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The Gender Politics of the Dance Floor

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I am a dancer.

I have been since I can remember.

When I was 8 years old I won the dance contest at the California State Fair on 4th of July weekend.

#yup.

Dancing on a stage in front of thousands of people, and an audience comprised of mainly White folks and my parents.

Dancing earlier this week had me thinking about how space is gendered. And by gendered I mean ideas about “men’s” and “women’s” roles are so powerful that  they shape how men and women interact AND  the roles become amplified in certain spaces.

The streets and the dancefloor are two space that come to mind, but in this post I am going to focus on the dance floor.

Dance Floor Experiences.

Well, last week, my cheek brushed passed a heterosexual identified gentleman’s. He responded, “YO, your cheeks are mad soft.” They are, I have cubby cheeks, they run in my family. He then leaned in to touch them again.

I leaned back matrix style then responded saying, “You have to get consent first.” He then asked.

This reminds me of how much negotiation goes in Black women’s bodies simply BEING in public spaces.

I think that the dance floor is the first place were I was comfortable claiming my autonomy and space even as a dancer kid and teenager.

As a good dancer, people naturally GIVE you space, because they enjoy the performance.

I am now only beginning to put all these pieces together.

In fact it wasn’t until I was dancing in August that Green Eyes, pointed out to me that I am a space clearer. It makes sense, because I need space to dance.

But the reality you simply need space to BE.

Because I am a dancer, I am not really the kind of person you want to stand next to and hold your drink and watch woman’s asses move.

You will get pushed out. Static energy on the dance floor blows my steez.

I move deliberately like a New Condo in a working class Black and Latino neighborhood.  #pow.

The party dance floor is a politicized and gendered space because of the  alcohol, darkness and music. In some ways it creates an environment where men feel entitled to grab, touch and feel without consent.

This behavior is not innate, they are not born like this, they are socialized to think that it is okay. It is not.

Two years ago I wrote about the politics of the dance floor where a White woman felt comfortable enough to kiss me. In that post I quoted Benjamin Mako Hill who states,
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Booty bass is not just playing around with the idea of the dance floor being highly sexualized. In practice, it?s about serving the sex market and all about glamorizing and making palatable, laughable, and perhaps even justifiable everything that happens in that market.

Sometimes it’s not just about making fun of, toying with, or hinting at sexual domination in a safe context like the dancefloor but about creating, quite literally, a soundtrack for the real thing.

Thinking back, that was some radical shit for a White dude to say. #ummhmm.

Negotiating Space and Bodies

Last night I had a dance partner that wore my ass out. Like. Wo’ out. And that rarely happens.

There was two stepping. A little Bachata. The wop.

We danced through an ENTIRE Prince set. In fact I think I mentioned that I was a dancer… after that I remember being spun around in the air. #yup.

Nothing like a hand in the small of your back spinning you above the crowd.

However, I do recall a moment where I was like “Imma need you to move your hands two inches higher.”

He did.

Hands on my ass is not tolerable unless I consent. Full stop.

Dancing  Sexy is “Ho” Shit.

Because I dance passionately, it is often misread as being sexually accessible, which means that ostensibly, I cannot just dance with anyone.

Dancing passionately is really about  me having a conversation with the DJ.

As Professor Imani Perry says, Black dance is discursive, a conversation. I agree.

The question for me is who is conversatin’. <<<< I am wrong. I know.

Hope

Oh, there was also a moment last night that I will never forget when the DJ played Nirvana’s Teen Spirit. Honey.  An entire room of Negro people jumping.

I am not one to say that hip hop can solve problems as a “culture.”  People committed to solving problems solve problems.

What I will say is that I felt the power of a room full of folks jumping. The energy was …I don’t know, it just gave me hope.

Dance floor politics?

Women, how do you deal with this?

Have any gendered dance floor experiences recently?

#Ummp.

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I use this image because it captures me, at least that is what my dating coach Court Bear says. Big {Teef} Smile.

I feel like I lost a best friend.

You know how you have a conversation, and you KNOW the relationship ain’t gonna be the same after this one.

Well, that shit happened about a month ago, and it came full circle last night.

The bugged out thing is that this is my cycle in some ways. Almost a year to the date.

School has changed me in ways that I am now only begging to grapple with.

Like the need for serious intellectual activity in a boo thang is real.

Discourse.

When MF Kennedy sent me the Cornel West video on the “orgiastic pleasure” of the life of the mind, and I was like wow, you get something ABOUT me that

I sent the video to nikon jawn AND SHE blushed, like girl, he SENT that shit to you. #ummhmm.
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I know you may be like DUH, you are in a grad school. But guess what, I never experienced in this while in the OTHER 5011 years I been in school, so how should I assume that this time would change me, in THIS way.

I think that’s why I stay referencing Bleek Gilliam, because that character is really a framework for helping me to privilege both the people that I Love and the Love for my work, and it gives me a language to talk about how I negotiate this space.

