On Viewing "Out of Africa" and Black Silences

This is in brief response to a great blog post over at A Historian Goes to the Movies*:

"The film never contemplates the possibility that this devotion might be a calculated strategy of self-interest, in which a lower status person chooses to serve a more powerful person as way of getting employment, shelter, legal protection, or whatever else might be needed. Instead, Africans just seem to love their benevolent colonial masters. "

One of the things I love most about film and watching movies is being taken through the looking glass and into someone else's experience. And I have to say that every time I see Out of Africa I am lost in the love story- Redford is the Best in the biz at playing the ever-alluring but emotionally unavailable man, then Meryl just kills me and I'm a crying mess. "He was not ours, he was not mine." 

However, despite my love for this film, I was so happy to come upon your post because it highlights one of the crazy experiences one has when the things you love do not love you back! As a Black, female, womanist academic I study literature and film as storytelling modes that both work for and against expectations rooted in our history of violence, oppression, and appropriation. But even before entering graduate school I was aware of the conflict of what Munoz calls disidentifications*, wherein one must negotiate the ways that something one is drawn to can also be hostile to who one is as a socialized person.

All that is to say, I have these moments all the time when  in the midst of pleasantly enjoying a film something happens on screen and I suddenly realize that the movie has no space for my spectatorship. All the silence surrounding the African peoples in the film is a painful slap, a reminder of the silencing constantly being perpetrated against Black voices. And all set amidst the most beautiful of scenery.

Your comment I have quoted at the start is something I of course assumed about the 'African'/Masai/etc characters in the film because people in oppressed circumstances must work with the limited demonstrative/agential resources available to survive. Who in this day and age still believes that these African peoples wanted to work in silence like human Rumbas and be moved about like so many chess pieces by Karen Blixen on her 'Farm, Toil, Love' journey of self-discovery?? But so many do not see these misrepresentations or actually know history well enough to understand, and so I thank you for your post! It is yet another reminder why our work as cultural critics is so important.

Jose Esteban Munoz's book goes into more glorious detail about this phenomenon, and it is called "Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics"


*A Historian Goes to the Movies

George Junius Stinney Jr.: Why "White-Wash" History of Child Execution?

In this blog post about the murder...

Aside: I say murder because a 14 year old Black boy found guilty and sentenced to death in one day by a court house full of White male jurors, all White spectators, and a White Judge in 1944 rural South Carolina is murder

...of George Junius Stinney Jr., I became horrified by the desire of the blogger to declare the system just despite all of the glaring evidence to the contrary easily discoverable on the internet with regards to this child's case. I had to post a response, especially as more may come to light about this case as a man in South Carolina fights to clear the child's name if only to bring to light our country's history of allowing the state to put children as young as 10 and 12 into electric chairs and hangman's nooses.

His entire blog post was filled to overflowing with ambiguous, ahistorical, and terrifyingly bad assessments of both the child's guilt and the course of events surrounding his ultimate execution. But it was his closing with the below statement that forced me to post some sort of response:

"However, nothing illegal was done during the investigation and prosecution of the case. All the procedures utilized by the police, courts, prosecution and prison system conform to the existing standards and legal requirements of the time and place."

And this was my response, we'll see if he allows it to show up on his blog:

What is at stake for you in making this ludicrous and patently false claim with regards to this child murdered by his own government? Why the insistence on his guilt and the right behavior of those who conspired to kill the boy?

To interrogate a child who just happened to be seen somewhere near where two girls were killed without anyone else there should horrify you! How difficult would it have been to intimidate a 14 year old boy in a time where even he knew that his life was worth less than nothing to those harassing him into confession? I saw a freakin' DiscoveryID show a few months ago where a fine upstanding White man from the midwest confessed to killing his own child when the cops interrogated him for 20hours - then a lawyer, DNA evidence, and his wife's support proved him completely innocent! The look in his eyes as he explained what it was like in that tiny room with those cops will haunt me forever. And that was a White man in 2000s America! This was a Black child in 1940's America.

What is your motive here? Because instead of honesty, compassion, and reality (because for some reason you need to believe race played no role and this child was not assassinated) this story compels you to defend a system which has many, many instances in even our current day and age of people (of all races!) railroaded by police and imprisoned or put to death when they were really innocent. This country has often made victims of innocents due to a system where, once the police decide you are guilty, you can forget any chance of reprieve unless you have the money to buy proper evidentiary procedure.

As a teacher, as a woman, as a human being, I am unable to adequately express my distress, sadness, and terror at the thought that after casually googling this poor child's name, I come across a blog that holds our history and this child's life so cheaply as to proclaim what happened to him just.

The Only appropriate, sustainable Path our country can take is to Own and Accept our history in all of its horror and ugliness and use it as a guide to avoid replicating the same mistakes and abuses of the gift of life and location. This begins with avoiding the desire to make history nice and ignore the incomprehensibly terrifying fact that seemingly nice people killed a child because they could not look at him and see a child and a human, but only their own fear, prejudice and hatred.

Please, henceforth if you discuss this type of situation as "fair," and make pleas on behalf of the "differing social mores" of our past, remember that those "different" mores do not make the actions produced any less worthy of condemnation! Injustice of this kind, just because it's in a "different time" is no less deserving of the full extent our of horrified disavowal of this thinking. Human life should never be so casually written off that this is called fair or acceptable.

College Women Use Sex Work to Pay For School, People Use it to Judge Them Harshly

In this Huffington Post article about women, and some men, entering sex work to pay off student loan debt, a lot of the commenters are engaging in uber-judgmental and harsh commentary. So this is my response to one comment that seemed tone deaf and ill-advised at best.

