Recently the First Lady visited Spain. This photo was taken from her vacation. Yes, I have copies. As does Essence Magazine. Anyway, since her jaunt to Spain there has been article after article about whether or not it was a smart political move. That back in the states, there were millions of people still facing unemployment. The message here was save your money, find cheap things to do, and support those in the Gulf. To many, even ardent supporters, Mrs. Obama’s “lavish” trip overseas sent the wrong message. Michel Martin’s piece for NPR resonated widely. In part, because she gave credence to the negative attitudes that surround the Obamas including the lack of support they receive because of their race. Then she brought it back around to Michelle’s ill-timed trip to Spain. In the end, she concluded, that Michelle Obama took a “vacation from empathy” and that millions of poor Americans here were now faced with seeing she and Barack Obama as outsiders. Prior to this trip, they were much more accessible. Hell, they were just like us. Read more »
We make people fill out applications for everything under the sun. School. Jobs. Apartments. Cars. Credit cards. Society places such high value on this imaginary money that we pass around that you can actually be denied credit cards or bank accounts if you have been proven to be irresponsible with it. If you are not qualified, you cannot attend college, get certain jobs, drive certain cars, or live in certain apartments. How completely ass backwards is it that we allow anyone to have a child without first checking that they are qualified mentally and emotionally?
Let me be clear, I’m not advocating that we turn control of our reproductive bodies over to the government or our neighbors. I’m just saying that perhaps there ought to be some kind of system in place to make sure that people understand exactly what they are getting into when they have a child.
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?
“Our visions begin with our desires.” –Audre Lorde
For the last three weeks I’ve literally sat on pins and needles worried about my family/friends in Nashville. I’ve clicked channel after channel hoping for a news update about the widespread flooding in the city. Each time I went searching for news I was bombarded by corporate oil spills and possible terrorist attacks. For days ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS, and the like chose to feature news stories that provide epic material for future Hollywood blockbuster movies. But, the question is: what about the flooding in Nashville? What about the hundreds of people who have lost their homes and cherished photos? What about the people who have to start, yet again, building a life for themselves and their families? Do their stories matter?
Honestly, I do not mean to romanticize this tragedy, but I am utterly upset at the lack of sustained news coverage. You would think that the national media would actually do its job and report “national” news, but, of course, these stories are not sexy. They do not solicit a type of entertainment consumption that we have grown accustomed to consuming. They don’t show naked brown and black bodies gyrating to the rhymes of hip hop. They don’t show Steven King’s gore. They are not about sex, conspiracy, espionage, lies, and betrayals. Simply, they involve everyday people who are casualties of Nature a force that does not discriminate in its wondrous and disastrous workings unless it’s assisted by the Word Bank’s debt loan program then it does specifically target individual countries like Haiti and Indonesia.
When I was a kid, many, many eons ago, I didn’t get allowance for doing things like dishes or vacuuming the floor or cleaning my room. My parents, I assume in an effort to get me ready for life, didn’t believe that one should be rewarded for doing things she was supposed to do. It sucked then–I thought they were a pair of mean cheapskates–but I understand it now. To this day, I’ve yet to receive a single dollar for changing my own damn sheets. I imagine my parents’ miserliness when it came to hooking up their kids with a decent working wage oh so long ago, among other things, has colored the way I think about young people and when and how we reward them. Now that I’m (much, much) older, I realize that my parents may have not been the norm, but rather part of the minority, that a lot of kids not only were getting allowance, but ribbons for doing things like coughing into their arms. Read more »
The other night, some friends and I were hanging out in a hotel room listening to music. At some point, the Eric Benet song “Ghetto Girl” featuring Meshell Ndegocello (dude, I know. I assure you that it was not my iPod. I’m not saying I don’t have the album, I’m just saying it ain’t on my iPod.), and for the life of me I couldn’t remember what album the song appeared on. Neither could anyone else. But we were all too lazy to grab one of our web-enabled phones to Wiki the query and scratch the curiosity itch. I joked that these were the kinds of moments when some kind of transparent Google page needed to appear as if in midair so that one could type in the question without having to move from one’s very relaxed position. Someone asked where something like that would generate; I shrugged and replied that maybe it would be like a kind of projection from our eye that just appeared in front of our face. My friend, Imi said it would be called an iChip, and it would probably be inserted in your brain just behind your ear. Read more »
“Mirror . . . mirror on the wall who the fairest of them all?” In most fairytales, the mirror would reply, “Snow white is the fairest of them all.” However, in the case of Vanity Fair’s March cover, the names are Abbie Cornish, Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Hall, Mia Wasikowska, Emma Stone, Evan Rachel Wood, and Anna Kendrick . . . all up incoming young white Hollywood actresses. According to Shine’s writer, Joanna Douglass,
Vanity Fair writer Evgenia Peretz calls out the young cover stars by their best attributes: “downy-soft cheeks,” “button nose,” “patrician looks and celebrated pedigree,” “dewy, wide-eyed loveliness,” “Ivory-soap-girl features.”
