Barack Obama’s “dwindling sex appeal”: the penis and the POTUS

Two years and some change (or, depending on who you ask, nearly three years and NO change) into his presidency, Barack Obama’s policies have upset and disappointed me. I had high hopes for a President who had spent so much of his youth abroad, who was brilliant and refined, an elegant and unapologetic intellectual. In spite of Obama’s initially robust and repeated promises,  my government is still heavily embroiled in simultaneous wars for profit in the Middle East and only recently began military pull-out in Iraq. Military drone strikes – part of the increasingly nebulous Bush Administration legacy dubbed the”War on Terror”  – continue in Pakistan, killing civilians and allies. Guantanamo Bay is still open, and doesn’t appear to show any serious signs of closing, either.

I have watched the president I helped vote into office soft-pedal domestic issues like increased border security, tighter immigration restraints, and basic social services for undocumented immigrants, all in the name of reaching out to an ever-obstinant group of conservatives.  A group who had decided in November 2008 that he could do no right, and stood aside as their supporters proclaimed Obama a chimera of a bogeyman: closet socialist, fascist, and a Nazi. I have watched blatant and arguably racist acts of disrespect aimed at Obama take place on the Congressional floor.  I have watched as Sarah Palin stepped down early from her governance post in the midst of a national economic crisis, and trotted around the country with the Tea Partiers,  openly admonishing the President to “do your job.” I have watched with frustration and growing anger as Obama, seemingly in the name of diplomacy and “getting along”, pandered to folks who didn’t vote for him the first time around, and absolutely will not be doing so in 2012.   I know what it is to feel at least a little let down by the President, a man whose mind I so admire. Simply put, I voted for his brain. (Want more? Sure, ya do! Go here and read the rest.)

That is SO not post-racial!

You may have heard of Bethany Storro, the White woman in Washington State who, in August, claimed that she was attacked by an unidentified Black woman “with an athletic build” who threw acid in her face.  In spite of serious holes in Storro’s account of the incident (just for starters,  her eyes were protected by sunglasses that she was wearing at night) this story made national headlines.  While police searched for a suspect, sympathy cards came flooding in from all over the country to the hospital where Storro lay recuperating from her injuries. 

 This week, Storro confessed that she made the whole thing up, and that her injuries are self-inflicted. The Black female assailant everyone’s been looking for?  Completely fabricated.

Unbalanced White criminals blaming fictional Black perpetrators for offenses they have committed is (regrettably)nothing new. Susan Smith did it in 1994, and Charles Stuart did it in 1989…the list goes on and on. What seems to be a relatively new twist on everybody’s favorite go-to lynch mob meme is the addition of self-inflicted injuries to the roster.  Remember Ashley Todd, the McCain supporter who in 2008 claimed that she was robbed at knifepoint by a Black assailant who carved a “B” (for Barack) on her face?

Oh, and then there’s Sergeant Robert Ralston, the Philadelphia cop who shot himself and blamed it on a Black man with cornrows.  

Black men with any manner of hair were stopped and questioned by police in the Overton section of Philadelphia for about a week after the incident. Fortunately, no arrests appear to have been made in relation to the falsified report, but the potential for harm was substantial.  I mean, just imagine something like this happening with the NYPD! Oh, wait.

What fascinates me about all this is that the key to making these offenses plausible has been the addition of an imaginary Black offender. The perpetual  troping of Black people as violent and criminal (among other things) creates a myth of  constant potential White victimhood, and the more damaging and sinister countermyth of the necessity of unrelenting vigilance against Black criminality.  What troubles me more is that some White people are willing to actually invent a crime in order to have a Black person to blame it on.  Ralston, Smith and Stuart dumped their crimes at the doorstep of unidentified Black offenders to throw the police off their guilty trails. Todd and Storro made shit up with the specific intention of  vilifying Black people.  Ya know, because we don’t have it hard enough as it is. SIGH.

As saddened and outraged as I am about this, I’m not surprised. There’s bound to be at least one more case like this before the year’s out. World, get better.

