A lot of Millennials have been raised to be colorblind…have they really been raised to be racist?

katespencer:

When I was 10 years old, some moms in my fifth grade class organized an end of the year pool party for our entire grade. It was one of the first times I can recall being sent into a tailspin of anxiety for weeks, because it meant I had to wear a bathing suit in front of my classmates. After many sleepless nights agonizing and envisioning endless mocking and scrutiny, I opted for a giant t-shirt and jumped in the pool fully clothed. Looking at photos of myself at that age now, I can’t imagine what I was thinking. I was completely average sized (though tall and developing). And yet I was putting myself through an incredible amount of body shame, while only a child.

I thought about this pool party this week when discussing Sunday night’s episode of Girls with various women on Twitter and during the daily web chat I host for VH1. Something very obvious hit me, and I haven’t been able to shake it: Lena Dunham is really the first woman I’ve ever seen on-screen who looks like me. But not only that - she’s comfortable in her skin, in her nakedness, in her sexuality, and as herself.

Of course she doesn’t exactly look like me. I am tall, she seems short. She has smaller breasts, I’ve had the same saggy size-C mom boobs since I was 14. But her thighs touch together when she stands, her shape moves, her arms aren’t skeletal, and sometimes her clothes don’t fit “right.” (See: the endless comments about the jumper she wore in ‘One Man’s Trash.’) But even in her own form, I still see myself. I see my thighs that touch when I stand, I see the round yet flat shape of my ass that moves when I do, I see my own non-skeletal arms. And every time Hannah/Lena takes off her clothes, every time she establishes that she is, for the most part, comfortable in her body, it gives me a little bit of hope for myself.

Because I am thirty-three years old, and I am still not comfortable in my own body. I haven’t been since I was eight and I sprouted breasts before everybody else, and would change into my bathing suit in the bathroom stalls at camp, certain that everyone would be horrified by what they saw. I wasn’t when I was twelve and towered over boys, slouching to bring myself down in inches. Nor was I at nineteen, skinny-dipping in the waters off of Long Island with my closest college friends. Even though I was drunk and stoned the shame was still able to find a way in, and I hid my body with my hands as everyone ran laughing into the ocean in the middle of the night.

I was not comfortable in my body in my twenties, when a male improv student of mine came to see me perform at the UCB Theatre and then said I slouched too much and needed to work on my stage presence because I was setting a bad example for my students. I wasn’t when I would start dating people and upon waking up next to them in the morning, would scurry off to the bathroom with my breasts in my hands because I was embarrassed about their size. I wasn’t when I dealt with the death of my mother by compulsively dieting and exercising, because it was the only way I could have control over my emotionally rudderless mess of a life. And I wasn’t after I gave birth to my daughter at thirty-one, and would drag my exhausted body to the basement of a temple to weigh in at Weight Watchers, desperate to return to someone I no longer would ever be.

The thing about self-inflicted body shame and self-loathing is that it seeps into other aspects of your life. It makes you feel unworthy in other situations; you give yourself less and less agency because really - why should you have any? It’s a cycle of worthlessness that weaves its way into social interactions, sexual relationships, and random moments of your life. It’s vicious and is something I am constantly aware of, something I constantly trying to improve upon and change in myself. And I’m confident from the many conversations I’ve had with other women that my experiences are hardly unusual. 

So please, Lena Dunham, don’t listen to commentary on your shape and don’t stop being naked constantly on-screen. Don’t stop having lots of sex in Girls and please do ask another lover on the show to make you come first. That’s not being “ungenerous” (ugh Slate, your review in particular really sucked) it’s being an empowered and confident sexual being.

When people come down on Lena Dunham for these things, they’re coming down on all women. They’re reinforcing the negative criticism and commentary many of us already put upon ourselves. 

And that…that is the real shame.

6dogs9cats:

thepoliticalfreakshow:

After President Obama finished his second inaugural speech, Republicans jumped to claim that it was a “full-throated defense of government activism,” and that “he seeks to move the country even further left.” Overall, the conservatives concluded, the speech was partisan.

The only problem? It wasn’t. On every major issue addressed during the inaugural on Monday, a majority of the public agrees with Obama. The speech was not so much a shift to the left as a microphone for the majority.

Here’s a look at the points of Obama’s speech, by the numbers:

The problem here is, some on the left keep letting many on the right dictate the terms.  The lefties who refuse to stand as one, who continue to divide and who want 100% of everything will drag us back down to nothingness, the nothingness we had for over 30 years when conservatives ran this country.  SOME ON THE LEFT BETTER LEARN LOYALTY FIRST, then strive to fix problems rather than making them worse. And by all means quit jumping on board with the libertarian mentality.  That is what got us into this mess in the first place…..the grass is not greener on the other side!

chhoodjr:

I took a minute to watch Girls and digest it.  My first reaction was that it’s more or less Sex in the City with “ugly people” (I use that term lightly, obviously those girls aren’t hideous but they are far from Sarah Jessica Parker glamorous).  After really considering what I was watching, I felt myself relating to Dunham as a twenty-something year old writer who essentially has no idea if she’ll ever make a career out of her passion.  All her friends on the side are boring to me (except the pseudo-British Nanny), but they are girls I’ve known in some respect.  

I won’t fault Dunham on her lack of diversity, maybe the life she comes from is exactly as it’s portrayed.  I think it’s fair to say many girls come from that insular of a community.  Maybe it was self serving but her critics in this regard have to consider that what makes her authentic is that she is writing something that she is kindred with.  Inserting a minority face on a white role would be just as bad, even worse.  The Donald Glover insertion will be…well…time will tell.  

Shonda Rimes has done a lot for creating roles for her face and the first time she won an Emmy, recited her experience of getting Grey’s on the air, “everyone at the Network said it wouldn’t work, too much diversity, not used to seeing Black and Asian doctors, etc.”  

Maybe it’s fair to say Dunham came across her share of opposition because of her looks and her awkwardness, although Dunham cannot deny her White Privilege.  An all-white cast can be picked up by HBO, chances of an all-black cast being picked up by HBO is slim.  Chances are the writer would be pigeonholed and sent to BET citing “that show has less appeal”.  This only strengthens my belief that diversity in front of the camera will not happen until there is diversity behind the camera.  So if Dunham garnered her success from hard work and telling her story, then ethnic writers should not be faulted on telling ethnic stories, as they are no different from “mainstream media” (coded language for white media).  The questions we as an audience should be asking is, who are these people in the background, controlling the distribution, who for the most part believe that minority faces cannot carry mass appeal?