An Erotic Icon. She Used Fame To Reclaim Her Sexuality
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2024
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a time where Black women were shamed for owning their sexuality, she showcased hers front and center. Her legacy reminds us just how powerful we can become when we take control of our narrative. Now that’s sexy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In a time where black women were ashamed for owning their sexuality, she showcased hers front and center. |
| 0:12.0 | Her legacy reminds us just how powerful we can become when we take control of our |
| 0:17.6 | narrative. Now that's sexy. This is two minute black history, what you didn't learn in school. She sparkled under the stage lights, dazzling the audience with her charm, humor and risque costumes. |
| 0:50.0 | Seduction poured from her, and she bashed in it. |
| 0:54.7 | She unapologetically took control of her sensuality and became a legend for it. |
| 1:00.4 | Tired of Jim Crow America. |
| 1:03.0 | Josephine Baker moved to Paris. |
| 1:06.0 | Underneath the spotlight, she reinvented herself, playing with being outrageous and silly to downright seductive. |
| 1:14.8 | And in a time where black women had to work infinitely harder than white women to fight against |
| 1:20.7 | respectability politics, Baker's erotic performances weren't merely entertainment. |
| 1:27.7 | It was her taking a stand. A legacy from slavery that's often treated as taboo to talk about is how enslavers |
| 1:46.5 | sexually assaulted and objectified enslaved women, but then had the audacity to say these women were |
| 1:54.8 | hypersexualized. The damage of this legacy can be still seen within rape |
| 2:01.2 | culture, the Me Too movement, and how black women bodies and exercising |
| 2:06.8 | their sexuality is police. Knowing this context, for Baker to have taken the agencies she did over her sexuality was radical. |
| 2:17.5 | She understood that to control her erotic narrative was empowering. It meant that only she had the power to define herself. |
| 2:27.0 | How can we reimagine our pleasure as a freedom practice? How does sexual liberation tie into black liberation? Our |
| 2:37.5 | liberation should be rooted in all forms of pleasure. Our bodies and what we do with them is our choice. In order to move |
| 2:45.9 | towards the future, you've got to look to the past. This has been two minute |
| 2:50.5 | black history, a podcast by Push Black. |
| 2:53.7 | If you enjoyed this episode and want to show your support, |
| 2:56.7 | please rate and subscribe to our podcast. |
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