More Prop 8 Bullet Points

I am engaging in the discussion on Prop 8 featured here, here, and here because I don't want to copy and paste comments and I don't know of any other way to get everyone's attention.

::waving frantically from the blogaround crowd to be heard::


And just like identitycrisis and T, right now I can only think about this issue in bullet points:

1.

I wrote that this happens through challenging and conversation, but really how do people come to change their minds about these things? When did /what would it take for you to change your mind about a certain group or type of people?

I have no idea. In planning a black women in the civil rights movement workshop and I was sent back to square one when my ED (Executive Director) reminded me that no one likes to admit when they are oppressed and the young women may not take well to being told so. How do you change someone's mind? When did my mind change? When I was pushed to the wall. But I was lucky--young girls getting pushed to the wall are losing their lives. Sorry....that is for another post....

2.

Did anyone notice that the President-Elect does not support same-sex marriage? (I know it's too soon to start criticizing, so I'll tread lightly.) I watched his speech at the DNC at an ...and marriage for all event. When he mentioned something about all couples being able to see their loved ones in the hospital, the crowd erupted in cheers. I was thinking "did they hear him say he supported same-sex marriage, because I didn't." The VP-Elect explicitly stated in the VP debate that the ticket did not support same-sex marriage. So I'm wondering how they got a pass but the average black and Latino voter was supposed to take a stand for human rights. Reporters were acting suprised that people could vote for Obama and Prop 8. Really?

Not my most proud Obama moment. I saw that too. And I was honestly shocked with Biden stated so explicitely that they did not favor gay marriage. I want to think there are political reasons for this but I think I am giving the Os too much credit. Their support for civil unions in lieu of gay marriage may have a religious edge to it. And this leads me to the meat of my issue with Prop 8, the organizing around it (both for and against), and the Blame the Coloreds rhetoric that followed.....

3.

I saw a sign that says "Marriage is a human right not a heterosexual privilege." Is that true? Is this a legal matter? Is this a religious matter? Is this a moral matter? As a person who has a different moral and/or religious belief than another person what is my legal obligation to that person as a citizen of the United States and a human being? What is my legal obligation to vote for or against something that is in contra to my religious and/or moral obligations?

Dude.

First of, Jasmyne Cannick said it better than I could (sorry for the link, I couldn't find the original LA Times link):

The way I see it, the white gay community is banging its head against the glass ceiling of a room called equality, believing that a breakthrough on marriage will bestow on it parity with heterosexuals. But the right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both black gays and black straights. Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?

With all of the issues that black and Latina/o communities are dealing with (our women getting killed on the daily, mothers and fathers deported and separated from their children in ICE raids on the daily, our sons funnelled into the prison industrial complex-gang complex-drug complex on the daily, gentrification, public schools getting shat on by indifferent politicians) when and why did marriage become the issue we should fight for?

::pause for disclaimer::

I am absolutely ambivalent about marriage. And as a gender conforming woman who is sexually attracted primarily to men, I have sexual privilege. For this, and a variety of other reasons, I absolutely support gay marriage.

But I have yet to meet anyone--gay, straight or otherwise--who can convince me WHY it is a civil right. And I am perfectly willing to be convinced. On the surface, Loving v. Virginia (1967) doesn't appear to be a civil rights case. Only when you place the matter of black-white marriage in the context of black men being lynched for the illusory crime of white female rape while white men remained unpunished for the same, in the context of black men and women fighting against a system of segregation whose purpose was not to separate the races but to ensure that EVERY SINGLE CONTACT between the races placed people of color in a subordinate position to whites, only when you flip it and consider how race following the mother means that the entire system of racial prejudice (for all brown, red, yellow people) was based on related system of gender oppression--well, now you can begin to see how black-white marriage would not just be a nice thing to have but an actual dig at the system.

Show me that. And I don't mean show me that because I can't find it for myself. Sure I can. But show me that because you need my help. Because you don't assume that because I'm young, black, Puerto Rican and female that I somehow feel your oppression and will respond. Because you--white gay mainstream community--understand that, even though I may have a homophobia ism, your WHITE PRIVILEGE is an ism as well. Show me how you are fighting it. Show me that you understand that there is no justifiable reason for me--mainstream black and Latina/o community--to trust YOU--mainstream white gay community--anymore than there is a reason for me--Kismet--to trust you--white women. Show me because we could use your help making changes in our communities of color--which, by the way, include many, many, many gay and lesbian people of color--and because you want us to build together.