Laughing Racism: Beyond the #browntwitterbird

Last week, an article in Slate entitled ”How Black People Use Twitter: The latest research on race and microblogging”   caused a  bit of a stir and some moments of sheer hilarity on Twitter and in the Black blogosphere.  The piece’s incomplete research and (unintentionally) racist and insulting tone  was noted and brought to the attention of the author himself both on Twitter and on personal blogs.  Author Farhad Manjoo’s 6-month surveillance of the Twitter habits of young Black people smacked of virtual cultural tourism.   (By the way, Manjoo defended his article, stood by his theory and flawed research, and as of this write-up, hasn’t changed his tune one whit. )

Adding insult to injury, Manjoo’s piece featured a brown redux of the classic blue (but possibly racially White, apparently) Twitter bird as a brown, oversized-cap wearing bird holding a mobile device.  (Wanna read more? Of course you do!  Click away!)

DAMN, that’s racist!

 

Pasttime Paradise: Down-Home Racism In “Post-Racial” America

I recently had the pleasure of visiting New Orleans for the very first time.  Having grown up in South Florida,  the city by the river was intriguing, but not as big a draw for me as the metropolises that grace the Eastern seaboard. Going to New Orleans – with its similar swamps, oppressive torpor, casual appropriation of local Native American culture, and alligator jerky – sounded about as appealing as hanging out with a rowdy, sweaty cousin. However, years of being regaled with tales of every manner of fun that could be had in the Big Easy had intrigued me. NO ONE comes home without an epic anecdote.  More than one jaded and well-travelled New Yorker in my circle got that faraway look in their eyes talking about New Orleans.   My recent desire to explore the regional diversity of Southern cultures (I blame True Blood) and shake off some one-horse-town dust pretty much sealed the deal.  So, with a deep breath and a few mouse clicks, I was ready to go.   

And New Orleans didn’t disappoint. From the start, I was smitten: by the architecture, the streetcars, the museums, the sweetness of the regional drawl, the overpriced souvenir shops, the heavenly food, the decidedly French celebration of debauchery, and (sweet merciful McGillicutty!) the take away cup.  By the second day of my trip I was calculating moving and living expenses. (Really. I was.)  These were the thoughts that danced merrily in my little tourist head as I strolled down Chartres Street on my way from viewing the grounds of the Saint Louis Cathedral.  I was feeling better than I had in weeks, maybe even months.  So I was most unprepared to meet one resident of New Orleans who I would not soon forget.         

This is Nola Mae.        

        

 Nola Mae is the “flagship” doll of the Big Lips: “The Better To Kiss You With”  New Orleans Doll Company collection by New Orleans-based artist Jamie Hayes.   The Big Lips dolls, which are “inspired by Nola Mae”, come in a range of flesh and hair tones. They all feature large round eyes and brightly colored outsized lips, sometimes with teeth.  There are brides, grooms and even tux boys.  Hayes, who counts Vincent Van Gogh among his influencers,  favors unusual designs and exceptionally bright tones and shades in all his work.  His unique style lends itself beautifully to just about anything with a Mardi Gras theme.  The sense of childlike whimsy evident in the prints almost made me smile.           

Inside the gallery

"King Mardi Gras" by Jamie Hayes

"Star Kitty" by Jamie Hayes

 Almost.          

       

To make sure I wasn’t imagining this upsetting showcase of non-malicious racism*  I decided to get some outside feedback.   I attached a picture of the Nola Mae doll and sent it via IM to a friend who I value for his cool-headed objectivity. His response:   

Him: WHAT THE FUCK         

 Him: Where did you find that at           

Me: Yeah…           

Me: At a gallery.           

Him: was it a Klan gallery             

Him: that’s some racist shit             

Him: is this something you bought             

Me: ROFF! No, an artist here makes them.             

Me: And get this: dude is colorblind. So I feel like an ass for feeling like this is kinda really racist.             

Him: bullshit             

Me: No, he is. He can’t see color.             

Him: BULLSHIT             

Me: It’s really bugging me.             

Me: I don’t want to think about it while I’m trying to enjoy my stay here.             

Him: knock something out when you get home             

Him: DAMN that’s racist            

Although I agreed, it would have been facile for me to dismiss some of these works as deliberately racist.  I decided that it was a good idea to see what I could learn about the man behind Nola Mae.    

