So What Do You Think? David Banner on Black Women and Perms

Say it LOUD! wants to hear thoughts about David Banner’s comments on Black women and perms.   So what do you think?

Here’s something to think about.  During a panel at South Carolina State University, rapper and educator, David Banner, compared the perming of hair as a form of Black on Black crime. Check out this article below from the Times and Democrat.com, and tell us what you think.

Blacks ‘don’t love themselves,’ rapper David Banner tells crowd

By RODNEY BROWN, T&D Correspondent

Rapper, actor and philanthropist David Banner told students gathered at South Carolina State University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium that black people should not accept media portrayals of African-Americans.

In the midst of Black History Month, Banner, the graduate of two historically black colleges and universities, stunned an audience of more than 300

African-Americans with the accusation: “African-Americans don’t love themselves.”

“Black people have accepted what the media have portrayed them to be,” Banner said. “We have to work to repaint the picture of black folks.”

Banner’s appearance kicked off the second annual Hip-Hop Symposium, sponsored by the Miller F. Whittaker Library in collaboration with the Campus Activity Board’s “Awakening Lecture Series.”

The theme this year is “Black on Black Crime.”

In a question-and-answer session, Banner challenged black women in attendance to explain why they perm and straighten their hair.

In response came the defense that “hair perming” is equated with being able to get a decent job as a professional and not being viewed as a threat by bosses who are usually of a different race.

“This is what I mean when I say black people don’t love themselves,” Banner said. “Perming your hair is a clear example of ‘black-on-black crime’ and media control. Black-on-black crime is not just a black person committing a violent act against another black person.”

Focusing deeper on the media’s impact, Banner said the continuing depiction of blacks as aggressive and as a threat to society lowers the value of black life.

“Blacks have accepted the way they are portrayed in the media as a reality,” Banner said. “This sad reality makes it easier for a black person to commit a crime against other people of color.”

Touching on a recent issue in the news, Banner labeled as unfair the media coverage of domestic violence allegations against singer Chris Brown regarding striking his girlfriend, Pop singer Rihanna.

“Chris Brown is being convicted and character assassinated in the media and we don’t even know what Rihanna did yet,” Banner said.

Banner emphasized the importance of African-American couples staying together to properly raise a child in a world much different from when their parents were growing up.

“It’s up to you to raise your children,” Banner said. “If you don’t, someone else will.”

The mission of the Hip-Hop Symposium is to inform students about the crisis of black-on-black crime and encourage dialogue.

“We hope that this symposium will bring awareness to a very important social issue in our community,” said Sherman Pyatt, coordinator of collection development.

“We hope to encourage our students, faculty, staff and the Orangeburg community to identify problems, search for answers and discuss these issues in a critical manner,” he said.

T&D Correspondent Rodney Brown is a student in the Mass Communications Department at Claflin University.

What do you think about the Chris Brown and Rihanna incident?

“Mi Querida Mama” MY LOVING MOTHER

My name is Jenny Rodriquez and I’m 13 years old. Have you ever lost the one and only person in your life that had the unconditional
l love you needed or the X that marked the spot on your treasure map? Well, I did. That one and only person was my mom, Adilia Zepeda Rodriquez.

Everything was good in my life until March 27th, 2006 when my heart was wounded very deeply. This wasn’t any regular wound; like the one you get when you get shot or beat up. It i is a wound that will never be removed or replaced. This was the worst pain I ever experienced and I still cry today.

My mom was the best mom in the world and we gave each other all of the unconditional love that we needed. On the day she passed away from cancer, I had a bad vibe and started crying. My heart ached, my throat was tight and the tears were running down my face like a waterfall. I was in school and after a little time went by, the phone rang and my Social Studies teacher told me to go to my counselor’s office with my coat and books. I knew that my mom had let go of the grass.
When I got downstairs, my father and Esmeralda, my mom’s closest friend, were crying as if the world was ending. For me, it felt like it actually was. Without my mom, I felt so empty and so lonely. There were no words or feelings to express how I felt, knowing that I lost the one person in my life that would make my life be…LIFE. When she was ill, I would go to the hospital everyday and feel sad, but I felt good about feeling the warmth of her hugs and her loving words. When I would leave the hospital, it felt like one piece of me was being ripped away. The pain of having the thought that she could die did not let me sleep or eat well.

Seeing my mother suffer made me suffer. She spent three months at Bellevue Hospital before going home for two weeks. When she was home it was very hard because I felt as though I wasn’t receiving the necessary help from my family, except for my aunt who helped out. After the two weeks home, the doctors told my
mom that she had to go into hospice. We chose the hospice service at Cabrini. While in hospice, my mom would say that she wanted to go home. I always cried when my father would say to her that he would take her home, me knowing that he couldn’t. This would break my heart and make me sad.

Days passed and I had to take my 7th grade New York State Math exam. That morning, her doctor’s called me to tell me that my mom had two weeks of life left. My father had to pick me up from school because I could not concentrate at all. I had no idea that my life was going to be done in two weeks. The Sunday before her death, I was sick and unable to go to the hospice because mom had low defenses. I spoke to her over the phone and her last words to me before she hung up were, “Bye… I love you!” The next day, Monday, marked two weeks from when the doctors said that my mom would pass. At first, I got excited because my mom was still here and I thought that she would stay alive longer, but by the afternoon, I found out that my mother died. I felt like I was dead.

