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Sunday, September 29, 2013

How Halle Berry Tarnished the Image of Black Women

Halle Berry is the first Black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar. However, in order to receive that award she betrayed Black women all over the world. To get herself ahead, she set the image of the Black woman behind over 400 years by mainstreaming old racist stereotypes about Black women and making them cultural norms.


Now there have been other actresses like Lisa Bonet who tried to use the stereotype of the Black Jezebel as a springboard to superstardom. But in the late 1980s and 1990’s self-aware Black people refused to support Lisa Bonets’ movie Angel Heart with a passion understanding how White Supremacists could use films like this as a gateway to bring back old racist stereotypes about Black women.


The main image for Black women from 1968-2001 was an educated Black woman who had a career and a family. Characters like Julia, Florida Evans, Whitley Gilbert Kadijah James, Hilary Banks, Joan Clayton, and Family oriented women like Claire Huxatble, Vivian Banks, and Harriet Winslow. Respectable dignified ladies and clean-cut good girls like Denise Huxtable and Tia and Tamera Mowry. Black women had fought for a generation to control their image and did their best to keep it positive.


Yes, there was Lil’ Kim in the mid 1990’s. But she was on the fringe and not fully accepted by Black America or White America. For many she was associated with a small part of Hip-Hop. Dignified intelligent Ladies like Queen Latifah MC Lyte, Antionette, Precious, and Salt N Pepa were still considered the gold standard among female rappers back then.


For years Halle Berry was the good girl. The sista next door. Someone America could trust.  Someone every man wanted to take home to meet his mother and someone sistas wanted to be friends with. An A-lister with a clean image everyone was comfortable with.


But For White Supremacists in Hollywood she was Lisa Bonet 2.0.


To these racists, Halle Berry was a mainstream actress with the popularity and credibility to legitimize old racist stereotypes about Black women and breathe new life into them. Someone who was so well liked by most Americans Black or White and wouldn’t be challenged by Blacks in authority when she presented the repackaged degrading racist and sexist images White Supremacists wanted portrayed of Black women.


Now Halle Berry played a lot of good girl roles early in her career, but even with an impressive resume and good looks, she just couldn’t stand out in a crowded playing field with her Black female contemporaries like Vanessa Williams, Salli Richardson, Angela Bassett, Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett. All were better actresses than Berry and she just didn’t have the range to compete with them.


So to make herself distinct, she decided to sell out the Black community and became the new Black Jezebel. First by appearing topless in the movie Swordfish, and then by participating in a borderline pornographic sex scene in Lee Daniels’ Monsters’ Ball.


By participating in this role of Leticia Musgrove in Monster’s Ball, Halle Berry opened the door. Not for Black women. But for White Supremacists to breathe new life into old stereotypes about Black women. The Jezebel and the Mammy have become the choice role for Black actresses to play in Hollywood since Halle portrayed Letica Musgrove in Monster’s Ball a decade ago.


Where Angel Heart failed, Monster’s Ball succeeded.


 Since Halle’s Oscar win, then the image of the Black woman has been dragged into the sewer by opportunistic Black females looking to get ahead at the expense of the image of Black womanhood. Gabourney Sidbe got nominated for an Oscar for playing a mammy and Mo’ Nique won an Oscar for playing another one in Precious. Viola Davis was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for playing a maid in The Help. Octavia Spencer won an Oscar for playing a maid in The Help. Kerry Washington just got nominated for being a modern day Negro Bed Wench in Shondra Rhimes’ Scandal. And Oprah Winfrey and Lee Daniels made over $100 million dollars at the Box office on the coonfest called The Butler.


None of this modern day coonin’ and buffonin’ by Black women today would have been possible without Halle Berry compromising herself over a decade ago.


Where Real Black Women like Vanessa Williams, Queen Latifah, and Angela Bassett feared to tread. Halle Berry walked with confidence. Walking away from the legacy of Ruby Dee, Dihann Carroll, Corretta Scott King, Betty Shabazz, and every other Black woman who fought in the Civil Rights Movement back to the Bed Wench’s house behind the Massa’s mansion.


What Black Historians will be talking about 20 years from now is not how Halle won the Oscar but how she was used by White Supremacists in Hollywood as a tool to usher in a new age for the Black Jezebel and the Mammy in the 21st Century How she alone in her attempt to get ahead set the image of Black women behind.


With her participation in Monster’s Ball, Halle made it possible for a generation of little Black girls and young Black women to believe it was perfectly fine to sacrifice their personal intangibles like their dignity and self-respect for fifteen minutes of fame. That people seeing a Black woman’s backside was more important than seeing their faces.