"HHGodd: How is your credit more important than your dignity and self respect? Whatever happens to them they deserve it."

Ouch. Your above comment feels a little apathetically judgmental.

And since when has society/popular culture in America/the West celebrated or encouraged women to have/maintain dignity, self-respect, positive body image, or any other attitude that would have lead to a different sort of social outcome?

Women are mocked in comedy as not begin funny, mocked in sports as not being as able or as fun to watch, mocked in science as not being as bright (heck, that transgender Harvard prof said the major difference between being a woman versus a man is that as a man she is allowed to finish a sentence without interruption), mocked as being too emotional...

Women are mocked for all sorts of reasons beyond what I have mentioned here and which contribute to women being seen as objects. Objects of ridicule and sexual objects.

So not only is saying these women deserve some unmentioned but presumably horrible outcome a nasty and despicable thing to say, its also stated without consideration for the fact that one can only do what one's society has taught you to do, and wishing harm on other people is part of that culture too.

An Ode To Travel

Some folks were complaining over at NYMag on a post about a woman who doesn't know how to pack to fly in America about traveling being too consumery and there's no need for it. But that seems crazy to me as a reason not to see the world! So I had to post a response.
Why travel?

If you have ever seen Oahu sea turtles nesting on a beach that a seal just left in a "bad neighborhood" that still manages to have breathtaking natural beauty...
if you have ever seen whales breaching in the waters off Maui...
if you've ever seen the sun set in the Ocean from the Pacific Coast Highway in Nepenthe, CA...
if you've ever seen the glowing waters at night in the bio-luminescent bay in Vieques...
if you've ever stood in crystal clear waters with dolphins leaping out of waves a hundred yards out under the warm Caribbean sun as the sea gently laps at your body like a blessing....

If you have seen any of these things then you would understand that, despite my Abhorrence for all travel related elements - especially the TSA's insistence on defiling my person, sexually assaulting me, and invading my privacy - I still tough it out and will continue to as long as I can scrape the money together to voyage beyond my beloved NYC whenever I can!

Because traveling to new places leaves you new as well, and touched by the different energies, experiences, people, and points of contacts in ways profound and important.

Plus only through the attempt to learn and accept things, places and people different/other than yourself can you know how to see yourself in context, place your life in perspective. Through travel you come to understand that you are where the global and local meet, and you decide the rippled outcome.

This is why since the dawn of man people have felt compelled to venture out beyond their homelands.

Well, that, and to get drunk on white sand beaches and have steamy sex with hot strangers.

Summer's Eve Marked by Arrival of an Angry Vagina!!

So, Summer's Eve which is well known for creating ridiculous, mildly insulting commercials for their seemingly unnecessary crap has gone one further. They've made three ads which seem not only creepy but racist, stereotypical, and overall plain insulting too.
Sigh.

The Black women's version talks about hair because no other women have hair or spend time on it right?:



I don't know which is more Odd:

1)The fact that somehow Summer's Eve thought that using a Talking Hand as a stand in for women's Vaginae totally made sense, or

2)That they thought producing commercials implying that selling hygiene products for women's vaginal spaces requires a Talking Hand that speaks in stereotypical 'whooo sista' girl' accented commentary made sense.

And thank you Summer's Eve for giving the Black Vagina/Hand an Afro because I was wondering what the hair was like down there on myself! Oh Yeah, I hope they do the same for the other racial groups!!

Sigh.


Oh and that's just my feelings about the commercial targeting Black women... there's versions for White and Latina women too!


The White Vagina/Hand talks about going to the gym, and is White so I guess maybe it has an eating/body-dismorphic disorder:



Advertising Mad Men: Oh Boy, we'll have the White one mention working out because only White women do that! We all know those minorities are so Fat!


The Latina Vagina/Hand talks about wearing a leopard print thong, complains about having children, and goes "Ay, ay, ay", of course:



Advertising Mad Men: Oohh lets have the Latina's subtly reference the Anchor Baby conversations by having her complain about being mistreated despite the hard work of having had babies!!

Sigh.

I wonder where the Summer's Eve Asian women's commercial is - you know, one with a slightly yellowed Vagina/Hand advocating for a good cleaning of their vaginae after they've spent the day cleaning other people's laundry?

Or the Muslim women's version - with a Vagina/Hand in hijab that just mummers quietly, unintelligibly through the heavy, black fabric.

Why not pull out all the insulting stereotype stops!!


"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
-Professor Farnsworth

Airline Arrests Black Man for Sagging Pants, Lets Fly White Man in Lingerie!!

Dear U.S. Airways:

This crazy photograph of a man barely covered in lace might as well be made of neon blue flexible silicone, conical in shape, with a handle at the wide end, and sold at an adult toys gift shops because of exactly where Deshon Marman's attorney is going to push it into you!!!*

Update:

U.S. Airways has a Black man ARRESTED for having pants allegedly "sagging a bit too low" - but we all know he was truly arrested for the crimes of 1) flying while Black with Dreadlocked hair and 2) believing too fully that the protections of the 1st Amendment apply to him as well.

So they have Marman arrested, and the freakin' week before, a White man in WOMEN'S LINGERIE was allowed to fly, despite other passenger's complaints about what he had on!! I mean, for the sake of decency and public good, just look at the picture of what he wore!!!

Sigh. One of my favorite quotes from Futurama summarizes my feelings when I hear about conflicting, crazy, OBVIOUSLY racially/prejudicially influenced different treatment like this:

"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."

-The Professor, Futurama

[*if innocent about what I am referring to in this section, go here to see an innocuous line drawing and some writing about... it...]

