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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.

Rap Blogs + Feminism, an Uneasy Marriage

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Via Complex (Really awesome post on “dead” rap magazines.”)

In May of 2009, every since John posted the nude pictures of who is largely speculated to be singer Rihanna Fenty, I haven’t felt the same way about rap music.

When I saw that he posted the pictures, I contacted him and we had a conversation about the reasons why he would or would not post pictures of Rihanna Fenty, and I asked him whether I could blog about it. He said no.

It was then that I concluded that  Black women stay being for sale. I say this to speak back to the idea that the internet is some “democratic” space where everyone has a voice. No, power is relational. And as @afrolicious says, the same relationships of power you see on the street, in schools, at the bodega on the train, are at work on the internet as well.

It was bugged out to me, that he wouldn’t consent to me talking about our conversation yet, felt he needed no consent to post nude pictures of who we believed to be Rihanna Fenty.  I remembered saying to him, I know you are not a feminist, but this shit blood, really? I always considered you to be an ally.

This man, at one time, had the password to my blog, and the freedom to take posts as he liked and put them on The Smoking Section. I appreciated it as he exposed my work to a larger audience.

He is also one of the first people online who told me I had a writing voice waaaaaaay back in ’06, when I didn’t even SEE that I had one. Furthermore, in Summer ’08,  when Latoya ran one of my pieces on Racialicous, and it was picked up the the Daily UK’s blog feed, I told John who further explained to me all sorts of nuances of blogging in terms of mining the reader data, tracking ping backs, strategically picking topics to post about to render myself an authority, building my audience. He mentored me and tried to help when he could and I appreciated it.

I also felt like I had an investment in The Smoking Section because I assisted John in navigating the move to Uproxx.  We had our seperate lanes, no doubt, and I wanted to see him win. I read the contract, asked him questions and gave him feedback on what I thought about various clauses. Having had corporations and trademark and I believe I was taking mergers and acquisitions, I had  familiarity with the language. I looked at it as a case study exercise.

By 2009, as I saw his site taking on more and more of the soft porn of eye candy. All I could think is, you can’t figure out how to enhance your quotes without peddling eye candy? Blood, what kinda facts are those?

I asked him something about this, along these lines and he responded, its a trade off. I link to you from time to time, I post the eye candy, win – win. I gave him a side eye.

As a Black woman blogger who sits at the intersection Rap/pop culture and feminism, I have very unique perspective. I am not aware of any other Black woman who has blogged as consistently as long as I have.

Because of this I have had a very particular experience in the blogosphere.

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I remember when I had a conversation with Dallas who argued, and I paraphrase, that the fate of Black people rest on the “respectability” of Black women.  This was based on a conversation around the Duke Rape case. I responded, blood what the ___ are you talking about?  Truth be told, Dallas is the one who named me M.dot, based on the two M’s in Model Minority. It just kinda stuck. He is also the person who encouraged me to write about the Venus Hottentot and Buffy the Body.  This was kind of a game changer for me because it got me thinking about Black women in music videos from a historical perspective.

Lastly my recent conversations with Ta-Nehisi around “For Colored Girls” and the significance of looking at a text around gender when talking about race, are a  part of this pattern as well.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am seeing a pattern here of me challenging or questioning Black men online, and me receiving various forms of “nah, pump your breaks” in response.

My interactions Ta-Nehisi’s and John’s are similar in that I supported them, in the way that I could on my blog or with my blog. These men would have gotten to where they are, regardless, as they seem to be committed to what they do.  What is material to me is that I saw that a line was crossed in terms of Black women, I brought it up to them, and I received a variation of  “nah, pump ya breaks.”

Whats the deal with that?

I have thought about writing this since those pictures were posted in 2009. I just wasn’t sure how. My conversations with Ta-Nehisi has clarified the issue in some ways. In fact a comment on his blog, which was brought to my attention by @tkoed on Friday (by the time I saw it the comments were closed) further encouraged me to write this. I was largely inspired based on a comment at Ta-Nehisis’ blog. The commenter, Sorn writes,

…What I see as the major bone of contention is that TNC is speaking from his experience of being a black man, and Renina is speaking from her experience of being a black woman. The language is the same, but the meanings are different, because meaning –on an emotional level– is ultimately derived from personal experience.

