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Love and Hip Hop Atlanta and Carol’s Daughter Transitioning Kits: Some Preliminary Feminist Thoughts

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I have watched the last four episodes of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, while taking notes, fractured wrist and all, because I knew that culturally this show represented a kind of shift in Black women on reality television.

Furthermore, I knew that I needed to commit to watching the show. I was at a dinner party and a friend who works in television told me that the wages that women earn in reality television are stratified by race, meaning White women tend to earn more than Black women. My jaw dropped. This is particularly relevant to Love and Hip Hop Atlanta because of the popularity of the show with a crowd that has historically been tech savvy, consumption hungry yet lacking broad representation in mainstream media; middle class and affluent Black women.

According to an article in Newsday VH1 has recently realized  ow much of an untapped audience African Americans are,

“All of a sudden, the network is starting to look like how the world looks,” said VH1 president Tom Calderone, who views the network’s airing of “Hip Hop Honors” in 2004 as the “watershed” moment in realizing there was an untapped audience. Series such as “Love & Hip Hop” are a reflection, he added, of what networks need to do to remain relevant: “We’re creating new celebrities. ‘Mob Wives’ are new celebrities. ‘Basketball Wives’ are new celebrities. I think our role is to put a mirror on pop culture and influence pop culture — that’s important.”

So this post will be about three things. First, why is the show popular and what does it’s popularity mean. Second, what are the differences between what Black women and White women earn in reality television spaces. Third, I will connect the Carol’s Daughter “transition kits” to my ideas around LHHA.

Several other folks have written about Love and Hip Hop Atlanta. Bianca Laureno wrote, “Abortion, Reality TV and Women of Color”, Jamilah Aisha Brown wrote “Love and Hip Hop and Transphobia” and Akiba Solmon has written “Love and Hip Hop Atlanta Shouldn’t Embarrass Brown and Black Women”. #readthem.

As I watched the shows over the last few weeks, I saw image after image of Black women in pain, which is legitimate because many of us are in pain. However, what became clear to me after seeing two weeks straight of grown women confronting each other (Joseline and Mimi; K.Michelle and Karlie Redd) I thought, why are public displays of Black women in pain so attractive and lucrative?

Given how lucrative Black women’s pain is in this context, how does this show impact how people interact with us on a day to day basis? Black girl pain is real and legitimate.

We also have to consider that Atlanta and it’s geographical context. DMV and Atlanta contain the two largest concentrations of high income earning African Americans in this country.

Which brings me to the money. According to a post on Radar Online, for White women working on the Real Housewives of Orange County,

Vicki Gunvalson is the top earner, bringing in a cool $450,000 a season. Hot on her heels is Tamra Barney who commands $350,000, followed by Gretchen Rossi with $300,000, Alexis Bellino is paid $200,000 and at bottom of the list is newcomer, Heather Dubrow at a paltry $30,000.

Now keep in mind I know that this is a small selection of earnings from one show, however it is important to note what some White women earn for a hugely popular show. Here is a list of the highest earning reality tv stars, with the highest being Kim Kardashian at an estimated $6M. However this number includes not only her show earnings but her earnings from endorsements as well.
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Furthermore, according to the Radar Online article, Nene Leakes earned $750,000 per season on Real Housewives of Atlanta. At nearly a million dollars a season, the racial, cultural and financial significance of these shows must be considered.

I am not certain how much the women on Love and Hip Hop Atlanta earn, however a blog titled Love and Hip Hop Atlanta which doesn’t have  any supportive links, states that Stevie J earns $30,000 per episode and it is set to rise to $95,000 per episode. This is interesting. I wonder how much Mimi and Joseline earn. I wonder also how much the advertisers pay Viacom to advertise on the show.

Nearly two weeks ago when I started thinking about writing this post I had just learned that Carol’s Daughter started selling $40 transitioning kits. Like reality television, Black women’s hair care is a lucrative industry, as it was valued in 2008 at 1.8B.