Show me because you understand that we could go back and forth with Oppression Olympics all day but that only helps...well it doesn't help us. Show me because you know how to organize.

At T's spot, Paris commented:

I think one of the issues that I'm concerned with regarding Prop. 8 is why we didn't hear anything about it before Election Day. If the homosexual community wanted to ensure that Prop. 8 did not pass, then why wasn't there more educating their local residents about this law, and rallying and marching before hand. I'm wondering if they were too 'lax and thought there was no way "the state that allows gay marriage will now vote against it."

And identitycrisis mentioned this as well:

How do we teach our children not to even start drawing those lines of division? I read somewhere that people in the No on 8 campaign were told not to go to polling places in churches and schools. How then does the message get to those places that are so critical in shaping people's minds and hearts?

I don't OWE you my vote. I give you my vote (at least in theory, as I am not a California resident) because I understand that all oppression is connected and that my own freedom relies on your being free too. And I understand that making marriage a heterosexual-only institution only feeds into homophobic tendencies already latent in our culture. And if you think I owe you my vote you are playing not into any offended civil rights solidarity you think you and I may have--you are playing into your own white privilege which is what pisses me off most. You must press everyone, all races, all classes, all religions to believe the same way. You must engage with them. Recognizing oppression and privilege isn't automatic, and it is a daily--hourly!--battle to not fall back int the boxes and roles society has set out for us. You want to get stuff done--then get in my face and get stuff done. THAT'S how emancipation occured, that's how Jim Crow fell, hell, that is how Obama got elected.

4.

Now, I can say of sort of understand the sentiment. It sucks to think that just because I'm one religions or one sexual preference or one [insert descriptive adjective here] that I'm oppressing everyone who isn't like me

This is a recent revelation for me--Judeo-Christian religions and their practice are a privilege. I never would have thought of it that way before. I am still unpacking how to speak on that much less how to think. But you tell someone you don't believe in God and 4 times out of 5 you will get into a big debate because the other person does. You tell someone that you practice Wicca and 3 times out of 5 you lose a friend. You try to engage someone on Regla Ocha, Candomble, Santeria or any other variation of the Afro-Atlantic Yoruba religion, and you may be called a member of a cult, told you worship Satan, or simply not taken seriously.

I've been in settings where people bowed their head to say grace--without asking anyone around the table if they were comfortable with that. I've been pressured to say prayers over food when no one knew whether I was Catholic, Muslim or a santera. I've been invited to more churches than I can count and in difficult situations have had a Christian God THRUST in my direction as justification for this difficult time, or that difficult time. I've been asked for prayers--but you don't know who I am praying to. I've seen my Muslim friends have to justify in various conversations why they supposedly don't believe in God. I am currently in an online book group and when the discussion turned to religion it was immediately couched in terms of God, the Old Testament, the New Testament, Job, etc. On an African diaspora piece of literature, among similarly diasporic women, not one considered--yet--couching the religious analysis in terms of Ibo, Islam, Ocha, or even to throw in some of Zora's voodoo and hoodoo.

The point is not whether or not I am Catholic, Protestant, or pagan. I simply point the assumption behind what people in this Judeo-Christian country do without thinking. It is absolutely engrained in us. Just like heterosexuality is. Just like gender conformity--act like a lady! bossy black b*tch!--is. Just like whiteness = political, economic, and social power is. And it can feel just as oppressive as the others if you are even remotely not of the same faith, even if you are questioning, or skeptical. How could you not believe in God/Jesus? The question is posed to us in a million ways every day, even if it is not being asked in those terms.

So--again--I am leery when we say that Judeo-Christian marriage is a civil right. Because now, not only are we back to why I should care about that over attrition rates in schools, but why is it a civil right to play right back into a system of religious privilege? Why isn't it a civil right to have a civil union with a partner and NOT be married? And...unfortunately...if we make it an issue in the context of Judeo-Christian marriage, then don't we have to recognize that churches do actually have the right to say what they want about marriage? Don't we then have towork on organizing not at the state level but at the parish level (which should have been going on all along, but I already spoke on that)?

I have no intelligent conclusion for all of these thoughts. So I will leave it at that.

Do Something Romantic For Yourself

Truly.

Margaret Cho speaks. Posting the quote in full but dart over to Reappropriate for the link to the full article:

I was on this radio show, and the DJ asked me, “What if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful? What if you woke up and you were blonde, 5′ 11″, and you weighed 100 pounds?”

