On Saturday I decided to hit up a belly dancing Zumba class to supplement my new workout routine, which I’ve started about a month ago. I’m trying to keep to my New Year’s resolution of losing a couple of pounds, okay 20 pounds, and getting fit and healthy. Anyway, I’m in class, which was held in the top room of a day care center, sweating through a funky mix of Afro-Brazilian beats, Soca music, Whitney Houston and Beyoncé tracks when several things stuck out in my mind:
First, who says that Black women don’t work out? The class I was in was filled to capacity with women of varying hues of the brown scale and sizes. Oh and yes, big women work out too. It may be hard for some to believe but Black women can carry more weight than what is acceptable by body mass index and still be considered healthy. In fact, our instructor, who was a heavy-set brown skinned woman with huge hips, thighs and an even bigger derriere, worked through the routine like it was nothing while the rest of us grunted and gasped to catch our collective breaths. Which brings me to my final somewhat random but thought-provoking observation: not every Black woman has a big butt.
As a black woman who is lacking the approved standard of the Black woman backside, I can tell you that it was frustrating during the portion of the routine when the big behind instructor told us to shake our money makers and mine wouldn’t budge enough to even produce change. Once again, by virtue of bad luck and probably some “Massa” late night trips to the slave quarters, I have been cheated out of my genetic birthright. And no matter how many hip extensions, squats and lunges I do, while I may firm the backside, I will never gain the big, shakable ghetto booty I always wanted.
I’ve always been insecure about my behind – or lack thereof. Growing up it wasn’t easy being the black girl without a big butt. I remember having a boyfriend frankly tell me one time that my big breasts, thick thighs and hips were nice but I would “look better” if I had a bigger behind. He wasn’t the only one who told me that. Even my closest girlfriends chide me about my “white girl” shape. I like to think that over the years, I have come to accept my body for the way it is. However I still don’t leave the house without a long shirt to distract away from what I don’t have dragging behind me.
There is nothing more potentially damaging to a Black woman’s ego than having to explain why she has not been blessed with traditionally defined Black girl features and assets. And explain we must: to the guys we date, to the close friends, family and yes even strangers, who offer up “helpful” advice to help you achieve the standard. We tell skinny Black girls who lack curves to eat more sandwiches. We ridicule Black women with smaller breast into push up bras and surgery, and we tell women with lighter complexions to use darker bronzers and advise darker skinned women to stay out of the sun. Sure, most of us can readily discuss how disconnected we feel from the European standard of beauty, however for Black women, who lack the “right” skin tone and certain curvaceous video vixen shape, which some have grown to associate with blackness, there is little dialog on how our own pedestal of beauty has become a cage.
Folks may not recognize it but there is a certain aesthetic, which is more pronounced with the Black community. Generally speaking, women with big breasts, small waist, big hips, thighs and of course behinds are revered. There are biological theories for the Black standard of beauty including the belief that because of environmental considerations (i.e. being originally from dry, hot climates) black women naturally have formed a “c” shaped skeletal structure, caused by a more elevated thorax cavity (chest bones), which has caused the column vertebraes to ‘curve’ in such a way that all the adipose tissue accumulates in the buttock region. Thus creating the butt so big and shapely enough to steady a drink on.
However our “appreciation” of our own aesthetic is a fairly new phenomenon, which has been heightened with the further alienation of black beauty from mainstream culture and the introduction of R&B and Hip-Hop songs and videos, which sought to usher in a new sexual gratification for the Black female form. This newfound fetishization of the Black female body may have effected how we internalize beauty.
According to one study, Black women tend to favor having heavier and hippier bodies most resembling Beyoncé Knowles. As such, we tend to aspire for that standard of beauty than the mainstream standard of beauty, which is presented in your typical magazine. Yet as we embraced this unique style of beauty, we have also introduce a new way to segment us intraracially by devaluing those Black women who can’t quite reach the Beyoncé Knowles standard. It’s no wonder why we are now seeing a rise in the number of women doing back alley butt enhancement surgeries.
Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing wrong with being blessed with booty. Obliviously, the genetic wheel has been very kind to you so be proud of it. But at the end of the day, we all want to be appreciated for our physical form just as much as what is underneath it. And there is no pleasure in being christened as a woman with “Nassitall,” also known as the Black girl who is not shaped like a real Black woman.
