I was just reading this article that this guy wrote about the new cover of Vogue. Apparently, it has a picture of LeBron James and the model Giselle on the front cover. Well apparently people are saying that the cover makes LeBron look like he is King Kong carrying off the helpless white woman and in-short portraying another black man as the angry/dangerous black man. So the article the guy was writing was saying that he wishes that there was a handbook out there that us black folk could carry around so we would know when to be upset, disappointed, or really pissed the fuck off about things. When I was reading it I was thinking to myself he is soooooo right. Now when I looked at the cover I could see how that assumption could be made, but I could also see how they could have been trying to say that he can hold a white woman and drive down the court with a basketball all at the same time as well. It really wasn't that offensive to me.
The whole thing made me think of some of my Grad. school classes that I'm taking. We are learning all about being multicultural counselors and being sensitive to all races, genders, etc., etc. I don't have a problem with that at all but in all honestly I think that they go to far sometimes. I'm going to be honest yes I am a black woman but if I walked into my therapists office and he or she tried to relate to me as an African-American and express to me how they are empathetic to my struggle and understand where I'm coming from not only would I laugh my ass off, but I don't know if I would stay in treatment with them. I'm not trying to knock the efforts that people are making and have made to make sure that everyone is represented in therapy and that people realize that you do have to be sensitive to differences in cultures. I just think on one hand they may be going to far. You need to get to know your client for who they are and what they represent BEFORE you decide how to treat them. We watched this one video in class and this guy was all about how he has treated African-Americans before and how he's read this book and that book and bla bla bla and he was trying to "market" himself to this supposed client it was the most rediculous thing I've ever seen. Just completely hilarious!!! There was no way that I could take it seriously.
Then my teacher was handing out articles for people to read and one of them was about how black women are apparently "torn" between Hillary Clintion and Barack Obama because one is black and the other is a woman. I made the comment to some of my classmates. Oh, really, I didn't know that I was torn between gender and race I thought I was supposed to be torn between beliefs and what they stand for and are saying they will bring to the White House. They laughed when I said it but I was being really honest. What happened to looking at the issues and the facts, I'm not torn between shit. I know who I'm voting for and I'm honestly somewhat insulted that she brought that "article" into class thinking that it was of importance. We are all supposed to be treated equally and get along and all of that good stuff. And the only reason back in the day and now that-that doesn't happen is out of someone's ignorance and hate. Those are the things that people need to work on, not putting one group or trying to be so pc, or trying to be so accomodating that you begin to spark ignorance and hate on a whole other level. As they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I want to be considered as an equal to any and all people, so treat me equally and stop treating me differently but with a positive spin on it as opposed to the negative spin that used to be common place.
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