For Coloured Girls...and all girls alike

Years ago I heard about this production called "For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf" in an episode of the Cosby Show spin-off 'A Different World'. One of the main characters, Freddy Brooks, had done one of the many poems from the show while auditioning for a dorm ceremony celebration.

I didn't think much of it until I saw the trailer for Tyler Perry's new film "For Colored Girls", his adaptation of the original production [peep the trailer below]. I am very excited about this film (to say the least) which is being shown in theatres this November (pushed up from its original Januaray 2011 debut).



This production is a 1975 play by Ntozake Shange. Initially, the play was staged in California, and has been performed Off-Broadway and on Broadway, adapted as a book, a television movie, and the theatrical movie being produced, written and adapted by Tyler Perry.

For Colored Girls is a series of 20 poems performed by a cast of seven women characters that speak to the power of Black women to survive in the face of life challenges and pain. Each poem brings the audience into the life of another Black Woman. The poems all cut across time, place and history. The actors are represented by colors of the rainbow: "Lady in Yellow," "Lady in Purple," etc. The poems deal with love, abandonment, rape, and abortion, embodied by each woman's story.


Below you will find a video of an off-broadway production of this play. The women in this video are performing a poem entitled "My Love Is Too..."
Enjoy! :)

Baby Got Back!

Within the last decade or so, most black women (and some of other races as well) consider having an enlarged derrier as something that embodies their beauty and sexiness. Women will go through some excrutiating methods in order to get this 'glorified' shape.

Women like Buffy the Body, Angel Lola Love (aka Lola Monroe) and even Coco T (Ice-T's wife) have gone through some method of the sort in order to gain the body that they currently have. As of recent, there has been questions as to how Nicki Minaj gained her newest asset (especially with the outfit she wore at the MTV 2010 VMAs). Many have speculated how these women have attained the glory that is their buttocks. Some have even spoke about it openly.

It is amazing to me how the female butt is now glorified in the media and by men of all colours, shapes and sizes. What we fail to realize as a society, is that women, especially black women have been put on display from the late 19th century.
Sara Baartman otherwise known as Hottentot Venus would be what we would consider today as the "original" video vixen.


Sara was put on display in London at the Picadily Circus where doctors and medical students alike could not believe how this woman could have such enlarged assets. She was taken there under the notion that she would attain fame and fortune. On the contrary, Sara turned into a circus act, shaking her derrier in the nude for the "money and fame" that she wanted. After some time passed, she moved to France where she was put on display as a museum object. Even after she passed away, Sara couldn't get a break. Her labia was opened, her skeleton taken out, her vagina and brain put on display. For 190+ years Sara's remains were put on display in France until 1974 when they took her remains down as a showpiece. It was just a few years ago that Sara's remains were returned to her motherland of South Africa.

It's kind of ironic that the same attributes that were ridiculed and questionned centuries ago make most video vixens and models famous these days. You have to wonder sometimes if they know about Sara's history and struggle.

Leave your thoughts and comments.

Until later good people.

Diva Defined

The dictionary defines 'Diva' as "a usually glamorous and successful female performer or personality" (Webster's Dictionary).

According to Jaea Magazine and the Diva Campaign, a 'Diva' is a woman who exudes confidence, has direction, and knows where she wants to go in life. She is also someone who inspires others with positivity and grabs life by the horns.

Through the launch of the Diva Campaign, we will highlight women here at home and abroad, as well as celebrity women who have made a change and stood out in society.
We hope that through this campaign you will be enlightened and it will help you as well with your individual journeys.

"The word diva to me means doing something supernatural with something natural."
-Patti LuPone

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.”
-Maya Angelou