    

 Hayes’ simultaneous assertion of color blindness and admission of being “a bit of a fibber” notwithstanding, I do think that subconscious, non-malicious racism is responsible for the more racially troubling visual elements of his work. Hayes, a son of New Orleans, in all likelihood grew up with these images all around him, on products and in advertisements.  Hayes may have absorbed – but never bothered to critically examine – these images.  So while Hayes genuinely have no clue as to where his inspiration for Nola Mae came from, I think I have some idea.   

Sigh.

 With her large round eyes, exaggerated lips and beribboned braids, Nola Mae is a textbook example of the classic pickaninny caricature, our very own stateside version of the Golliwogg.  There’s even an accompanying children’s book cataloguing her adventures. (I couldn’t bring myself to buy the book, not even for research.  Apparently, Nola Mae does three special things in it, and if those things have anyting to do with singing, dancing, or chicken and watermelon, my head will explode. It’s worth noting that, per Hayes himself, Nola Mae came years before the book.)  I wasn’t surprised to discover that the Big Lips and Voodoo dolls are  best-sellers. I heard more than one coing visitor describe the dolls as “adorable”  and ”precious.”  An interesting and telling theme that has coalesced around the pickaninny is the idea that these images - grotesque, dehumanized and occasionally sexualized images of Black children - are “cute.”   Not offensive, not racist, not disturbing and unwholesome.  Cute. Similarly “quaint” and “charming” postcards with images of Mammy, Tom and Rastus  litter just about every souvenir shop in the French quarter, and according to one of the store owners I asked, they’re quite popular with tourists.**     

The fact that there has been a healthy market for the consumption of these images since their inception almost two centuries ago belies declarations  of  a “post-racial” modern society.  What has emerged instead is a diabolically sophisticated narrative that combines tenets of  “color blindness” and “tolerance” with post-racialism.  The result: a system of rhetorical gaslighting that permits individuals to indulge in the most blatant kinds of old-school racism  while simultaneously denying its existence. Postcards featuring stereotypical depictions of Black women, men and children aren’t racist, toxic and harmful; they’re “cute” and enjoyable, a nice takeaway for nice hard-working folks who probably voted for Obama, and might even have a Black friend.     

The more things change…     

 

 *I define non-malicious racism as unintentional, subconscious, and/or non-violent racism. This isn’t to suggest that its effects are neutral – they clearly aren’t.    

** The owner I spoke with also informed me that, while her store doesn’t carry “lynch” postcards, they are often requested by tourists.  Read more about them here.

Can we talk about how the Israeli government’s on some bullshit now?

We didn’t talk about it when this happened. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this.  Or this.  And now, we have this.

So can we talk about it now? I mean, really. Can we talk about how condemning the actions of the Israeli government is common sense? Can we have this discussion without having it all boil down to ridiculous polarization and accusations of anti-Semitism? And can we openly condemn anti-Semitism when it does appear -because it will - and remain confident that doing so only strengthens the case for right? Can we just come the fuck out and say it when we see shit is WRONG, know that its WRONG, and call it what it is? Can we do that?  

I know that economic sanctions are just not going down (it’s a nice thought, though, isn’t it?), but appalled citizens are welcome to join the ongoing ethical boycott.  World, get better.

Oh, Skip Gates. You silly bitch.

I’m at capacity for Teh Stoopid right now, so please read this summation, this hilarious take-down, and this excellent dissemination of this piece of poo.  Enjoy!

Quit tryna jack my Black Black Blackity Black.

Dear World:

Please pay close attention, because I am only going to say this once.

I am Black. In spite of some less-enlightened protestations to the contrary, we don’t got Indian in our family; however. slave-owner/sharecrop boss runs rampant on both sides. I’m not bigenerationally biracial, or mixed-up-with-something else, or maybe-Ethiopian, or kinda Samoan, or Domini-Rican or whatever else people come up with. If I WERE any of those things, I’d be just as proud.

But I’m not. I am Black. BLACK. Southern-born and bred. Product of generations of countless other surviving and beautiful Black people.

I get my Arabic name from my mama, just like you got your white bread one from yours.

