by Kai EL’ Zabar
Halle Berry Amber Rose Prose
Contrary to what white women think, black women have always liked their big butts. It has always been a symbol of pride, beauty and blackness. And our men have always embraced and appreciated our butts. We have always known their attractiveness. The only time my butt was criticized was by my ballet teacher who told all of the black girls that we had curvature of the spine because we could not press the small of our backs to the floor. When I told my mother she said, “You do not have a curved spine you have a butt and you tell your instructor I said so.” Back then white women didn’t have butts. Just think Faye Dunaway in Network, who graced the classic white woman’s body, which flaunted a flat back. We knew it, they knew it.
Now, white women, Hispanic women and even Asians are paying big money to get a ‘big booty.’ Just one more thing to imitate about us that they envy yet is indicative of the racism that is insidious. It reminds me of Lupita Nyong’o’s character Patsey in 12 Years a Slave who was desired/loved and abused and raped by the Master, who was at once drawn to her beauty yet repelled by the idea of what he believed to be true of blacks. His wife hated her for what her husband found attractive about her. This consistent love hate relationship with the black race primarily with whites is demonstrated throughout history. European clothing design has always sought to capture the beauty of the black woman’s body– her small waist, ample hips and voluptuous butt so corsets and bustles were incorporated to create the illusion of what the white woman did not possess.
And that has always meant big business all the way around.
Today gym classes are filled with women attempting to plump up their posterior; plastic surgeons are busier than ever enhancing the buttocks; and padding is no longer reserved just for bras and male protective underwear – but women’s panties too! This is not new. Frederick ‘s of Hollywood has always sold padded panties. It just another development of what Whites always done. They have criticized our butts, our hair, our lips, and our complexions. They of course tan to get color, they tease their hair to get body, and they have sought botox to capture our lips. Many actresses have done so to their chagrin; Meg Ryan, Goldie Hawn, Melanie Griffin, Lisa Rinna, Nicole Kidman, Donatella Versace and Tori Spelling just to name a few. As of the last 20 years they have become fascinated with the butt as a result of hip hop and the young , gifted and black hip hop moguls who apparently intrigue their interests. I mean white boys have always wanted to be cool so why not mimic the brothers? And brothers have always been hips, thighs, butt men. White men were always breasts men. Anyway today the butt is celebrated.
Naomi Campbell perfection Beyonce tight
Jennifer Lopez has a real butt because she’s of Puerto Rican ethnicity and we know their roots , Nicki Minaj had work done to exaggerate her butt to compete with the white girls trying to take our stuff and Kim Kardashian who lies about not having had any surgery have all helped turn what was once an embarrassing “asset” for white women into a prideful one. It pisses me off that it is often tooted that Jay Lo and Kim have the best butts in Hollywood when sistahs like Angela Bassett, Naomi Sims, Venus Williams, etc., have always had beautiful butts and never get the play. So what’s up with that? Too bad we live in a society that does not embrace the ‘real thing.’ Young white women think that Minaj rapping about her “big fat” butt in “Anaconda,”and Lopez and Iggy Azalea rubbing their curvy bottoms together in the ‘Booty’ video and Kim Kardashian’s selfies posted of her butt on Instagram is the new liberation. Well Spike Lee paid homage to the sistahs in his 1988 film School Daze featuring the song “Doing Da Butt,” by EU. Aretha sings about it in her rendition of “Give Him Something He Can Feel.”
This pop culture moment for the butt has resulted in big sales for companies like Booty Pop, which sells foam padded panties for $22 on its website. Sales have escalated to 47 percent in the last six months from the same period a year earlier. Though the company declined to give sales figures, they have sold out of certain styles and colors this year, including its Pink Cotton Candy Boy Shorts.
Susan Bloomstone, Booty Pop’s co-founder, says customers have asked for larger sizes. So, the Boston-based company plans to begin selling pads that are 25 percent larger this month. “People just want more booty,” she says.
This year has the best year for Feel Foxy, another maker of padded panties. They have been in business for almost a decade, and sales are up 40 percent from a year ago, but the company declined to give sales figures.
Jessica Asmar, co-owner of the Houston company, credits Nicki Minaj saying, “The Nicki Minaj song gave women the idea to pay attention to their rear end.” Of course this is a white woman’s perspective because we have always paid attention to out butts.
Deborah Santiago squeezed into a $40 Feel Foxy one-piece for her 30th birthday. The shapewear flattened Santiago’s waist and boosted her back side. A flat butt can ruin an outfit, says the New York stay-at-home mother of two. Lopez is her butt idol, but she also covets the bottoms of reality TV stars on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and “Love & Hip Hop.”
“I always wanted a big butt,” Santiago says. “Something you could look twice at.”
Amazing to say the least because what is never said is that the butts that they desire is what is natural on most black women and those who didn’t have the black woman’s butt wanted one. I just want to make two things clear, one, black women have never been ashamed of their butts. Second, once more the white folks want to claim what is natural to us as theirs. I suppose that imitation is a form of flattery but at what cost? This sort of imitation is an integral thread of racism deeply imbedded in the system and is so inconspicuous that it is not recognized as such.
So now that mainstream celebrities are flaunting their bought or otherwise assets publicly they have inspired white women with to get a butt. Black women find it amusing because at the end of the day we know we got this! We got back!
