#Urban Culture

[lionheartapothecaryx]

The Allure of Lori Harvey

A Social Analysis of the Modern Black Feminine

For the summer of 2022, Ms. Harvey’s social life is trending, due to her sudden and abrupt ‘amicable’. break up with Michael B. Jordan, who’s also known as baby Denzel and one of the most eligible black men in the world.

We can speculate that the relationship was fake, real, MBJ was played or trying to rehab his image or Lori just didn't want to settle down and we’ll likely never know the real reason they broke up, but we can unpack the mysteries of Lori’s femininity an allure and figure out why she is so polarizing, equally admired & despised.  But first? We need a little background for a clear picture!

Lori Harvey is the quintessential Black American princess + socialite of the mainstream urban & hood collective. The adoptive stepdaughter of Steve Harvey and progeny of Majorie ‘Lady Heroin’ Harvey, she was born into one generation of black wealth and the genetic lottery. Her biological father was a famed drug kingpin from Memphis who managed to snag her mother. Majorie was also a legend in her own right on the streets, known for her beauty, ruthless demeanor, a peculiar sense of lascivious and lavish tastes, while she courted and eventually married famed drug kings, gangsters and pimps, in the black underworld. Majorie was described as beautiful, intense, ruthless and hypergamous. There was no doubt in Majorie’s mind that she would make it to the top and she didn’t care how she got there. Majorie narrowly avoided going to prison, after being investigated by the FBI and moved on to higher pastures by cleaning up her image, setting her sights on seducing and marrying comedic legend Steve Harvey.

Steve & Majorie Harvey

 

The glamour of a famous stepfather and the dangerous mystique of her mother's past has rubbed off on Lori, as it appears she intends to follow in her mother’s footsteps by doing the same, and marrying well.

This lends Lori an incredible amount of curiosity and admiration from the black feminine collective. Her personal style, diet and dating choices are all up for social inspection and which she seems to enjoy and utilize to her benefit.

Socially in the black collective, it’s not looked upon favorably for black women to openly date hypergamously. Some could say this fact is easily said for all other women, except for the black woman is drastically socially different. The black woman is expected to be completely self sacrificing to the detriment of herself, other women, black men and the mental and social health of the black community and world, at large.

Historically the black body has been seen as hypersexual cultural commodity and unfortunately still black women aren’t free from these archaic assumptions. This hypersexuality when paired with two hundred plus years of systemic racism & psychological terrorism has created a confusing and hostile climate for the social and mental health of the feminine in the black community. Anything feminine is inherently seen as detriment or looked upon with disgust or shame, in both black men and women. It's culturally ingrained and internalized, for Black women to be consistently expected to have lower standards in terms of partners whether it be mentally, spiritually, physically or financially and the collective actively participates in defeminizing an robbing black women of their individual self respect and womanhood. These toxic ideologies, have seeped into the black social structure and in the global& mainstream social collective, an have done irreputable damage, terrorizing and harming the social and mental health of both black men and women, whom have been passing down this vicious cycle of toxicity from generation to generation.

 

In comes Lorie Harvey, who represents a new breed of Black American women in this modern social landscape who have grown tired of a horrible status quo, are hoping for better & who see fractions of themselves in her. She may not even know it but Lori actively carries a new hope of shattering the toxic glass ceiling prepared for black woman by creating a better example of the social options for the black female collective and maybe even the mainstream globally.

Lori is bold and actively hypergamous, dating some of the wealthiest black men in the community and making a clean break when things don’t work out. For the modern black woman this is considered to be highly unusual and makes her intensely polarizing and hated by certain groups of black men, women and the community who aren’t used to change and are comfortably brainwashed by status quo.