Racism Cloaked So Subltly

This was a response to a seemingly well meant, but ultimately un-reflective (and consequently tinged with racist overtones) article/blog post by Dr. Saturday about New Mexico football player (safety) Deshon Marman who was arrested for:

1) being Black and large of stature/width
2) having dreadlocks
3) wearing baggy pants
4) daring to ignore the power-tripping commands of the TSA agents that he pull his pants up higher - said TSA agents then followed him to his plane and had him arrested and charged with trespassing for #3 above... Sigh.

Dear Matt,

Your comment...

"Personally, I feel a little dumber for having spent a portion of my morning on it [Marman's story], and for actually feeling compelled to offer this parting advice, applicable to any situation you can possibly encounter in life: When in doubt, always pull your pants up."

...Should make you sad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that your "advice" comes:
1- without recognition of its own racist underpinnings,
2- without any consideration of historical context, and
3- without real or simulated empathy/sympathy/attempt to accept that although some folks may live their lives differently than yourself, that does not make that difference inherently negative or in need of alteration/change.

Perhaps an example might make number 3 above easier to accept and assimilate. Impossible as it may be for you to believe, imagine, or comprehend, lets say tomorrow, all of US history is reversed: Brown and Black people were the imperial forces who conquered the planet and spread their ideology, and therefore - since 'to the victors go the spoils' - being White in and of itself carries a criminal undertone. So for example, folks get killed just for driving while White, you can and often will be harassed for shopping while White, and people will always believe you are less than capable, intelligent, and of sound moral constitution simply because you are White.

Then lets say in this flipped version of the USA, it is decided that an indicator of criminality worthy of being harassed in public or arrested and hauled off of an airplane, is wearing: Sperrys, polo shirts with the collar popped, LLBean anything, those hideous madras or Nantucket red shorts, or, God Forbid, simply having White skin! Then lets say, a White Man boards a plane wearing madras shorts and is expelled from the plane for it. Are you then going to say your final advice is "When in doubt, don't wear Madras on flights"? Because somehow I don't think you would tell someone that and really think it made any sense.

In the same way, your comment closing out reporting on this ridiculous incident doesn't make any sense.

Yes I agree with you, there will be tons of vitriol and horrible comments about this incident lacking in meta-consideration of all the elements that brought this epically-trivial power struggle to its depressing conclusion. And yet your awareness of this fact does not prevent you from ultimately judging Marman at fault - very unfairly - since he should have "just" pulled up his pants. As someone who hates seeing underwear in public, I might have supported this IF they also arrested women showing thongs above their jeans, or flashing photographers their genitals, or displaying bra straps and cups. If they arrested women equally as often as they harass and arrest young Black men for this allegedly horrific breach of public decency, perhaps... But, wait, no, its still not right in either case for clear reasons.

As a writer in the public arena I expect more of you Matt. As benefactor and progeny of the First Amendment, and the freedom of expression and speech it enables and ensures, you should know better. You don't have to be a libertarian - although hearing stories like this may push you in that direction - to think this much government interference in folks expression through attire is too much. Nor do you have to be very well versed in American racial history to decry attempts like this to stifle people's expressive freedom simply because it is almost exclusively expressed by one racial group who've been vilified, so they're easy to beat up on.

The First Amendment, although often under attack in cases like this with TSA ego-explosions, requires that we tolerate and allow people to wear what they want. Nowhere does it say that Marman's, or anyone else's right to expression ends and their harassment begins at the point where some schmo on a power trip declares they don't like what they're saying/wearing.

Difference Between White & Black Men in Marriage? History!

This is my response to a disturbing article called 8 Reasons to Date a White Man, published over at Madame Noire, which does a great job at making Black men (en masse, without any historical reflection) out to be horrible, ignorant, jerks:

As a Black woman who always dated inter-racially, but is now married to a White man, I feel keen to comment. At first I felt a sense of the ridiculous in reading this piece and was only laughing - then when my husband began reading as well, he became really upset in part on behalf of my brother and father who do not fit any of the underhanded, vicious, evil stereotypes this scary, unsettling article heaps onto Black men!!

As I reflected on my husband's frustration I too got upset because, not everyone can or will laugh and dismiss this garbage - some people will come away thinking this is a valid list of "reasons" White men are "better" than Black men, which would be a crime! Because 1) one needs to find a person who fits or clicks with them regardless of race! Plus, 2) in relationships, all bets are off! And 3) these broad stereotypes just don't hold up to scrutiny or careful thought!

For example, the author clearly didn't do research when declaring white men free of "down low" behavior or she would have discovered that in strict religious communities, White gay men are just as repressed as Black. I had a gay Mormon acquaintance in college who readily admitted he planned to marry a woman, have a family, and have sex with men at the same time later in life. And what he was saying did not seem odd to him since there were many out there he knew planning to do the same. The only difference between White and Black is that Black people are amazing at clever language and naming things - hence the Down Low idea has more traction with us, but if you look up books or info on the internet about women finding out their husband is gay, you will find all races of women dealing with this.

