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All City Real Talk for @JessSolomon, @Mqueez, @Afrolicious

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I have been reflecting on why I have been scared of taking these next steps.

The thing about it is, is that it is fear.

Fear that I won’t have the people in my life now that I have had because I am not only working way more, but moving in new and other circles.

Fear that being of service will take me away from the people that I Love.

I have my shine now, and the space is comfortable. But having ran into my homie two weeks ago who runs a prep school for boys in Bed-Stuy I was reminded that I have work to do. That I was put here to do work for others on another scale. That is some scary shit.

 
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To do more means getting used to being liked or not being liked on a whole other level, and I don’t often know whether I am up to it. Because as a doctoral student and someone who is being trained to be a professor and as a Black woman, I know about the toll that emotional work takes on Black girls. I also know that if I don’t have a strict self care regime and a sort of emotional work plan I am going to be fucked off in the game. One of my projects entails engaging women of color nationally in local electoral politics. #gamechanger.

Latoya has told me that the way to deal with this is to select two or three people whose opinions I respect, and check in with them when I am tripping or there appears to be a rupture or disturbance in the force. What I interpret her to say is don’t let just any raggedy negro online affect how your moral compass about your work shifts. She has a point. I do that now in some ways, but I think she is recommending something a bit different in terms of being a bit more deliberate.

I mean, to spend hella time and writing working and researching something only to have someone tell you “nah B, you are hating” is a huge slap in the face. That’s the kind of shit that will have me telling someone that they are politically under developed and that they need to sit down and read a book before they come at me. #ego.

I also fear that I have said something in the past that has alienated people. But, as a writer I was more underdeveloped then, and I did not see, at the time, how the things that I said would be read. I also know, that challenging peoples thinking isn’t a popularity contest. People can get rich affirming what folks already know, but they rarely become popular or rich challenging them. And that my dear is the rub.

So now that I have said it outloud, it no longer has as much of a hold on me.

Creating Smart and Funky Black Girl Spaces Online….What I Have Been Up to in the Back Channel.

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I have a couple of ideas I have been cooking up, every shut eye ain’t sleep.

I am bringing my blog into my dissertation so I can blog again, and not feel like that work is impeding my other work. It is a tenuous process but I feel that I have more to gain if I do it in some ways. Psychologically, I think it will just feel better, and this matters.

Ok, so here is the rub, in order to move on with these four new blog projects, I have gotten honest with myself and started to quantify exactly HOW much time I spend online on my sites/social media spaces, and how much more time I will spend if/when I move forward on the new projects.

So here are the projects:

New Model Minority 3.0 (A fresh link page; easily searchable archives; easier to navigate design for mobile; more regular updates…at least until August; links for the upcoming book projects that I am working on).

A blog about Black and Latina Politics. I have been working on this for nearly a year. I have 4 writers ready to rock. I JUST picked up MHP’s Sister Citizen, while I have not had time yet to read it, I know from browsing it that it is time to build this site. My desire to create this blog is based on MHP’s interactions with Cornel West last summer.

A digital post card site that allows folks to send in confessions on card anonymously.. I think that until we heal, we cannot do the shit we are suppose to do. I see the creation of a Black oriented space  as a way to create a space for us to unload secrets that we haven’t told a soul; secrets that are holding us back.

A tumblr dedicated to Black girl art projects. I know that many of us are doing stuff, but there isn’t a single place online where we can go to see these projects.
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A database on Girls and STEM. Honestly this will be a collection of links, probably on blogger because the user interface is so accessible.

A Black girl transformation site. We all are trying to do things in life and I think having a community space online where we can support each other may be useful. Also, the personal development blog posts that I have written here have been some of the most popular posts. So I know that there is an audience. Also, I have Goldy in the back of my head who said that OWN isn’t going to work as it is set up now because this is a reality show culture and in light of that, who wants to watch a network premised on self improvement. I think she has a point. I asked her why does “O” magazine work? Her response was that a magazine isn’t a tv network. Touche.

Part of me is reluctant to do the sites other than the first two listed because all of this shit is work. Sugar cane don’t cut itself. Blogs don’t run themselves.

But when I see how the Black girl blogosphere looks these days, I feel that it is in my best interest to not only try, but to do it in an experimental way that is not tied to the outcomes.

I am approaching this in a structured and strategic way, largely because I think that is the most thoughtful way of approaching it. Also, given the fact that I am a teacher, EVERYthing is structured. I think in outlines, which is good because it allows me to document all the little steps. Teaching has forced me to thinking about my thinking. #metashit.

