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The Sheer Queerness of the Little Dragon Audience

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Photo by Danielle Scruggs
This post is Dedicated to #JermthePerm aka #OldManRap

A couple of Fridays I got a call, my homie said “What are you doing tomorrow, you want to go to the Little Dragon show?”
I responded yes and immediately began to think about my outfit. I have to have my priorities in life, lol.

I had heard of Little Dragon, but but I had never heard their music. It sounds like a combination between Radiohead meets Prince.

More so than there music, or perhaps because of their music,  the audience was incredibly queer. By queer I mean comprised of a room full of marginalized bodies who don’t normally hang out together. By queer I mean bursting with radical potential. In the essay “Punks, Buldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics” Cathy Cohen states that “queer theory focuses on and makes central not only the socially constructed nature of sexuality and sexual categories, but also the varying degrees and multiple sites of power distributed within categories of sexuality, including the normative category of heterosexuality.”

Cohen goes on to state that queer means “to fuck with gender. There are straight queers, bi queers, tranny queers, lez queers, SM queers, fisting queer in every single street of this apathetic country of ours.”

The Little Dragon Audience had White folks, Black folks, Latino folks, Asian folks, young people ages sixteen to twenty one, older folks ages forty to fifty, folks in between.

The people in the room reminded me of folks who were no interested in assimilating into dominant structures but instead, as Cohen states, “seeking to transform the basic fabric and hierarchies  that allow systems of oppression to persist and operate efficiently.” Glen Bleck would have lost his little Loving mind at the sight of it all.
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Same sex couples holding hands, boo’d up in the corner looking like they needed a bed and some pillows. Young clusters of White women
were dancing their little hearts out. Mad black girls with mohawks, afro’s and a sprinkle of ladies with perms.

Give the various different kinds of people gathered at The Black Cat for The Little Dragon concert, gender was certainly being addressed.

I don’t believe I have seen so much diversity within a space since the first time I went to Coney Island 4th of July 2006. There were also the all ages rap shows that I attended as a teenager in Berkeley and San Francisco.

The space was magic in that I wasn’t prepared for the sexual energy in the air. I just kinda stood around in the middle of the room, seeing friends I hadn’t expected to see, taking it all in. Getting my #ErkahBaduApb in #leggingsOldNavyShirtfrom2002AndBoots! Peace to @unkut.

You see Little D in your city?

How was the audience?

Were you already a fan? Whats your favorite song?

On Raising Babies and Leaving Lovers

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A photo he took of me Labor Day Weekend @ Havana’s. This man made me look like Zora. #Tears. #Ummhmm.

Dedicated to @mistmattnash

I don’t know what to say.

I realized two nights ago that I am grieving the fact that I just walked away from someone who is father material. We are still friends but….it ain’t the same.

I knew something was up with me because I caught myself obsessing over two people that I had no business doing so. Thinking about them from time to time, yes, because you DO be needing to process life events and what not, but the level that I was doing it was way too much.

Then I realized rather than feel my feelings I was thinking of other people. #Allbad.

Feeling vs. Thinking are two different things when it comes to healing. Full stop.

I was reading a book on the subject and it said that, “You start to grieve when you get ready to.”

I have dated, I am #oldladyrap, but this situation was like two ships passing and then when I finally put two and two together I realized that amongst a few things our timing was janky.

As a Black feminist I take parenting seriously. Like really serious. Isn’t it bugged that I have never written about this personal choice before? Well, it’s close to my heart.  But nearly everything I write is, luls. Perhaps it is because this is close in another, arguably more profound way. I talk about it with the homies, but I haven’t written about it.

When I write it I make it real.

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The thing about it is blood, everybody ain’t parenting material. I have dated very few other people who I saw as being dad material. In some ways he is the only one seemed to not only desire it but was focused on being good at it. #damngina.

People ask me, especially on dates, where your little bears at? And I tell them that this is a society that needs children in order to survive, but refuses to support mothers, while simultaneously expecting them to perpetually raise new generations. I am cool on those.

If men gave birth there would be cheap and accessible child care on every corner.

How did I get to this point?

The turning point for me about this was over two years ago, Filthy was real clear about how he knows hella organizers whose children don’t talk to them. I was kinda stuck. I had to think real hard about what being #BlackgirlBleekGilliam means to me.

I think this is why I am so fascinated by Lauryn Hill and her choice to leave and raise her babies and peoples reaction TO that choice.

So yeah. I am grieving the loss. And I have to accept it. But daggumit if I don’t want to some days.

You ever think about the choice to parent?

Would you do it over again different?

Why people think Lauryn Hill owe them something?

Orisha’s and Clarity for Black Girls #blackgirlsarefromthefuture

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Last night I saw someone dance so, how do you say, he was such a light that I stared. I try not to stare. Staring is rude. However, I was mesmerized.

There is always a moment when I am dancing were I go somewhere else, where everyone else recedes and its just me and the music. His whole joint was like that.

I knew he was touched by and dealt with the Orisha’s. I went and spoke to him and my suspicions were confirmed.

He told me a few things about myself that were so right that I am still kind of riveted.

He said that I am a conduit (this makes sense as a writer), that I speak with my eyes, he reminded me that my number is 11, and that I am protected.

He also asked me whether vulnerability was a strength or weakness. I just storta looked at him and said “I have been dwelling in the fearless and vulnerable since last February.” #Badunem. He then responded saying that when I became more able to not be concerned with the things that others said, that I would be unstoppable. I am still thinking about this.