Another example: as for babies out of wedlock, insecurity, financial intelligence, and all the rest, these alleged differences are wholly attributable to different economic and social situations rooted in historical inequities!! Of course it may be easy for a White man to be more secure: he can trace his family history back to a country of origin, he's never been assumed criminal simply based on his skin color, and he has never/seldom had to swallow his pride to stay alive! And neither has anyone in his family! Of course a White man "may" know about finances: when you have never been disenfranchised you have had your wealth long enough to learn how to make it work for you! (see film & history of Rosewood for what happened often/for a century or more to Blacks who tried to own, have, or build anything - success stories are the rule, not the exception)


Finally, of course White men aren't threatened by educated, accomplished Black women: as Cheryl Harris' brilliant essay "Whiteness as Property" makes clear, regardless of how brilliant you are, you're still not White - so even if this never occurs to your husband as a reason not be threatened by you, the fact that he's always had an easier time of it means your hard work in some sense means less. That may sound harsh in some ways, but the fact of the matter is: if you're with a White man, then there was never a time when it was literally illegal for he and his family to Learn, as it was for Black folks. Therefore, accomplishing the feat of gaining a lot of education means more within the Black community and inside Black relationships than in Black women/White men relationships.

And finally, considering that poverty is the determining factor for Many of these issues: if you go to any poor white community, you find these same problems/issues are not only pervasive but the norm. Has the author even seen MTV's show "16 and Pregnant" because I've only seen one or two featuring Black people, most are White! And that show "Sister Wives" on TLC - you would be hard pressed to show me a more insecure White man than the one on that show who needs 4 women adoring him to feel complete!! And you get the feeling that these women come from non-too-wealthy backgrounds.


All this is to say, generalizing about men like this does a grave wrong by ignoring the history and present and the fact that at the end of the day, every man wants someone to take care of them!

Don't Sue Your Students! Survive Ivy League Teaching or Move On!

This is my response to story of coo-coo Professor Priya Venkatesan who threatened to sue her students over harassment when she tried to teach!


All I want to say - without in any way supporting the profoundly bizarre and odd act of attempting to sue your students for being their silly, young selves - is that, if you have never been a woman of color attempting to teach in the humanities (or any other discipline for that matter) in one of these Ivy League institutions, then its going to be extremely difficult bordering on impossible for you to understand what it is like in these environments, and why this poor woman may have snapped like she did. Let me explain:

There is an inherent competitive hostility (even with/against a student's professor/instructor) because it is The Ivys. Then add in the "naturally" socialized prejudices/biases and argumentative predilections of young people who are in fact untutored and unschooled but believe themselves already perfectly brilliant - after all they were valedictorian of their school or whatever - and you have a recipe for some often very difficult classroom moments as an instructor/professor of color. And being a woman can often make things ten times worse! Heck, in discussing teaching pedagogy, we have to make sure we cover the chapter titled:

"How to deal with an extremely stubborn and hostile student who is targeting you for harassment - probably/possibly due to race or gender - in a neutral and diplomatic fashion"

And this is even if you are teaching something very rote and basic and widely accepted. In the past with difficult students, teaching simple reading/writing techniques, I have had to literally blanket the table/desk at the front of the classroom in paper/texts from other, respected, published, usually White sources that echo whatever I've been trying to teach, just to get students to lay off! Even now I can hear myself saying, "Look, Plato started doing this first, not me, and that's why the university feels it is important for you to learn." Sigh. It can drive one insane.

That said, I have pity on her, although I think she only made things worse with all this lawsuit business. She just should have written it off as a bad semester and moved on! You can't win every group over every term.

Objectionable Prescriptives for Women's Viewing Behavior...

Response to Edelstein's review of BrideWars over at NPR:

Dear Edelstein,

As a female-of color-English Ph.D. student with very broad interests and sensibilities, I am having trouble figuring out in what way your 'review' of this film is most offensive! Is it:

1)In its essentializing of the female experience - as if there is some exclusively female frailty that is inherent and prohibitive of certain behavior. In other words, you seem to believe that if men find it funny women can't as well because...?

2)In your presumption that to be Female is to only find specific (what, "ladylike"?) forms of humor funny or acceptable. The scene at the bridal shop became more funny for me than for my husband because he doesn't know the value/cost of bridal gowns (I do) nor the strain women regularly are under Not to allow any untoward smells to escape their person- let alone a food poisoning explosions. For the women of our group, this made the scene a cathartic rush revealing that we too are human... and in pain over that gorgeous ruined gown!

3)Your reduction of Melissa McCarthy's wonderful and emotionally complex performance to one of playing off of her Girth! There was more nuance and grace to her portrayal than you give her credit for, and your review smacks of your inability to see beyond her weight.

Part II:

I'm sorry, but I must make one more comment or suggestion about what makes this review problematic - as 'Analytical Ph.D. Student' I cannot fail to give "suggested reading" if I take issue with an argument.

It seems that at best, this Review would be better described as an ill-intentioned and oddly toned Referendum on what women are or are not permitted to find humorous, or what experiences women are or are not entitled to have/claim as part of their functioning as human beings in an American cultural setting!

I suggest you watch the South Park episode on queefing. (Though unladylike I suppose, there is no other more appropriate and simple word to choose.) I thought they did a great job at highlighting that women have a sense of humor as well that can intersect with bodily (mal)functions.

Women have bodies too, and in some ways are more of our bodies than men are by virtue of our frequent object status. (See fast food places giving girls dolls and boys trucks in kid's meals.)

There is a prim propriety thrust upon women which I am happy to see these hysterical, bright women shake off the yoke of in this film! Please stop trying to tie them back down with antiquated, prescriptive genre titles.

Why Are We So Slow As A Country??

If you haven't seen this amazing comic-commentary pseudo-commercial from Will Ferrell friends speaking out against Big Health Care Companies making billions off of keeping Americans sick, then go see it now!!

When will we realize its crazy that we are the only westernized wealthy country who doesn't care about the health of our citizenry? No wonder we're the fattest country in the world, the insurance companies need us to be!