I borrowed my grandfather’s eyes and hair, my daddy’s lips and resilient skin, my grandma’s melodious voice and  laugh, and my mama’s flat butt and ridiculously sunny disposition. 

Nothing about me is imported beyond what is now known as the United States. My mama from here. My daddy from here. They mamas and daddies from here. 

It doesn’t make me any less gorgeous, brilliant and fly than I was five seconds ago when you thought I was “more” than “just” Black, and if it does then that’s because you’re an asshole.

If you crossed the room, tried to get my number, held a door for me, smiled too long, and stared too hard because something about me told you I wasn’t Black, then that’s because you’re an asshole.

If my charm,  intelligence and general awesomeness – things that I see everyday in Black folks – are something you find to be “uncommon,”  then that’s because you’re an asshole.

I’m not trying to escape my Blackness. It is part of me. It belongs to me. Further attempts to separate us will be met with violent resistance. If you’d rather not catch a beatdown, do yourself a favor and cut that shit out.

Smooches!

Me

Trading That “Good-Good”*: Placing Slave Rape On The Consent Continuum

PREAMBLE:   I’m neither a fan nor a follower of Touré, the person whose online shenanigans inspired this post.  I’ve said before that Twitter is gonna ruin quite a few public images and careers before it goes the way of the virtual boneyard known as MySpace; this certainly seems to be the case with him. In the span of about a year he’s gone from being a journalist I liked and respected once upon a time ago to an attention-hungry jerk  a provocateur who agitates for agitation’s sake.  If one wanted to make the argument that Touré goes out of his way to irritate Black people  they’d have quite a bit of supporting evidence.  Between referring indirectly to Michelle Obama as a “ghetto girl”,   compiling a list of sex symbols for the “thinking man” that was oddly bereft of Latina and Black women (Touré’s schoolboy gushing over “stunning blonde”  femme d’un certain age Governor Jennifer Granholm and omission of brilliant and sexy  Shakira  struck me as particularly odd - buuuuut alright), complaining on Twitter about alllll the criticism his interracial marriage (his wife is Lebanese) receives from Black folks,  asking for tips on caring for his son’s “Black” hair  because he and his wife   just don’t have the foggiest about it,  and most recently his statement that self-identified Black Latina Zoe Saldana plays “Black” (he later stated that he meant African-American), he’s drawn ire from a lot of people  - including yours truly.  Touré’s clumsy race dialogue tweets and half-assed, hyper-defensive apologies have become something of a running joke in my Twitter stream, inspiring everything from snarky hashtags  to virtual halibut smackdowns.  And there you have it, some background on “Not-Quddus.”               

Touré . Who has no idea of how to properly care for "Black" hair. (Yes. That's an Afro.**)

  Here’s where  things get interesting (and relevant to the title of this post): On March 1,  Touré  posted a series of  eyebrow-raising tweets about sexual relations between enslaved Black women and White masters. These tweets were first attributed  to his wacky, “Ph.D. candidate” cousin, who had somehow gotten a hold of his Blackberry and was causing a Twitter ruckus.   Realizing that raising the spectre of slavery-era rape by invoking the trope of the Jezebel and juxtaposing this image with contemporary prejudice faced by Black male-White female relationships was inaccurate and offensive,  Touré  wisely deleted these tweets from his feed altogether and had his “cousin” apologize - but not before said tweets were screen-captured on several sites.    

Watching the whole mess come to a rolling boil on Twitter, I noticed a disturbing theme emerging in the dialogue around the tweets.  Rape,  a sex crime typically defined by the absence of non-coercive adult consent, was redefined before  my very eyes in 140 characters or less.  A surprising (to me, anyway) number of people did not consider sexual congress that took place without the threat of immediate violence (brutal coercion) rape.  Because visuals help me think, I hastily assembled a linear color spectrum to better understand this new information. 

Child—————————————————————————————————Adult     

Enslaved——————————————————————————————Free     

Rape ———————————————————————————————————Sex   

   

The Consent Continuum. (Not great at visuals. Sorry.)