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It was incredibly terrifying and liberating to consenting to being read by someone who is as equally comfortable in the spirit realm as they are in the material.

This interaction was strange but it felt like I was returning to the familiar. As an undergraduate student I studied in classes religion around the African Diaspora and living in New York I was constantly exposed to visual representations of the Orisha’s (from Cuban, Puerto Rican, Haitian and Nigerian people.) My undergraduate dissertation was on looking at linguistic (and some cultural) connections between Nigeria, The Sea Island and Oakland.

Last week I was talking to Court bear my dating coach about the politics of being willing to be myself in a society  where social institutions (church’s, schools, films,)  say that Black women are many things, but quirky and worthy of Love and being desired isn’t one of them. She said yes, it’s hard, yes it gets lonely but think about how you LIKE yourself as a person and of the lives that you touch.

I have also decided to forgive McSloppy. Why? It just doesn’t feel right any longer to be beefing.  Honestly, it’s only a matter of time until he has a self induced hot grits moment if he keeps on at this rate. It would be horrible if that is what it took for him understand that women need to be treated like human beings. He doesn’t need any side eye from me in 2011.   I have demonstrated to myself that I have tried to act with integrity in this situation.

Honestly,  after being read last night, I was reminded that  human beings hate what they fear or can’t control. I also felt like I had been acting a bit immature. What I understood from the dancer last night is that because I am a conduit, I need to keep the path clear. This obligation is bigger than a situation between me and any other single person, but just something that I need to do on gp. This was confirmed last night. Conduits have to keep the path clean. That means forgiveness.

Oh, and I called @afrolicious today because she is Nigerian and evolved and helps me to see my blind spots. She responded, “I bet its really interesting when someone see’s the God in you.” Word? That’s what happen? No wonder I felt the need to sit still tonight. And if you know me offline you know I stay in motion unless I am sitting somewhere writing.

When Fahn Strangers Try to Dominate Me.

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Yesterday I was on the train platform and I was walking past a REALLY handsome gentleman. Like Denzel if he were a pulman porter in the 40’s, but still like 30 though. Square jaw, chestnut colored skin and impeccable eyebrows. 

He was like “Hi, How are you” (smiling while I type).

I responded, “Well Hello Dahling.”

He said, “What are you doing.”

I respond, “Flirting with you.”

He retorted, “You call that flirting?”

I was stuck like chuck. And said, “Wow, wait, people never come back as witty as I do.”

So he proceeded to introduce himself,  looking me dead in my grill, never blinking. ONCE. #OOWWWW.

He then proceed to ask me where I was from, and he took out his cell phone and was like whats your number.

I was like, umm, do you sell things, or is your train coming because it feels like you are trying to close the deal.

He was like nah, my train isn’t coming.

I was like, wow, I am use to being the direct one.

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Record scratch.

I was like what? Yes I should, we both should.

He was like yeah well, “I am in control right now.”

Red Flag. Red Flag. Red flag. Even though you FAHN (peace to @thepbg) my intuition told me to roll out.

I was like dahling, when is your birthday?  He was like oh, I’m a Taurus, I was like oh, I’m sorry, I don’t to date you all or Leo’s and said good bye and walked away.

What makes a grown man think he can tell a woman in the street that he doesn’t know, that “he is in control.” I’ll be like, and I’m from the future. Bye boo.

Lol.

I don’t care what  say…I am waiting for my Spring Aquemini. #yerp.

#AllcityTells.

Was he playing with me or was he serious?

He really think that ‘ish is cute?

Rap & The Tea Party: Musing on Violence and Rhetoric

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I have been thinking about the resistance to the idea that words influence actions in general violence in particular.

In reality, the repetition of words is arguably one of the most powerful forces on earth.

Is there a connection between the ways in which rappers and Tea Party members use violent words, and how these words normalize violence against specific groups of people? It is certainly a question worth thinking about.

For example, last December, I along with Crunktastic, Crunk Feminists rep hard, wrote blog posts about Jay Electronica joking about choking women during sex during his concerts, his twenty thousand dollar bet with rapper Nas on whether “all women liked being choked during sex”, his silencing of dissent around the topic at his concerts and how this kind of rhetoric serves to normalize the conditions under which sexual violence occurs to women.

I had to block two people after I wrote that. They were incensed that I made the connection. On the other hand, many Americans don’t feel that there is a connection between Sarah Palin’s words and the violence that occured in Arizona recently either.

Go figure.

Interestingly Davey D wrote on a post on this topic as well in a post titled “If Rappers Can Take the Heat for Inflammatory Rhetoric, Why Can’t Sarah Palin.” I am not certain that rappers “take the heat” for their language. At least  not in a public and sustained way since 2 Live Crew. Oh wait, there ways Nelly and Tip Drill…

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In trying to figure out why people think about defending positions they know or suspect are dead wrong, I ask myself, “what is their investment in the argument?”

Some people identify with rap music or The Tea Party so, to criticize either feels like you are criticizing them personally.

When talking about ideas and how they shape violence, what we are really talking about is our own willingness to acknowledge how we are complicit in that violence.

Words are powerful, and if you think they aren’t watch what happens when a grown White man calls a grown Black man a “Nigger.” #ummhmm.

Honestly, it was refreshing to see a conversation outside of the feminist blogosphere, where folks were talking about the harm of violent rhetoric.

What responsibility does a person, who has a large speaking platform,  have for their language?

Why is it so easy for young men and women to see it as an issue when it comes to race but when it comes  gender (men and women) they short circuit?