You know #allcity has a “5 ft. Party periphery” as Maxxxx once said about me.

Peace to Misternash.

It’s hard because he know me to my bones, and I am scared of never finding that again.

And perhaps bone knowing is necessary, but not sufficient. #Damngina.

However My heart don’t pump Kool-Aid, and I don’t control outcomes.

Fearless and Vulnerable.

Always.

Images Ain’t Neutral

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In The Sex Issue of The Words Beats and Life Journal (which you can buy here,  I am on the journal staff),  graphic artist and professor John Jennings says a few things about how images are used to normalize domination.

I read it in July, but its been on my mind ever since.

The first is that:

The Black body has historically been consumed by the masses in one way or another. The slave body was reduced to the slave masters whim…This practice hasn’t really changed. When you can control how people are viewed–and objectify  them, to a certain extent, you can control them.

The second is that:

The practice of dehumanizing the individual in order to sell products has a long history — one that naturally extends to hip hop culture. However, when you couple that practice with the history of slavery in America’s development, it re-contextualizes this process even more and depictions of our bodies become materialized.

This reminds me of something that Professor Michelle Wallace says in the article An Interview:

I mean in other words, the more images are thrown at you, the less you’re able to distinguish between them and filter them, make informed decisions about what you like and don’t like. I guess the more you’re bombarded with these images, he more passive you become. Images have histories and narratives of their own. The way not to be totally seduced by them is to keep that in mind.

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Some of ya’ll think I be putting 10 on 2 when I write about pop culture, Kanye, rappers, and the significance of images etc. But guess what?

You control how a people LOOK, you can dominate them. #yup.

Images ain’t neutral.

Thoughts?

Am I wrong for “Nigger” soap? 0.O

Misogyny and Genius: Assange + R. Kelly

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Image via New Black Man.

During my birthday a couple of years ago I was posted up in Philly with Filthy in that awesome Barnes and Nobles on U Penn’s campus.

The Roman Polanski rape charges were being debated in the New York Times and some folks were defending him saying that it wasn’t “rape-rape”, that happened so long ago, or the alleged rape victim retracted her statement etc.

I was perplexed, why was this White man not in jail for raping an underaged White girl?

I thought, if she couldn’t be protected than my ass was grass.

I said this to Filthy and he looked at me, paused, stared at me for a minute, then said, well you know that’s a real working class Black woman’s perspective. I didn’t really know WHAT he meant by that at the time, but I remembered it, because it felt like I was going to need to remember it. Feel me?

Black men have been lynched and Black women have been raped, historically, in the US to maintain the hierarchical, racial,  gendered, social order. This terror was particularly acute 1880’s-1920’s in the south, as the US tried to figure out what a post slavery nation would look like.

Historically Black women are seen as UNrapeable. Naturally lewd, lascivious, fast and promiscuous. The social system of slavery needed us to be seen this way to normalize the domination of our reproduction and our manual work during US chattel slavery.

Because Black women were the two-fer, we worked in the fields and gave birth to enslaved workers, our sexuality was and in many ways still is looked at in a very particular way, even in 2010.

My understanding of this comes from two books.  The first is Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South by Hannah Rosen and At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance–A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle McGuire.

Back to Polanski. Filthy explained to me that in Western Europe prominent, artists, writers, filmmakers, philosophers and thinkers  are placed on a pedastal.

I was like word?

Then peep game, he said for this reason, he holds these folks to a higher standard WHY? Because they have a platform where they can both influence society and consequently play a large(r) role in changing the world.

Louder voice, conceivably bigger impact.

This bugged me out.

How do I get to Assange and R. Kelly?

Well, I was really interested in three things in terms of how the Assange narrative was emerging:

The lack of a clear narrative around the facts of what actually occurred during the week in question. (h/t to @shoutcacophony for the link.)
The fact that people didn’t have the language to talk about both his genius/subversive actions AND the rape allegation against him.

The fact that Naomi Wolf’s stand point on Interpol as the dating police.

The fact that a group of largely White feminists got Keith Olberman and Michael Moore to apologize after being dismissive of Assange’s rape allegations. More here @ the  #moreandme hastag.

    Whats the Assange/R. Kelly connection?

    In 2008 R. Kelly was found not guilty on 14 counts of child pornography charges with a thirteen year old African American who was suspected to be his Goddaughter.

    A couple of weeks ago, on The Facebook a homie made a comment about R. Kelly’s genius, and a conversation ensued about just sorta being conflicted over him.

    I responded:

    It’s bugged. In terms of R.Kelly, if the issue were Race/Rather than Gender, I don’t think we would be so ambivalent.

    To put it another way:
    Could we really rock to some music made by a Brilliant Racist, rather than a Brilliant Pedophile?

