The title speaks for itself about why I love this: Naked Black Justice

I finally saw Pariah!

I didn't tell you all about it earlier because I saw it the weekend before my thesis was due and then I kind of forgot all about wanting to write this post until right now.

I really, really liked it. First off, it was kind of amazing to see it on campus with a large group of LGBT and ally-identified students. It created this alternative sort of social space within this quaint little theater right off campus where it was totally normal for me to be snuggled up with and lightly fondling CC throughout the show. It felt "normal" to hold her hand or run my fingers up and down her thigh as we watched (not that heterosexuality is any more "normal" than any other form of human sexuality--it's just more common). I'm not sure I had ever before been in a space where I was surrounded by more non-straight-identified people than straight-identified people, at least consciously, and it made me want to seek out such spaces more often.

I was drawn in to the movie from the beginning. The characters felt refreshingly real. They seemed like actual people I could know in the world, which has happened so rarely for me with "Black movies" recently. Alike was the perfect combination of vulnerable and determined, cautious and exploratory--watching her come into her own sexuality and style and identity reminded me of my own struggles, even though they're not the same in the slightest. I don't think it was hard for viewers to identify with her, above simply sympathizing with her. I saw the relationships as realistic, if painful. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to punch bitches in the face, I wanted to give the characters hugs. 

...But my friend MH compared it to Precious, an independent Black film which I absolutely detest. (More on that here if you're interested.) And this has made me step back and critically examine my interpretation of the film, because the comparison is not unwarranted. From an objective standpoint, this is a film about a specific marginalized Black female experience directed towards a largely outsider audience which conforms to various stereotypes of the African experience (homophobia, strict parenting, domestic violence, infidelity among men) and ends with the main character rejecting normative structures in favor of a brand of radical independence which she may or may not survive. It may not feature as many horrible life experiences or as thorough subjugation on the part of the main character, but the film is structurally quite similar to that of Precious. So how could I interpret them so differently?

Perhaps I need to check my privilege. I'm both closer to and farther removed from the specifics of this story in some interesting ways. Wrestling with my own sexuality, check. Putting all of myself into a first romantic encounter only to be told my supposed partner "isn't ready," check. Little sister coming to sleep in my bed when the parents are screaming at each other in the middle of the night, check. But my heart broke when this teenage girl came out to her very unaccepting parents, and part of that heartbreak was thinking that I will never go through what she's going through in that scene. I'm about 95% sure that my attraction to women is something my parents will never know about, unless I find myself in a serious long-term relationship with a woman, which doesn't seem likely at this point in my life. For right now, at least, that aspect of my life isn't such a large aspect of my life that they need to know about it. In fact, as I didn't come into this aspect of myself until semi-adulthood, I could feasibly never tell them, even if I do get into a relationship with a woman, because they're not overseeing my life like that anymore. They don't get to question/control me like that anymore. 

And then on an entirely other level, the stereotypes in this film aren't stereotypes that people would put on me. In fact, I didn't really even recognize them as stereotypes to begin with. They aligned so well with my interpretation of African cultures and intolerances that I didn't question...and that worries me. So I guess I'm wondering how that in-group received this movie, and whether I should be less quick to love it. Which then makes me wonder if I should be less quick to judge all the people who loved Precious. Also, the juxtaposition of the terms "Precious" and "Pariah," which have basically opposite meanings, to represent these characters with similar lives fascinates me. There's some critical commentary there that someone should unpack...

“Racism is still a really big issue in this country especially around immigration right now. The way Mexicans are treated in this country is absolutely miserable. I mean let’s think about the major stereotypes of Mexican people. Mexicans are lazy. The other one, Mexicans take all the jobs. How the hell do those two things work together? Exactly. How can you be lazy and still manage to take all the jobs? Well you see, some Mexicans are lazy and some Mexicans work really hard. You mean like all people? You mean like all human beings? If your argument is that Mexicans are like all human beings, well, than you’re just a really bad racist. That’s some poor racism. You should just get out of the racism game.”