Seven months have passed and depending on the days, I have my ups and downs. Sometimes when I look at my mom’s photo, I feel her presence and I don’t cry, but other times I just want to have my mom. What helped me get by was this past summer when I went to the Dominican Republic to visit my father’s side of the family. My family made sure that I never felt sad and I always felt the love in my grandmother’s house. Being away also helped because my father’s siblings lost their mom and they were able to help me since they experienced the same thing as I did.

I appreciated my mother, but when she died it taught me to appreciate everything I have now because if I don’t, I will regret it later on in life. For kids going through what I’m facing, know that you are not the only person going through this and take a moment to speak to God. Know that it is ok to cry so that you can
get all the pain out. I wrote it out and it has helped me let all of my random expressions out.

Listening to My Mother Isn’t Boring After All

By Darlene Thompson, 15
Brooklyn High School For Music and Theater

Out of the long lectures I get from my mother, I never thought what happened to me would ever
happen. “Never keep things to yourself! Always tell someone!” were the words my mother
started her lectures with. I’ve learned that keeping things to myself made me feel guiltier inside
for keeping my mouth shut. My mom always told me that my height would make me look like
an adult. I am young in age, but older guys might mistake me for an older woman and may
want to try and do things to me. I’ve always thought to myself that nothing of that certainty
would happen to me.
It was August 4th, and I asked my mom if I could go to the pool in Commodore Barry Park, but
she insisted no, even if I went with my brothers and sisters. It was a hot day and I wanted to go
outside. She told me that her conscience told her that something was going to go wrong, but I
didn’t listen. Finally, she changed her mind and let me go.
My friends from elementary and junior high school were there. Like every one else in the pool,
I kept getting dunked. There was one guy named “L”, who I met the day before in the same
pool, that kept following me. “L”, who is 22, was with his two nieces and nephew. He kept
following me inside the pool, wanting to dunk me. I sort of got tired, so I floated on the side
of the pool to rest with my back facing the steeper side. “L” grabbed me by the sides and
wanted to dunk me. All of a sudden, he kissed my chest and I got scared. After that, he dunked me.
I tried to stay away from him, but he kept following me. I tried to stay close to somebody I knew,
but “L” kept dunking me. At one point, he grabbed me from the back and my friend Frankie
was in front of me. I mouthed the words telling him to get “L” away from me. Frankie told me
that “L” was grabbing my chest underwater. Frankie grabbed “L” from behind to get him off of
me, but he held on tight. My other friend, Jason, pulled me away from him.
I went to my sister to tell her what happened and she told me to go tell an officer that was
around the pool at the time. After I told the officer, I fainted from feeling so nervous. They arrested
“L” and took me to the hospital. After the hospital, I went to the police station and filed a report
on “L”.
I thanked my mother for the lectures that she had with me and my sisters. I know that many girls
don’t receive the same lectures. I would like to thank all mothers who take the time to talk with
their daughters about what to do if situations like these happen in the near future. I would give
up my world for my mother because I can’t thank her enough for talking to me.

When I Thought Starvation was my Path to Beauty

by Stefanee Hernandez

I always wanted to model however; I noticed that the models in magazines had certain things that were the opposite of me. Most of them had long, straight, blonde hair, blue or green eyes, and were very skinny. I understood that there are people who are born naturally skinny, but half of these models didn’t look real.

Over time, I started to compare myself to what I saw in the magazines and on television. I started to brainwash myself by saying, I’m not pretty until my body resembles hers, and if I want to model I would have to loose weight so that I would be as skinny as the girls in the magazines. I wanted to become a model so bad that I did just about anything for it.

Soon I had low self-esteem and cried all the time. I became anorexic and bulimic. At first, I never ate lunch and that was okay because I always ate breakfast and dinner, and always snacked on junk food. Later, I started to skip breakfast, then
snacks, and drank nothing but water. I became afraid of gaining weight. My stomach would be grumbling but I still would refuse to eat because of my dream weight. I would eat
a small amount of food for dinner feel guilty throw it up. I felt bad and disgusted with myself about doing that, but I kept on telling myself this is the only fast way to loose my fat.

After a while, I soon became tired all the time; always snappy, my hair was thinning, my nails were becoming weak and I started to get black circles under my eyes. I always looked drained, but I would play it off in front of my family and friends. I was also going through some family problems and I felt like I needed to be in control of something. My weight was something that I felt that I could control and
change.

I normally passed out every 2-3 months, just from low iron. After starving myself, I passed out every 2-3 weeks. I believed that I knew what was best for me and did what I felt was right continuing like this for more than 8 month and loosing a total of 17 pounds. My pants went from a size 9 to a size 3 and I was in glory because of that, I knew that a 3 was where I needed to stop, because a size 1 would look awkward.

The more weight I lost, the more I felt good about myself,
and the more I disappointed my family and friends. I stopped for 2 reasons. First of all, I was tired of having my family and friends worry and hurt because of me. The second reason was because of Tyra Banks. She showed me that you don’t have to be a walking stick to be a top model. She said it’s okay to have curves; it’s okay to have something different about you because that’s what makes you stand out from all the rest.

Tyra said that what is seen as a person’s fault is their most beautiful feature and that it takes more than just a pretty face to become a model. Your inner beauty shines outwards.
There’s a side of me that wishes that I didn’t go through this experience, because of all I had to deal with. However, going through this made me more aware of who I am and how
much I should appreciate everything that God has given me because it’s a blessing.

Stefanee Hernandez is a student at LaGuardia High
School in New York City.