I think there is a fascinating conversation that needs to be had here about how each gender is raised to view and interpret the actions and words of the other. Academic literature is important, but what is more important to me, as a reader of this blog, is how the literature sheds light on experience. TNC has repeatedly written about the relationship between hip-hop and the mask worn by young black men, and in my head I took the post on the misogyny of Malcolm X to be along the same lines as earlier posts discussing the same relationship in hip-hop.

When I read this I was like. Damn GINA! Someone gets it! It was at this moment that I realized that I BEEN had something to say it that was time to say it.

Do you think it is significant that one by one, I have crossed a gender line with a few Black men on the internet?

Where is the space to have what Mr. Fantastic call’s “Healing Conversations” about gender? Would you participate in them?

Other thoughts?

For Colored Bloggers Who Consider Sexism and Racism

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Crystal and Beau Willie Brown and in a pivotal scene in For Colored Girls.

In Ta-Nehisi’s response to me, he acknowledges me, which I appreciate, then he apologizes for critiquing For Colored Girls without having read it recently, then I read him to go on to say that his blog is his space to work out his ideas, that his writing is for him, and that the gender politics may best be left to the gender studies professors.

I am a Black feminist scholar, from East Oakland, California and I have been blogging for nearly 5 years.

As a thinker, graduate student and blogger, I have done a lot of writing around racism, sexism and pop culture.

As a Black feminist the straight jacket of hegemonic Black masculinity matters to me and I see it as my job to support men and women who openly challenge and wrestle with it. I saw Ta-Nehisi do this in the “O” magazine article in 2006 and  in his book The Beautiful Struggle.

In The Beautiful Struggle his treatment of his relationship with his father was profoundly moving especially given the ways in which the stereotype of the “no good” Black man father is deployed on the regular in main stream media. In many ways his courage to both celebrate and critique his father has provided a framework for me to do the very same thing on my blog with my father.

I also really appreciated his candid discussion of what it felt like to be a young Black boy dealing with Black violence in the Baltimore in the 80’s. As Americans in general and as Black people specifically, I don’t believe we have a language yet to articulate and deal with the ways in which violence is a fucked up part of our every day lives and the impact this has on our relationships with each other and with ourselves.

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Context matters so here is a little about me. My family is working class, my mothers block in Oakland was shot up last month and I just received my first invitation to a White House event this week. Life is complex.

Initially I shouted out Ta-Nehisi on my blog in 2006 because I appreciated how he wrestled with being a dad in his “O”  magazine article. In fact my precise words were,

“I only have one question for you Senor Coates. Where is the book ? Tell the publishers there is a market and if you need proof I will give them a list. Trust.”

I provide this information to give background and context for my perspective. As I believe that our experiences shape what we see and how we interpret things.

Ta-Nehisi appears to be have been critiqued around his gender politics before and the line in the sand that he draws is that his blog is his space to work out his ideas. I actually feel the same way about my blog. No one tells me what to write. However, I am regularly challenged on WHAT I write and I often respond with reading more to make my work tighter.  It makes me a stronger more nimble thinker. It happened when I called Camus a White Algerian on Racialicious, and it happened when I blogged recently about Black Male Privilege vs. Male Privilege. Experience has shown that that I will be held accountable for the things that I say.  In terms of a critique of his gender politics Ta-Nehisi states,

I have fairly often found myself confronting this critique. I have tried to cop to my blind spots, and consciously work toward abolishing them. But I do not think bad impersonations of a gender studies professor are the way forward.

This leads me to ask, does reading a book or two about racism and sexism constitute being a gender studies professor? Or simply a little bit more well rounded?

The “do for self line” stung a bit.

“I’m Out for Delphia Selfia P’s Not Helping Ya'” ~ Mobb Deep

Telling me or his audience in general  to “do for self” mask’s the power dynamics at work between him, The Atlantic and his audience.

“Get It How You Live, We Don’t Ask For Help” ~ The Clipse

Perhaps he wants to enjoy the rewards of blogging for The Atlantic, but not the responsibilities? Perhaps, from his standpoint his responsibilities appear to be to himself and his employer, to ensuring that his blog remains a safe space for him to explore what he is interested in. Touche.

In the comment section of Racialicious, Shauna helped me to clarify why I was compelled to write a post about Ta-Nehisi’s gender politics, so long after the original For Colored Girls original post was posted way back in March.

You see, two weeks ago, as I read Ta-Nehisi struggle with Malcom X’s misogyny I thought two things. First, I thought, if he was more familiar with the literature of Black feminists within the civil rights movement then Malcolm’s misogyny wouldn’t be a surprise.

