What is Censorship?
The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security [1]
Respectability Politics and Censorship
Respectability politics, a term coined by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham was originally directed towards Black Women in the Church community. Higginbotham motive was to encourage Black Women to use the church as their vehicle of fighting against racism and sexism. By adopting the church values, Black Women can be more revered in have more leadership roles outside the holy walls [2]. The ideal of respectability politics quickly was adopted by the entire Black community, especially in during the Jim Crow and Civil Rights Eras, as a popular tactic for equal citizenship. Respectability politics was a vehicle for Blacks to assimilate into main society and white spaces to have access to freedoms that were wrongly denied as well as political awareness. Through the decades, the tone of respectability politics has stayed around socially in the Black Community. An unspoken truth of proving stereotypes placed upon Black people wrong throughout counter performances of such stereotypes which translates into Black people as a whole constantly trying to prove their worth, normality, and humanity to white people. Respectability politics has molded the behavior codebook of which all Black people are expected to follow and perform; this leads to censorship. When thinking of censorship as it regards to human it is mainly focused on performance. What you can or can not do, what you should and should not wear, which careers you should go after and which ones you should avoid [3]. More importantly, the very term coined by a Black Woman to promote Leadership and empowerment for Black Women is now used as a weapon that censors Black women. Lara Karian from Carleton University best described how respectability politics has turned into censorship for women especially regarding their sexual behavior. This very tone fuels the concepts of Victim blaming, slut shaming, and sex worker discrimination. All of these findings can assume to be doubled within the Black Community.
The Black Girl Censored
The most common forms of censorship used against Black Girls are through Dancing, Fashion, and their performance in the presence of the opposite sex. Examples of this are the notion that young Black Girls should not Twerk, Hop rolls out do dances that may incense that they “are ready” sexually. If older men family or community members are in their presence, young Black girls are asked to cover up and put on less revealing clothing. When in the presence of the opposite sex, Black girls are asked to “sit with their legs closed” or “present your best self” and to “leave room for the imagination”. With all of this censoring happen at once, although censorship is titled respectability politics in contemporary culture, the actual act of censorship is a response to oppression in sexually charged racism in the United States and in the Americas [4]. In partiality in the United States, there are countless stories, legally documented cases, and artifacts of hate crimes done against Black people in the form of sexual violence and assault, especially for young black women and girls. With the same ideals of assimilating into main, white culture to gain access and agency; the new wave of censorship is to make the Black Girl as less desiring and sheltered as possible to protect her from sexual violence inside and outside of the community. Patricia Hill Collins, from is that exposes that “ within Black political arenas, cross-cutting issues often deemed to be secondary to the greater good of the group. Black women and girls “have often been encouraged to take a back seat for the greater good of racial solidarity” and to maintain the progress of the race. In more complexity, the idea of “young girls acting like young girls” and what that looks like is completely rooted in Eurocentric values. more aggressively, this type of policing and censorship causes more harm and damage to the development of agency, empowerment, self-awareness, and resiliency of black girls [5].
American Black Girls in comparison
A great example of how respectability politics and censorship has taken on the notion of adopting Eurocentric values and how it affects American Black Girls is by looking at the notions of other Pan African Cultures and how Black girls participate and are revered.
In Cote D’Ivoire a dance style called “Mapouka” is the origin of twerking. Young girls participate in this dance across the country and are celebrated for their skill. A dance style popular in the United States called Hip Rolling, perfectly mimics the dance can Assiko in Cameroon, in which community members of all ages perform together and is used as dance reserved for gatherings and celebrations. Dancing closely with the opposite sex or with a partner that is called “juking” or “grinding” actually originates from the dance style “Kizomba” which can be found in Angola. In Angola, you will find girls as young as 4 learning the basics of the style. Kizomba is revered as skillful dance and a must for Angolans to know and do [6]. These similar dance styles and culture around it can be found in other pan African countries like Brazil and the Caribbean. In a fashion sense, American Black Girls are constantly policed in what to wear in the spirit of censorship. politically and systematically, Black girls are punished harshly for wearing clothing that others may deem as "revealing" or "too sexual"; like wearing brown toned leggings as a brown-skinned girl or wearing box braids with a skirt that "bushed against her bottom"[7]. more recently, Black girls have experienced punishment, suspension, withdrawal from extracurricular activities and sports, banned from school dances and proms and even arrest in their schools because of the way they wear their hair, in which all cases were traditional African styles. Black girls only make up 17% of all girls enroled in school in the United States, however, they are 6 times more likely to be suspended than white girls for the same claims and they make up 43% of all school arrest[8]. However, in other pan African countries, clothes are a mere piece of clothing and only recently are more about class than sexual promiscuity.In many Pan- African countries, Black women not only hold more powerful roles culturally but are respected as individuals- which leads to more autonomy in public expression[9].
Sources
1. N.a. "Definition of CENSOR." Merriam-webster.com. n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2018. <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor
2. Higginbotham, Evelyn. "DR. EVELYN BROOKS HIGGINBOTHAM". The Legacy for Dr. John Hope Franklin. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
3. Karaian, Lara (2014). "Policing 'sexting': Responsibilization, respectability and sexual subjectivity in child protection/crime prevention responses to teenagers' digital sexual expression". Theoretical Criminology.
4. Google Books. "Black Sexual Politics." Google Books. n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2018. <https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Sexual_Politics.html?id=feOSAgAAQBAJ>
5. Wilson, O. (1974). The significance of the relationship between Afro-American music and West African music. The Black Perspective in Music, 3-22.
6. Ross, G. (2014). Break It Down, Roll It Up: A Journey Through the Origins and Evolution of Chicago Footwork, 25-27.
7. Zaouli de Manfla: The Zaouli dance of the Ivory Coast, West Africa. Retrieved December 03, 2017, from http://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/zaouli-de-manfla-the-zaouli-dance-of-the-ivory-coast-west-africa
8. Permissions. "Policing the Black Woman's Body in an Urban Context | Critical Inquiry: Vol 18, No 4." Journals.uchicago.edu. n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2018.
9. Google Books. "The State of the World's Children 2004 - Girls, Education and Development." Google Books. n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2018.
10. NBC News. "Black students say school hair policy doesn't 'embrace their culture'." NBC News. n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2018. <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/parents-outraged-over-school-s-discriminatory-racist-dress-code-n759821>
11. Thomas Rudd. "Racial Disproportionality in School Discipline: Implicit Bias is Heavily Implicated." Kirwaninstitute.osu.edu. 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Apr. 2018. <http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/racial-disproportionality-in-school-discipline-implicit-bias-is-heavily-implicated/>
12.Naomi Nix. "Black Girls 6 Times as Likely to Be Suspended as Whites. ‘Let Her Learn’ Looks to Reverse the Trend." The74million.org. n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2018. <https://www.the74million.org/article/black-girls-6-times-more-likely-to-be-suspended-than-whites-let-her-learn-looks-to-reverse-the-trend/>
13. Google Books. "Women & Change in the Caribbean." Google Books. n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2018. <https://books.google.com/books/about/Women_Change_in_the_Caribbean.html?id=Sn8MvCizA_gC>