  While my idea of  consensual sex rests firmly  in the purple-indigo area of the consent continuum above, other folks seemed to veer towards the yellow-green part of the spectrum (where I’d place things like absence of physical resistance or encouragement of advances, ability to solicit favors on behalf of self or other enslaved individuals, and so on.) I read comments that argued that the legal age of consent has long been a point of contention; that people didn’t live as long back then so it made sense to become sexually active earlier; that Black people mature faster sexually (yes, someone took it there); that slaves sometimes loved their masters and so it wasn’t RAPE rape, etc.  

 The re-imagining of master-slave sexual relationships is nothing new. It is part-and-parcel of the romanticism that accompanies certain forms of revisionism in the analysis of American history.  Predictably,  Sally Hemings was raised. Hemings’ relationship with Thomas Jefferson is often touted by revisionists as the quintessential slave-master love story. During the discussions, I was dismayed to discover that most people aren’t aware that Jefferson began engaging in sexual congress with Hemings when she was in her early teens, that their children were never officially freed while Jefferson was alive, and that she herself was NEVER freed by Jefferson – not even on his deathbed. In fact, records indicate that Hemings and at least one of her relatives were sold to a nearby plantation in order to settle Jefferson’s significant gambling debts. I argued that Jefferson – by having sex with Hemings when she was a child, by being her owner, and by never freeing her – was a rapist on multiple counts. I also argued that Hemings frequently visited Jefferson’s grave after his death, and that the Abermarle county census of 1833 listed her as a free woman (she died in 1835).  I closed by stating that while it is extremely likely that Sally Hemings loved and was loved by her rapist Thomas Jefferson,  her love for him did not absolve him of his crime, because whatver benefits Hemings or any enslaved women enjoyed by virtue of her relationship with her master were entirely relative to her status as human property.*** 

With all of that in mind, let’s compare this:”…[Some enslaved women] were cunning and brilliant enough to use their bodies to gain liberation thus fooling massa.” 

To this:  

 A stereotype persists of African American women as immoral and therefore less deserving of protection from violence or sexual exploitation. In 1744, Edward Long, in an attempt to support slavery, published his conclusions about African women. He characterized them as “ignorant, crafty, treacherous, thievish, and mistrustful.” 

And this: “Of course most were raped, we know that, but some were sharp enough to trade that g00d-good for status or liberation.”   

To this: 

 Slave women were property; therefore, legally they could not be raped. Often slavers would offer gifts or promises of reduced labor if the slave women would consent to sexual relations, and there were instances where the slaver and slave shared sexual attraction; however, “the rape of a female slave was probably the most common form of interracial sex.” A slave woman explained, “When he make me follow him into de bush, what use me to tell him no? He have strength to make me.” 

Without the aid of actual documentation, musings about the daily survival of our enslaved ancestors are pure speculation. My foremothers were absolutely survivors – I’m living proof. And while I don’t like to think about everything they had to endure, I absolutely believe that in order for this country’s race relations problem to be well and truly healed, we’re gonna have to acknowledge  this and EVERY horror-filled aspect of our national legacy, square-on and courageously. This discussion and the others must take place, and they must be handled with the intelligence,  nuance, sensitivity and historical perspective that they deserve.

 

*Good-good? Really? REALLY really?

** Yes. An Afro.

*** What tends to be forgotten in these discussions is that enslavement was not a natural, immutable condition. A slave’s owner had the power to grant a slave their freedom at any time they wished - if they desired to do so.  Viriginia law did not allow freed slaves to remain in the state, and Hemings, as a free (if kept) woman would have to move to a neighboring state, away from Jefferson.  I strongly believe that Jefferson’s decision to allow Hemings to remain enslaved – in spite of his own grave concerns about the fundamental immorality of the  institituion of slavery –  was tied to his desire for her company, excluding any other possible White suitors. Your woman could leave you; your slave could not.

I don’t wanna talk about Haiti.

And I’m not. Not that I have nothing to say (when is that ever my problem?), but that this whole mess makes my heart hurt. And I’m kinda at capacity for heart ache at the moment. No more, all full, thank you.

Anyway, Joe’s got it covered.  He talks about Haiti and Guantanamo,  Pat Robertson’s stankin’ ass,  Haiti’s beautiful natural features and extraordinary history,  the absurdity and racism of supposedly liberal  media reports of homeless amd starving Haitians “looting”,  and the best way to help Haiti.    Go read his blog. Get like me.

