Booty, booty,
booty, booty, booty everywhere—and I’m over it. I am sick of the fascination
with big booty White girls. And no, I am not a hater. I have a bodacious backside of my own. But
what gives this big booty girl a wedgie the size of an extra-small thong is the
current media saturation of protruding posteriors of White girls as if it’s the
best thing since peanut butter found jelly. Big booties ain’t new! Big booty Black girls have been holding it
down since the beginning of time.
Women of African
descent have always had backsides that didn’t conform to the norm, and outside
of our communities we have been ridiculed and scorned and encouraged to cover
and camouflage our butts. Growing up, our mothers and grandmothers sang the
praises of the Almighty Girdle as the fix-all to control and contain our
God-given bottoms. They knew what we had, and they knew the trouble it could
cause so they encouraged us to bind our behinds while the men folk encouraged
us to strut our stuff. I think the art of switching (walking while swaying the
hips) originated and was perfected in the Black community by a Black woman with
a basketball booty who wanted to make sure its grace and movement was
appreciated by those lucky enough to behold it.
In the days before
music videos and social media, many
of us reveled in our bootylisciousness. I’m not bragging when I say, the booty songs
back in the day, Da Butt, Baby Got Back and Bootyliscious to name a few were definitely Black girl anthems. We
had one asset that we could call our own. We may not have had White girls
bouncing and behaving hair, or their any-other-color-than-brown eyes, but we
definitely had more junk in the trunk. And any Black girl worth her ethnicity
did not want to hear the words, “You got a White girl (aka pancake flat)
booty!”
And we reigned
booty supreme, until the 90s when a Latina by the name of Jennifer Lopez strolled
on the scene, and all eyes were on this petite dynamo’s terrific tush. It was a
terrible day for Black women because once again some other non-Black woman was
getting credit denied to us. Yes, JLo is a woman of color which should have
lessened the blow, but it didn’t really because for as long as we know, we’ve
been made to feel bad about our otherness—the differences that set us apart
from the dominant culture--and then along comes a Latina who could easily pass
for White and gets credit for an asset that was once black.
Jennifer was rear
ended by Beyonce who has made a name for herself in the derrière department.
And if that isn’t enough to let you know who’s on top in the best bottom
category, there is one of our own seated in the White House, and as ridiculous
as it may seem, First Lady Michelle Obama’s booty has been deemed newsworthy
(like everything else about the Obama family) a few times. We could finally
have pride in our backsides! But. . . not really. When Salon writer Erin Aubre
praised the attributes of Michelle’s gluteus maximus, it stirred up quite a
debate. So, much in fact that the Huffington Post posed the question if
was appropriate to talk about Michelle’s butt.
Readers weighed in on the taboo topic of the First Lady’s tush.
We couldn’t talk
about Michelle’s booty, but hey, we had Bey. Things were going well until
Beyonce was butted by none other than Kim Kardashian who has one of the most
admired and envied celebrity backsides. Every time I turned around there was
someone talking about Kim’s butt. When Kim came on the scene, big booties,
moved mainstream. Then Nicki Minaj took over Kim’s number one spot. There are
Top 10 celebrity lists for everything, and when I looked up best booties, Nicki
and Kim are holding the number 1 and number 2 spots respectively. But what got
my panties in a bunch is that Black women, the originator of the ba dunka dunk,
the junk in the mid-sized to large trunk only had two spots out of ten. Really?
We had been robbed—again.
First it was Bo Derek who made braids all the
rage. Hello? How long have we been wearing our hair braided? Some of us have
even been terminated for wearing braids branded as “too ethnic”. Then it was
Angelina Jolie’s pouty lips. Full lips were so much in vogue, that women
started getting injections to make their lips bigger—oops!—I mean fuller.
Because big lips were what Black women had before luscious lips became popular
and then “big lips” became “full lips” (because full sounds better than big)
and then Black women were able to stop using make-up tricks we had been taught
to minimize the size of our lips.
Hip-hip music
videos brought the booty into the spotlight, but it was still not socially
acceptable. Women who chose to flaunt their fabulous fannies were judged
harshly—until now! What music videos fetishized and objectified, society has
now normalized—if the booty in question happens to be alabaster in complexion. Nicki was recently criticized for her Anaconda
album cover. But Kim, the married mother of a young daughter and the queen of
bootie selfies gets a pass? I haven’t seen any open letters to Kim about
showing her ass.
From squats to
injections, to articles and videos galore, there is a surplus of information on
how to get a bigger butt. And now big booties are not only acceptable, they’re coveted.
I guess we should thank White girls for giving our derrières their due just as
we have Miley Cyrus to thank for legitimatizing twerking. Side eye. I’m so over
this latest episode of cultural appropriation. There is even a documentary, Bottoms
Up—Rise of the Backside, that traces how booties have moved from cult
fetish to main stream acceptability.
There’s a tan booty on the poster for the film that does not look like it
belongs to the originator and creator of Big Booties—Black girls! So, yea, I’m
sick of the whole big booty White girl obsession. It makes me feel like I’m wearing a dental floss thong. A friend of mine said there's a thin line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. And the line has been crossed-again!
You nailed it again.
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