Black Women Don’t Draw
Ormes’ artist ability started as a child. In Goldstein’s (2008) interview with Ormes’s sister Delores, she remembers Ormes drawing as a little girl and making carvings out of the soap. Even though Ormes’s high school did not offer art classes she drew cartoons for the yearbook and later became the art editor. Ormes did not receive formal training as an artist, except in the early 1940’s she took a few drawing classes when she moved to Chicago at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jackie drew a comic parody of her experience telling the art professor, she has been told she is a natural. After looking about the class, the character Ormes drawn in her likeness, feels overwhelmed, then the teacher walks over to …show more content…
What is clear, Ormes experience sexism within the Black newspaper. Even as a reporter, Ormes faced gender discrimination in the lack of reporting opportunities. “Her lack of opportunity as a reporter at the Pittsburg Courier led her to reinvent herself as a newswoman by reporting through the visual and print form of comic strips” (Whaley, 2016, p. 33). She received less pay and mentored cartoonist Chester Commodore who had no former art education and eventually became leading staff cartoonist at the Defender while Ormes was still not considered a regular staffed employee. Because of Ormes’s light complexion she could have easily passed for White to receive a better job and pay in a mainstream newspaper, but this would mean racial and sexual political restrictions. Black newspapers gave Ormes a platform and audience to get her message out. Ormes would have seen stereotyped images of Black women based on minstrels, which could have influenced her drawings. She would have been exposed to racist and sexist stereotypes of Black women. Ormes would have noticed the images created by White artists for companies and consumers in the mainstream newspapers. Tyree (2013) explains, newspapers comic strips are a form of mass media and play a crucial role in reproducing and distributing racist and sexist stereotypes. How did Ormes’s comic strips create a counterstory to the existing negative images produced in mass
Ormes’ artist ability started as a child. In Goldstein’s (2008) interview with Ormes’s sister Delores, she remembers Ormes drawing as a little girl and making carvings out of the soap. Even though Ormes’s high school did not offer art classes she drew cartoons for the yearbook and later became the art editor. Ormes did not receive formal training as an artist, except in the early 1940’s she took a few drawing classes when she moved to Chicago at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jackie drew a comic parody of her experience telling the art professor, she has been told she is a natural. After looking about the class, the character Ormes drawn in her likeness, feels overwhelmed, then the teacher walks over to …show more content…
What is clear, Ormes experience sexism within the Black newspaper. Even as a reporter, Ormes faced gender discrimination in the lack of reporting opportunities. “Her lack of opportunity as a reporter at the Pittsburg Courier led her to reinvent herself as a newswoman by reporting through the visual and print form of comic strips” (Whaley, 2016, p. 33). She received less pay and mentored cartoonist Chester Commodore who had no former art education and eventually became leading staff cartoonist at the Defender while Ormes was still not considered a regular staffed employee. Because of Ormes’s light complexion she could have easily passed for White to receive a better job and pay in a mainstream newspaper, but this would mean racial and sexual political restrictions. Black newspapers gave Ormes a platform and audience to get her message out. Ormes would have seen stereotyped images of Black women based on minstrels, which could have influenced her drawings. She would have been exposed to racist and sexist stereotypes of Black women. Ormes would have noticed the images created by White artists for companies and consumers in the mainstream newspapers. Tyree (2013) explains, newspapers comic strips are a form of mass media and play a crucial role in reproducing and distributing racist and sexist stereotypes. How did Ormes’s comic strips create a counterstory to the existing negative images produced in mass