Lisa Solod Warren can’t tell her mixed-race Black fokes apart.

Filing under “W” for “White lady, sitchoassdown”: Ms. Warren thinks that Tiger Woods and Barack Obama (!) have been done in by their big, Black hubris. Here’s an excerpt:

It is tragic when an icon falls. When a black icon stumbles the tragedy seems doubly problematic.

Funny, she doesn’t sound so sorry. You can actually hear the glee in that sentence. Really, read it. See? Oh, and this:

Both men are of mixed race. Yet the majority of the country, including black Americans, sees them as black. That’s not a bad thing. Except when such men of intelligence and talent, men who have such influence and power, can’t help but succumb to the age old twins of greed and power. Although each has risen from ordinary beginnings to be at the top of their field but now things don’t look so good for either of them.

Hmmm. While I could really go in here about  (White) mainstream media’s defense of  Tiger’s right to not self-identify as Black (half, quarter, or whatevs)  versus Barack Obama’s self-identification as the Black son of a White mother from the start, I won’t.  (I will note that it is interesting that Warren states that lots of people see Tiger Woods as Black, and many glom whatever negative notions that they have about Blackness onto him the same as they would any Black person – including her.) There are things that my current chosen path no longer permit me to say or do. Like shout, “Oh, bitch, PUH-LEEZ!” and slash a person’s tires.  I feel like it would be more satisfying to do these things than engage in discussion with Ms. Warren about all the neo-liberal racist fail in this piece.   HuffPo is really doing a number on my ulcer in 2009.

UPDATE: If you wanna read a good and extended critique of Warren’s piece, Sister Toldja’s got one.

Tiger Woods: “You coulda been so much more!”

Alvin Lau, my Imaginary Poet Husband, thought you could have, anyway. At least back in 2006, in spite of yourself. 

As for me? Pffftttt. I never trust rodent-like muhfuggers with big ass rat teefs.* I’m glad Lau mentioned those fucking awful racist jokes that you thought were off the record. I was done with you then. Ugh.

Too. EASY.

(*Tiger Woods’ teefs are also too big for any sane and rational woman to allow him near her delicate lady bits with his face. Yeah, damnit. I said it. )

I LOVE this chick!

 One of the great things about being overly contemplative/analytical is having lots and lots and lots of ideas. And one of the great things about being Fiqah is that I attract some pretty amazing people, and we get together and neat things happen, and the world is a li’l bit better than it was before we met. One of my favoritest, funniest, brilliantest (<– hush your mouth, it’s a word) soul warrior buddies - on the internets and out here in real life -  did this awesome write-up that totally lifted my spirits today.   I have excerpted some of it below.  (NYC peeps, PLEASE NOTE THAT PART ABOUT THE BODEGA SANDWICH PICKLES! It’s serious! ) Oh, and if you haven’t linked her blog yet, I don’t know what you are doing with your life. I rilly don’t. ::: Katt Williams disapproving head shake :::

"Go get yo'self summadat Dopegirlfresh Incredible Juju, and stay pimpin', Pimpin'!"

- racism doesn’t need hate in order to function. no form of oppression does. in fact, ignorance is quite the consummate fuckery fuel. think about how many times you have been confronted with information to the contrary of your (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise oppressive-to-a-group-of-people) opinion or belief & found that information was all you needed to set your lil brain in the right direction? that doesn’t, of course, mean that hate isn’t fuel for oppression.  it means that even without hate, these things exist & still manage to fuck people over.

- love can move mountains. it can also be used to justify the ugliest things humans do/ say.  love doesn’t erase fucked up shit. it can and does exist alongside this fucked up shit. don’t excuse the fucked up shit.

- when talking to a child, imagine that what you’re saying is the last thing you will ever say to that child. especially if that child is your own. what do you want their last thought of you to be? don’t assume shit. (i personally believe that this should be extended to everyone.  you can tell someone about themselves without destroying them or dragging them into a fight.  don’t be that asshole who tries to climb in the fucking casket at your girl’s funeral cuz you weren’t doing right by her before she passed away.)