— Hari Kondabolu - Mexican Stereotypes

via  Choosing Pancakes

Excuse my classism and stereotyping (actually, don't, I'm about to be hella rude)

I saw the most "ghetto" thing I had ever encountered in my entire life at the football game on Saturday. I tried very hard to take a photograph of it, but my cell phone camera isn't that powerful and it isn't like I could slide right up next to boo's ear without attracting all kinds of attention. I'm sad, though, because you people of the internet are not going to believe what I'm about to tell you without photographic evidence. Chick sitting in front of me was wearing door knocker earrings, 

which would not have prompted much of a reaction from me under normal circumstances. They even had her name (presumably) in them, which is slightly worse but still not going to ruffle my feathers much, even given the fact that her name was "Starr." I would have been willing to let all of this slide, but--and this is the part you're not going to believe--her name wasn't written out in the [faux] gold of the earrings, like respectable hoodrats. (And I think my little sister, ugh.) No. Her name was spelled out IN ALPHABET LETTER BEADS on some sort of golden rod spanning the diameter of the hoops. 

Yes, I do, in fact, mean letters just like these like our 7 year old selves made BFF bracelets out of.

I just...never in my life had I seen anything like this. Being gaudy and extravagant is one thing. This may have been a more economical solution, and I understand times are tough, but just, boo...sometimes you should just wait to do it right.

Thursday was our first day of classes

and, as all 4 of my classes are Tuesday/Thursday (four day weekend every week, #fuckyeahI'masenior), I had my first Diversity in Black America seminar on Thursday, and I'm even more excited about this class now than I was previously, which I'm not sure I thought was possible. It's going to be up there with class with Brother West my freshman fall, and no class has come close to that since.

Anyway, we watched and discussed this in class, and besides just being a phenomenal TED talk, I'm fairly positive I'm going to refer to this in my senior thesis. The "single story" that we unwittingly construct about peoples--even peoples supposedly like ourselves, groups we belong to--is what I think gets changed in college with regard to our racial categories. She's talking about the same concept I'm trying to name with terms like "boundaries" and "meaning." 


Anyway, if you have 15 minutes to listen to a really great mini-lecture, you should check this out. Just have it playing in the background while you surf; you'll thank me later.

"Ignorance doesn't keep a desk calendar."

How to hit on not harass an Asian woman:

I-can't-believe-someone-thought-this-was-okay advertising strikes again! (NSFW)

Why yes, in case you were confused, this is a White woman lying on a bed of naked, contorted Black men, in an advertisement for luxurious handmade bedding. 

"Merge into the colours of the south. Feel the beating heart of the city of light at night. Breathe the scent of the forest. Feel the briny of the breakers on your skin." Funny, I don't associate any of those things with the naked, contorted bodies of Black men. Do you?

My first question is whether these men are intended to be interpreted as being alive or dead. I'm not sure which is more problematic: If they're alive, every single stereotype about the hypersexualized savage Black man out to rape and ravage the pure White woman comes into play here. I realize this is 2011 where interracial relationships are no longer condemned and denigrated to the degree they once were, and could perhaps be less of a big deal in France than they are here (this is a French ad), but...anyone who knows anything about the history of race relations should recognize this damaging trope and not try to replicate/propagate it. Or if I'm supposed to view this from the liberated empowered woman standpoint, are they her playthings? I can't get behind that either. If they're alive, are they/their work supposed to represent the labor that went into creating this luxurious bedding? Dozens of Black men working to make something for one White woman...do I have to say the s-word? (Their contortion does make me think of the arrangement of certain ships...) At the very least this smacks of all sorts of oppression.

If they're corpses, which I hadn't considered until someone pointed it out in the comments on the Sociological Images post that alerted me to this ad, then we're dealing with the Black-body-as-disposable notion that society has never really seemed to shake. They almost look as if they were tossed into some kind of mass grave. Were they worked to death to create the luxury this White woman desires so? Were they sexed to death in some crazy orgy that created the "heavenly" aura the woman finds herself in?

I suppose the best possible way to interpret this is that Black men's bodies are supposed to be a luxury, which is at the very least a kind of rare positive association. But even that has objectification written all over it. PEOPLE cannot be luxuries. THINGS are luxuries. Black man = person. Sheets = thing. Let's not equate the two, okay?

SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHY

Tyler Perry is getting his own television station. WHO THINKS THIS IS A GOOD IDEA?! WHO?!?! I would like to know so I can go personally slap them, on behalf of advocates of social change everywhere. Because tell me, please, I beg you, tell me one good thing Tyler Perry has done for a Black person anywhere (his-worth-$350-million-self not included)?

Some of you are going to say he's funny. Some of you are going to say he's funny because he exaggerates the truth. Some of you are going to say he's funny because he tells the truth. I say he tells stories that he wants y'all to think are funny because y'all think they're true. Because okay, sure, I'm sure people like pistol-in-one-hand-Bible-in-the-other Madea exist out there in the world somewhere. I know that there are cracked out mothers and histories of abuse and family members who will tell you to sit there and take it. I have experienced black churches like the ones he depicts. Scenes that have taken place in the living room on House of Payne have taken place in real people's living rooms, I know. I KNOW.

But what I know more than any of those things is that there are MILLIONS of Black peoples who are nothing like this, and I am SICK AND FUCKING TIRED of this same monolithic image of the Black community being shoved down our throats and the community responding by placing the shover on a pedestal! He's like the new millenium's version of shucking and jiving, and I'll be damned if I sit back while we let him portray this slice of Blackness as THE truth rather than A truth. I'm going to try to list all the vicious stereotypes that I think he's perpetrating and, even worse, getting Black folks to identify with and internalize.

1. The class war between African-Americans is real, and middle/upper-class Blacks should be demonized. 
2. Relatedly, all middle/upper-class Black women should realize that men of their own social/educational status aren't "real men", and should fall in love with/marry blue-collar men.
3. A Black woman cannot be strong without being angry/violent. 
4. Relatedly, Black women are consistently in trouble with the law. 
5. Light-skinned Black women represent all that is good and right with the world, and dark-skinned Black women are inherently problematic. 
6. Dark-skinned Black women are inherently unattractive and sexually undesirable.
7. Thin, White, blonde womanhood is the ideal standard of beauty/femininity/desirability that all women must imagine themselves as exemplifying to have any sort of self-respect.
8. Womanhood is a role that can be appropriated, belittled, and dramatically over-emphasized by men for the enjoyment of the masses.
9. There is no such thing as a traditional family amongst Black peoples.
10. African-Americans who are not practicing Christians should be ostracized.
11. Known history of a criminal past or past dependence on drug abuse should have zero effect on whether you choose to let someone [back] into your or your children's lives.
12. Dark-skinned Black men are liars, while light-skinned Black men are saviors. 
13. Gay Black men are "on the down low," having unprotected sex, and spreading HIV to Black females.
14. Physical, psychological, emotional, and sexual abuse are normal, standard elements of life as a Black woman. 
15. Black men are the greatest threat to Black women's health/lives, but also our only possible saviors.
16. Black peoples should leave all their problems to divine intervention.

That's what I came up with off the top of my head. I could probably keep going, but I have more posts to write. 

I will admit that there is most likely a grain of truth to each of these statements, but only in so far as you add "some" to every mention of Black peoples or any subset of Black peoples, and that you recognize that those same such "some _____" statements can be filled in by members of ANY SOCIAL GROUP IMAGINABLE. But no. We are presented with these ideas solely in terms of Blackness, and very specific "types" of Blackness at that, types which are marketed as being the end-all-be-alls of Blackness. There is no counter-narrative here. Awkward Black Girl ain't got a TV show. 

So let's go back to the question, what good has come out of this for Black peoples? Maybe a few more Black women got tested for HIV. Maybe someone somewhere got the courage to leave her abusive relationship. Those are good things, yes, but do they have to come at the expense of demonizing and even-further-marginalizing subsets of an already marginalized people, widening gaps and strengthening tensions that already existed within the Black community, and silencing the voices of other sections of Blackness? I think not. Are any of the SIXTEEN DAMAGING IDEAS I just listed doing any good for anybody? I think not. IS. HE. FUNNY? I think not. I think he one of the most problematic Black men in the country, and at a time when I was just bemoaning the death of the Black sitcom/Black family show...this is THE OPPOSITE of what we need. I am thoroughly unconvinced any good will come from this endeavor. Someone stop the madness, please!