Fallon is the founder of the Document the Silence’s website which was central in spreading and organizing the 2007 online campaign, Be Bold Be Brave Be Red: Ending Violence against Women of Color. Because of her commitment to media justice and ending violence against women of color, Fallon envisioned and helped to create the Cyberquilting Experiment which trains women of color social justice organizations to use new media like twitter, wiki's, Google wave, video conferencing, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, and blogs to enrich their administrative and campaign work.
So, I am a True Blood fan. However, I am tired of seeing the only black female character, Tara, get pulled through the proverbial ringer on every episode beginning with Season One and ending with Season Three. Is it too much to ask that Tara get a break? I mean, Sookie, the white female lead, is always in danger, but, yet, she has moments of peace, love, “mutual” intimacy with Bill, and now she’s a Fairy with unlimited supernatural powers. Gosh, it’s great being a white woman.However, Tara has been raped by a Vampire—Franklin, beaten senselessly by various entities, in love with a devil-possessed black man, spooked by her mother’s alcoholism and demons, under constant suicide watch, and she ain’t no fairy . . . she got no supernatural powers. It sucks to be a black woman sometimes because even on TV black women get no break.
Okay, am I the only one who finds Kanye West’s new video, Power, disturbing? Mind you, I love to see music videos that are artistic and push the envelope, but I will not deny that I was a little disturbed by his video, Power.
And, just in case you missed it, yes, I used fragments of Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son to convey the unadulterated weight and heaviness of publicly writing your opinions (i.e. blogging) about life weekly. It ain’t easy. And, it’s definitely not for the faint of heart especially when people “expect,” that every time you write something it is deep and riveting. Deep like the rivers in Langton Hughes’ I’ve Known Rivers. However, if the rivers turn out to be splash worthy, but shallow puddles, the reading public calls you names. Read more »
So, am I the only one who finds the YouTube’s “viralization” (yes, I made up a word) of the Bed Intruder Song deeply unsettling and problematic? Every time, I check my Facebook newsfeed I see, yet, another “remix” of the Bed Intruder Song. For those of you who are not familiar with the song, it tells the “real life” story of a young black woman who experienced “sexual violation” (yes, I know she was not penetrated, but that does not mean that she did not experience sexual trauma or sexual violation) when a man climbed through her window while she was sleeping. However, the attack was stopped by the young woman’s brother, Antoine, who helped to scare the man off. And, who, vocally stated on the local news the following evening:
Obviously we have a rapist in Lincoln Park, he is climbin in your window, he’s snatching your people up. So y’all need to hide your kid, hide your wife and hide your husband cause they rapin everybody out here. We got your t-shirt you done left your fingerprints behind and all. You’re so dum, you’re really dumb for real. You don’t have to come and confess what you did, we’re looking for you. We, we’re gonna find you. So you can run and tell that homeboy.
I want to begin be saying that I honor the voice of Antoine and his sister, Kelly, for speaking out, fearlessly, against their attacker. Often, when sexual violations happen silence is a safe response for both men and women to take in order to cope with their abuse. So, I applaud both, sister and brother, for speaking out. Read more »
So, like a “doubting Thomas,” I read Brandee Sanders’ Are Millennial Losing Faithwith a somewhat skeptical eye staunchly believing that Black youth do attend church and that they do believe unerringly in the Bible. The saying goes, “You can talk about my Mama . . . you can even talk about my Tyler Perry, but nooooo-body better talk badly about my Jesus.” Of course, in all fairness to Sanders, she does not specifically say she is talking about black youth, but about all Gen-Yers irrespective of race. However, because the article is featured on the Root which is dedicated to telling the stories of African Americans, I think many of my friends and I assumed she was writing about Black youth which prompted me to check her sources—The Pew Study.
“I was working my butt off . . . I did not get to be 62 without being able to move beyond things . . . I was worried that my grandchildren would read in the history books years from now that their grandmother the First Black Rural Director for Georgia was fired by the first Black President.” [A paraphrasing of Shirley Sherrod from her CNN interview on Wednesday]
I want to join the internet chorus of bloggers praising Shirley Sherrod for her ability to wear what my godmother calls, “big girl drawls.” You see, over the last couple of days much has been written praising her commitment to Civil Rights and to helping all farmers irrespective of race.
But, what I briefly want to talk about is her ability to wear “big girl drawls” in the midst of public scrutiny from the NAACP and the Tea Party and against factions of dissent in the Obama Administration. Early this year, I wrote a post about Michelle Rhee who is the current chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools in Washington, D.C. where I talked about her being:
“A woman who knows how to dig her heels into the ground and say, “These are my boundaries that you will not cross and if you do I will not cower away and lick my wounds. I will fight you. Do you hear me. I will fight you.” It is her spirit of fight (i.e. big girl drawls) that I marvel at because we as a society do not intentionally cultivate girls’ fighting spirits. We do not teach them how to maintain their position in a street corner brawl where their reputation, occupation, family life, self-esteem, and most importantly their inner voice are on the line. We do not teach them how to stay in a battle . . . how to endure when people “scandalize your good name” because they do not like you . . . how to deal with not having a cadre of friends because you tell it like it is and you don’t hide behind passive aggressive actions and behaviors . . . how to negotiate leading people when they utterly refuse downright protest being lead.”
And, I must render the same words for Shirley Sherrod who refused to sit quietly by and allow people like Roland Martin and USDA Secretary Vilsack to scandalize her good name.