Honestly if there is enough traffic across the sites, my goal is to charge for ad’s from Black girl cultural workers and run them on the site. Honestly, a part of my goal is to see how we can leverage online space to create work and art that shows black girls as the nuanced, contradictory, fancy human beings that we are. Blog hosting costs bread. And a part of me is interested in seeing if I can create ANOTHER model whereby this space sustains itself. I also want to show other Black girls how to do it. Hence, my processing outloud on the blog.

Again the work. Another thing that I am scared of is that I do it, it is successful, but the time required to keep it up is too much. But then that means that I can’t complain about the Black girl digital spaces that exist because I didn’t do anything to change it. #womp.

Thoughts?

HBO’s [White] Girls, White Feminism and How It’s Connected to Think Like a Man

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I know you are thinking #allcity, how in the hell is the connected? It is, trust.

So yesterday, Andrea on Racialicious posted on tumblr about a writer, Aymer, who feels that while Girls is White, it isn’t the Lena Dunham’s problem. Dunham created the show.

Here is part of Aymer’s post,

I think the show is smart, and (c) I agree with Seitz: race is the industry’s problem, not Lena Dunham’s. She is privileged, yes, but–let’s be honest–also got lucky with a sweetheart Louie-like deal: cheap production and relative freedom in lieu of high ratings (Girls‘s paltry 0.4 rating in the demo would get it canceled everywhere but HBO, and maybe FX**).

Here is what Andrea says,

I disagree with Aymer that Lena Dunham isn’t to blame. Her show—which is fueled by her imagination—is another vehicle for Hollywood to continue maintaining the idea of whiteness at the expense of people of color. She is part of the problem, so she has a part in the blame. What I do agree with is that people have done incredible analyses on this racial problem with Dunham’s creation.

Here is my response,

Given my intense focus over the last 4 months on the ways in which Black men and White corporations earn millions of dollars on the stories featuring Black women’s dating and relationship narratives (Think Like a Man, Precious, Jump the Broom, For Colored Girls) I am inclined to think that the darker the US gets the Whiter television will get.

My rational? Symbolic domination is tied up in economic, spiritual and other forms of domination. So the thinking is, so what Ya’ll brown folks might be swoll in numbers, but ENTERTAINMENT- the number 1 US export will not reflect you with nuance; full stop.

They need to just call the show “White Girls”. #Done.

And now I will add this. Think about it. We have a Black man in the White House and a brown skinned, Harvard Law educated, elegant Black first lady.

Conversely though, George Lucas can’t get a film about African American fighter pilots distributed in Hollywood. the film version of the book Think Like a Man, a heterosexual, patriarchal dating advice book for Black women, earned 33 million dollars in it’s opening weekend and it has been the number one film in the US two weeks after it opened.

Dig it, you can have The President and Flotus all over tumblr, buzzing around each other like two SPIRITS who like and Love each other; but, seeing a hetero OR queer Black couple be intimate on the silver screen in a way that is NOT patriarchal and rooted in stereotypes. Good Luck with that shit Gina.
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What is the connection to White feminism? Well when I say White feminism in this instance I mean third wave White feminism that pivots on the idea of “women” being “equal” to men or what I like to call equalism. A few weeks ago my students were throwing around this “women being equal” to men mess and I turned to them and said “I am going off my lesson plan here, but I need to ask you all a question; What is the difference between being equal and being free. Please do not answer immediately as I want you to take your time and think about it.”

Someone eventually responded saying that a woman can be equal to a man by possibly earning to same wages in a certain career, but she wouldn’t be free if everytime she walked out of the house she was bombarded with messages about how ugly she was, or how she needed to lose weight, lighten or darken her skin,  get married, have a baby or (I thought to myself ) if she suffered street harassment on every hot summer day.

So. With that being said Dunham has appeared apologetic saying that while she writes based on her experiences, she didn’t realize that because the characters came from a personal place, that they would be all White. This points to a very interesting moment in popular culture where the impact of racial segregation on the pop culture is crystalized. Dunham doesn’t want to write about folks of color, because they are not apart of her life and she doesn’t want to tokenize them. Is that legitimate? Wouldn’t it be interesting to create a story arch of a young White girl dealing with her Whiteness on an HBO show? Making friends with folks of color? Examining racial privilege?

I thought Dunham’s response was interesting because often times folks have three defenses when they are called on their racism, sexism, transphobia or homophobia which is a.) I was just being funny b.) I didn’t mean any harm c.) I don’t have to be PC, I am an artist. However, I don’t know the last time someone said “Well, this IS based on my experience and I don’t want to tokenize.”