Reading: Remember, Savor, Repeat

Been away a while. Needed to not think about typing anything, even something as therapeutic as this blog. Time to be without technology... I wanted to read regular old books and watch Law and Order and relax. Of course I can't do that, I have to take a summer language class.  A dreadful invention meant to induce migraines. I need to read a Good Book and have to lingering worry about generals questions later on. 

Reading as therapy. Which reminded me of something.

Months ago, a professor in giving advice to a student applying to PhD programs near me advised her not to put something pedestrian in her application essay like she wants to go to grad school because she likes reading. And I've let that ruminate for a while now.... because you see, I put that I love reading in my essay.

Did this professor read my essay? Did others think me boring for the statement? Because I meant it in  no germane context.

I think we take reading for granted far too often forgetting the insanity of scribbled black marks becoming... Yes, becoming.

We forget how complex the manner of inscribing language which we think we know but which - like driving over certain speeds or the ocean after you've reached a certain distance from shore - is truly not within our control. We forget to consider that how we use what we say in specific ways to achieve certain ends, and how when written down in what is allegedly a stable form, there is still that false bottom hat where the rabbit is hiding. We forget that all too often what we throw out does not bounce the way we thought it would, and challenges our ability to clean up mess with more mess - far riskier lobs.  Language, reading, is playing tennis on the unpredictable clay courts of the French Open.  Reading is trusting that when the man in the trick jacket - the author in her desk chair - says he will Cut You In Half for the pleasure of the audience, and ultimately himself, that he is in fact quite skilled at his craft. You hope that you will end up dazzled, charmed, bewildered, but not truly physically injured - unable to put yourself back together again.

Reading is, we must consider reading as, an act of pure magic.

Or how often do we forget the quantum physics of reading, how on the subparagraph level, under careful observation, one sentence can cripple the experiment. How the frequency of reading can increase understanding or pervert the course of connection. In reading, what we write down, what other perceive, what time does to the slant of a phrase, to the inflection on a word, to the very internal stability and length of time that text will last, are all unstable elements warring with each other, with the page itself, in a fight for dominance. What learning and information do to how language flows through us, flows through our mouths, through the synaptic connections we barely understand, and into air that is different every single moment, and over the tricky substance of time's flow... these my friends, are what we consistently forget.

Reading as a fundamental state of altered consciousness.

So when I say that I love reading in my essay, I make no ho hum space filler. What I wanted, tried to convey was the deeply spiritual connection I have to the written word. How a good book is my temple and there is serenity, salvation within. How the right series of words, or the right individual word, can freeze me in time, literally contradict the laws of this universe, to allow me my own bubble of perfect understanding, a unity that is ephemeral but whose impact is my life. That so many books have healed me - usually baptisms by fire, truth is not sweet - and filled spaces I did not know were there until I lifted the book and felt at ease. 

Reading as the serene experience of glancing into a dark, still pond of water, of unknown depth, from the comfort of a sturdy boat, hand trailing the water, summer skies full of sun. The summer breeze is not strong enough to ruffle pages to distraction/frustration of course.

I do not besmirch the oral tradition from which I have most certainly sprung. But there is something to the creamy, slippery texture of the page, the minuscule dimples, the uneven quality of most paper.  The places where the printer's ink failed, left off half of a word, top or side, or maybe just the dot on an i, reminding you that each book is in fact individual, and must be made page by individual page - "one million in print" be damned!  

There is a sensation that sinks into a book you've had a long, long time, like it has absorbed some of you into the crinkled/wrinkled edges, brown from turning pages.  A profound connection in the tea stains, and corners worn soft - so often used to absentmindedly clean under fingernails.  Something within the gesture of filling hundreds of pages with the attempt to tell a story, share a bit of consciousness - however faulty the execution may/might end up - and in your own attempt, in reading, to understand that story and, by extension, the impulse to inscribe it in just this way. There is fascination in language/books' execution, ingestion, processing, integration...

These, yes these are the things which we must: remember, savor, repeat.

Minor Meditation: Emancipation

The problem with America's 1865 emancipation of the enslaved was that, African Americans were so busy envisioning a freedom like Whites had been parading around for centuries, denied any model of alternative liberty in a brown body as they were, that they could not conceptualize a space of freedom for those Whites without their having a place in it.

In other words, had they known better, they would have realized the American constitution held no hand of opportunity out to them – it could not even see them. The freedom they envied, depended upon their remaining enslaved.

Minor Meditation: Conservative Capitalism IS an Ideology!

Forced to post this reply to a crazy person who has no ability to self-reflect (let alone reflect on why he thinks the way he does) at this site when I realized that some people still think that we all crawled out of the sludge or God placed us in the garden (or however they think we got here) and we all had Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in the amniotic sac with us.
Hey ya'll!: Capitalism is an ideology, a belief system, just like anything else!
Sigh:

"The proper conservative view is we’re all equals, trading (or not) by our own decisions, right or wrong. People may end up trading in ways you and I dislike, but the general principle of freedom is valued more than imposing a specific moral view." -Antioch

Antioch here is unfortunately making an argument that wouldn't hold a feather let alone water! To argue that enforcing a Conservative/Republican agenda is to NOT force people to do as you wish is a false tautology! You are still very much forcing people to do as you wish, AND it is also forcing a moral code on everyone to boot! To situate the value and worth of a person as involving trade is already to steep yourself in an ideological tradition that not everyone adheres to, and which has very flawed moral underpinnings!

The only thing is, we're starting to realize that the moral crap that we have sunk ourselves in does not provide for any sort of viable future if we do not include healthcare for everyone. For Antioch to argue he doesn't want to be forced to pay for "those other people" (you know, like they're not neighbors, citizens, with whom we share the same water sources and food producing fields...) is the same as saying that people are not being forced right now to die and suffer and acrue debt due to inadequate or nonexistent healthcare!