Wow, for me this quote is “church” as my high school mentee would say. Meaning, this quote is the truth on the level of canonical truth. I cannot count on my fingers, toes, and follicles of hair the number of black men I’ve dated who have placed me in what Crunktastic calls the “mind f*u$k” category or as I have come to refer to it as the mental masturbation category. Meaning, [in your best non-British intellectually laced Idris Alba’s voice] “I, black man, will date you, black feminist, for a set amount of time . . . give or take three months . . . slowly draining you, my sweet ebony Amazon, of your bookish, but devilishly witty comments . . . then I, black man, will slowly nibble at your “cute” feminist push backs about my male privilege then after that I will marry La’Keisha because she has relaxed hair, childbearing hips, believes in religious “submission” and will happily keep my house and cook my dinner.”
Okay, I know this is a caricature of the some of the men I’ve dated, but the truth remains the same as Crunktastic humorously and facetious writes that, “the confidence which [black feminism] . . . instills in women concerning their intellect and the often radical politics it causes us to espouse, can very often throw a monkey wrench in one’s dating game.” And, I would go even further and say that it throws hammers, nails, the kitchen sink, and, yes, even dry wall into the mix.
When the first video of Kat Stacks being slapped by Bow Wow’s male fans became viral on YouTube back in June, I was immediately angered by the physical act of violence and then equally angered by the misogynistic rhetorical of male honor and female “sexual” dishonor that legitimized the beating of Kat Stacks. However, when another video became viral depicting the same tragic events only this time it was with a different black male perpetrator slapping Kat Stacks, publicly, into submission, I was left speechless. How could this happen again? What in the airas my grandmother would say makes random black men think they have the right to beat a woman because she publicly touts her heterosexuality and the insufficient smallness of several male rappers’ penises—Bow Wow, Nelly, and Fabulous? What in the air allows people both women and men in the videos to stand by and cheer for her demise?
I am single black church woman. I go to church on Sunday morning because I need to hear a word from God. I need to know that there is hope in the world. I need to know that when “my body is ailing” as the old folks say and my childhood traumas—daddy beating momma—keep me awake at night that there is a contemplative word of peace, healing, stillness, redemption, and salvation is spoken to let me know that I can make it through, yet, another week. I go to church because on its most good day holding constant its homophobia, materialism, and patriarchy teaches people to be a more loving, caring, and community focused people. And of course, some churches do it better than others, but the point remains that there is an attempt to provide a collective healing space for both black men and black women.
So, when I read Deborrah Cooper’s article, The Black Church: How Black Churches Keep African American Women Single and Lonely, I was left in some ways flabbergasted by her blatant generalizations about single black church women and then equally disturbed by her many negative hackneyed expressions about the Black church which prompted me to say, “What is nuanced about her article that differentiates it from the numerous Nightline’s, CNN’s, and ABC’s news stories about the doom and gloom of being a single black woman?” What makes it stand apart from the many decades of telling single black women and unwed black mothers that they are responsible for their singleness?
And, all that I can surmise is nothing. There is nothing unique or empowering about this essay.
I wrote this blog literally a year ago today. It was not a published blog because the Black Youth Project had yet to premier online. Well, I think my thoughts a year ago still resonate today as we honor Michael Jackson’s memory. The title of the blog is, “The Feasting of Michael Jackson’s Flesh: How Do We Honor the Dead?”
I am deeply troubled by the buffoonery of the 2009 Black Entertainment Television Award Show where “blackness” guaranteed BET’s ownership of honoring Michael J. Jackson’s life. Of course, there is an endless laundry list of technical, sexist, homophobic, and simply tone death performances that I could blog about. However, the most compelling issue for me is that we witnessed consumption at “it’s finest” where Jamie Foxx unabashedly highlighted his many upcoming projects and the beauty of his voice, where every five seconds large digital placards of sponsorship appeared before our eyes beseeching us to buy their wares, where Joe Jackson plugs the revival of his singing career, where the infamous golden arches tell our children that they should dream of working at McDonald’s when they “become big kids,” and where we the viewing public further the cannibalization process of Michael Jackson by not turning our televisions off in righteous indignation because consciously or unconsciously we enjoy the thrill of consuming flesh . . . the gossip, the speculations, the betrayals, the “sins,” and yes “if it bleeds then it leads” or in the case of the BET Award Show if it stereotypes black people then it sales.
(i.e. 
“I was working my butt off . . . I did not get to be 62 without being able to move beyond things . . . I was worried that my grandchildren would read in the history books years from now that 
“I, black man, will date you, black feminist, for a 
that I could blog about. However, the most compelling issue for me is that we witnessed consumption at “it’s finest” where Jamie Foxx unabashedly highlighted his many upcoming projects and the beauty of his voice, where every five seconds large digital placards of sponsorship appeared before our eyes beseeching us to buy their wares, where Joe Jackson plugs the revival of his singing career, where the infamous golden arches tell our children that they should dream of working at McDonald’s when they “become big kids,” and where we the viewing public further the cannibalization process of Michael Jackson by not turning our televisions off in righteous indignation because consciously or unconsciously we enjoy the thrill of consuming flesh . . . the gossip, the speculations, the betrayals, the “sins,” and yes “if it bleeds then it leads” or in the case of the BET Award Show if it stereotypes black people then it sales.