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Images of Black Femininity

GET YOUR FREAK ON … IMAGES OF BLACK FEMININITY

By Ja`Donna Rankins

April 2, 2013 Africana Studies 20 Spring 2013 Dr. T Hasan Johnson

Images of Black Femininity

Introduction

The sections of my April text review include “Get Your Freak On … Images of Black Femininity”, “Why We Can’t Wait: HIV/AIDS”. “Building Democracy From Below” and “Booty Call: Black Masculinity”. Get your Freak on basically talks about how the term “freak” came about and how rappers and singers use it in their music. Let’s take Missy Elliot for example, her hit song “Get Your Freak On” doesn’t talk about people getting weird and crazy, it means to show the hypersexual side of you. The term freak has changed drastically over the years. We used to think it meant someone who is abnormal, hideous and crazy. Now, it means something sexual. As I talked about in Get Your freak On, the same applies to “Booty Call: Black Masculinity”. They used the term “booty” and totally changed its meaning. What we know now is that it means your buttocks but back then booty meant a valuable prize, an award that cannot be given away.1 The term is usually used by men when they want sex. They would say to a girl “gimme that booty” or “what that booty like” meaning they either want sex or want to see what you can do with your butt. Why We Can’t Wait talks about how South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world.2 Black men who make booty calls without condoms are likely to spread the infection and African Americans mask the fact that they do have the infection and usually don’t tell anyone because they are either shy or have too much pride. This section also talks about sexual autonomy.

1

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (New York: Routledge, 2005), 150. 2 Ptricia Hill Collins, 280.

Images of Black Femininity

Get Your Freak On... Images of Black Femininity

In the year 2001, Missy



Bibliography: Marable, Manning. The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Collins, Patricia Hill, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (New York: Routledge, 2005)

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