Well, I probably wouldn’t get up — because I’d be too weak to stand. In our culture, we don’t see people out there with normal-looking bodies. We should all feel beautiful. If you feel beautiful, you will be more political, more active in trying to stand up for yourself, you’ll be in more control of your life, have more sense of power over what you’re doing.

I started to need to feel more positive about myself after I came to Hollywood. I got criticized a lot for my looks — people thought that I was too fat and that I wasn’t pretty. Also, because I’m different — because I’m not white, I’m Asian, I’m not super skinny. I was anorexic for a time when I was about 24, when I was doing television. I was told by network executives that I had to lose weight. I was forced to. I went on a very rigid diet and became very sick because I wasn’t eating at all.

My mother always had body issues, and I really feel that she passed that on to me. She’d had two kids and couldn’t retain her old body. She handed down this disordered eating to me. She was always on a diet and always exercising, but not getting any joy from it. It was a punishing activity. Before I reached puberty, she was always so in love with my body, and saying, “You’re so thin, you’re so thin, just stay that way.”

My father … one time when I was maybe 9 years old and dancing in ballet — I loved it — he said after a recital, “You’re the fattest ballerina.” It so destroyed me that I never wanted to dance again. He wanted to prepare me for a world that was not going to accept me because I think he experienced so much racism. He’d say, “You’re not pretty. And you’re not going to be pretty.” I absolutely believed him.

I was on this radio show, and the DJ asked me, “What if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful? What if you woke up and you were blonde, 5′ 11″, and you weighed 100 pounds?”

Well, I probably wouldn’t get up — because I’d be too weak to stand. In our culture, we don’t see people out there with normal-looking bodies. We should all feel beautiful. If you feel beautiful, you will be more political, more active in trying to stand up for yourself, you’ll be in more control of your life, have more sense of power over what you’re doing.

I started to need to feel more positive about myself after I came to Hollywood. I got criticized a lot for my looks — people thought that I was too fat and that I wasn’t pretty. Also, because I’m different — because I’m not white, I’m Asian, I’m not super skinny. I was anorexic for a time when I was about 24, when I was doing television. I was told by network executives that I had to lose weight. I was forced to. I went on a very rigid diet and became very sick because I wasn’t eating at all.

My mother always had body issues, and I really feel that she passed that on to me. She’d had two kids and couldn’t retain her old body. She handed down this disordered eating to me. She was always on a diet and always exercising, but not getting any joy from it. It was a punishing activity. Before I reached puberty, she was always so in love with my body, and saying, “You’re so thin, you’re so thin, just stay that way.”

My father … one time when I was maybe 9 years old and dancing in ballet — I loved it — he said after a recital, “You’re the fattest ballerina.” It so destroyed me that I never wanted to dance again. He wanted to prepare me for a world that was not going to accept me because I think he experienced so much racism. He’d say, “You’re not pretty. And you’re not going to be pretty.” I absolutely believed him.

Now I feel great and settled in myself and the way I look. It took a long time to get there. You need to look in the mirror and compliment yourself. I have these little rituals of being very fastidious about my skin care and drinking a lot of water, and I see the results. When we care for ourselves, these are acts of love.

Do romantic things for yourself. Over the years, I’ve become a dancer, which is a big part of my life. I do belly dancing and burlesque dancing. Now I’m comfortable enough to do shows naked. This is a huge change from feeling super insecure and freaked out to feeling totally comfortable with myself. It’s about celebrating the body as opposed to trying to banish it.

Real Talk on Michelle Obama

Because most people know how a White woman sounds, acts and feels, most people expect that all other women are going to act this way. Michelle Obama does not sound like a White woman. Nope, she sounds like a Black woman from the south side of Chicago *Imagine my lips pursed and my neck poppin' as I say what I'm about to say* She's not on that with you!...

But because people are not used to a woman like her, I'd argue that they're threatened (hence the "need" to soften her image). And they're threatened BECAUSE they don't know how not to be BECAUSE they've never been taught, never been exposed to a woman like her. Be it educated woman, black woman, real woman, pretty-but-still- smart woman. I don't know that it's a strictly race thing, but I know race has a lot to do with it.

Want the rest? Go have some Tea.

WTF News: Heinz Pulls Mayo Ad with Men Kissing

WTF.

Catch the vid here.

And, yes, it did get pulled from YouTube with a snap of the industry's fingers. Those media lurkers are getting good at what they do....

