Obama or a Black man actually ending the color line in the white house...Even salon's sports writer found reason to attack the woman's coach of the basketball team after the Imus hate speech attack on the woman b-ballers..
No once I got the sleep out of my eyes I was right back on man street America where even so-called progressives and liberals still have deep contempt for Black folks yet I did feel encouraged by a number of posts written by both white men and woman on the site which fond Erin's effort worthless and destructive....
I still see a new day and I will keep hope alive....
Wow...what an insightful article. Hard to believe that someone would even consider writing an article about a woman who's a Harvard Grad, who has the potential of bringing much to the table, get an article about her fanny. Nice to know this website is on par with the likes of the Enquirer and NY Times...after all, we all want to know about NObama's hair cut, and gosh, I can't wait to find out about the family's first dog.
What a joke our American Media has turned out to be.
Write an article about the NObama's and how far the media is up their booties !
It is insulting to be discussing Michelle Obama's ass on Salon. We'll not be talking about any male ass here, just female. Michelle Obama is a Harvard JD with a resume that would qualify her for just about any position or office of leadership in the world. Stories like this just serve to remind her and us that, in the end,[intentional] she'll always be just another black mama with a smackable ass.
I'll be waiting for the story about Barack's dick and how it validates some male somewhere. Yeah, like that will ever happen.
The patriarch lobs grenades at women every minute of every day. What I want to know is why is it that the women keep pulling the pins themselves?
You are beautiful, just the way you are, lass.
because they have saggin pants and wear do rags on their heads..salon has become a cheap tabloid rag..
Can the readers now expect to be confronted with scribbles about a particular politician's loins too? Oh, don't stop there. I personally, can only relate to women who are generously endowed and wear low cut tight tops. Give me some love.
Just because you can print anything you want doesn't mean you should. This article was totally inappropriate and you've opened a pandora's box now. Thanks for your contribution to the dumbing down of American political discourse.
Largely, it united the right and the left. We're nearly all offended. Of course, read the editors picks and it would seem that most of us agree with Ms. Kaplan.
In reading this dreck, I'm reminded of former Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart's venerable axiom about pornography, "I know it when I see it". This so-called "essay" may not meet the porn smell test, but it comes close enough to ask the obvious question of Joan Walsh, "What the hell were you thinking?"
When, on a prominent political blog, one writes specifically about a black woman's large, voluptuous ass (in this case), whether imminent First Lady, music video vixen or local strip club goddess, you're apt to trigger a predictable response in virtually all hetero males who may read the piece: they ponder the imagery, the autonomic signals head south, and they vividly imagine, for variable periods ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes (in some extreme cases, it can become an obsession), how many ways they could grab, fondle and ultimately nail that ass, given the opportunity. Some may run out, or roll over, and sieze the opportunity...not quite what Bill Cosby or BO had in mind in their speeches.
Perhaps Joan Walsh presumes that most of Salon's readers are high-minded feminists and intellectuals who will immediately perceive the symbolism and metaphorical brilliance of a black female writer with a self-identified large butt (a new entrant into the arena of "identity" politics?) comparing Michelle Obama's "junk-in-her-trunk" to the advancement of blacks in American society, culminating in the election of BO. This is frankly either a mind-boggling miscalculation, given the depth and breadth of comments here, especially the criticism from numerous black women; a cynical bid for controversy and the ginning up of readership; or more darkly, an inadvertent glimpse into the semi-conscious racism that permeates the collective mind of affluent white feminist liberals, who are viscerally threatened by a woman who looks and dresses like Michelle Obama becoming First Lady of the United States.
If you're gonna decide to print stuff like this, at least "own" it in a straightforward, honest way, and reflect on the screwed up motives that caused you to post it in the first place. It's an insult to Ms. Obama in particular, black women and all women in general, and even men, given the salacious overtones of any discussion of female asses, let alone large black ones, and a monumentally stupid editorial choice, especially on the eve of the inauguration and in the midst of such catastrophic economic conditions and implications.
Lucky for Salon and Walsh that Cindy McCain is not the new First Lady, because as far as I could tell, she had no significant ass to write about, given her anorexia. Palin would have been a fine surrogate!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