Oh, you don't wanna pay for it now, but we'll ALL be paying for it in the future alright. We'll be paying when something far worse than swine flu shows up and we don't have enough doctors or adequate healthcare. We'll pay when we don't have a citizenry who have had consistent healthcare all their lives to shore up their immune systems, so America gets hit with a superbug and becomes the black hole into which no one will go or invest money because We Let People Die here.

Now Antioch, that's not a moral code that makes any sense at all.

Minor Meditation: Your Body is Not Yours

After I don't know how many comments, touches, and untold amounts of attention paid to my breasts by people of both sexes, I get it. I'm not in Puerto Rico anymore, where no one cares if its hot and you wear a tank top because its hot all the time - how lucky was I to live in a place where it was strange if you were covered up? But that's all Over. Any newfound comfort with my larger, non-traditional self that I may have learned there must be unlearned now because I am back on the mainland and my body is not mine. It belongs to the man picking up garbage, the bartender at the bar, supposed friends who feel instantly at liberty to poke and/or comment, the Black men who think they own me because my skin is brown, the gay male friend for whom women and breasts are a freakish oddity, and, well... anyone else. 

My choices are to stay fully covered up at all times like the overweight, busty girl I know myself to be, or suffer the "minor" violations and assaults, daily harassment, that we women know are our lot....

I am so tired.

I will stay fully covered up from now on.  

Exhausted White Womenhood....

There has been a lot of drama recently over the women of Jezebel whose drunken claims to the right to be raped, accept it as your fate, not report it, and assume if it happens again, who cares, were publicly declared a while ago on a late night TV talk show.  This in a battle with a woman writing at DoubleX, which Aunt Jemima's Revenge brought to my attention. So you don't have to read literally dozens of pages of angry bickering between the drunken hordes and (proud) whores or sluts as they call themselves over at Jezebel and the angry old guard at DoubleX, here's the the Jezebel's general argument: 

As the new feminist guard, they should have the right to full sexual liberation with no judgement. They can go home with whomever they want, do whatever they want, drink until they pass out, and engage in the same behavior men have allegedly been enjoying since time immemorial. They don't believe in age of consent laws, and at one point threw doubt on the claims to rape made by a 13year old girl against Roman Polanski since his giving her drugs was not the first time she had had them, and she was an aspiring actress after all. And since her mother arranged things, she had to know at least a little what was going on and went along with it... 

Very, very disturbing; and the tip of the problems is when you consider that these women are only speaking for themselves. They really imagine that what they are advocating for is what everyone should do. This is problematic not the least because of all that they do not even know they are ignoring - namely women of color!

Just when I think Feminism as a movement is realizing that you can't even think about any of the Issues (empowerment, sexual liberation, equality, etc) without considering against what these ideas are pushing, you get a mess like this! The establishment of liberty, in whatever form, in discussions of "Feminism" which are really about liberty for White women, cannot exist without the downtrodden quality of and regard for Black women! Mainly because in this country we know what we want to have based on what black women have been denied for so long!

This lends a very perverse element to these women's complaints at Jezebel. For, if what they want is the right to wild, wanton sexual lives, then we know at least in part, this is a throwback to the perception that Black women were/are endowed with some inherent super-sexual nature. We've all heard the arguments: That's why so many slave owners slept with their black female slaves. Not because it was rape, but because the women wanted it.  They were luring those men away from their wives. 

bell hooks talks about this phenomenon in Ain't I A Woman, and if you read her work, the way these women are shaping their demands is really sad. To want to be raped - as one of the Jezebel ladies did, so she paid someone to seem to take her by force - is to want a subjugation and oppression this country was once exposed to on a daily basis. White women's aspirations to be pulled from their pedestal and used as a sexual object is a desire that has roots going a very long way back.

What is even more perverse is that these women are unaware of this! They have needs and desires that they do not understand. They invoke or desire violence that, while not at all connected any true or universal sense of female empowerment, it is tied to the subtextual notions of American liberty: 

Basically, with so much actual freedom and control over the lives of millions in America, what White consciousness now requires is to be abused as those brown bodies were abused. The only missing "liberty" or "freedom" they now need is the right to suffer pain, degredation, daily  oppression, neglect and cruelty. That is why these women really 'want' to be raped. 

Much more to be said about this. But for now, this is depressing enough.

Minor Meditation: The Republican Bus

If you click the blog title, you can read the piece that my words were inspired by and are in answer to. 

However, this is the exerpted text which I am focusing on:

"Bloomberg:

Republicans are getting inspiration on how to rebuild their party in the U.S. Congress from an unlikely source: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

California Representative Kevin McCarthy, the chief recruiter for House Republicans, said he wants his party to select candidates based less on ideology and more on their chances of winning. The goal, he said, is to seek out prospects who are ethnically diverse, female, less partisan and even supportive of abortion rights. So far, these efforts are more concept than reality."

To all this I say:

Oh, poor, poor Republicans!  

We - the diverse, the women, the fabulously attuned to the multiple currents of ideology and exisitence on the planet - Don't Want the Republican ride to where we're going! For too long your bus service has been late to the diversity stop, completely lacking in provisions for the sick and infirm (those lovely anti-universal health care arguments), and constructed for only one race's historical luggage!  

Plus, your buses don't stop in poor areas or ethnically diverse areas, you hate when I bring my meditation pillow on board (only crosses and bibles allowed), my friend has to pretend that the man next to him is just his bible study partner and not his love, and as an academic I don't make enough money to pay the fare!  