Clearly, Evgenia Peretz has over-dosed on the proverbial white supremacist poisoned apple. I know what you’re thinking. Do such apples exist? Yes, they do just ask Pat Robertson what he thinks about Haiti or ask the producer and director of Couples Retreat about taking the black comedian, Faizon Love, off the European posters.
This past Monday I woke up at 7 am in the morning to participate in the University of Chicago’s annual day of service. To be honest, when the clock went off for me to wake up, I had my doubts if I was going to be able to overcome my slumber on one of the very few days that we get out of school. With the encouragement of knowing that had I made a commitment, I broke from my three hours of sleep and walked the block and a half to sign up for my service project. Usually they have you clean out of tool shed or paint a nursery, but on this day (Martin Luther King Jr Holiday) I got lucky. I was signed up to go tutor students at the Gary Comer Youth Center. Read more »
There are 3 things my Grandma Charlotte used to tell me all the time: 1. That books are my friends; 2. That she is always right–even when she’s wrong (she’s right); and 3. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. I remembered that last point when I heard about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s comments about then-candidate Obama. If the extent of Reid’s comments were what I read in the HuffPo article about the book, Game Change, the interview appears in, then I’m really not all that mad at Senator Reid. In fact, I agree with him. He’s only in hot water because we need a dose of (racial) honesty.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid apologized on Saturday for saying the race of Barack Obama – whom he described as a “light skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” – would help rather than hurt his eventual presidential bid.
Um, this is racist? Let’s take it point by point. Read more »
They said it would make my life better. They said I would find my “purpose.” It was my 8th grade school year. My pastor said I should read this book that would change my life. The name of the book was A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. It’s always interesting to reflect back to my pre-teen life and think about the different things I was involved in. Some of my childhood experiences were amazing and shaped who I am today, other experiences—like buying Rick Warren’s book—are just embarrassing. I was reading a book by one of the most divisive and homophobic/anti-gaymen in America, at 13.
The author of the very same book, seven years later is now in the limelight being accused of supporting the Uganda Anti-Homosexual Legislation Bill. Proposed on the 13th of October 2009 by Member of ParliamentDavid Bahati, the Bill would criminalize key aspects of comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention education and imprison health-care workers who refuse to report sexually active gay patients to the police. If enacted, it would also broaden the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda, including introducing the death penalty for HIV positive people who have previous convictions, instituting extradition for those engaging in same-sex sexual relations outside Uganda, and penalizing individuals, companies, or media organizations who support LGBT rights.
When I was a kid, many, many eons ago, I didn’t get allowance for doing things like dishes or vacuuming the floor or cleaning my room. My parents, I assume in an effort to get me ready for life, didn’t believe that one should be rewarded for doing things she was supposed to do. It sucked then–I thought they were a pair of mean cheapskates–but I understand it now. To this day, I’ve yet to receive a single dollar for changing my own damn sheets. I imagine my parents’ miserliness when it came to hooking up their kids with a decent working wage oh so long ago, among other things, has colored the way I think about young people and when and how we reward them. Now that I’m (much, much) older, I realize that my parents may have not been the norm, but rather part of the minority, that a lot of kids not only were getting allowance, but ribbons for doing things like coughing into their arms. 
The other night, some friends and I were hanging out in a hotel room listening to music. At some point, the Eric Benet song “Ghetto Girl” featuring Meshell Ndegocello (dude, I know. I assure you that it was not my iPod. I’m not saying I don’t have the album, I’m just saying it ain’t on my iPod.), and for the life of me I couldn’t remember what album the song appeared on. Neither could anyone else. But we were all too lazy to grab one of our web-enabled phones to Wiki the query and scratch the curiosity itch. I joked that these were the kinds of moments when some kind of transparent Google page needed to appear as if in midair so that one could type in the question without having to move from one’s very relaxed position. Someone asked where something like that would generate; I shrugged and replied that maybe it would be like a kind of projection from our eye that just appeared in front of our face. My friend, Imi said it would be called an iChip, and it would probably be inserted in your brain just behind your ear. 
If enacted, it would also broaden the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda, including introducing the death penalty for HIV positive people who have previous convictions, instituting