I guess what is bizarre to me is that the kit represents how Black women’s natural hair has been commodified on a whole other level. By commodified, I mean something that we see everyday that is now packaged and sold for a profit. I am of two minds about this transitioning kit. On one hand, if you don’t know how to do your natural hair, then having a kit may be useful. Reading the product review comments is a testament to this fact. On the other hand it speaks to me as a lack of imagination and creativity and a willingness to explore.

Think about it, part of me believes that a huge part of going and being nappy is about a path of self discovery and a willingness to experiment, mixing and matching, making concoctions at home, trying out styles that you have seen in a magazine or a blog. What makes a corporation the authority on what grows out of our heads?

Both the existence of these transition kits and the popularity of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta reminds me that Black women can make corporations a lot of money (I also understand that there are Black women earning substantial wages from reality tv and from the hair cure industry.)

However, given the fact that Black women have been rendered property, I find the show and the kit illuminating and peculiar.

So, I have three questions:

What do we have to believe about Black women in order for this show to make sense to us?

And if it doesn’t make sense to you, what do you think that other people have to believe about Black women in order for it to make sense to them?

Is the transition kit weird to you too? Did you use one? What did you think?

8 Things Having a Broken Arm and a Fractured Wrist Has Taught Me

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My hand in the cast after the cast has been cut open the day after surgery for observation. Yes, the surgeons wrote “Yes” on my left thumb to ensure that they operated on the correct hand. Holy shit Gina.

The day after I wrote the most recent post I got into a car accident where I broke both of the bones in my left arm at the wrist.

A fucking doozy, no?

I am still working on the projects that I outlined, in fact some have grown others have shrunk, but perhaps most importantly I want to share what I have learned.

First it is incredibly difficult to get dressed with one hand. All of your clothes have to be stretchy. Getting dressed takes incredibly long.

Second, doctors do not like to prescribe narcotic pain killers, I assume largely because they are regulated by the DEA.

Third the people who showed up to the hospital meant a lot to me. I ended up having to have surgery on my wrist, that shit was the devil. So I stayed in the hospital for a few days for observation purposes. They wanted to make sure the swelling went down and that there wasn’t any nerve damage. I didn’t want to eat. I just wanted iced coffee, smoothies and news papers. Thank you to everyone who showed up and brought those items. In some ways the world bifurcated into the people who showed up and those who didn’t. I resisted thinking along those lines, largely because of the lost that it represents. Honestly I am grateful for the fact that anyone showed up. Some people go to the hospital and they don’t have anyone who gives a flying fuck about them. #boom.
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Which brings me to the pain of having my bones reset by hand by Dr. Akimbo. Fourth, the most painful part of this ordeal, other than experiencing the break was having my hand reset. He was obligated to try and reset it before actually operating on me. I was conscious, he stuck a four inch needle filled with lidocaine in my arm, hung my hand up by my thumb and proceeded to squeeze my arm to move bones around. The. Most. Painful. Full stop.

Fifth, when you only have one hand, you have to be very creative about how you solve problems. You want to crack pepper? Figure it out. You want to open a lemonade jar, figure it out. Your one hand is full and you need to open the front door, figure it out.

Six, fucked up things happen when people don’t yield. Fundamentally, I believe and I have had a lot of time to sit and think about this, I believe that being unwilling to yield is rooted in a persons ego. Why else wouldn’t a person stop if it is not their turn to go? They have to have in their head that it is not someone elses turn but their own turn. This flies in the face of one of the fundamental kindergarten lessons that we learn; sharing.

Seven, I didn’t realize until two weeks ago that I am (temporarily) disabled.

Eight, sometimes God sits you down. I had all these summer plans gina, and they just had to be put on hold. There is some shit that you cannot do with one arm. o.O

With that being said, I Love all of y’all and thank you for reading. I am glad to be alive.

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?