UPDATE: UK Gay Rights Group Calls for Boycott

Marriage (Vicarious Blogging Continues)

Mr. actually knows this couple and spent time with the groom in New York on Monday.

Loving the couples in the clips behind Rinku Sen's words in this video (H/T: Angry Brown Butch)



And a bitch had it right. Lookie.

Premonition accused me of "single, independent woman syndrome." I disagree. I have anti-marriage-what's-the-point-except-the-economics-and-legal-benefits syndrome. But like Shark-Fu, I absolutely support the right for anyone to be married if they choose to.

(I know some smart ass critical colleague out there has something to say about the links or my anti-marriage stance. Sling away.)

R.Kelly: Let's Discuss

I didn't want to. I don't think he's worth the internet pages on my blog.

But a discussion has begun between me and Locked With Patience, who left a comment on WAOD, and I wanted to do her response justice.

First the history. On June 13, What About Our Daughters hosted an R. Kelly Verdict open thread. Locked with Patience wrote:

hello,
all that i can honestly say is that I didn't see the tape. that's it. i don't know if that's him or not since i have not witnessed it. so i can't condemn him.

on top of htat, i think that in order to have an honest conversation about statutory rape... we really have to have an honest conversation. some of these girls DO lie and some of these girls DO portray themselves as older than what they really are. Now if a man does not know about their real age, what are they suppose to do? now, i'm not talking about the man who does and is still pursuing.

anyways, i just think that this whole story is sad. i'll never know the truth, that i know.

My response--in part to LWP, but also in general to the Kels supporters--was:

Locked with Patience (And Other Kels Supporters),

Girls make false rape accusations only 2% of the time. That's an FBI statistic. It's the same percentage as false accusations of other crime. And its inflated by the number of girls who are actually fudging certain parts of the accusation ("i didn't get in the car with him" when she did) to protect themselves from the media trollery that ensues when women confront their attackers and get called sluts....

The girl never came forward. The tape surfaced. The tape was clearly him. A video expert was brought in to give testimony that it was him. Why wouldn't she come forward you ask? She's his goddaughter--trouble enough when family gets involved. She's been paid--we know how the media/community treats rape victims who have even the SEMBLEANCE of supposedly "benefitting" from the rape. She was a CHILD--and child sexual assault victims rarely come forward because they are children, scared, freaked out, confused, and a host of other reasons on top of the usual reasons women don't come forward. This thing started as a media circus--we have grown women who don't admit rape in the most supportive of situations. And we expected her to immediately point a finger? To want her name dragged through the mud? With her godfather--oh, my bad, the King of R&B?

Girls do fudge their age (I was one of them). And maybe a 13 year old girl can fool an 18 year old. Maybe. But a 13 year old girl cannot fool a 30 year old man. A MAN knows the difference in the same way that a WOMAN of the same age knows the difference between a well developed 13 year old boy and one who is an adult. We are talking about grammar school here.

And while I think what you are saying is completely wrong and forgets that we are supposed to protect our little sisters, daughters, goddaughters and nieces from this--I know that the messed up part is that a number of folks in our neighborhoods and homes think the same.

So I'm not attacking--I'm just trying to clarify.

And I'm not surprised at the verdict for the same reason.

We need you and all those who think that way because you are our sisters, brothers, uncles, fathers, and children. We are a kind of family, after all. We need to lift as we climb.

And as pissed as I am (and as violated as I feel for myself, my sisters and my future daughter)--what are next steps? How do we make sure this conversation never has to happen again and these events--from Kelly to Bynum--never happen again?

WAOD is definitely in the vanguard of action...I appreciate that.

LWP came to visit the crib (i.e. Waiting 2 Speak) and left this comment:

Kismet,

I am not a kelly "supporter". THe only thing that I said was that because I have not been presented with the evidence, so i can examine it individually, I am going to refrain from calling him a rapist.

If you want to know the truth, that is what is wrong with the black commmunity. Us not wanting to examine the situation! Instead we take people's word for it and run.

Also I didn't mean to say that women lie about being rape (though there are cases). I meant to say that there are girls who lie about their age and portray themselves as older than what they really are.

Also concernign statutory rape, I too find it hard for a 30 year old to beleive that a 13 year old was a grown woman. BUT those aren't teh only cases of statutory rape. What do we do about 16 and 17 year old girls who lies to 20 year olds? Are we really calling a 20 year old a pedophile for sleeping with a 17 year old? Do you believe that nothing should happen to the 16 and 17 year old for their lies? We're not suppose to punish "victims".