- either you play the victim role or act as a survivor. you can’t throw up the shield of “i’ve been hurt” and then use that as a reason to treat people like shit. to generalize. to lump folks into the same group because it’s convenient to do so.  this includes jumping to conclusions based on something that’s triggered you instead of simply keeping yourself aware that something triggering just happened. also: if your responses to triggers of all sizes are rarely or never proportionate to said triggers, you’re fucking up. big time. & there may be a lot more healing left undone by you.

- never eat the pickles from a bodega. the pickle jars are older than that bottle of fucking steak sauce in the back of your mama’s fridge. no, really.  eww.

Awwwwww! See? I’m good for stuff! It’s nice to feel lurved.

Represent!: Nezua does the “Arpaio Smackdown” dance

I love that I can always count on my boy Nez to knock it out of the park. Dance starts at  5:56 . First time I saw it I almost peed my pants; there are some serious “Disco Duck” elements going on! But I like it.  It’s just great.  Enjoy!

Tapas. Quilt scraps. Old…soap…slivers.

In other words, things you throw together to create a single cohesive item/experience. It’s been a while since my last post, and months since I put some original content up here. There are a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which is the fact that Twitter is voraciously consuming my day-to-day sparkly creative brilliance.

Don't let that sweet blue face fool you. This bird's a blog murderer.

If you need your Fiqah fix,  I’m over here, acting up. Please be advised that my tweets are alternately raw, preachy and ridiculous – comme moi. So, yeah, they’re pretty flippin’ awesome. 

I’m currently working on several long-assed, hyper-involved posts, gearing up for NaNoWriMo, and otherwise (re)adjusting to une vie au marais.  In the process, I have discarded several blog post ideas that for whatever reason have not completely panned out. It occurred to me that some of the ideas were pretty good, but not in a stand-alone way. What do you do with something that’s not good enough to use by itself, but is too good to just chuck away? Why, you mash it up, of course!

See, it's like this..but, um, with a post?

That’s not really what I was going for. Hmmm. ::: snaps fingers ::: Got it! This post is like…a bunch of tapas and a lotta really good wine instead of the meatloaf-and-gravy you usually get here.

 

Mmmmm...post-a-liiiiciiiiious...

Ehhhhh? Much better, right? Yup. Aright.

People of color in general and trans and cis women of color in particular are disproportionately under-insured in this country, and if this healthcare crap doesn’t come together soon, we will continue to be disproportionately represented among the dead. That’s not just  empty statistic inflation. For me and millions of others, it is a day-to-day cold, hard fact.  Of the people of color in my immediate social circle (25 or so, all under 44 years of age),  seven of us are uninsured, and five of us Uninsured-erinos are cis women of color. We are staving off  deadly flus, both swine and regular, with vitamins, Echinacea and syncretic faith rituals. (Yes. Really.) Now, some folks might think it’s alright that in a country that stockpiles antibiotics/antivirals/antideath medicines my people are forced to enlist the aid of the spirit world and the dubious healing properties of the coneflower in order to stay healthy. Personally, I think it sucks. I think it sucks big ole hairy donkey balls. So, instead of pitching a fit about it in a post, I decided to learn more about it, and have been quietly agitating my governmental representatives in both states for weeks. I encourage you to do the same.

In a small effort to stop and correct the erasure of trans men and womens’ experiences from various types of dialogue…I am committing myself to using the terms “trans” and “cis.”  It’s part of an ongoing effort to educate myself (and hopefully other like-minded but ignant cis folks) about what it means to truly advocate for real social justice. Privilege has this nasty tendency to be invisible until it is pointed out. (“Progressive” cis women and men are just as guilty of this as not progressive people.) So…point point pointy point point.

Mother Nature is still the boss of you, me, and the whole wide world.   My mama raised me to have a dual appreciation of my selves. This means that I was raised to understand just how big (a lovely, kind, talented and bright child of eternal God) I am as well as just how small (powerless in the face of the awesome wrath of nature, a pawn of the Fates, morally flawed, unquestionably mortal, a speck of a speck of a speck’s speckled speck in the Cosmos and prone to the occasional “owie”) I am.  This is the contradictory duality of the human experience. There’s a reason why at the sub-atomic level everything in existence is composed of essentially the same shit, and I firmly believe that part of that reason is to keep mankind appropriately humbled. Nothing drives that point home for me more clearly than hard-core weather and sudden violent seismic activity.* 

Don't just sit there. DO something.

An amazing friend of mine wrote a very touching post about the recent natural disasters in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim. He linked this relief organization, and since every little bit really does help, I encourage you to at least look at the services offered and their greatest areas of need.  I say this because I mean it: a better world really does start with you. Yes, it does. Yes, I know, shit is rough, and we are all struggling. But if you flushed your terlet with clean water today, then dammit, you have it pretty good. Not because you deserve to, but because you are lucky. Here’s a quick compassion exercise. The next time you see or read about someone catching hell through no fault of their own, before you judge and distance yourself from their situation and humanity, say this: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” And then, you know, go work on being less of an asshole.

The agony irritation of self-labelling. So someone who has become very dear to me in a series of months did an amazing write-up via Twitter about why calling oneself an “ally” is problematic. In a nutshell, she said, it’s kinda like coming up to someone, declaring that you wanna be their best friend, and INSISTING that they recognize you as such. The concept of an ally, when you put it like that, is…well, it’s obnoxious as hell! I have struggled with the term “feminist” over the years as well, specifically because feminism as it is popularly expressed speaks to, for and about straight cis able-bodied White women (I’m looking at YOU, Jezebel) and often either ignores or silences the experiences of any woman who lives outside of those categories. That’s also obnoxious as hell.  SIGH. Still haven’t quite figured this one out yet, really.

Dear White people: Black people tan. On purpose. (Really.)  This was actually something I mentioned on Teh Twitteh. While relaxing on the GOOAHGEOUS white sand beaches of my home state, I attracted quite a bit of gawking from White people, who seemed to be baffled at what was clearly my intentional sunbathing. One woman in particular stared, openly and rudely, as I happily basked in the golden sunshine and patently ignored her. As fate would have it, we rode the same bus back to my city’s downtown area. I happened to be sitting behind her and was treated to an up-close view of her disgustingly mottled, prematurely aging back.  Now, here’s my question: if you DON’T have eumelanin (and if you freckle in the sun, then you don’t) why the fuck are YOU tanning?

Oh, Lindsey. The sun, much like Paris Hilton, isn't really a "friend" friend...

 Dear White cis women: Stop referring to YOURSELVES as “White girls.”  A recent  email exchange with a White cis woman who strongly identifies as a feminist bugged the shit out of me. Why? Because she referred to herself, in so many words, as a well-meaning, progressive-thinking “White girl” who was just tryna figure it all out. SIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHH. She didn’t mean to work my nerves. But the fact that so many White cis women are hesitant to refer to themselves as adults speaks a LOT to sexism and White gendered privilege.  Self-infantilazation does not help the movement(s), anymore than the fetishization and co-opting of the pain (i.e., “strength” ) of trans and cis women of color helps. This shit is toxic.  For you, and for all of us. Recognize.

 Here’s some stuff you need to know about Black women. Lisa said it better than I could. Yes, indeed.

Steve Harvey’s an asshole.   I feel like that one writes itself. I mean, a thrice-divorced philanderer giving romantic advice? And in THOSE suits? C’mon, now.

Motherfucker, YOU scream.

 This concludes the hash post. OH! One last thing about soap bits – you can make eco-friendly art with them!

 

Oooooo! PURTY!

Read all about the Accumulation project, and don’t let anybody tell you that beauty can’t be crafted from bits, pieces, scraps and…ehr-um…chunklets.

 

*THIS IS NOT TO SUGGEST THAT ANYONE DESERVES TO SUFFER FROM THE DEVESTATING IMPACT OF NATURAL DISASTERS. I wanna make that clear.  One issue I have with Gaea theorists is the idea of the natural disaster as collective punishment for  ”sins” commited against the earth. People in nations with smaller GDPs and less governmental infrastructure are impacted more heavily and for longer by natural disasters than wealthier countries. But the worst ecological offenders – the greediest consumers, the highest per capita polluters – are wealthier, “developed” nations. Soooo until I hear about a hurricane leveling the Hamptons and ALL the Bush family residences, I’m giving Gaea theorists the side-eye.