nudiemuse:

cultureisnotacostume:

thenewwomensmovement:

sydneyflapper:

nudiemuse:

ersassmus:

African American flappers and Jazz Age women

HOLY SHIT I HAVE NEVER SEEN BLACK FLAPPERS BEFORE!

There were many fabulous African American flappers. No wonder – it was African American musicians who put the Jazz in “The Jazz Age”! The Charleston dance iteself, which so epitomizes the era, made its debut in the all-Black musical “Runnin’ Wild”, and no one danced that flapper number better than Josephine Baker…save possibly for fellow Black artist Florence Mills, who claimed credit for inventing it (she said she debuted it in her “Plantation Revue” in the early 20s, developing it from a dance popular among slaves). The Charleston song was written by Black composer James P Johnson. Without women and girls like those above, the 1920s would never have roared.

I think it’s so easy to forget that we, WOC, were there in history too.

The flapper movement was originally started by WOC, and that was part of the reason why it was so scandalous for white women to be flappers at first—because they were dressing and acting line WOC. But of course you’ll never see that in a high school textbook.

-Allyssa

I will reblog again for commentary.

Also think about it like this. I am 36 years old. THIRTY SIX and beyond Josephine Baker prior to these images I had never seen Jazz Age WOC.

Let that sink in.

36 years old and it wasn’t necessarily for lack of effort. 

Ugh, the lack of knowledge of and representation of PoC and LGBTIA from the Jazz Age is sad. I was fortunate, my mum’s always worked in the geriatric field, from being a nurse’s aid to a kinesiologist, and since she’d regularly not be able to afford a sitter, I’d get to go with her to work and interact with the elderly.

Getting to meet these women who were flappers in their prime, it was wonderful. I got to hear wonderful stories and see all these old photographs, listening to old jazz records while these women reminisced about what they did in the early days of women being allowed to vote, and the parties they threw and went to. There was such diversity among these women; black, white, hispanic, there was a woman who’d immigrated from China in 1919, and she was right there with the rest of them in her sassy flapper dress.

What struck me the most as a little girl was, how unapologetic they were about how they pissed off the establishment. It reminded me of my mom, who had no problems with telling people to fuck themselves when they told her how she was a “slut” and how she should raise a “damaged child” like me.

So thanks to them, to the “bra-burners”, to every woman out there who, like the wonderful flappers who says “I’m going to live my life how I want”. Thank you.

So yeah, yay that Urbance is an animation focussing on POC. Then suddenly we’re hit with “queers only happen when being straight is illegal” plot. So yeah, you poor oppressed heterosexuals, being held down by queers. I was fine with the Romeo & Juliet rehash, but then finding out that queer was the normal (because of a MacGuffin virus), and these brave hetero kids are fighting the system to reclaim love and save the world.

Sigh. I admit, I got suckered in by the gorgeous animation and diverse characters.

Can someone explain “white privilege”?

Can someone explain that when I’m denied rights because of; 

• how I was born
• how I grew up in a housing authority apartment
• how I get called a slut because of what I wear
• how I’ve had to fight as a female in a male dominated career field
• how I was fired from my job as a bartender, because a Christian PoC was offended by my “choice of lifestyle”

is “white privilege”. Also, I need explained to me why PoC are actively helping cisgendered/heterosexuals take my rights taken away from me because I’m gay. And, bonus points on explaining to me how PoC musicians calling women and gays degrading names is also because of “white privilege”.

I’ll be over here, not feeling all that privileged. I expect flack from this, I’m sorry that it’s still a shitty subject even in 2012, but I’m fucking tired of people griefing people over the color of their skin. WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE, the sooner you all get it into your heads, the better.

PS: Y’know what it is, it’s “Power privilege”, those in power are turning us on each other so we can never truly unite and be a threat to them. The more they can sic the LGBT community on PoC and vice versa, the easier they can manipulate us.