    …R. Kelly Married Aaliyah when she was 15. We *Been* knew he was wrong.

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    Why is sexual domination acceptable for men artists who are labeled genius?

    Then again, sexual domination often goes unchallenged on the day to day, so I just kinda answered my own question. 0.O

    In someways its a part of the success package and that troubles me.

    What makes people short circuit when it comes to holding artists and other genius folks accountable for their janky gender politics, pedophilia, rape allegations?

    Because artists influence people, large amounts of people via their art, shouldn’t they be held to a higher standard, not a lower one?

    Why or why not?

    Men are Fragile :: Humans are Fragile

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    In the name of all things vulnerable and fearless.

    The other night I had dinner with a friend.
    I am glad I followed my intuition and reach out to him
    because as soon as he sat down he told me that his mom
    had recently passed and apologized for not sharing it sooner.

    I am glad that he shared. I had to go home and finish grading 19 final exams essays and calculate grades, which was an enormous amount of work but him saying that put it into perspective. He seems to be holding up well. He has a broad social support system, and I didn’t really know what to say, so I listened.

    Then I suggested that he find a therapist and he agreed. Loss be hard to deal with and some people never recover. Human beings are fragile.

    He asked me how my life was going and I was saying that I trying to grind it out, was focused on lining up summer 2011 work and trying to be mindful of my heart and desires.

    He was like “you are forward with people just like that, you just tell them you like them” I was like yeah, and he asked me to teach him. I was like honey, I know that I have to say what I have to say and the outcome is not mine. It’s as simple as that. I really just try and pray through things.

    With this in the back of my mind I had an experience last night.

    Last night, I ran into SD and flirted, and he commenced to treating me like a these overtures were unwanted nor desired. Peep game though, dude was conveying the exact opposite last week.

    Record scratch.

    I mean honestly blood, there was one point last week where I had to give him a “saved hug” because he was a ‘lil too close to me, hand in the small of my back, ‘taumbout “I miss you“.  Along with asking me, “Are you seeing anyone?” “Can I call you?” #ummp.

    So,  I asked him to reconcile the discrepancy, and I stood there and waited.

    He explained saying that he simply felt different, that the social circles are small. I walked away saying “It didn’t have to be like this.”

    That shit is sloppy.

    JJ said something profound when I ran this by her which is that he doesn’t seem to know what he wants, yet, needs to know that he has an in with you, that he knows where he stands.

    Absurd, but the facts match her theory.

    Last week, Courtbear my dating coach told me “#allcity, if you do this, its going to be bumpy.” I was like I am not *doing* anything. I just don’t want to cringe when I walk into a room, the circles we travel in are small.

    I guess I am just trying to find the balance. Its the libra in me. I try to be firm and honest.

    However, neither my Love nor my forgiveness is thin. My heart don’t pump kool-aid.

    So I feel the need to commit to what I said I was going to do and forgive. But damn if I ain’t feel manipulated. I got a big assed resentment over that shit blood.

    I will admit that I played a role in being a recipient to the messages.

    It’s like I already had evidence of sloppiness, stayed away and did my thing, waved the peace flag, only to get more sloppiness. I feel like I should have known better. I will forgive myself, have a soft heart and assert my humanity when I feel it’s not being respected.

    When I call him Mc Sloppy in my head, I smile. #turrible. But it is what it is.

    At the end of the day,  we are both human beings. Full stop.

    Speaking of manipulation, one of the little bears wrote on their final that when desire isn’t dealt with it comes out as manipulation.

    Manipulation is a tool of control. Two of the ways human beings attempt to manipulate is by not sharing information, and by not stating their intentions.

    This reminds of how once I heard a hustla say that there are three kind of people in the world who are dangerous:

    • Someone who doesn’t know what s/he wants.
    • Someone who is jealous of you.
    • Someone with no fear of going to the Pen.

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    People who don’t know what they want are dangerous because they spend time fiddling with yo’ heart or perhaps even your friendship, while the are figuring out which drawls to wear. #Icant. I ain’t no object.

    #Blackgirlsarefromthefuture and if you can’t treat me like you understand that then you need to stay the fuck out my face. Full stop.

    To be said another way. Treat people like they human or leave them alone.

    Today, I saw Lady Metta who said, you know what men are fragile. And I get what she meant. We live in a society that doesn’t allow boys the space to feel.  How are they going to be able to relate to other people? How are they going to be human in this context?

    I responded, humans are fragile.

    *After I wrote this post, Lady Metta read it and and sent me a poem Alice Walker sent to Aung San Suu Kyi titled “Loving Humans.” #Tears. Imma go ahead and forgive him. He don’t have no act right, but I have a code, and I will stick to it. Wow. This is a moment of transformation. Who knew?

    Why people be testing your forgiveness?

    Why people be sloppy?

    Why people need to know if they have an *in*? Shit. Ego. Duh.

    #LoveisStronger.