Thanks to Halle Berry a generation of women like Kim Kardashian, and Montana Fishburne think it’s okay to have sex on camera to get 15 minutes of fame. Yeah, I know it’s reaching, but where did Kim and Montana get the idea from? Pamela Anderson’s sex tape in the mid 1990’s wasn’t as popular as Monster’s Ball was and still is today. Halle became an international superstar making $15 million a picture after her sex scene, and no other actress Black or white has received that kind of fame or riches for participating in a nude scene or a sex scene in a movie since.


The legacy of Halle Berry can be seen not only in Kim Kardashian but in reality stars like KarrineSteffans and theBasketball wives, the football wives, Love & Hip Hop who all use their bodies instead of their brains to get ahead. These ignorant acting Aunt Jemimas in designer clothes owe their existence to Halle Berry’s. Ginger on Swordfish and Leticia Musgrove paved the way for Evelyn Lozada and the rest of these ghetto chicks who do nothing but cause drama and play the victim.

Even  A-list mainstrem singers likelike Beyonce and Rihanna followed in Halle Berry’s footsteps. Thanks to her Oscar Win they think it’s okay to talk “girl power” while gyrating and shaking their asses while singing about sex. Without Halle to open the door for them in 2001 as the first Black jezebel, they wouldn’t be allowed to be jezebels today.


And Halle was the role model for dozens of actresses like like Kerry Washington, Gabourney Sidibe, Mo Nique, Viola Davis who all followed in her footsteps seeking out the most degrading roles in the hopes of getting on a fast-track to an easy Oscar.


Not to mention all those Black women you see on Facebook and taking sexy pictures of themselves in skimpy lingerie just to get Likes, those females fighting in videos on World Star Hip Hop and those little girls young as eight and twelve twerkin on YouTube shaking their asses just to get views.


This is the true legacy of Halle Berry. This is the impact her participation in Monster’s Ball in 2001 had on the Black community.  By agreeing to star in that movie she was responsible for turning the mainstream image of our Proud Black Mothers and Sistas into Filthy booty shaking Whores all over the world. Thanks to you ushering in this new age of Niggerdom in America, Black women all over the are now seen as a JOKE all over the world.

Congrtulations Halle. You won your Oscar. You only sacrificed the dignity and self-respect of the Black woman in America to earn that little gold statue. I hope it was worth it.

22 comments:

  1. LMAO!! This post was pure comedy! Is everything racially motivated in your mind??? Your life must suck ass! I hope you dont have children I shudder to think what you are filling their heads with. and LOL at hilary banks being educated. did you watch fresh prince at all?? I dont know why you hate Halle so much but it is extremely disturbing. Its almost as if she bullied you in high school for being fat or something. And even if she did portray black women negatively....SO WHAT?? is every single black actress supposed to play claire huxtable on screen?? That is not reality my friend. I have met several black women who are far from claire, but i guess you dont like reality being depicted on screen huh?? Please get some counseling.

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  2. I'd rather have Hilary Banks than Olivia Pope on TV.

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    1. They both slept around. Hillary's was just blanketed in subtext. On top of the she was the side piece to the station anchor while she was a weather girl. He leaves his wife for her, you know like the story of Jezebel, that your constantly mentioning. Do you not remember this show. Did you watch that show.

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  3. I'm sick and tired of manginas and white knighters coming to this website to challenge this Brotha's perspective on Halle Berry. Yes, Halle sold herself out to the highest bidder, that she got involved with racist men who don't give a darn about her as a person. If that troll is a mangina, then he's the problem.

    We need honest men like Shawn James, not some mangina who would stab a woman in the back and get away with it.

    It's true that white supremacist powers that be used Halle Berry and tried to use Beyonce to promote anti-Black woman stereotypes. You're the one with lying eyes, walking on eggshells so you can score with those hoodrats. So take your white-knighting, mangina butt elsewhere.

    S.B.

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  4. S Baldwin,

    Thanks for the support and the kind words. We need more sistas like you.

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  5. @ s baldwin [possibly shawn james sock account]

    mangina? really? IS this junior high?
    Try to be mature. I know it might be a new concept for you but try...just try.


    @ shawn james

    I don't care about the Oscars. But these Black women put it at such high regard if they are going to lower themselves to playing maids and whores to get that award.


    So should black actresses refuse to play those roles PERIOD? No matter what the storyline is?



    Janet Jackson, Pam Grier, Josephine Baker, that's a straw man argument. Most of those images were meant to sell to Black Men.


    LOL HOW SO?? because they never did an interracial sex scene? Just go ahead and admit it you know thats what you mean.



    I hold Halle Berry responsible because she had the power and influence to create positive roles for Black women like she did with Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, and could have kept positive images of Black women on the air for another generation.



