Archive for the ‘Gender’ Category

Women’s Her-story Month: A tribute to Old Black Women Healers

Friday, March 5, 2010 at 9:06 am

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

–Maya Angelou

So, how do you make a little black girl believe that all she has gone through does not determine her ability to take flight? How do you “teach” her that her wings are beautiful and that the risk of flying is a marvelous growth enriching endeavor? How do you make her see that her cadged song and flight will one day inspire others to freedom? How do you “teach” a black girl to fly?

You see, it’s not an easy endeavor because so many things seek to clip their wings, silence their voice, and keep them cadged. It takes a special kind of spiritual intervention to release little black birds. It is not a task for the faint of heart or for those who benevolently (i.e. good white women) “swoop” in to save de Negro children from the pathology of their colored communities. Hmmmm . . . it is a task well suited for wise black women like Baby Suggs in Beloved who said, “Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it . . . No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands . . . You got to love it,” and Minnie Ransom in The Salt Eaters who said, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well? Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well,” and my 8th grade colored school teacher, Mrs. LaVern Colvin, who said, “Now listen here, Fallon, if you do not know by now how much I love you . . . you will never know, dearie.”

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Vanity Fair’s Racism Sings: Don’t Cha Wish You Were White Girl Like Me. Don’t Cha.

Friday, February 5, 2010 at 9:13 am

Cover Girls March 2010

“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.

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It’s better than money: It’s FOOD STAMPS!

Thursday, December 24, 2009 at 6:19 am

 

 

FoodStampsI read the New York Times article titled “Food Stamps Usage Soars, Stigma Fades.” The article is about the lessening of  stigma regarding the use of food stamps. What comes to mind when you think of the U.S. welfare system, specifically food stamps or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)?

 For me, I remember seeing black single mothers with multiple children (read: more than 3) in the grocery store handing multi-colored slips of paper across the counter to the cashier. Others, like President Ronald Reagan, associate with this program certain women, like Linda Taylor, Barbara Williams, Arlens Otis, and Dorothy Woods. As defrauders of government sponsored welfare programs, these women’s public “transgressions” aided Ronald Reagan to stir the public imagination and create the “welfare queen. ” In his most famous of quotes regarding the welfare queen, He said:

Ronald-Regan “She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husband. She’s got Medicaid, getting food-stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names.” 

 
 
 
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The Princess and the Frog, but what about the White Frog’s Hunters?

Friday, December 11, 2009 at 7:47 am

Today the Princess and the Frog opens across the nation. Of course, I’m going to go see the movie, however like most cynics I wrote a blog about the movie before it premiered approximately two months ago to  be exact. So, if my argument is proven wrong by actually seeing the film, I will write another blog saying I was wrong. However, I do not think this will be the case. Also, I hope bloggers, writers, teachers, critics, etc. are equally critical of this movie as they were of the movie, Precious.

The original title of the blog was, Mobs, Cracker Barrel, and Hunters . . . Oh, My.

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Today in Post-Race History: Full Corps Press

Monday, December 7, 2009 at 7:09 am

I don’t follow the comings and goings of the White House press corps, so I’m wading in uncharted water here.  (I come from a long line of water waders, so I think I’ll be ok.)  Yet I did watch the clip of last week’s exchange between White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and American Urban Radio’s April Ryan three times after I saw the story posted on Yahoo!.  (It does not get near my “Video Phone” record, but who’s counting?) Read more »

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Beyonce Says Big Ego, but Ruth says, “Eat your [damn] eggs, Walter Lee”

Friday, December 4, 2009 at 9:24 am

So, why is it that every time I talk about black women’s lived experiences feeble-minded always on the black woman’s titty black man hollers in his best tonka truck voice, “We got it hard not black women?” Wow. My first immediate response is, “Did I say anything negative about the black man?” No. My second response is, “Did I even use the male pronoun in any part of my statement?” No. So, how is it that you, Mr. Beans and Rice eating barefoot and pregnant needy black man, are offended, wounded, and betrayed by my acknowledgement of black women’s stories? You see, Beyonce calls it your big ego. I simply refer to it as your broke-down Napoleonic black male privilege having @$s. I know the tone of this blog seems reminiscent of Erykah Badu’s Tyrone and Beyonce’s Irreplaceable, but my intent is not to lyrically serenade you with all the ills black men have visited upon black women, but to say that I am sick and I am tired of the, “I am black man and the world is on my shoulder boo who who” whine every time I mention anything about black women.

I mean, I can say, “I as a black woman sneezed today,” and the black man would counter, “I have a sinus infection.” I as a black woman could slip and fall and the black man would argue for dear life that he invented the slip then fall movement. I can say, “As black woman I love my vagina,” and the black man would say, “Not as much as I do (hearty John Coffy from the Green Mile’s laugh).” I can say, “I scraped my knee,” and the black man would moan like an old southern Baptist minister, “I am quadriplegic . . . I am so oppressed.” Really, is it that important that you, Mr. I am an Endangered Species, be the center of attention all the damn time?  When I go to the bathroom, I have to seriously think about how my brown poop will oppress you. When I sleep at night, I have to think about how my dreams will challenge your manhood and rival your oppression. I am so over, “The world is against me” black man’s dirge. Go sing that song to a group of people who care, people like Tiger Wood’s wife and even they are tired of your big ego. Read more »

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We Are All like Precious’ Mother, Mary, Gotta Have a Man!!