But WORST of all, you claim to believe in it, but the list of rules on the bus, that Constitution thingy, you know that everyone's bus has? Well on your bus line, it only applies to a select group! You don't want everyone on the bus to enjoy the same priviledges that you do! And this will not work!  

So, thank you very much, I'm flattered. But i will stick with my current service.

Minor Meditation: String Theory

Of all the pleasant thoughts to start out the day, of all the moments to reinforce Buddhist teachings of calm, patience and acceptance, mine came from a history channel special on the theory of Parallel Universes:

In some Universe, Hitler met some really gorgeous woman who loved his art work. After the war instead of being rootless, he went back to her and they shacked up somewhere for years in the German countryside. He painted, she milked cows, he carved the cabinets for the kitchen, she smoothed out sheep's wool into yarn to make sweaters. And never once did he think about world domination while playing with his daughter whose hair was deep, dark brown - like her mothers.

In another Universe, after serving during world war II, James Earl Ray decided not to return to the states. Instead, reveling in the different opportunity-rich feel of Europe as compared to the poverty he came from in Illinois, he settled finally in Italy. He worked for years on a family farm dedicated to Olives, Figs and Pignolia. Eventually, he married the lovely daughter of the farm owner's sister, and spent the rest of his years happy in a sea of rich red wine and sunflowers.

In yet one more Universe, my grandparents are still alive. Upon reaching their 40s and 50s and staring into the sweet young faces of their children, they decide to change habits. Stick to the diets doctors gave them cutting back on the good rich foods and recipes they brought with them on their Great Migrations out of Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Georgia, and Tennessee. And they lived and lived... To see past their 60s and 70s. 

In a final Universe perhaps I never was, or was in a different form, or am in a partial piece. Perhaps in the 1300's the Bubonic Plague left Europe empty, clean, and dry. And instead of the  transatlantic genocide which spawned my meztizo familial line, I exist partially in a woman walking a lush forest path in what we know as central Rwanda - which has never seen a genocide or a person with White skin and blue eyes. Or maybe I exist partially in a Carib Indian  woman who sits on a beach in what we know as St. Johns,  watching her child play in the surf. Worried about sharks in a foot of water as only mothers can.

Why any of this?

Because on the subatomic level, when you get too far down for general contemplation, things are... fuzzy. So fuzzy other universes are possible. Down there, atoms are unstable. Particles vibrate. Things, electrons, move when you look where you expect them to be; they anticipate your observation. And the particles that make everything up? Well, they can be in more than one place at once.

And so can we.

So today, I am on that beach in St. Johns, and the String Theory that makes me Me? Well it's a bit of Redemption Song and Canon in D and My Little Brown Book - and its vibrating slowly, along with the surf.

My Mother Channeling Bert Williams

Walking through some store in Mexico a few years ago, very small and tight a space, a sales girl decided I, as darkest person in the store, looked suspicious. Not the granny with the giant handbag huddled in the corner, or the two teenagers with backpacks, Nope, just me. 

They apparently do not have shows like Punk'd or Candid Camera in Mexico,* then she would have known what was up, because as she followed me, when I knew she was, I began to walk faster. Leading her around in circles that would sometimes loop back on her and cut around. Coming to abrupt halts so she would run into me, eventually dropping things or knocking them off the shelf to slow her down. Ah, what fun.

Did I mention this was in a store about 16x16 feet? Yes, about the size of a small/medium living room. Did she ever catch on? I don't know. What I do know is that my friends never laughed so hard in public and I had a lot of fun channelling Ada Issacs Menken (see brilliant Daphne Brooks book Bodies in Dissent for info about Menken). 

Do not get me wrong. This being followed is tiresome, to say the least. It is, as Fred Moten so wonderfully noted when I saw him speak recently, and I paraphrase, "One of those things you are forced to deal with by being Black. Being Black is a series of uncomfortable incidents that remind you of context and your very Skin." He's so sharp.

I do not remember the first time I was followed or knew someone who suffered what I call the  "Black Trailing Behavior" I have heretofore described, but the times it got "rough" are as clear as day!

> My three Aunts - Teachers, Business Owners, Executives - were followed, grabbed, and searched in the back of a NY&Co store in upstate NY. Caught up in the shock and incredulity a Black person instantly feels at how a situation goes from pleasant to evil and invasive in the blink of an eye, they did not resist as one would fully expect them to, if you knew my family! These regal Black women in their late 30's and early 40's allowed their bags and things to be searched by White store associates in their 20's making $6.50/hr, in a dirty back storeroom that reeked of old coffee grounds and that particular stale-ish smell rooms get when they are infrequently visited or cleaned. After, of course, finding Nothing amid the expensive leather purses and shopping bags, they simply let them go! Still in a daze, my wonderful Aunts wandered out the doors and home. Only to break later under the knowledge that bearing/clothing/deportment aside - they were always just Black.

>My three friends and I. First year of college, so excited to be brilliant women on the rise.  We took off one Friday from the library in search of new togs for the season. In some random shop in the mall (perhaps another NY&Co - I have never had a good experience in that store!), in our happiness, when a young 20-ish White girl comes up to us and asks "Where are the earrings that were here?!?" pointing at some random open spot beyond arm's reach of any of us on a rack of hundreds of cheap, already peeling earrings.  Again, shocked into near incoherency, we Literally Do No Understand her question - "What?" She asks again. We say who knows! Off she storms. It takes us long minutes talking to each other to realize that, despite the number of White customers nearer to the rack than we and despite our relatively pulled together appearance, We must be the ones that took some phantom pair of earrings because at the moment we were the only Black ones in the store! Seriously Angry we asked for the manager only to find out (shock of shocks!) that She Was the Manager! I have always hated that lie. We dropped whatever we were going to buy on the floor and left. Again reminded that, regardless of where we were in school, we Are Black.