Condemn me all you want and tell me something is wrong with me. I'm not some dumb black chick who is going to allow anyone to bully me into believing what they believe, all because I ask for evidence and until then hold out from giving my own verdict in such sensitive cases.

All caught up folks? Good.

So, to LWP (and welcome to the blog, btw),

"If you want to know the truth, that is what is wrong with the black commmunity. Us not wanting to examine the situation! Instead we take people's word for it and run."

I completely agree and don't condemn you for it.

In fact, I think that happens on both sides of this particular case and happens often within the black community all the time when celebrities (or media splashed cases) come up for discussion. Kobe, O.J., Clarence Thomas, Dunbar rapists (according to Sharpton), etc. We ("black community") either champion or vilify. What is problematic to me is that loudest voices are often in the championing side. They are also almost never on the young woman's side. With the exception of the Duke rape crisis, the "black community" appears (APPEARS) to put the blame, slander, greed and scandal on the female's side.

You are refraining form calling him a rapist. Congratulations. You aren't refraining from calling her a liar though? Or molested? Or abused? Or even remotely put in an unbalanced power situation because, as someone on WAOD commented--if it isn't Kels, it is someone over 30 years old and she is stll a victim. So, you aren't reserving judgement before you know the facts---you're just reserving judgment on him. Which, by default, actually makes her guilty of something--being too sexy, lying about her age, not acting like a child, not having the right parents, being a golddigger and getting paid for it...etc.

Statutory rape is one issue, one I am not prepared to get into a debate about. Like I said in my original comment, I am definitely one of the girls who lied about her age. And I definitely had friends who were in a range of relationships with men who could have gone to jail for being with them. In my personal opinion, each of those situations involved some kind of unbalance in power and I never felt comfortable about them. There was always something about the way those guys (even when they were just 20 and we were 16) flaunted their money, cars, clothes, and style as a way to keep our attention...even to let us know that they'd paid for us, so they deserved to get something for it. Still, let's clear up another little myth here--there was nothing innocent about statutory rape then or now. The 20 year olds knew they weren't messing with 18 year olds, even when we lied. I'm sorry, I'm not convinced. They may have decided to let themselves be convinced, or to ignore it, but they weren't ever 100% sure that we were of age. And we weren't greedy harlots trying to raise our age by a few years to snag a man. We were kids, acting like kids. And they were men (20 = man) and should have been acting like men.

Hmm...kinda like a recently famous 13 year old may have been?

That issue aside, and since it seems to me that we at least agree that a 30+ man can tell the difference between an 18+ young woman and a 13 year old girl, then in what way do we not pronounce her a victim? And, if we need to, how does this relate to our reluctance to see 16 year old girls who raise their age a couple of years as victims of also of being taken advantage of, physically or sexually abused by 20 year old men? Why do we ("black community") seem to jump immediately to the defense of the young man and not the young woman.

What would happen if we centered her experience? If, instead of saying, "there's no proof it was him on the tape" we saw in the tape (or in the news hype) a girl who was abused by first an older man, then the media circus, and now the criminal justice system? Instead of behaving as though we needed proof that she was a legitimate victim (whatever the hell that is), what if we just took her side immediately, and said, "alright, my dear. Let's roast the fuckers who did this to you."

Okay, I have an ambivalent relationship to the criminal justice system. So maybe not that exactly. But this is part of my point--almost no one in the mainstream "black community" seems to say that. Black women in particular. Their first response is to protect the black male celebrity and condemn her for whatever we imagine her slight was.

And I don't think that is an issue of being a dumb black girl. If I were to call you that I'd have to call me that as well. Because these aren't attitudes that will change over night and I don't claim that I'm above them either. Just the other day I was dogging out Kim Kardashian and got checked by a friend of mine who noted that, whatever she did, it seems like she's in a commited relationship now with a man who loves her. I felt kinda salty about that. It's not related, but I definitely let the media influence what I thought of her instead of centering her as a woman.

Just four years ago I was on Kels. defense. I am Chicago born and bred.

So it's not a "I've been Bamboozled" thing. I think it's just an issue of growing up in a racist patriarchal society. And I think it's doing leaps and bounds of damage to our young girls and their self image and its giving free reign for older men (just like Kels) to do what they want--because SHE shouldn't have worn that around you, or SHE shouldn't have lied about her age or SHE got paid for it.

