"Bitch is the new black"

[LBJDemocrat]

"Bitch is the new black." I've heard this a lot in the past few days. What does it mean? Does it mean that women now suffer as much as blacks did in the past and that blacks no longer suffer injustices?

[geek_sabre]

1. Umm

I think it means it is fashionable to be a bitch. It doesn't have anything to do with race.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_new_black

[saracat]

3. BS Not this year.

[saracat]

2. Women have always suffered as much as blacks and continue to do so. Black women as well

they get a double dose. But women of all colors are still being enslaved all over the world and in this country where they are brought in as slave labbor and prostitutes from Eastern Europe, Mexico Thailand,China and a host of countries and next to nothing is being done to stop it. And electing Obama is not going to stop it at all. The so called symbolism of a Black president doesn't do a damn thing for women who have ALWAYS suffered. We are just proving racism is taken seriously in this nation but sexism is acceptable.Neither is acceptable.
Misogyn rules the day. Black men got the right to vote in the USA before women and the ERA has yet to pass.We are not even a "protected" class but race is. I am so ashamed.

[FrenchieCat]

8. right....that's why Black men were hung for even looking at White Women not long ago

in our history.

But let's not talk about that!

Jacqueline Jones Royster documents the stereotypes of this popular white belief in an analysis of Wells’ reports. She writes:

White women were pure, virginal, and uninterested in sexual pleasure. They needed and deserved protection. African American women were wanton, licentious, promiscuous <…> African American men were lustful beasts who could not be trusted in the company of ‘good’ women, white women. <4>

According to the stereotypes exposed by Wells, white men understood the rape of a white woman by a black man to be an insult to their manhood <5> , whereas the rape of a black woman by a white man could not be a “punishable crime” because of her status as a “bad woman.” The racial ideology at the root of such thinking allowed white men to define lynching not as terrorism or race and gender control, but as the right action to avenge their manhood. <6>
http://amath.colorado.edu/carnegie/lit/lynch/women.htm

[saracat]

12. And women are put to death and tortured every day for attempting to run away from their

captors right here in the US.Your point? Or is that just acceptable to you because we also have a shameful history of racism?

[goodgd_yall]

15. Your citation says more about white men than white women

What's so good about being considered "pure, virginal, and uninterested in sexual pleasure"? It means if you deviated from this ideal, you were ostracized and unworthy of respect.

Might I remind you that women die, or at the very least, are traumatized from sexual assault and rape every day.

[woolldog]

9. You are delusional if you think that's true.

[Kat45]

4. It was on Saturday Night Live last night

Talk about Hillary being a bitch, Tina Fey, Pohler, were proclaiming that they were bitches. "Bitch is the new black." Nothing to do with race, it's a play on the phrase you often see in fashion magazines, "brown is the new black" or "gray is the new black"

[douglas9]

6. SNL Video

Bitch is the New Black

On SNL, Tina Fey delivered "the most important women's news item there is" and asked Ohio and Texas to vote for Clinton.

http://therhetoricalsituation.blogspot.com/2008/02/bitch-is-new-black.html

[Jamastiene]

5. No, it doesn't mean that, I'm sure.

My question is:

Why did your mind automatically, "Go there?" Both sexism and racism are bad. Why belittle one over the other? That makes no sense. Neither should be acceptable.

[Catchawave]

7. See:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/24/1161/99305

Absolutely the best SNL ever!

[Orsino]

10. That's terrific.

I thought SNL had run completely out of gas long ago.

[Catchawave]

11. SNL and Hil never run out of gas

:hi:

[goodgd_yall]

14. I finally just got a chance to watch this

It's good to see SNL doing some good political commentary again.

[tammywammy]

13. Black as in fashion, not race

Every hear "pink is the new black" or whatever the "hot" color of the year is?

[goodgd_yall]

16. It was more than that

There was a time the "correct" term for African-Americans/blacks was "Negro." Then in the 60s black people claimed the word "black" as a way to take back power and name themselves---not leave it up to the dominant white society. In the skit, the word "bitch" is reclaimed and is taken on as a positive rather than a negative. "Bitch" WAS bad because it meant a woman was not "nice." But "Bitch," in the skit, is good because it's turning on its head the notion that good women are nice. Good women are tough.