    Its funny you mention dorothy because she was heavily bashed by some in the black community for Porgy and Bess. What do you think about that role?


    It seems you have an issue with Black men calling out Black women who date White men.


    But why would you "call them out" at all though?? Do you "call out" black men for dating white women?? Are you against interracial dating as a whole?? How do you really feel??


    I could care less about Halle's Marriage to Oliver Martinez. I merrely state my factual observations about how she has impacted Black women.



    FACTUAL OBSERVATION? So we still dont know the difference between fact and opinion? IF i were to say halle has had a positive impact on black women it would be classified as OPINION. when you say she has had a negative impact on black women it is classified as OPINION as well. Am I wrong??


    I have no idea why you are so upset about my criticism of Halle Berry. Unless you are Halle Berry.


    LOL!! If i told you i was Halle would you believe me?? Anyway Im not upset by your OPINIONS just confused....either way you should be extremely glad im bringing some form of life to this deceased blog.

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  6. 8:31 seems to be living in his/her own world. The latest Ad-hominem attacks clearly show that they cannot stand the facts I present to him/her about Halle Berry and how her actions have tarnished the image of the Black woman.

    Anyone with a brain who has lived over the last two decades can see how Monster's Ball negatively impacted Black women. How it started the snowball effect of all these negative images of Black women in media. As I stated previously, Before Olvia Pope there was Letcia Musgrove. This same Halle article has done over 100 plus hits. So that refutes your point about this being a deceased blog.


    Despite your attempt to minimize the impact of my blog because you hate the content regarding Halle Berry, I continues to grow a larger audience with each passing day. People look for me on Facebook and twitter and I get close to one thousand readers a day in some weeks.

    Again, I wonder why you take my posts about Halle Berry so personally. The only person who should possibly be getting this upset is Halle Berry herself.

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  7. LOL!! You get close to one thousand readers a day on this blog [at times] yet you are lucky if you even get ten comments and you only have 593 followers on twitter?? Must I elaborate any further on your "popularity"? And I love how you dodged answering every question I presented to you but Im not surprised though.

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    1. you must like black women made to look like trash but again I say Halle not black she's mixed half

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  8. Wow. Just wow. Deflection, minimization, shaming tactics and a Straw Man argument all in one package. You stalk a dude's twitter? That's really reaching.

    I have to wonder if you really are Halle Berry or if you actually are Oliver Martinez. She'd have to be breaking you off some to keep coming back here and attacking me over her.

    Take a look at a little blog called Why Real Men Avoid Single Mothers...Over 11,000 hits and multiple responses from other bloggers. Or a blog called why 70 Percent of Black women are single Over 2K hits.

    Besides, who needs comments when people link to the blog and they mention it in google searches? That's more important than twitter followers.

    I'm gonna have to do a blog just for you in the future responding to you and your ad-hominem attacks.

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  9. Take a look at a little blog called Why Real Men Avoid Single Mothers...Over 11,000 hits and multiple responses from other bloggers. Or a blog called why 70 Percent of Black women are single Over 2K hits.



    I find it hard to believe you garnered those kinda hits.




    Wow. Just wow. Deflection, minimization, shaming tactics and a Straw Man argument all in one package. You stalk a dude's twitter? That's really reaching.



    Deflection??? Thats really ironic coming from you. You still havent answered my questions from the other response! and You are the one who mentioned your twitter account in the first place not me.

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  10. Well, anon. You haven't paid attention to Shawn's point of view. You're here to troll and deflect.

    Yes, Halle has set the standard of Black womanhood to a new low. Look at music videos, movies such as The Help, The Butler, etc., to see how Black women are portrayed.

    Are you a white knight or the mangina? Because everything you do reeks of it. If you don't like what Shawn James said, fine. But please don't derail this into your personal ideology against this Brotha.

    Thank you.

    S.B.

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  11. @ s baldwin



    Well, anon. You haven't paid attention to Shawn's point of view. You're here to troll and deflect.



    ummmm nooo Have you been reading my responses?? I Have followed up everything he has said with a reasonable question that he typically avoids answering. so miss me with your bull.

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  12. 8:31


    I will beposting a response blog next week where I deal with this in a more effective way. I have several points I will present to you that will reinforce my argument in a concrete iron clad fashion.

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  13. Halle berry to star in steven spielberg new t.v. Show about astronauts

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    1. I'm with you all the way brother plus Halle not black she's mixed

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  15. TO HELL WITH THAT BIT CH halle berry! JUST ANOTHER white-washed SELL OUT! TO HELL WITH HER AND ALL OF THE white AS SES THAT SHE SO DESPERATELY KISSES!

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  17. Damn, this page shows how insecure black men really are. No wonder more and more black women are starting to get with white men.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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