Second his response to discovering Malcolm’s misogyny kind of reminded me of the moment when some White folks realize that racism exists. Like damn Gina. Word?

Today, while perusing the comments on his blog I noticed that he hasn’t read much on the gender politics in The Black Power Movement. I had already inferred this based on his reading of Malcolm.

I mean, it is well documented in Black feminist circles and in some civil rights movement circles that Stokley Carmichael said that “the only place for women in SNCC is prone” and that Eldridge Cleaver said regarding rape in his book Soul On Ice that he “started out by practicing on black girls in the ghetto” and then when he considered “myself smooth enough I crossed the tracks and sought out white prey.”

Perhaps most prominently Assata Shakur, Elaine Brown, Angela Davis have all written about misogyny within the Black Power and Civil Rights Movements. In Why Misogynists Make Great Informants,  Courtney Desiree Morris writes,

Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, and Elaine Brown, each at different points in their experiences organizing with the Black Panther Party (BPP), cited sexism and the exploitation of women (and their organizing labor) in the BPP as one of their primary reasons for either leaving the group (in the cases of Brown and Shakur) or refusing to ever formally join (in Davis’s case). Although women were often expected to make significant personal sacrifices to support the movement, when women found themselves victimized by male comrades there was no support for them or channels to seek redress.

This is humbling but real. I am going to make it a point to mention that there are Black men online who struggle with both race and gender in some of their blogpost’s such as Professor’s David Ikard,  Mark Anthony Neal and Dumi Lewis.

There are also sites where Black women struggle with issues of race and gender such as my blog New Model Minority,
Racialicious, Crunk Feminists, JoNubian.com and Clutch Magazine. I hope that Ta-Nehisi reconsiders his stance, Love and change are always possible.

If not, I am satisfied with the discourse that my critique has engendered and perhaps if one or even two people pick up Black Feminist Theory from Margin to Center, Black Macho and the Myth of the Super Woman,  When and Where I Enter, ot the awesome new book I read this weekend, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance, A New History of the Civil Rights Movement, then my work, in some ways has been done.

Jay-Z x Nzingha Stewart x For Colored Girls.

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Last week I learned that in 2005 Jay-Z stopped the release of his autobiography, tentatively titled, The Black Book because he found it to be too personal. After reading this and realizing that Nzingha Stewart was originally signed to direct For Colored Girls, ? I concluded that a barometer of Black womens? freedom is our ability control, tell and disseminate our own images, our own stories.? John Jurgensen writes about Jay-Z’s decision in the? in the Wall Street Journal,

But he felt that the memoir, tentatively titled “The Black Book,” revealed too many personal details. “It was great, but I couldn’t do it…”

Sho’ll must be nice to control your own stories.

Nzinga Stewart was originally set to direct For Colored Girls.

Why Tyler Perry wound up directing it, I don’t know. It feels like he walked out with “all of our stuff.”

I know that Nzingha Stewart had been working on For Colored Girls for a hot minute.? An interview on the blog 21 Hustle speaks on the process by which Nzingha came to work on For Colored Girls,

Last week Lionsgate Films announced that it? had acquired these? rights? and signed? Stewart to direct from her? adaptation of? ?For Colored Girls,? the critically acclaimed play by Ntozake Shange, that was written as a series of 20 poems telling stories of love, abandonment, domestic abuse and other issues faced by black women.

It is? important to understand that Stewart, who is mostly known for directing music videos,? wasn?t just ?signed?? by Lionsgate to write and direct;? This is a project that evolved by Stewart putting the motion pictures of her mind into real life motion,? thus creating a dream job for herself.

When talking about the process of trying to secure the opportunity to direct the film, Nzingha said,

It?s been a roller coaster ride. The hardest thing to learn is just how much this town is a business. More than anything, its who you know, how to talk to people , and what impression you give in the room. Decisions are made based on that more than even the work itself. So I have to go in prepared not to just pitch the work but to almost to pitch myself. And to make this person feel comfortable being around me. Like if we make this movie together it wont be annoying to be around me for a full year. Hollywood is business, and you have to master that aspect of yourself. I used to be that kind of artist who felt like the work is good enough. Its like it doesn?t matter about the work sweetheart. You gotta sell your project.

God Bless her.

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Tyler Perry.

Chris Rock.

Lee Daniels.

Steve Harvey.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

When will we stop complaining and start supporting the independent Black women film directors who are committed to telling our stories?

Shout out to @MyaBee, @Hotcombpics, @tchaiko, @superhussy.