~*~*~

Alright Waiting 2 Speak readers....What say you?

(And thanks to LWP for engaging me in conversation on this as well.)

Sing a Black Girl's Song: Body Image

For the last few weeks I've been working with fifth and sixth grade girls of African descent making collages, scrapbook pages, and whatever else you can imagine doing with magazines, glue sticks, and some poetry.

The first week or two the girls were pretty creative, but notice anything?



You guessed it. Light skin, long hair, slim to skinny figures. Yes, there are women of color in the last collage. But put in context with the other two (which are representative of the whole) it is both the exception and blatantly unexceptional. At the end of the day, all of the women look very much the same. When I took my girls work home and took a look, the glaring truth was disturbing and painfully obvious. Asked to find "positive" images, and when given no other guidance, they unerringly choose women who looked nothing like them.

But I took the responsibility on myself. After all, it was my mistake to give them mainstream magazines like Lucky and InStyle to choose their images from. So I went on a metaphoric dumpster dive for positive images and I gave them more specific instructions. On a canvas of pre-selected images of women obviously of African descent--with dark skin, kinky hair, and some with a little more bump to their rump, although that last was hard to find even in an Essence--the girls would add positive words from the same magazines, little pictures, and words/phrases from the poem "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou and "Let it Go" by Keyisha Cole.

I rubber cemented their images on cardstock and in class this week I passed them around.

Initial reaction --> "Uh UH! I don't want that one!"

Now, I let that slide. Normally I do let them choose their own images so it seemed logical that they would cry foul when I gave them what would be their main image. And, accordingly, when I made it clear that this was what they had to work with, most settled in.

But a couple of students were adamant. "I DON'T want that one. I don't want those!"

These were students with the images of the darkest women. One was what I thought was a shadowed image of a long, lanky woman with dark, velvety skin in an ad Johnson's Baby Oil. The other was an editorial page but the featured image was Angie Stone.

So I tried diplomacy. "Well, what's wrong with those images?"

"I don't want them. What about this one?" The one with Angie Stone flipped it over. Hers was one I'd forgotten to glue to cardstock. On the back was an ad with Beyonce Knowles at her tragic mulatta loveliest for American Express. I rolled my eyes inside. Jeez.

"No, not that one. In fact, here." I corrected my mistake, glued her image down, leaving her with Angie's dark eyes smiling at her. "Here you go."

"No!"

Meanwhile, across the table, the student with the Johnson's ad was cutting out a full page Herbal Essences ad prominently featuring an ambiguous Latina. "What are you going to do with that?," I ask. Diplomacy.

"I'm going to cover it," she smiled. And proceeded to place the ad, the entire full page, on top of the darker woman.

No way. Diplomacy, I saw, was going to have to go out the window. Not that I am one to crush creative impulses, but this was getting ridiculous. In actuality, I was beginning to feel a little helpless and frustrated.

I shook my head. "Nope. You have to use the image I gave you. You can add around it if you want."

She glared at me. When I looked up again, she'd cut out some words like "Beautiful" and "Feel Good."

And she'd placed them on top of the dark woman's face and thighs in preparation for gluing them down.

I moved quickly. "Whoa, buddy. Now what are you doing?"

The girl wrinkled her nose. "I'm trying to cover her! She's naked!"

"She's not naked. You can't even see anything. Just that beautiful brown skin." I said it deliberately. And she and her partner jumped right to the bait.

"Uh uh! She's not brown--she's CRISPY!"

"Yeah! She's BLACK!"

I smiled. "Oh yeah? You're right. And that's a Johnson ad, so she's all oiled up and beautiful. Something wrong with that?"

The girls blushed, smiling, shaking their head, shrugging--didn't know what to say. And I was thanking God that at least they didn't immediately respond that, "Yes, there IS something wrong with that." Because I don't know what I would have done.

So I tapped the image, deliberately moving the words out of the way. "She's got beautiful skin, don't you think? You should move the words around it to highlight that. And highlight her face."

Groans. Aww mans. Ahh, c'mons. But they moved the words around so that Beautiful floated (just below the face, dangerously close) gently along the woman's arm and Feel Good was tattooed on her thigh.



Meanwhile, the girl with Angie Stone was busy cutting out Beyonce and placing her beside Angie on her picture.



I watched warily, but decided there was only so much I could do with their creative license. I'd at least succeeded in stopping both of them enacting internalized oppression violence on the women's faces.

I spoke too soon.