>And the final one for this post - in Kmart of all places! My Mother and a much younger version of myself. Of all people to be followed, My Mother! Very down to earth and accessible. But also So Bougie! To get off topic for a moment of humor: when I wanted to go camping like the other little Brownie-Troop girls (all White) in my suburban NY neighborhood, My Mother said "No dear. Only homeless people sleep outside." Hysterical! But that's what you think when you grow up in the Bronx as she did! But I digress.

Anyway. She, as always, dressed to perfection with an expensive handbag (teaching me subconsciously the bad habit of irresistible adoration for fine leather purses that I carry with me to this day on my arm & on my credit card) and a pulled together outfit. I am certain I was dressed the same - it wasn't until I could dress myself that pictures took a slide towards the awful. 

I don't know when she knew we were being followed, but like a gazelle on a game trail, she knew a hyena was drooling close by and threatening her baby! So with Gazelle-like Grace, she had been leading this glorified-dog on a tour of the store, up and down aisles, through the same section four times in a row. In her red apron, the sales girl must have been so upset to have been given this task! Now I realize too that is why My Mother looked so happy and smug - her deft turns and humor laced slips, like Bert Williams in vaudeville glam! Dropping a roll of paper towels there, knocking a T-shirt down here - juggling Me, Blackness, and Vanity/Pride like a Pro! 

Now I know why we never got the toilet paper or toothpaste or whatever we had gone in for! We had been marked for trailing and at some point she had realized we Are Black.

Now Please Don't Get Me Wrong!!! I am no elitist, my bougie tendencies do not extend to judgements based on attire or appearance! I really do believe in the parable that says you should give help to anyone because it might be Jesus coming to the door dressed poorly seeking food. And I believe that you never know where you will find the face of God, and thus grace for yourself. So what you are wearing should NEVER determine treatment! I know it does, but dressing a certain way should not exclude you from or entitle you to harassment!! Just as a certain skin color should not do anything similar either! 

Then why do I tell these stories, dwelling lovingly on leather handbags? (Aside from my aforementioned Addiction - really its a sickness.) I do so for the people who continue to tell me its all in our heads. That Black people make these things up by always looking for Race. 

Looking for Race, Looking for Race, Looking for Race!! If I had a quarter for every time someone told me Blacks were just "looking for race," like Race was a freakin' shoe under the bed we needed to wear to an appointment, or a dime we dropped under the machine while buying some skittles, I would be able to retire to an island next to Oprah's in the Caribbean!!

These folks seem to think that we enjoy feeling harassed. That we get some thrill out of it! Now, I believe this belief of theirs in "Joy in Social Subjugation" is tied psychologically to a need among an oppressive group to feel what they are doing to the oppressed - a type of Projection for you Freudians out there - but that is for another post.... Or a book.... ©!

For those who think we Want harassment and seek it in every altercation I say Bahhhh! I point to the countless stories of broken hearts, tears, depression, angry letters to company headquarters, and swears to never shop in such-n-such a place again! I point to Black women in particular, across a spectrum of earning potential and class status - from my Daycare Center owning Aunt to Oprah - who want very, very much to believe in the dream of us all blending together, and expanding outward to live fully realized, non-raced lives. 

And yet, in Moten's terms, must continually be confronted by the discomfort of being pushed back into ourselves forcefully. Of realizing that skin trumps so very much. Skin trumps everything. 

Thank God for the humor! If not for My Mother's comic turn in my childhood, anger over the injustice might have overtaken me by now. If not for laughter, where would we be?

So Thank You Mom - Happy Mother's Day!!!

So post your comments, share your stories, lord knows there are millions. This is a space to let it out so it can stop coming back and killing us as high blood pressure and heart disease!

(*random generalization used for comic flow and not meant to be taken literally or as a slur against Mexico. And yes I am footnoting a Blog post for the second time. its that serious over here in Academijikistan.)

Minor Meditation: Allegiance

I do not understand most people. Why it is nearly impossible for people to look at an ideology or theology or whatever, and select what works to believe in and neglect what does not! 

This goes out to Black Christians throwing full allegiance behind the conservative republican movement without giving another thought to anything that they are doing. In fact, they support everything! Even when it goes against common sense, intelligence, the truth, or their faith!

Because YES, the conservative Christain Republican movement does in fact do many, many things that I am certain the God of the judeo-christian book we call the Bible is really, really pissed off about.  

You know, him being the Diety that advocated against judging others. 

The same God who told you as puny human to share the word of God with others, but don't go thinking you are HIM and acting against others in any physical way. 

The God who told you to chill out since all will eventually be judged by Him, so let folks alone! 

Yes that same God who in a dozen or more verses advocates for tolerance, patience, and love. 

He is NOT in fact the God of the religious right who would make certain against all other considerations that you are Born; but that makes equally as certain that if you go against Man's laws they will put you to Death. 

NO. God stands not in allegiance with them.

God in fact stands in allegiance with those who follows his guidance concerning love, peace, prosperity shared, and honesty/integrity earned. He does not believe in political parties but in intelligence and tolerance.

So, please: Think for yourself! Take what works. Leave what doesn't!

If you are in fact a Black person or person of Color who chooses to become a Republican because, after winning the American craps game of economic success you now "have something to conserve," and get invited to the Easy Life Buffett, examine at your plate. Don't swallow the whole animal without looking closely at what you are eating - That's how you end up choking on the hooves!