Or maybe we can complain and support?? 🙂

Ta-Nehisi Coates asked “Is ‘For Colored Girls’ a Classic”: My Response.

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In March, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a blog post titled, “The Debatable Legacy of For Colored Girls.” He writes,

“I haven’t read it in years, but even as a younger person I remember thinking it was somewhat over the top and heavy-handed. Hence when I heard that Perry was involved my thoughts were more along the lines of “Of course” or “Perfect.” I could be off on this and I’d like to hear some discussion around this.”

Nearly four years ago, I shouted out Ta-Nehisi? Coates after reading an article of his in “O” magazine on his process of being a Black dad. I stated explicitly that publishers needed to give him a book deal. He responded to me a year later, and arranged to send me a galley of Beautiful Struggle, which I then reviewed on this blog. So i say this knowing that we have some limited history and I want to acknowledge that.

I have found Ta-Nehisi’s Black gender politics to be lacking on his blog and in some ways the questioning of whether or not For Colored Girls is classic symbolizes some of what troubles me about his Black gender politics.

When reading this post Moya asked me two questions. The first was, “Why does it matter to Ta-Nehisi Coates whether For Colored Girls is a classic?” The second is “Is he saying that because it is not a classic that it doesn’t matter if Tyler Perry butchers it?

This is not to say that For Colored Girls should not be questioned. Work around Black gender relations should be given a critical eye.

The issue for me is his reliance on his? memory as a basis for questioning whether or not it is a classic.

What does it mean that a Black man, at a popular White publication openly questions whether or not a work by Black feminist artist is a classic, having not read the work since his was younger?

Ta-Nehisi is a reader. Last summer he read and blogged so much about the civil war that he had me revisiting the founding fathers narratives on slavery and democracy. Blog post here, “The Coming Coming Jobless Society.”

In fact that he is currently re-reading Malcolm’s autobiography.? Why not reread For Colored Girls, then ask whether or not it’s a classic?

To read something is to deem it important, significant and worthy of your time.
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In the book Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton Duchess Harris explains the significance of For Colored Girls. I picked up this book on Tuesday because I suspected that Dr. Harris would analyze the cultural moment out of which For Colored Girls emerged. I include three of her quotes below. She writes,

The work of Michelle Wallace and Ntozake Shange shook Black academe and the predominantly male establishment, creating necessary controversy that advanced the Black feminist movement. Without the debates the works? engendered, Black feminist writings would not be as developed as they are today.? Wallace and Shanges works were also necessary since they were articulations? not only about Black women, but by Black women, offering a narrative? that diverged considerably from the limiting sterotypes of the Monyihan report, as well as those books such as Soul on Ice by former Black power leader Eldridge Cleaver.

She also says,

Yet, the fact that Shange asserted women’s rights to have their own narratives and, moreover, the right to tell those narratives, opened the door to a new type of creative cultural production that expanded opportunities for Black women to explore, discuss, and understand the issues that affected their lives, as well as present these issues before a broader more diverse audience.

She goes on to say,

Shange also resisted the notion that she glamorized Black women at the expense of Black men, and insisted that her treatment of Black women was neither glamorizing or uplifting but rather a reflection of how she viewed reality.? Black men and some Black women were not accustomed to seeing Black women stand up for a Black autonomous feminism that questioned racism within White feminist? movements but also went against sexism within Black society. Such a stance is central to Wallace’s and Shange’s writing, since they did not attack all Black men- only the ones who abuse and oppress women and those who let other men so without educating them to act otherwise.

In the essay, “Neither Fish Nor Fowl: The Crisis of African American Gender Relations” Michelle Wallace said that a significant aspect of the Black feminist work is to,

“get black scholars and intellectuals of Orlando Patterson’s superb caliber to think seriously and write publicly about Black gender relations.”

In many ways Wallace’s sentiments towards Patterson captures my sentiment’s toward Ta-Nehisi.

Given Ta-Nehisi’s ability to dig in deep on a topic, AND the audience and platform that he has, he could conceivably impact the tone and content of Black gender discourse in profound ways.

Some great books on Black gender politics? (relationships between Black men and women) are When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddings,? Black Macho and the Myth of the Super Woman by Michelle Wallace and Black Feminist Theory from Margin to Center by bell hooks.

Do you think that For Colored Girls is a classic? Why or Why not?

Would you need to learn more in order to say so?

What is politically at stake when we discuss text we haven’t recently read?