Baby got Back

When Claudia Aderotimi got on that plan to America what her thoughts? When she received that lethal injection what were her dreams? When she took her last breath what were her regrets?

We will never know the answer to those questions or the real reason why Claudia wanted to cosmetically enlarge her buttocks. But what we can do is look at Claudia and many other women as innocents caught in web of cosmetic deceit.

As a Black woman, why would you need to enhance a body part that is a natural asset to you just like the color of your skin? Your protruding heritage is almost what deciphers the cultural group you belong too, right? As Black women, whether we realises it or not, we exist within a “double consciousness” as Dubois would put it. We are full aware that we do not conform to the Western standards of beauty, and thus are ugly, but at most times we are fine with that. When we leaf through pages of mainstream magazines or watch our favorite television shows are our face is not being represented, but we have adapted and learnt to live with that, it’s the norm. But simultaneously, we have rejected and conformed, when we dye our hair to lighten it from its natural ebony hue or straighten our kinks we are internalizing this every infliction of White beauty. But as cultural group, we have challenged this notion of beauty by developing our own standards.  The very ones that aim to slap White Western values in the face, because the Black woman looks like this: pear or hour-glassed shaped, thick thighs, ample busts and a big ol’ booty.

So when rounded pair of firm cheeks is not amply placed between our lower back and upper thighs, the interrogation of our “blackness” occurs. Whether that is an internal process or others question us questioned on how we can perform to our womanhood. Honestly, how can you be Black woman with no bum? So when Claudia went to one of her auditions as a music video girl where her behind was deemed unsuitable, her womanhood was rejected. Her body did not perform to role of what a Black woman’s body ought to be, it was not gratifying enough to enthuse the lustful male gaze.  Not only was Claudia rejected by her own cultural group for not possessing the right asset to legitimize this identity, but she experiences rejection everyday when she watches adverts for L’Oreal, reads or a glossy magazine or watches the latest hip-hop music video on television. So her Black Womanhood automatically correlated to how big one’s ass is.

But where did this morbid fascination come from? Answer: as a cultural group we have absorbed the representation of the dominant White Patriarchy: racist misogyny. The Black ass and generally female body existed out the norms of the White female body that represents purity. Us Black women with our exoticism and deviant sexuality was conceived as primitive the stage up from the primates, this racism was being born out of slavery.  The big ol’ booty came to European attention with the arrival of Sarah Baartman who was parodied as the ‘Hottentot Venus.’ She was bought in South Africa, where she came from and was sold to a circus. Her attraction, her enlarged buttocks. She was exhibited throughout Europe especially in Science Fairs and was forced to gyrate her buttocks, for the bemusement of the audience.  She was the original booty shaker.

When the Black female bum navigates it why through public space, it carries a vast and inhumane history. When I see Nicki Minaj or any other women shaking her moneymaker, I see Sarah Baartman. I feel her pain, her humiliation, and regret. For Sarah, there was no choice and for these women their choices are limited. But yet our bodies are used as currency to negotiate a lifestyle, a way of being and worse of all prostituted

Image as appeared in text:1. Featured image, Sarah Baartman.2.Sarah Bartman3. Nicki Minag