This weekend I participated in a panel about girls, images and media. You can read more about my experience over here.
What has really stayed with me from the discussion are these two questions/missives from our moderator, Shayna D: What responsibilities do bloggers have regarding the tone of their content and What are the solutions to the negative images of women of color we see portrayed?
The responses from the panelists ran from “if it’s my personal blog, I am going to write what I want” to Cocoa from Cool Cruel World saying that she does her best to only promote positive images of black women, particularly because of the deluge of negativity from many of the gossip blogs out there.
I found all the responses interesting. As ya’ll know, I explore the life of black women in general, and while I create positive images, some of the things I uncover may explore might illuminate some negative aspects, I am fine with that because there is a balance and I don’t promote nor engage in gratuitous negativity.
Which brings me to thinking about how most (not all) black-oriented gossip blogs create this culture of negativity. Without pointing fingers or naming names, quite a few are hate-filled rants whose writers seem to get joy from a mishap or bad luck in someone else’s life. I’m not talkig about the sites who poke fun at celebrity, because I happen to find the cult of celebrity quite funny. I’m talking about the ones who are downright mean and whose comments are usually filled with hatred — you all know who I am talking about.
Besides bringing in revenue for the blog, what does all of this constant negativity do for the psyches of the folks who can’t wait to be first to post on the next blog update? Yes, they may be adults free to read and do what they want, but we also know that the lack of critical thought in our communities runs deep — often generations deep.
Back to the panel.
Toward the end, Shayna, our moderator, asked us for solutions with regards to helping change the images of black women in the media. The answers included creating and managing our images to reaching out to young women in their early years and helping to develop their critical thinking skills before they are inundated with media programming.
I believe it’s going to take a cooncerted, multi-pronged effort from women in many segments of our society before we see a change in our images.
I’d love to hear your solutions. What, if anything, can be done to change the images of black women in the media?