Friday, November 20, 2009 at 9:54 am

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s my best friend flying away at supersonic speeds into the distant sunset with her new boyfriend. As she soars hugging her newfound beau who she only met a week ago on eHarmony, does she look back to see her best friends staring at her in utter disbelief? No. As she breaks the sound barrier itself with her rampant flight after a man who claims to love her after only knowing her a week, does she wonder if her best girlfriends who she has known since high school’s English 101 will be there waiting when she falls from the blissful skies of love?  No. No because she is one of them. You know the ones I’m talking about. The girls who get boyfriends and then disappear off the face of the Earth only to be spotted like wayward UFOs when times of distress arise. The girls who ignore your phone calls because they are so enraptured by a guy they have only known for a day. The girls who expect you to be understand why they have canceled the last five girls’ night out activities because Tyrone wants to watch the NBA Championships. Yes, those types of girls.

Before you take my opening comments as a sign of Erykah Badu’s “My eyes are green cause I eats a lot vegetables,” green-eyed monster called jealousy or take it as “You wish you had a man” syndrome, let me clarify my intent and the purpose of this blog. I hate downright loath when girls who claim to be your friend, your best friend, and your sister friend decides that they have to sever ties with you to be with a man. Mind you, I can critically analyze how patriarchy shapes how women interact with each other and how privileges are garnered through performing appropriate hetero-patriarchal behaviors like dating a guy and making him the center of your universe. However, it still pisses me off.

Every time one of my girlfriends goes what I have now termed as “ghost” I feel angry and deeply betrayed. And let’s be honest, when she goes crazy underneath her bed babbling like Miss Sophia from The Color Purple, “Sat in dat jail . . . sat in dat jail,” from being at the intersection of being black and woman who’s going to climb underneath that bed and cry with her or at least climb underneath the bed and tell her that she can as Maya Angelou wrote, rise? And if you’re thinking it will be that man of hers who she has metaphorically only known for a day is going to be her Savior or her Prince Charming you, my dear friend, are mistaken. It will be us, her girlfriends. You see, it never fails to happen that girls who go “ghost” call you in times of distress after not talking to you for ages and expect you to drop everything you’re doing to help make their world better.

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Donnie McClurkin vs Tonéx: Round ONE

Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:24 pm

 

Homophobic  Rapture

Homophobic Rapture

The homosexuality controversy in black faith communities has reached a feverish pitch, especially with Tonéx’s and Donnie McClurkin’s recent admissions. Probably most renowned for the rumors regarding their sexuality, these two black gospel singers have become the centerpiece to the debate of the role homosexuals should play in black faith communities.  Unfortunately both men’s livelihood as pastors of their respective church has led them to depend financially on a community that by and large forces/prefers silence on same-sex desires and human rights. Yet, both these men have carved a space in gospel music to openly acknowledge their desires. Tonéx by stating that his preference is for the same sex; Donnie by (abstaining and) persecuting other homosexuals as not being willing to be delivered from “the perversion of homosexuality.”

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I saw the movie Precious, but what about her mother, Mary?

Friday, November 13, 2009 at 8:42 am

I am my mother’s daughter and my mother is the daughter of my grandmother. And both their stories and silences speak through me.

I begin with this mantra because spiritually and mentally I desperately need to understand why tears stained and wrinkled my cheeks as I watched the movie Precious. Yes, I am a Cancer and have been known to wear my heart on my sleeve, but there was something so violent and painful about how Lee Daniels portrayed Precious’ mother that tears could only convey my ill ease and anger. Mind you, there are many critiques I could write about the movie. However, I think summer’s Lost in Translation: A Response to Precious gets at the root of why so many people like myself wanted to storm out of the theater babbling among many things, “I can’t stand Tyler Perry’s @s$ who makes millions off of black women being damaged.” So, if you want to read a good critique, please read summer’s Lost in Translation. I guess I should also say that I have not read Push by Sapphire and all my comments are in response to the movie, Precious.

So, I begin by asking the question, what if the movie Precious was not told from the point of view of Precious, but told from the point of view of Mary. I know many of you are scratching your heads asking, “Who’s Mary?” Well, Mary is Precious’ mother. I think it is important that we know the name of the woman who is “solely” responsible for making her daughter overweight, infecting her daughter with HIV, allowing her father to rape her, and forcing her to quit school to get welfare. Given all of this, I think it is important to know the name of Precious’ mother, Mary.

Yes, I know that the purpose of the movie was to tell the daughter’s story. But, as I watched Mary silence, physically abuse, and sexually sodomize her daughter, all I could think about as tears flowed was Mary’s story and how she became who she was. What were the political, social, cultural, and economic forces “intersecting” to shape how she saw her daughter and how she saw herself? Mary is not one dimensional in the sense of simply being organically evil. But, Lee Daniels—as he also did in Monster’s Ball—did a good, downright extraordinary job of painting her as such, ignoring the many structural and cultural forces at play during the 70s and 80s that made the image of the black welfare queen palatable and punitive.

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Morehouse: from your closet speaks truth

Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 9:59 am

House of Legacy Eternal

House of Legacy Eternal

 

walkin the category of Ultimate Boy realness

walkin the category of Ultimate Boy realness

Personally, I find sagging pants, du-rags, grills and accessories distasteful; however, I stand by people’s right to be self-expressive, particularly when it comes to ‘cross-dressing.’ In talking about Morehouse College dress code, I have to give props to Frank Leon Roberts for his post on the Root.  In Morehouse’s efforts to preserve its legacy, it created a dress code which hinders student self-expression.

The “Appropriate Attire Policy” is the product of Robert Franklin, President of Morehouse; it is his attempt to create the modern “Renaissance Man.”  In his words, “[he]…hopes to have the next generation of Morehouse graduates live up to the school’s legacy-

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