For many Lori represents a break from convention and social change of the modern evolution within the mainstream black feminine collective. Change is not easy and this new development is going to be extremely scary to many, for a variety of reasons. For some groups of men, this means having to put in more effort when finding a sexual partner or mate and losing certain benefits they felt previously entitled too, for outsiders this can also mean possibly losing access or the interest wealthy or high status black men financially or sexually that they also feel entitled to, it could even threaten centuries old racist structures which are were intentionally created to keep the black community currently unstable and foster hostility via gender wars. The current dating scene within the community is obviously toxic. The Modern Black women hasn't really built the healthy structure dating structure, that pushes her and the community to the highest good. Most black women are ignorant on how to go about dating properly or seeking out quality mates, which in turn creates a horrible cycle of toxicity. For many black women this has led to hyper paralyzed state of toxic independence, which has been severely harmful to both black men and women, something that can be further researched by taking the time to read the Willie Lynch letters. It’s important for black women to break this cycle which has been enforced since the beginning the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, because it will actively promote better social and mental health for both black men and women, and in turn the entire community.

Lori fits a certain beauty standard, which can be argued to fit within some Urban or Eurocentric ideals. She’s moderately brown skin, gently relaxes her hair making it wavy/straight, an has a slim nose and full lips. She’s relatively in shape partaking in Pilates, a bit of precarious dieting and her shape varies between lightly petite and curvy. Her resources give her access to a variety high quality skin care, plastic surgery and beauty treatments. Despite this, her beauty looks natural and feels more easily accessible. She takes a considerable amount of care in her looks and it’s certainly strategic on her part because she’s hyper aware of beauty privilege and the visual nature of men, which she works to her benefit. All of these things somewhat work in her favor, but also can lend way to her being ripped apart socially, because beautiful brown skinned black women aren’t often taken seriously within black collective, without an extremely well credentialed educational background or status, and this may still never be enough. She walks a precarious tightrope of gender and colorism. There is no way of knowing for certain if her behavior would be considered less controversial and tolerated slightly better if she was of lighter of complexion, like the semi-controversial musician and queen of hip-pop Doja Cat, for example. Colorism can be fickle and random, as symptom of systemic racism, which is aggravatingly hard to gage.

Lori’s beauty, background and dating style seems to resonate mainstream black feminine collective who desires to find a new way to counter the deliberate defeminization of the black woman socially. This brings her a degree of considerable allure and magnetism an makes her a interesting woman to watch in the future.

How will it all end ? Will Lori finally find the right man for her ? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, let’s keep our eyes peeled n stay tuned. If there is one thing we can count on it’s for Lori to keep tongues wagging, while putting on a great show!

[rexstewartoriginals]

Urban Life In Pencil...

As a noted artist here in Albany, New York I have enjoyed the opportunity to create the people and places that made it possible. Different personalities, but all the same community. Different structures and neighborhoods, but unique in the way modern embraced the traditional. These pencils reflect this in the various shading. I continue to do this 'today'. Thanks for viewing!

[streetsofdublin]

A VERY LIMITED SELECTION OF STREET ART

Much of the street art that I saw in Limerick was no longer to be seen when I last visited the city in 2022 as many of the locations had been demolished.

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[hexazex]

From 1992 - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde illustrated by Den Slick

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Useless Idea: http://www.uselessidea.it/

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[steelomagazineteam]

Steelo Magazine - May 2024 issue

This May 2024 issue of Steelo Magazine we have some very talented tattoo artists showing their amazing skills with a tattoo machine, a talented photographer who creates some beautiful images, and we also have some beautiful models getting featured for the first time and another model with another feature. 52 Pages in this May 2024 issue. You can pick up your copy of our new 52 page issue for MAY…

[marandapelak1993blog]

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Musical Rapture (an experimental concept by Tripl3 R)

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AND THE COLOUR DRAINED AWAY

The first time I came across ADW was an example of Paint-A-Box street art on Arran Quay back in 2012 however one of my favourites is "Deep Love" which I photographed near the Ramada Hotel in Belfast which featured in the film Belfast.

[ultradude13]

The brief history of the boombox.

[uselessidea]

Useless Idea: www.uselessidea.it

[dme-tv1]

The original or the 2nd version 🤔. Which one you rocking with?