Historically, feminists of ALL races have said that experience is useful for theory and creative work, in fact it makes for some of THE most interesting work that we have created. But they have also said that experience does not mean that you are ABOVE criticism; Peace to Joan Scott.

I like this particular moment in the feminist blogosphere because it speaks to how feminists on social media are co constructing old media, and holding them accountable for how they represent their worlds. That shit is fresh.

So, as the US Browns, will TV and Film become more White?’

Why is it so hard for folks to recognize the connection between racial perceptions, electoral politics and representations in film?

I also think that it is interesting, in terms of power (relationships of power) that the director of  Girls has a small budget and creative license and little pressure to attract audiences, at least according to the blog post. Is that freedom?

What would a woman of color director do with those kinds of working conditions? What would Kasi Lemons, or Julie Dash, Nzinga Stewart or an Asian, Latina, Indian woman do with those kinds of working conditions? What would she create?

Thinking about Black Women in Fim ….”Think Like A Man” and Others

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Think Like a Man made $33M in revenue this weekend.

Friday I saw Think Like a Man (blog post forthcoming). On Saturday I had a realllllllly long conversation with @starfishandcoffee on Twitter about the narrow representation of Black women in films, about the pervasiveness of patriarchal narratives featuring Black women in mainstream media (Think Like a Man, Woman Thou Art Loosed, Good Hair etc…) and about the need for more nuance in the representations of Black women.

@Starfishandcoffee was upset, and rightfully so about both the pervasiveness and the ubiquity of Think Like a Man. However, from my perspective these images are not only powerful because they represent Black women in mainstream media, but they are also powerful because I believe that being able to dominate someone culturally through representations of themselves, is connected to being able to dominate them both economically and spiritually.

There is something bigger here than just going to the movies.

A few years ago I wrote “culture is hegemony’s goon” when talking about the pervasiveness of patriarchal messages in a collection of  Beyonce’s songs.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t think that the audience has agency, that Black audiences can reclaim a text and see it in ways that helps them to see their own humanity. But I will tell you this, in a cultural context where George Lucas has to pony up his own money in order to produce and distribute a film about African American fighter pilot heroes because the films were not perceived as having in financial viability, globally, then we are dealing with a very particular economic context in which Black films are being made.

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When I asked @starfishandcoffee why she appeared to be so invested in in mainstream films offering nuanced versions visions of Black women she responded saying that if we want to reach the masses of people, then engaging with pop culture will bring them in. She also stated that it is important to engage with pop culture because teaching visual literacy and criticism to young people is important. Lastly she stated that she doesn’t expect Hollywood to do the right thing (no pun inteneded) but that folks who want more nuanced images, need to push back against what is being served.

All of which I agree with.

But would be lying if I didn’t leave our conversation thinking about Ed Guerrero’s statements in the book The African American Image in Film about the economics of film, and the intersection of race and filmmaking. He writes,

Whatever its orientation, black cinematic expression, as much of black culture has nearly always been proscribed, marginalized, exploited, and often ignored. Thus black filmmakers of both persuasions are constatnly called on to create out of an uncomprimised, forthright perspective that recovers the long-suppressed sensibilities, apsirations, and narratives of the Black world and struggles to bring them to the cinema screen. At the same time, because movie making is such a captial intensive business and is so largely depended on mass markets, consumer trends and fiasions, these same filmmakers must appeal to a broad enough  commercial audience to earn sufficient revenues at the box office to ensure their candid atvisions of the black world to be successful. And what is equally important, that there work will be sustained in a  succession of feature films. In order words, the black filmmaker must struggle to depict the truth about black life in America while being inextricabily tied to the commercial sensibilities of a mass audience that is for the most part struggling to deny or avoid the full meaning of that truth.

The last bolded section helps to explain is why I believe that there is something bigger here than simply going to the movies. When people go to the movies they are learning how to relate and how to be. I think it also speaks to the constraints that filmmakers,who want to depict Black woman outside of the controlling images, the very restrictive constraints that they must face.

Thoughts?

Moving beyond The Mammie and The Hoochie Mama in mainstream film before 2020?

10 Things I Learned from Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”

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I have been wanting to blog about this book for three months now. o.0

Jaron Lanier is known as the father of virtual reality. Essentially the book asks the reader to think about the design of the internet and Lanier also asks the reader  to question the idea of the wisdom of the crowds. Lastly he asks you to interrogate the role that engineers play in creating hardware and software.

I have listed quotes below. Some of them have comments that I have left. My words are italicized.

