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" When we talk about #BlackGirlsAreMagic, we mean that we take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. We take the common and make it unusual. We take the standard and set new standards."- blogger/activist Feminista Jones
"Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality." -bell hooks
On April 5, 2017 Pepsi unveiled a 2-plus minute long commercial. In a time of racial tension resulting from state sanctioned violence directed towards Blacks/African Americans the advertisement drew intense criticism. Some argued that the ad, which seemed to be based on the Black Lives Matter movement and protest actions made a mockery of and trivialized social movements for racial equality and justice. In fact, Bernice King, Martin Luther King, Jr's daughter tweeted "If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi." While many critiqued the ad for its trivialization of the struggles of marginalized individuals, as the ad was a collective of some "movement" which remained undefined, what some missed is how Black women disappeared as the ad progressed. Although #BlackGirlMagic originated prior to this ad, this is an example of the context that gave rise to this hashtag. Black Girl Magic is a way for Black girls and women to center themselves in the public market place of ideas and discourses. This special issue, BlackGirlMagic: Gendered Black Politics in the 21st Century, brings together a number of articles that explore the politics of Black girls and women's articulation of self and how they imagine a more democratic society. Black Girl Magic, in its various iterations and manifestations, embodies an epistemology of Black girls and women's resistance to totalized tropes and stereotypes that collude to render them invisible or hypervisible.
The Pepsi ad, starring Kendall Jenner, seems to treat Black women as a prop, a tool to be used by White women who have the power to change the world. This is particularly poignant as three Black women, two of whom are also queer, created #Blacklivesmatter in response to the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin (see http://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/). Black women, all but disappear in the ad except for that moment when Jenner transforms, in part, by taking off her wig and handing it to the Black woman to hold. This seems to be...