Erykah Badu sparked questions by wearing a mohair “booty suit,” as her designer called it, to Billboard’s annual Women in Music event. The outfit exaggerated her breasts, lower body and started intense conversations about what the neo-soul artist and icon was saying.
Some felt she was mocking the BBL (Brazilian Butt Lift) craze, the entertainment industry, and widespread encouragement of body-altering procedures.
There were references to Sara Saartjie Baartman (1789-1815), “one of the first black women known to be subjugated to human sexual trafficking. She was derisively named the ‘Hottentot Venus’ by Europeans as her body would be publicly examined and exposed inhumanly throughout her young life.
Moreover, her experience reinforced the already existing and extremely negative sexual fascination with African women’s bodies by the people of Europe,” wrote Mikelle Howard for BlackPast.org.
At age 16, the South African girl was sold into slavery by the Dutch. She was brought to “England and Ireland where she would work as a domestic servant (since, technically, slavery had been abolished in Great Britain at that time).
Additionally, she would be exhibited for entertainment purposes. … However, the contract was false on all details, and her enslavement continued for the remainder of her life,” observed Howard.
Later she was taken to France and sold to an exhibitor who showcased animals and put her on public display in and around Paris. “He also allowed her to be sexually abused by patrons willing to pay for her defilement. …
Sara Saartjie Baartman died in Paris on December 29, 1815, at the age of 26 for unknown reasons. Even after her death, many of her body parts would go on display at the Musée de l’Homme (Museum of Man).
In Paris to support racist theories about people of African ancestry. Some of the body parts remained on display until 1974,” Howard wrote.
The over-sexualization of Black women and girls has always been a problem. Even the voluptuousness of Black women has been used to misportray them as immoral, licentious animals. Such lies justified controlling, abusing and exploiting Black women during and after slavery.
An obsession with the body of the Black woman continues in entertainment, is prevalent on social media and aims to keep her in a degraded position. It ignores her gifts, skills and talents. It reduces her to body parts.
While surgical enhancement may be prevalent today, we should not forget the recent past. Black women died and suffered during illegal silicone injection parties.
In 2017, FDA warned serious injuries and disfigurement could “result from using injectable silicone or products being falsely marketed as FDA-approved dermal fillers for the purpose of enhancing the size of their buttocks, breasts and other body parts.”
What drives Black females to feel a need for increased physical adornments?
Melissa, an educator and mother, sees several things at work: Females trying to make themselves more attractive to men. False but influential depictions of women on social media, reality TV and the music industry.
A lack of understanding of self and history and a constant battle to affirm the beauty and value of Black women and girls in a world dominated by White beauty standards.
“Young girls especially are suffering with that. Young girls want a BBL because the ones with that seem to be getting the most attention. Even though when they’re getting these looks, it looks unnatural. So I think it has a lot to do with self-esteem and realizing that you are enough.”
Her father built her self-image by telling Melissa she was beautiful, buying her flowers and adoring her.
She did the same with her daughter. But as the mother of a college student, Melissa keeps building up her daughter amid an onslaught of pressure and oftentimes negativity.
“When we erase history, we don’t have any context about what has happened to our people and what has been done to our people,” said Melissa, during an interview. “Let’s talk the transatlantic slave trade.
You had no autonomy over your body. So when we don’t know that, then we have no agency. When we are viewing stuff, we are viewing something through a skewed lens. It’s not reality,” she argued. “You have to continuously try to uplift young women.”
A hallmark of the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam is the respect, protection and elevation of the Black woman. That includes rejecting the enemy’s ongoing attempts to debase and destroy her.
“What they want to make of you, a woman that was created in the image of God, is to make you in such a way that you will come down—way down; and bring your man down with you. And they also want you to teach your children in a way that they, too, will be down.
They want you to look at yourself in your nakedness, and enjoy seeing yourself in a degraded state,” said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, speaking at Mosque Maryam in September 2011. His message was entitled, “The Divine Nature & Value of Women.”
“Consider what I have stated about our beautiful sisters Rihanna, Beyoncé or Nicki Minaj: When you think that your bosom and your backside is your ‘stock and trade’ that makes you ‘valuable,’ then when you will strip down and show ‘miss booty.’
In 2008 when President Obama was elected, there was a Black woman in the papers who talked about the First Lady of the nation, Michelle Obama that, ‘She’s got back.’
“What in the world are we thinking about that we measure the value of a woman by the shape of her backside? Is this who you are? Is this what you want to be? Or do you want something better than what the White man has made of you?”
And while attention has been paid to what Erykah wore, here’s what she said March 29 in Dallas. “Sisters, how y’all feel? This night is for us.
It’s a night to celebrate the womb of the world, the womb of life, the womb-iverse of all things. The smartest creature on planet Earth. The wisest, the most invincible, sexiest, purest, finest. The woman,” she said.
Mothers, she continued, “thank you so much for giving us so much inspiration and examples of what it means to be resilient, what it means to take charge, what it means to be courageous, what it means to be authentically ourselves. And that’s all we gonna be.”
Amen.
Naba’a Muhammad, editor-in-chief of The Final Call newspaper, can be reached via www.finalcall.com and [email protected]. Find him on Facebook. Follow @RMfinalcall on X and Instagram.