#1: On the Power that Engineers Have on the Internet

It only takes a tiny group of engineers to create technology that can shape the entire future human experience with incredible speed. Therefore, crucial arguments about the human relationship to technology should take place between developers and users before such direct manipulations are designed. This book is about those arguments.

#2 The Concept of “Lock In” and How it Shapes Software and Hardware

“Lock in” is a term that describes how older software can shape how newer software is created. He goes on to use MIDI as an example.

The brittle character of mature computer programs can cause digital designs to get frozen into place by a process known as lock-in. This happens when many software programs are designed to work with an existing one. The process of significantly changing software in a situation in which a lot of other software is dependent on it is the hardest thing to do. So it almost never happens.

#3 Why Humanistic Web Design is Important

He lists several things that you can do online to “be a person instead of a source of fragments to be exploited by others”.

His reasoning for humanistic web design is that:

Emphasizing the crowd means deemphasizing individual humans in the design of society, and when you ask people not to be people they revert to bad moblike behaviors….

….But in the case of digital creative materials, like MIDI, UNIX or even the World Wide Web, it’s a good idea to be skeptical. These designs came together very recently, and there’s a haphazard, accidental quality to them. Resist going into the easy grooves they guide you into. If you love a  medium made of software, there’s danger that you will become entrapped in someone else’s recent careless thoughts. Struggle against that!”

#4 Making a Connection Between Chess and Computers

…Modern computers were developed to guide missiles and break secret military codes. Chess and computers are both direct descendants of the violence that drives the evolution  in the natural world, however sanitized and abstracted they may be in the context of civilization.

#5 How are Facebook and No Child Left Behind Connected?

What computerized analysis of all the country’s schools tests has done to education what Facebook has done to friendships. In both cases, life is turned into a database. Both degradations are based on the same philosophical mistake, which is the belief that computers can represent human thought or human relationships. These are things computers cannot currently do.

#6 The Significance of Small Spaces on the Internet

This had particular relevance to me, and my thinking about my blog as I work on new, more expansive and collaborative ideas. He has forced me to think about how I want to grow this space, on my own terms, and to be explicit about what that growth looks like.

I worry that any little special place on the internet can be ruined if it gets too much attention….

The places that work online always turn out to be the beloved projects of individuals, not the automated aggregation of the cloud….

It is the people that make the forum, not the software. Without the software, the experience would not exist at all, so I celebrate the software as flawed as it is.

Page views are not the same as community. Honestly, audience is not the same as community both on and offline. The above quote reminds me of this distinction.
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#7 Lack of Curiosity on the Limits of Crowd Wisdom

The wisdom of crowds effect should be thought of as a tool. The value of a tool is its usefulness in accomplishing a task. The point never should be the glorification of the tool….

…There’s and odd lack of curiosity about the limits of crowd wisdom.

#8 Rethinking Digital Economies

..instead of copying digital media, we should effectively keep only one copy of each cultural expression- as with a book or a song- and pay the author of that expression a small, affordable amount whenever it is accessed…as a result, anyone might be able to get rich from creative work. The people who make a momentarily popular prank video clip might earn a lot of money in a single day, but an obscure scholar might eventually earn as much over many years as her work was repeatedly referenced. But note that this is a very different idea from the long tail, because it rewards individuals instead of cloud owners.

This is interesting in that it discussing another way of structuring economies within digital spaces. As a feminist I am CERTAINLY interested in how this impacts both women in general, women of color in particularly. #equity.

 

#9 Online Chatter {as a Parasite} feeding off of Old Media Cultures

It is astonishing how much of the chatter online is driven by fan responses to expression that was originally created within the sphere of old media and that is now being destroyed  by the net. Comments about TV shows, major movies, commercial music releases, and video games must be responsible for almost as much bit traffic as porn. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, but since the web is killing the old media, we face a situation in which culture is effectively eating it’s own seed stock.

Honestly I had never thought about this before. I am aware that a blog can serve it’s audience OR it’s advertisers, rarely both (shout out to Rafi).

#10 The Limits of Open Source Software

Open wisdom-of-crowds software movements have become influential, but they haven’t promoted the kind of radical creativity I love most in computer science. If anything, they’ve been hindrances. Some of the youngest, brightest minds have been trapped in a 1970’s intellectual framework because they are hypnotized into accepting old software designed as if they were facts of nature….I am not anti open source…but the politically correct dogma that holds open source is automatically the best path to creativity and innovation is not borne by the facts.

He cites the fact that the iphone was created in a “closed” environment as an example of how the most significant tech innovations don’t always occur in open source settings.

Do you know Jaron Lanier’s work?

Fascinating no?

Thoughts?