Black Entertainment : Josephine Baker- could call her ugly names among other things

bobbie

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REGISTERED MEMBER
Aug 30, 2012
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so today i went on time travel back to the 1950- listening to nina simone etc. and reading the life stories. I am came across Josephine baker- and read hers.
A few things stood out to me- 1)out of her mutliracial- rainbow tribe- not one was black
2) She is best known for her ' banana costume' why on earth wpuld you dress in that knowing your age and time
3) she was known for her topless and erotica dancing- this doesn't help the image of black esp. mulatto women being jezebels
i understand that being a black women should not restrain us from being e.g. sexual free- as it just a colour, but to me strikes me as a sell-out ****- does anyone else agree?
 
so today i went on time travel back to the 1950- listening to nina simone etc. and reading the life stories. I am came across Josephine baker- and read hers.
A few things stood out to me- 1)out of her mutliracial- rainbow tribe- not one was black
2) She is best known for her ' banana costume' why on earth wpuld you dress in that knowing your age and time
3) she was known for her topless and erotica dancing- this doesn't help the image of black esp. mulatto women being jezebels
i understand that being a black women should not restrain us from being e.g. sexual free- as it just a colour, but to me strikes me as a sell-out ****- does anyone else agree?

Is that all you got out of her LIFE story??? I got much more than just that after only watching the self titled movie... :read:
 
so today i went on time travel back to the 1950- listening to nina simone etc. and reading the life stories. I am came across Josephine baker- and read hers.
A few things stood out to me- 1)out of her mutliracial- rainbow tribe- not one was black
2) She is best known for her ' banana costume' why on earth wpuld you dress in that knowing your age and time
3) she was known for her topless and erotica dancing- this doesn't help the image of black esp. mulatto women being jezebels
i understand that being a black women should not restrain us from being e.g. sexual free- as it just a colour, but to me strikes me as a sell-out ****- does anyone else agree?

josephine_baker_rainbowkids2.jpg



http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/2012/11/josephine-baker-black-venus-first-black.html
 
so today i went on time travel back to the 1950- listening to nina simone etc. and reading the life stories. I am came across Josephine baker- and read hers.
A few things stood out to me- 1)out of her mutliracial- rainbow tribe- not one was black
2) She is best known for her ' banana costume' why on earth wpuld you dress in that knowing your age and time
3) she was known for her topless and erotica dancing- this doesn't help the image of black esp. mulatto women being jezebels
i understand that being a black women should not restrain us from being e.g. sexual free- as it just a colour, but to me strikes me as a sell-out ****- does anyone else agree?

Josephine Baker is remembered by most people as the flamboyant African American entertainer who earned fame and fortune in Paris in the 1920s. Yet through much of her later life, Baker became a vocal opponent of segregation and discrimination, often initiating one-woman protests against racial injustice. In 1963, at the age of 57, Baker flew in from France, her adopted homeland, to appear before the largest audience in her career, the 250,000 gathered at the March on Washington. Wearing her uniform of the French Resistance, of which she was active in World War II, she was the only woman to address the audience. What she said appears below.

Friends and family…you know I have lived a long time and I have come a long way. And you must know now that what I did, I did originally for myself. Then later, as these things began happening to me, I wondered if they were happening to you, and then I knew they must be. And I knew that you had no way to defend yourselves, as I had.

And as I continued to do the things I did, and to say the things I said, they began to beat me. Not beat me, mind you, with a club—but you know, I have seen that done too—but they beat me with their pens, with their writings. And friends, that is much worse.

When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you have been there, and many have not. But I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in that country I never feared. It was like a fairyland place.

And I need not tell you that wonderful things happened to me there. Now I know that all you children don’t know who Josephine Baker is, but you ask Grandma and Grandpa and they will tell you. You know what they will say. “Why, she was a devil.” And you know something…why, they are right. I was too. I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America too.

But I must tell you, when I was young in Paris, strange things happened to me. And these things had never happened to me before. When I left St. Louis a long time ago, the conductor directed me to the last car. And you all know what that means.

But when I ran away, yes, when I ran away to another country, I didn’t have to do that. I could go into any restaurant I wanted to, and I could drink water anyplace I wanted to, and I didn’t have to go to a colored toilet either, and I have to tell you it was nice, and I got used to it, and I liked it, and I wasn’t afraid anymore that someone would shout at me and say, “******, go to the end of the line.” But you know, I rarely ever used that word. You also know that it has been shouted at me many times....

...continued here: http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1963-josephine-baker-speech-march-washington


Josephine_Baker_a.jpg
 

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