On March 17, 2012, in Raleigh, N.C., at the 18th annual Radio One Women’s Empowerment Expo, several thousand Black women sat enraptured with Tyra Bank’s “booty” talk.  Although not as well attended as the previous year, the Women’s Empowerment Expo brings primarily Black women from the Triangle Area and across the country together.  The event is part social, part educational, part marketing, part self-affirmation, and simply sisters hanging out to just having a good time among folk who look like their sister, cousin, best friend, or next door neighbor.

This year the main attraction was Banks, who took that piece of Black women’s anatomy, “the booty,” which has received too much negative attention, and transformed it into a tool of power and education.  She waxed eloquently about the “Showing Booty,” “Kissing Booty,” and “Educating Booty.”  She also demonstrated the etiquette of presenting one’s booty—and you had to be there to see it. Read More

Original Posting: 19 April 2012