One of my more promising students, a serious, creative girl who'd actually taken herself away from the group into the corner to work, came over with a smile. "I'm done!" I smiled back. I'd given her a fashion couture shot of a dark brown woman with braids coiled in a sophisticated coif around her head. I was excited to see what she came up with.



Beautiful. And violent. "This is really great--but why did you write across her face? And put "Rise" across her nose?"

This student had the presence of mind to blush. She shrugged. "I dunno. I messed up."

I was grinding my teeth inside, because I didn't want her to think she messed up! Darn it self-denigrating-youth-of-color!

"No, just think about it for next time. Try to find images that would frame her beautiful face. Especially the contrast with her clothes, how it highlights that lovely brown." Word choice deliberate. But she still looked a little flustered so I pointed out that the strawberries were a nice, clever touch. She went back to her seat smiling.

The rest of class was uneventful, or at least the events ran along similar lines. But by the end I was exhausted. I'd thought by giving them images of black women with no option to skate around them that they would simply transfer the positive from the white/mixed race to the dark. I thought it was an issue of lack of option.

But it was much more complicated than that. From outright erasure to discrete vandalizing, these girls did their best to remove themselves from identification with the images, to deny the beauty and humanity of the photos, and to replace/rewrite/retain the stereotypes of beauty/good/healthy/nice as white/light that they'd been socialized into. And they were prepared to argue with me on the matter! Although, like I said, at least they weren't so bold as to say directly to me, "Kinky hair is ugly and black skin is too."

Man. Kenneth Clark would have a field day.

And I won't lie--I felt personally attacked. Although I know they didn't mean it, here I sit, in solidarity with them, dark brown just like they are dark brown, kinky haired just like they are kinky haired (albeit some with relaxers) and the first image they reach for is lighter skinned, long haired Beyonce or Christina Milian. And, even more frightening, the first image they reject is dark skinned, curly haired Angie Stone. Where then does that leave us, my darlings? What do we think of ourselves if we are ready to paste newspaper over own arms and thighs to cover up the color, if we are ready to scrawl permanent marker across our faces, slam white paper over our flat noses to mask the sight, if we are read to tear out an image of a white woman and glue it wholescale over our entire SELVES because we don't like what we see?

The choosing of one the white image I was prepared for. The absolute rejection of the black one I was not.

And I'm not prepared, at all, to deal with this. How do I approach this issue in a way that is not going to squish their creative juices but is also going to challenge them on a deeper level to CRITIQUE these ideas of beauty that they are already indoctrinated into?

Any ideas? Comments welcome, necessary. Help me sing a black girl's song....

The Questions: White Women, White Feminists

Via the Jaded Hippy:

And it is this jolt, not of racism, but of misorientation, that drives the
boundless rage. Because the misorientation is not just morally wrong, but it's
crazy-making. It's a rage that white feminists don't understand partly because
you don't see it as much between women of color and white men who don't
self-consciously identify as feminists. I'm not saying it's all good between
these groups either (!), but, you see, the boundaries are clear, and therefore
there is never a real chance for misorientation. One is never pulled in b/c one
knows what to expect. But if you have a group of white people who say, "Hey
we're feminists and that means we're all in this together and we call this
togetherness 'sisterhood' b/c we're supposed to have each other's backs" and so
on, but then you get stabbed in that very back that they were supposed to have
b/c, oh wait, they be white and you be not, then it's really fucking
startling.

Plus, b/c we have this wrong idea that the trajectory of history is that
things are getting better so surely white women will figure it out one of these
decades, but then they don't, you start feeling a little like, goddammit, you're
getting stabbed A LOT. For a really long time. Like, for hundreds of years, the
stabbings.

And the now classic (I am late on posting this) BFP Final Words.

If the question is why do women of color have issues with white women and/or white feminists....

Above is the answer. Read both in their entirety. Misorientation is a b*tch. Betrayal is a b*tch. And if you're a white woman, you probably never had to deal with either as they are conceived of in those two friggin brilliant posts.

If the question (continues to be) why do women of color have issues with Mrs. Clinton....

Above is the answer. And yeah I'm posting this again (because I just can't seem to get enough)

"But Kismet," you ask, "aren't you a woman of color?"

*

*

*

*cricket, cricket*

Let's be clear, Kismet has white female friends that she is proud to claim as friends, confidants, comrades. That she considers sisters in the struggle. The fact that, few as they are, they continue to rise above and beyond the boundaries of race, class and sexual orientation is what makes them allies.

