I Too Want To Have A Janelle Monáe Moment
Because I’m worth it
Janelle Monàe is a fine Black woman. She is fine, intentional, and unapologetic and I love her for it. Why? Because she is putting the beauty of Black women on the map y’all. Some people are pretty pissed off about that. But as you now know, I’m not. Let me explain.
I’m a Generation Xer. I grew up at a time and in a place — Switzerland, where almost all the magazines I read or the films I watched featured a lot of white women.
I remember standing naked in front of the mirror at age 13, asking myself questions about my body. Should my areolas look like that, should my pubic hair look so sparse? I wanted to see other bodies that resembled mine, but couldn’t find any in the media. The implicit message that the media sent back to me at the time was that Black women weren’t pretty, desirable, or worthy enough to be shown. The constant hammering of white bodies in my face, through the media, telling me that I should have a slighter frame or silky hair was at times both frustrating and aggravating.
I loved my Black toned body, I thought it was beautiful. I loved my strong hips and voluptuous behind. Why did I rarely see a girl that looked like me in fashion magazines?
Social media has been therapeutic for me. I’m catching up on all the lost time whereby I didn’t see myself represented in mainstream media.
My feeds are full of Black women showing the beauty of their bodies. They are clad or they are nude, I don’t care. Their bodies are diverse — big and small, thin and voluptuous, with hair extensions or without. I love seeing these Black women.
It might even seem odd, but I’m proud of them because they are showing the world how beautiful we are. These women represent Black beauty in its entirety, they show that we can also be objects of desire and that’s a good thing.
Janelle Monàe does this extremely well. She encourages Black women to show and be proud of their sexuality and I applaud her for that.
There’s a bit of a riot going on right now because she showed her nipple-covered breast while performing at the Essence festival last weekend in New Orleans.
Some are criticizing her for pushing the hypersexual Black female narrative. Others are saying she’s just plain vulgar. What I haven’t heard much of are people that are saying how much it means to Black women to see other Black women own and display their beauty and sexuality. How many times have white women like Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Sharon Stone, and others shown their sexuality to audiences? In doing so, they put white women at the center of all of our gazes. They send a message that this is the model we should strive to be, that this is normalcy.
But the truth is that “No”, that isn’t normal. Normalcy is diversity and accepting that we all can be at the center of a gaze.
As Black women, we should be allowed to be sexy, hypersexual, or asexual. We should be allowed to be whatever it is we want to be without judgment. I would go so far as to add, we need to see more nude Black women because little Black women and girls need to be able to see themselves. We’ve been excluded for way too long.
Thank you for reading my perspective.