Being a woman is hard work. Many of us experience societal pressure to marry, have children, be an upstanding citizen, and maintain some sort of career, all while trying to understand our bodies and their changes; being a woman of color or a black woman is even more difficult. Not only do we have to deal with everything a white woman does, but we also have the added pressure of challenging stigmas and stereotypes within our own group of people. What stigma are you talking about? How about not being seen as ignorant, uneducated and/or “ghetto”. Stereotypical depictions of African American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of black people for centuries. Typical stereotypes of black women range from the smiling, sexless, and often obese mom to the promiscuous, loud-mouthed, smart-mouthed, rolling-necked black social mom that is the popular reality TV image. These images presented in media and popular culture create a powerful ideology about race and gender that affects the daily experiences of Black women in America. Healthy relationships depicted in the media are rare, leaving black women to make choices based on the options they have and perceive. For this reason, it is not complicated to understand why black women are least likely to marry in an environment with an oversexual woman and a pimp. The portrayal of black women as inherently lustful is a persistent stereotype. To better understand the role of media in shaping the culture of the African American experience, one must first examine the stereotypes projected by television networks like BET, MTV, and VH1. The songs and music videos created by hip-hop artists such as 50 Cent, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg have constructed ...... middle of paper ...... black women and black people in their together, which is disconcerting to know that he enjoyed a lot of support from black voters. This poster says that this woman speaks broken English or ebony and that she appears to be pregnant and that the words "I went all the way with LBJ" suggest a sexual connotation, which was ignored in the mid-1960s and which speaks loudly to the ignorance of certain black people. at that time, that this black woman did something sexual with the person who wanted to be president. Works Cited New American Standard Bible New American Standard Bible Deborah White, Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves on the Southern Plantation pp. 29References• Ferris State University, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/jezebel/• Rape of the young black girl, 1632, Christiaen van Couwenbergh, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg