Confessions of a (Reformed) Harry Potter Hater July 21, 2009

Anyone that knows me knows I’ll go to the movies for anything vaguely sci-fi, which means I’ve pretty much seen every ridiculous sci-fi/fantasy movie this summer (Transformers 2, Terminator Salvation, Wolverine–although I’d watch Hugh Jackman read the phone book if he was topless, but I digress) and even a good one or two (Star Trek!). The latest in the Harry Potter franchise goes into the “doesn’t completely suck” pile. Doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement? Okay, maybe it’s not, but I’m not dissing the movie (entirely) either.

Let me explain. I was once a Harry Potter hater. When the books came out I was sure that they sucked since everyone liked them (okay, shoot me for being a geek lit elitist). Having grown up a certified geek to become a degreed book nerd (i.e. English professor), I was used to fantasy and sci-fi being embraced as a passing fancy, only to be relegated back to the halls of dorkdom when the trend was over. But I eventually found Harry Potter (and his subsequent adventures) delightful. I mean, it’s not Toni Morrison, but it’s fun, has a good message, and isn’t horribly written. I started watching the movies too. They were entertaining enough, but no cinematic feats. I remained entertained but unimpressed until The Prisoner of Azkaban. Dark, visually-thrilling, HP had come up. The subsequent movies have followed suit, more or less. However, the Half-Blood Prince did not live up to its predecessors. Certainly, it was entertaining (apparently Harry has a thing for black girls with naturals, who knew?) and I enjoyed all the break up to make up stuff, which brought me back to high school in a good way for once. But how could you make a movie two and a half hours and delete ALL the subplots? And the fight scene at the end–lame! They barely even made mention of the significance of the title. I mean, I’m not a book to movie purist, I recognize they’re different genres, but please.

Apparently the next and final Harry Potter is being broken up into two parts. I hope they get it right this time, or the wrath of the geeky will be upon them.

Tiny and Toya – A show I get. July 15, 2009

I’m an insomniac. My husband was asleep and nothing was on television. I started watching Tiny and Toya by mistake. I saw an Atlanta skyline on the opening credits and stopped my channel surfing out of nostalgia for the city. I had never intended to watch the show. I don’t watch BET with any sort of regularity. I usually pretend that BET doesn’t exist. But here I am, just done watching the show most of my friends speculated would be the worst of the worst and I am touched. I can be the toughest critic in a room but tonight, right now, instead of criticizing the show and the women on it – all I can feel is compassion and that the show might be timely.

Perhaps it’s where I’ve been, who I’ve known, how I grew up that makes a show about these two women who don’t sound like me, look like me, live like me – feel so much like me or at least makes me feel like I know them. Clearly their wealth exceeds my earnings but it is also clear that having a little money doesn’t change your perceived class which is one of the reasons people have criticized the show so harshly. I would offer that their stories are the stories of so many young black women and I think that my newly acquired high-brow social status almost prevented me from seeing it.

You may know me but there may be some background about me that you don’t know. I’ll fill you in on some pertinent details about my life. My father became addicted to crack when I was 9 years old. My middle class family was torn apart by his addiction and I learned the meaning of the words bankruptcy and foreclosure before I was ten. I also learned how to live without a father. I learned to navigate not-so-safe streets alone while my mother worked many jobs to keep me housed and fed. I didn’t get in any trouble that I didn’t get out of but there were many bumps along the way. It was only by grace and luck that things didn’t turn out differently for me. Plenty of friends who were just as smart and just as hardworking, weren’t so lucky.

So when the show started and I couldn’t quite understand what Tiny was saying through her accent, I almost gave up until I stopped pretending that I didn’t know folks who talked like her, that having that accent didn’t mean she wouldn’t have anything worthwhile to say. And when I heard her, I didn’t hear anything that made me cringe only things that made me see her as a human being and not as some ‘non-being’ on television to be derided for her apparent faults. Surely she’s made some aesthetic choices I can’t appreciate but when she started to talk about her father’s dissent into Alzheimer’s, all that other stuff didn’t matter so much anymore. She is someone’s child who hurts because her father is no longer of sound mind. I read somewhere that being the loved one of a person with Alzheimer’s feels like constant mourning. I know that feeling. Before I went away to Spelman, my maternal grandmother came to live with us in the last stages of dementia brought on by Alzheimer’s disease. My grandmother lived for three years after the onset of her illness, but in so many ways she was lost to us. The disease made her alternately distant, happy and cruel. She was as likely to forget who I was as to attempt to push or hit me if I got too close when I did my part in her caretaking. There was nothing polite or pretty about her struggle. Tiny may not be the poster child for the twenty-first century black woman in some ways, but her pain is no less painful because of it.

And then there is Toya, who I understood right off. How many friends do I have that had babies when we were young by little boys who they thought they loved because what they really wanted was to be loved? Her story of being shuttled from house to house from relative to relative is the story of many folks I know. It could have been me. I count my blessings that it was my father and not my mother with the drug problem. The other way around and who knows where I would have slept and how I would have eaten? It is a odd blessing to count, but a blessing nonetheless. I never went looking for my father after his disappearing act. At first I was too young and then I was too old to care. But to watch her knocking on doors to find her mother, a mother who she desperately misses, I get that. I understand that sort of pain. I am sure that a lot of the people who still think Black Entertainment Television is still entertaining, get it too.

And some of you may not get that part of her story, but what about the part about being heartbroken by your first love? Surely, we can relate. Except it may be worse for the love of your life to be a famous rapper who has no problem talking about his sexual exploits and the ups and downs of your relationship in magazines and in songs.

I also understand the friendship between the two women. As contrived as a reality television show must be, the value of friendship, the necessity of friendship, the centrality of friendship that is portrayed in this show shuts my judgmental mouth. How many times in life did I feel misunderstood, hopeless, in need, damned and found my reprieve in girlfriends? People watch those Real Housewives shows that turn friendship into competition and backbiting and I don’t get it. But I get these two Southern girls talking about love and need and priorities and declaring each other family. When Tiny asked a distraught Toya what she could do to help her feel better, I smiled. How many times had that gesture been extended to me by my girlfriends? How much do I rely on the comfort of friendship even now?

Even now in this life that I lead, with this degree, far from the ‘hood where I grew up and certain that the lights at the house will be on, happily married, with this natural hair, white collar career, and well thought out social consciousness, I get it. I hope there isn’t a time when I stop getting it. I know that there are young black girls watching the show and getting it. The show appears to focus on two young mothers attempting to come to terms with their pasts and to create a better life for themselves with better relationships.

I don’t write all this to say that the show and the women on it are not flawed. I write it to say that perhaps we ought to ask ourselves if we too aren’t flawed? I may not ever watch the show again, but it won’t be because I passed judgment on women who are not so removed from who I might have been and certainly much more like me than the person I might appear to be to you be.

i.s.o. wysdom

They Smile in your Face July 14, 2009

The recent death of Michael Jackson has elicited a whole host of interesting behavior from all sorts of folk. I haven’t seen this type of fervor over one person since Princess Diana died. One of my more stoic family members revealed that she was crying into a margarita upon MJ’s untimely passing. And even the previously anti-MJ people I know were waxing poetic about his life after the memorial. (I’ll admit, Paris‘ exclamation at the end of the service melted a chip off of my icy, icy heart).

Certainly, now that he’s physicallydead (one could argue that his social death occurred more than a decade ago), not everyone is singing his praises. Bill O’Reilly, you know, that expert on black culture and black people in general, had to weigh in.

When I see O’Reilly (usually filtered through Olbermann on occasion) I cringe and yell, Jeebus, take the wheel! This time he actually has a point. No, not about folks playing “the race card” (if there is such a card, I’d like to take a bunch so I can use them at my disposal). The part about folks eulogizing MJ as a martyr today (can’t wait for the painted velvet of MJ next to MLK, Obama, and Mandela), when yesterday he was a dirty man who rejected his blackness. Now, O’Reilly is shortsighted and off-base as to MJ’s wide-reaching cultural influence. If Elvis (who was a cultural pirate/parrot in many ways) is iconic, dammit, so is MJ.  So, mark this day when I have marginally agreed with Bill O’Reilly, who perhaps snorted less (or more) stuff and actually made 1/8 of an iota of sense. I can’t vouch for the rest of this segment, as you can see that Marc Lamont Hill had to check his behind repeatedly.

Now that MJ’s dead, he can pass off into full iconic status where we water down his eccentricities and applaud his obvious talent (see Martin Luther King). But as Alisha Gaines persuasively  asserts, when MJ was alive, especially in more recent years “Jackson has created an androgynous persona that refuses the categorical imprimaturs of a recognizable black masculinity…Jackson’s body not only steps outside the framings of a knowable black manhood, he steps outside any recognizable identity at all. Michael Jackson just doesn’t pass . . . frankly, for anything.” Unplaceable people become things, and freaky things at that.  I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but let’s keep it real. MJ, and by extension, other unplaceable/displaced/replaced people need humane treatment now, and not just in their eulogies.

Sex in India: Why Privacy is not Enough July 14, 2009

Indian activists recently achieved a victory that they’d been working towards for years. Last week the Delhi High Court decriminalized sexuality.

Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law known as Section 377 which reads:  

• Unnatural offences: Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with [imprisonment for life], or with imprisonment of either description for term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine. Explanation: Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offence described in this section.

  This monumental judgment follows years of activist efforts, such as‘Voices Against 377’ and beginning with the Naz Foundation’s Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking legalization of homosexual sex back in 2001. This broad-based campaign included authors, advocates, celebrities, lawyers as well as LGBTQ and AIDS awareness groups from around the world. India has one of the world’s largest populations of people with AIDS, and many saw Section 377 as a an enormous obstacle to education about HIV/AIDS.

In a culture that is often romanticized by the West as a land where sex is worshipped via a uni-dimensional understanding of the KamaSutra, we see some very important things about Indian society.

This section of India’s penal code reminds us of the deep roots of India’s colonial legacy, which interacts in very complicated ways with traditional notions of gender and sexual identity in India. The fact that this ruling is only applicable to the capital city of New Delhi, further demonstrates the long road ahead for true social equality for LGBTQ members of Indian society.

India is a multi-ethnic, secular, yet highly stratified nation of people. Ideas of gender are at once rigid and mutable. India’s commonly visible, and at times socially celebrated Hijra community is also one of the poorest and frequently subject to violence. The KamaSutra celebrates sex, yet conservative social mores make sex rarely discussed in public or private. Hinduism has many women deities and warriors, yet in much of the nation women are regulary subject to extreme brutality. It is a nation often polarized by its legacies, at times progressive and at others, regressive. To wit, from the judgement handed down from the court: 

• A rather peculiar feature of this case is that completely contradictory affidavits have been filed by two wings of Union of India. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) sought to justify the retention of Section 377 IPC, whereas the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare insisted that continuance of Section 377 IPC has hampered the HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

I raise all these issues to demonstrate the complexity of the nation of India. And western activists would do well to resist caricaturing the country.  In fact, in this recent decision, New Dehil’s high court has drawn upon an idea that LGBT activists in the US might draw upon.

From the judgement, again: 

• At its least, it is clear that the constitutional protection of dignity requires us to acknowledge the value and worth of all individuals as members of our society. It recognises a person as a free being who develops his or her body and mind as he or she sees fit. At the root of the dignity is the autonomy of the private will and a person’s freedom of choice and of action . Human dignity rests on recognition of the physical and spiritual integrity of the human being, his or her humanity, and his value as a person, irrespective of the utility he can provide to others. The expression “dignity of the individual” [WP(C)7455/2001] Page 26 of 105 finds specific mention in the Preamble to the Constitution of India.

By drawing up the human right to dignity, in addition to the right to privacy, this ruling sets a wonderful precedent. That LGBTQ sex should be decriminalized not just because it is something that happens in private, but because sexual expression is a matter of autonmy and dignity. You’ll recall that the right to privacy is the major basis of cases in the US involving sexual freedom, i.e. Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, etc.). This is why privacy is not enought. Because it is not enough to decriminalize something because it happens in private – such an arugment doesn’t affirm the right to the expression in a positive way. Sure it might get us part of the way, but it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t go far enough in saying that sexual identity and expression are human rights and our very freedom depends on them. That they happen in private might be a reason for us to let down our guard, and decriminalize them, but if we aim to affirm the human rights of LGBTQ folks, we should acknowledge that this is a matter of dignity – public AND private.

That’s a lesson we’d do well to heed here in the US, in our own struggles for sexual freedom.

 

 

A Triple Threat in the Worst Way July 13, 2009

On the radio, singer Ciara’s latest single “Love, Sex, Magic,” sounds like typical pop-R&B fare: repetitious electronic beats, uninspired singing, a rhythm that conjures up a dark club, and lyrics that are at once banal and risqué (e.g. “let me drive my body around you/I bet you know what I mean.” Yep, I got it.). The video, however, is much more memorable, though perhaps for all the wrong reasons. In it, Ciara gives video vixen Karrine Steffans (a.k.a. “Superhead”) a run for her money. Ciara is barely dressed, gyrating, gesticulating, and writhing on the floor, all the while a fully clothed and non-dancing Justin Timberlake watches and the bland melody thumps in the background. So, does “Love, Sex, Magic” live up to its name?

Love—um, well not really, despite the bridge that tells us “this is the part we fall in love.” Thanks, but I’ll pass

Sex—you betcha! The video is hot, if you like your sex laced with degradation and fishnets, and lots of lace-front wigs.

Magic—hell no, unless it would disappear.

Now, let’s not get it twisted—I like to drop it like it’s hot as much as the next person and I am certainly not hating on the genre of music, per se. (I know all the words and much of the dance moves to “Single Ladies” and I’m only partially ashamed). What I do take offense to is these tired tropes—scantily clad woman, (white) man’s gaze, titillation that is simply pornographic and not at all erotic, and on and on. I mean, I understand the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but this mess is broken. Somebody send Ciara and Justin a copy of Black Sexual Politics. They need it.

Remember when videos had themes and plots and stuff, way back in the day like ten years ago? I’m not waxing nostalgic for MTV’s infancy or when Donnie Simpson and Sherri Lewis hosted Video Soul (ok, I do miss Video Soul a little). What I am saying is that if you watch an hour of videos you won’t see six or seven videos, but the same one over and over. Somebody tell me how Jamie Foxx bamboozled Forest Whitaker and Ron Howard into the most banal video in history of bad music videos? Can we step up our game in the ’09? I mean, really. Thank God for Jay-Z.

There are certainly sexy, soulful songs (and sometimes accompanying videos) that are out there—just check out Jill Scott (“Crown Royal”), Musiq Soulchild (“sobeautiful”), Raheem DeVaughn (“Marathon”), and of course, the incomparable Maxwell (basically his entire opus. Sigh). Unfortunately, often times these artists are relegated to the dwindling Quiet Storm ghetto aimed towards we dinosaurs over 25.  The students I teach and their younger counterparts will probably be more influenced by Ciara’s off-key warbling and hypersexual choreography than by Marsha Ambrosious’ melodious tunes and that’s a big problem. 

And did no one notice that this is Justin “Nipplegate” Timberlake in the video?!  He didn’t even do a Michael Jacksonesque shimmy or shake the whole time. Isn’t he supposed to be a good dancer? If I was a black woman entertainer, I wouldn’t even want to be on an elevator alone with him. He’s dangerous. You saw what happened to Janet Jackson—poor thing’s career ain’t been right since. And him? Awards, accolades, platinum records—he even brought sexy back after it had been banished to Europe or wherever it had been. Timberlake can rip folk’s clothes off and return to his career without censure, while an icon that paved the way for other non-singing but good-dancing performers such as Britney Spears, Aaliyah (c’mon now, Baby Girl could not really sing), and even Ciara, is blacklisted, as it were. Please don’t tell me that race and gender don’t have anything to do with it. The brazen racism and sexism in Ciara/Timberlake video is indicative of a staggering problem not only in music videos, but all across the media.

We need to take a serious look at how we can convey sex without simply reifying tired, unsexy conventions. Now, that would be magic.

News Flash: Sarah Palin is bad for us July 13, 2009

I am SO OVER Sarah Palin. But because she’s always finagling her way onto the teevee, I’m forced to think about her sometimes. So instead of speculating on her presidential prospects (which seem rather slim), I’m going a different route (this likely isn’t the last we’ve seen from her).  To the end of setting the record straight, a top ten list (in homage to tellers of bad, tasteless jokes):

The Top-Ten Reasons why Sarah Palin (the brand) Is Nobody’s Victim but her Own and/or the Hypocrisy Is Astounding

10. You can’t have it both (or all) ways. You can’t drag your (teen mom) daughter out into the limelight, and make her a spokesperson for your positions, even though she disagrees and then turn around and claim that your family is being unfairly targeted.

9. You can’t be a “fighter, [who] love[s] a challenge” (from Andrea Mitchell, NBC interview 7/7) and also quit your job, when you’re still convinced that “there’s a lot of work to be done” (from her 7/3 resignation speech). Sounds like you’re saying, “I’m not a quitter! That’s why I quit!”  Syllogistically impenetrable – also false.
 
8. Ignorance might be bliss, but it’s sure as hell not a virtue. It’s a fault, a heinous one. Thre might be one in Alaska, but there’s no f***king Department of Law at the White House.

7. People who refuse to support candidates who seek to limit women’s rights aren’t mysoginst, they’re feminist.

6. It’s not a principled stance to say that the reason you’re quitting your job is because of some pesky ethics conundra. Ethics complaints are not the same as persecution. In fact, they are a means by which we hold our public officials accountable. If she hasn’t done anything wrong, I’m not sure why she should quit over such complaints, especially since she said that the money is not the reason.

5. We understand that there are a lot of reasonable AND unreasonable sacrifices that politicians face vis a vis public scrutiny. But there is a difference between the two.
Nota bene:

• Unreasonable: Sexist statements about your hotness or lack thereof. Hillary can tell you, sexism is everywhere in the media and it sucks.
• Reasonable: We watch, so you can’t trade favors and use your office for public gain. Refer again to point 6.

4. SP doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between the above definitional divergence. See also point 8.

3. Narcissistic personality disorder should be covered by health insurance. Mental health is critical to one’s well-being. Clearly. (See here for a very smart piece about Sarah Palin’s mental health.)

2. It’s an insult to working class people when you get on television, and in an effort to act folksy, and display some strange manifestation of small-town charm and wind up sounding like an idiot. Working class people are not idiots. Her derision-by-caricature of people who fish or hunt is disgusting and disingenuous.

And the top reason why SP is nobody’s victim but her own is….

1. She’s not going to go away. Which might be the only thing that might save her. And us.

Welcome! July 13, 2009

Welcome to the Rhapsody: To speak what must be spoken.

 When we decided to embark on this blogging adventure, we began with big ideas. Grandiose ideas about love, politics, and revolution were tossed about in late-night phone calls and instant message sessions.

While we discussed bringing ourselves to specifics (we made charts, seriously) we never considered narrowing our scope. And why should we? To modify the poet Robert Browning,

 “Ah, but a girl’s reach should exceed her grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”

So we begin with those very grandiose ideas: justice, feminism, intersectionality, race, economics, sexuality, literature, politics, music, truth, revolution, philosophy, and love. Whether they are within or outside our grasp remains to be seen.

Look elsewhere for a blog with a narrow scope. Look elsewhere for single-issue thinking.

Here we take on those things which matter to us, which strike our intellectual fancy, which we wish to share and discuss with you all. We write from our particular perspectives as women of color, feminists, and members of different communities. We will speak our minds and our hearts. We will challenge ourselves and each other. We might make mistakes, or fumble our words. But we will continue to speak, because, if there is one truth in this endeavor, it’s this:

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” – Audre Lorde

With that, we welcome you to this little patch of cyberspace, where we’ll think, laugh, and build together. Join us.