Revisiting Aunt Jemima's Big Black Ass
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Phrenology of a Fat Black Woman, 2003
Graphite, Colored Pencil, Paper.
With all of this analytical talk about how Black women's bodies are objectified, one forgets to place oneself into the discourse. It's the way of western thinking. Spectator as default, the objective measuring tool. I had always excused myself from the conversation about sexual objectification. It seemed so foreign to my own experience in a practical sort of way. You see, I have always felt more closely regarded towards the Black Mammy/Aunt Jemima trope. The a-sexual domineering Black bitch--face turned up in utter disgust at all times (except when smiling in massa’s face). I felt more close to her because of fatness.
I am not alone. I believe many other black women feel this permanence of undesirability because of their weight and size. It’s not simply the world's obsession with fatness, but a racialized version of fatness. It always baffles me, in the many scholarly discussions on this a-sexual symbol of Black womanhood that no one talks about the fatness that makes her a-sexual. Very easily we slip into a convergence of the Jezebel and the Mammy, who while not mutually exclusive share different territory in the public eye.
It's Aunt Jemima's fatness, which is appalling. The way in which she is tied to her body and her duties, leaves no room for her own desires. It is her sexuality that is frightening, massive (like her hips), and daunting.
This is how I've moved in the world. Wrestling with my own sexual performance, my sexuality (which I like to think is quite open), yet tempering it from my intruding body. It's an impossible balancing act. And sometimes shit just spills over until I see how very trapped in this body I am.
Today I wore a short skirt. The lacy hem neatly placed between my knee and upper thigh. I wanted some sun on my freshly shaven legs. It was warm today and I welcomed the warmth and light and my opportunity to bask in it. I thought nothing of it. I usually walk through this world feeling as though I'm under the radar of sexual objectification--layers of fat hide my sexuality. I was wrong. My good friend Ana pointed out to me that dozens of men could not keep their eyes off of my rear end, in hopes of my skirt making a slip up (no pun intended). I wondered why this was, and I also wondered why most of them were older men--men old enough to be my grandfather. Maybe it was their acquaintance with patriarchy that made me seem more available.
I thought about these things as I pulled groceries from my car. Ignoring every doctor and friends' advice I took them all in one trip if not to get the job done, then to avoid the relentless and abusive catcalls from a man who was at least in his late fifties. I wanted to hide in my flesh (flex my sore abdomen to appear larger, grotesque), but it was precisely that flesh that was placing me in this situation.
But maybe it was also my fat that while for younger folks makes me a-sexual, for older folks, the patriarchs, (entirely composed of men) makes me more penetrable. Kind of like this image of the Saartjie Baartman, the most penetrable fat black  woman. Sexuality ghastly in its size seems wide open like the possibilities of wrapping yourself up in a bedsheet versus a napkin. Fat black women are wide open--for others to see, to poke to prod. But our own desires are assumed to be to serve. So where are the opportunities for self love, romantic love (read non-abusive love)? What does this mean for my own desires?
uttered by a black girl at 10:34 PM.
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1 comments
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On Journey
Sunday, April 23, 2006
There is something about spring that brings out the hopeful child in me. That thing that sees all there is to do and feels immortal soul infinite. There is something valuable about that—children being so close to death and life all together feeing infinite. It’s a lesson, a feeling that I am needing these days. After having to go to the hospital and having my left ovary removed—the feeling of not knowing, of being tied to my body in pain, having to stop and observe my own mortality, and consider the possible lives lost in that left ovary. After that moment, everything felt urgent—push the bullshit to the side—how am I to be remembered when I have no legacy?
But spring brings on thoughts of infinite possibilities—and the spring has also brought on muses and foremothers’ juices. This past weekend was absorbed by the fabulous energy of Rhodessa Jones, creator, director, and walking deity of The Medea Project. Being in her presence reminded me of that most valuable part of myself that I set aside for the pursuit of my PhD. Ironically, this is the self I was set to hone in this place. I’ve realized that academe is possibly the worst enemy of my creative self. 
She urges the women she works with to tell their stories. She says that they (who they be?) will tell their stories for them. It is urgent to tell our stories—to honor our own legacies.
This is how we loose ourselves, in fear of loosing other’s respect.
My name is Bettina Judd
Daughter of Ella Juanita Grissom
Granddaughter of Laura Ella Powell
Great Granddaughter of Ella May Myrick.
Here, I realize how young I am. I am so young and making such huge decisions: decisions which will dictate the course of my life for the next four years. I have observed that in my youth—as startling as this has been for me to realize, that people do take advantage of the young. This makes me more determined, more fierce, more dangerous.
~
Years ago, at an event held by the lovely Shakti Butler, I was told by a woman who identified herself as an African Priestess that 25 will be a critical age for me. She said I will have to make a decision at that age that will determine the course of my life. If I make the wrong decision, I will waste the next ten years of my life. God/dess be praised, I think I know what this decision may be, and I am feeling so ready for it. I just have to prepare myself.
This is the beginning of that journey.uttered by a black girl at 5:59 PM.
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