But....well....

Don't think that a part of me isn't still watching my back...just in case.

"this past was waiting for me
when i came"

How to turn this around? Take a step, ally-to-be. Try this one.

A Girl Like Me (2005)

I know A Girl Like Me, a short documentary by Kiri Davis, has gone around the women and gender, feminist and radical women of color networks a few times. But it popped up on Power to the People a few days ago so I thought I'd just give it another push around.

It is only 7 minutes long. If you haven't seen it, give it a view.

More Critical Latinidad....

...courtesy of Planet Grenada. This time on the race, gender and sexuality matrix in the music:

The classic merengue tune [El Africano by Wilfrido Vargas] is about a "rabioso" (angry, literally "rabid") black man uncovering the innocent girl who has little experience with "lo que quiere el negro" (what the black man wants). On one level it is a festive party anthem, but on another it pretty clearly perpetuates certain alarmist attitudes towards Black sexuality. (e.g. see race and sex)

DJ Laz made heavy use of a Vargas sample and updated the song musically, if not lyrically. While more recently, Cuban-American rapper Pitbull came out with "The Anthem" featuring Lil' John as an homage to the original. Miraculously, he manages to make the lyrics more lascivious (the girl is certainly not calling her daddy for protection) and racist (adding typical Latin stereotypes of Black female/"morena" sexuality to stereotypes of Black male sexuality)...

We must, we must, we MUST critique the racism in the Latina/o community and the (hetero)sexism. We must challenge the dangerous stereotypes we perpetuate in our music, whether that is hip hop, reggaeton, or merengue. Because these stereotypes give life to things like the Da'Niyah's rape and murder + Al Sharpton's proposed defense of the Dunbar Village rapists + Juanita Bynum's return to her abusive husband Thomas Weeks III + The women who keep going missing in Juarez. Those are just examples. Those are just the (barely) publicized examples.

It's not a game. People are dying. People are scared. And critical thought leading to critical action (theory + praxis) is so key. Work change into the world from whichever direction you choose--at the moment, I choose the master's tools. Which is why I love La Chola's 1, 2, 3, and 4-part take on academe--and respect the change being worked from all kinds of directions. Which is why I love her and her and the things they are doing for the communities they live in.

It is painful and frustrating to have to think so hard about the world. To be engaged in everything around you when what you really want to say is

COME ON!
AT LEAST LEAVE US ALONE IN OUR FAMILY ROOMS
LET ME HAVE MY MICROWAVE
AND
FLATSCREEN
AND MY
20 INCH RIMS
AND I WON'T SAY ANYTHING!

When what you want to do is twinkle along your way....or be go-go gadget lost in space...

But imagine if we did. Imagine if "every n*gga was a Master Teacher?" How FUNDAMENTALLY would our entire worldview change if we treated every man and woman, every child, ever bum on the corner or professor at Oxford as though ALL of them had something to teach us? As though ALL of them had something we could learn from, experiences we could learn through? My Gawd....

(I'm still thinking through these thoughts. More to come. Thanks for the inspiration, Abdul-Halim V....)

Bhutto: Recognizing a Woman-Warrior

From Thinkery:

Her assassination is certainly a blow to many women around the world. And it is indeed partly about conservative interpretations of Sharia and killing a woman who might rise to power for a third time, but that’s not all of it. It’s also about killing the most visible remnant of the Bhutto political dynasty and assigning her the same fate accorded her father and brothers decades ago. It’s about killing the most visible current proponent of democracy in Pakistan. It’s about killing a visible representation of Westerness. It’s about the whole messy, bloody, inscrutable knot of religion and politics and people who want their own vision for their country to come to pass. The clash between politics and religion is not so different from America, especially over the past decade. We like to think we wouldn’t be so violent, really, and maybe we’re not, except for when we come close.

I’m no expert on Pakistani politics and Benazir Bhutto was no saint. The pundits rumbling on about her government’s flaws and the many charges of corruption seem determined to focus on that. Certainly we should be remembering that, but we should also remember that hardly anyone is all good or all bad. As far as I could tell in the very short time we were in the same room together, Bhutto was a politician to her core. But she was also strong, blazingly intelligent, persuasive, and determined. With her background, she could have taken academic posts and remained safely ensconced in some western ivory tower or another. She knew she was being hunted. But she decided to live a different life and, further, to push for a different sort of life for the country she loved. There’s a lot to admire there.

Read the rest here.