Rap Sessions: Nicki Minaj And Images Of Black Women In Media

from NewsOne.com

Rap Sessions: Nicki Minaj And Images Of Black Women In Media

Bakari Kitwana interviews Mark Anthony Neal about the Nicki Minaj’s recent appearance on Saturday Night Live as “The Bride of Blackenstein,” which interestingly generated very little serious media critique.

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Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University, host of the internet TV show Left of Black, and the author five books, and co-editor the forthcoming That’s The Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2nd Edition).

Bakari Kitwana is CEO of Rap Sessions, Editor at Large of Newsone.com and author of the forthcoming Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era. (Third World Press, 2011)

Is Michelle Obama's "Ass" Off Limits?

from Vibe.com

CRITICAL NOIR
Is Michelle Obama's "Ass" Off-Limits?
by Mark Anthony Neal

At the crux of Erin Aubrey Kaplan's humorous and cute Salon.com essay, "First Lady Got Back," is the simple admission that Michelle Obama--and by extension the First Family Obama--represent a "realness" that hasn't existed in Washington political circles in some time. Indeed in a society in which the notion of "fitness" has become not only a market unto itself but a mode of regulation that defines what bodies are "fit" to represent the American body politic, Michelle Obama's body invokes a realness that is both refreshing and affirming--in the way that that Propel Water commercial from a year ago (the one with the healthy sista strolling the streets getting her walk on to the gaze of male celebrities). But that doesn't mean that Kaplan's piece doesn't conjure a more troubling view.

Never before has a First Lady's body been subject to the amount of scrutiny and surveillance as is the case with Michelle Obama; she has been rhetorically poked, prodded and groped. Many would have found such a line of coverage unfathomable and even offensive if applied to women like Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, or Roselyn Carter...

Read the Full Essay @