Zora

Kathleen Collins on the set of her film Losing Ground

I have been obsessed and fascinated with Kathleen Collins for the last year. She is a Black woman filmmaker, a film professor, a momma, she attended Skidmore and the Sorbonne. She died in 1988 of cancer at 46.

First I learned about her from Jaqueline Bobo’s Black Women Film and Video Directors, and then I saw her film Losing Ground (1982) and lastly I just read an article about her by Black film scholar, L.H. Stallings.

Collins says several things in her Black Film Review Interview that you can read here, but I just want to summarize the parts that have been meaningful to me.

BLACK WOMEN WHO RUN FROM THEIR GENIUS MAY MAKE THEMSELVES SICK

My basic premise is ithat all illness is a psychic connection of some kind.. And I had a preiod of time when I was ill. I still have to struggle with it. The nature of illness and female succcess and the capacity of the female to acknowlege its own intelligence is a subject that interests me a lot . because I think that women– if there’s anyway that I am a feminist, because I don’t really think of myself as a feminist, because I don’t really think of myself as a feminist– but if there is any way in which women tend to be self destructive it is in that area of creaticity where they actually feel their own power and can’t aknowlege it or go into it with as much…

They can’t go to the end of it and they retreat into ilness or into having too many babies or into destructive love affairs with men who run them ragged. Somewhere or other, they detour out of a respect for their own creativity.

Let me say first off that I do not agree that all illness that Black women experience is a result of a psychic disconnection. However, I do think there is something to be said about what happens to our bodies when we ignore the genius in our hearts and our minds when it pertains to making art.

I read this a year ago. However it was reading it last month that I was floored by not only this idea but the following statement, which has to do with the fact that she felt like her own illness was connected to a fear of her own genius.

WHEN DID COLLINS BECOME ILL?
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I think that it is very curious, curiously at a point and time when I had just finished a first movie, and knew that I had it, knew that I had the talent. Knew that my own creative power was finally surfacing, that all the years of working quietly , and quite alone, were beginning to pay off. It was basically a long four year cycle.

Collins died in 1988 at 46 years old of cancer. It is interesting that she felt like she became ill right when she felt the power of her own creativity.

ON BEING AFRAID OF BEING ALONE AS AN ARTIST

I think I have been afraid of being alone too much, I think that’s what was connected to the illness. That fear that I was going to be considered nuts kind of frightened me.

This really resonated with me, not because of the fear of being seen as being eccentric; it is the fear that in order to take it to the next level I am going to have to be separated from the people that I Love. I now realize that in order to grow the voltron, I have to branch out into new spaces. I also have to have faith that my Love bears will be there when I return; that they will understand. I have also come to the conclusion this weekend, that I need to be able to be out, but I also need consistent environments so that I can hear my own ideas. Too much noise drowns out the thoughts.

ON THE INTERIOR LIVES OF BLACK WOMEN AND BLACK PEOPLE

There are real conflicts, but they are not necessarily conflicts with a capital C. All internal conflict is the only thing that is really real. Where you’re right is in saying that American culture tends to like conflict with a capital c.

This spoke to me for three reasons. One I have known that taking care of my interior life would be key to my survival for a few years now, and this crystallized for me, after re-reading Their Eyes Were Watching God. Two, Junot Diaz has been speaking in his interviews about writing the interior lives of women while on tour promoting his new book. Third, one of the reasons why I chose qualitative interviews as my method is because I am interested in the interior lives of Black women.

In Kathleen Collins I see myself and I am trying not to run. My homie Jonzey said, you need to start a binder, because you are probably going to end up writing a biography of her. She is probably right 🙂

What do you think of this idea of Black women running from their genius making them sick?

Do you agree or disagree? Why?

This one is for T.dot and Black girls desire.

A month ago, I read There Eyes Watching God in one sitting, in Oakland.

I hadn’t read the book since I was a 16. At that time I appreciated Zora’s use of language, but I didn’t have the life experience to appreciate the beauty of the ways in which Janey left her husbands but wasn’t crushed, the ways in which Janey held on to her humanity and to desire, and the general importance of seeing a Black woman’s interior life on paper.

Given the fact that I have been learning about centering women’s subjectivity, perspectives and experiences in my Women Studies course work, I immediately saw the significance of TEWWG. I also developed a critique of WHY Richard Wright didn’t get TEWWG. He didn’t understand the political significance of Black women’s voice’s, the importance of claiming desire and the distinction between speaking up and being voiceless in Black communities.

The origins of the US are rooted in Black women’s productive and reproductive labor in this country. So, if someone is affirming our interior lives,? it is most certainly a political act.

Wright wrote, in reviewing TEEWG,

“… The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought. In the main, her novel is not addressed to the Negro, but to a white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy. She exploits that phase of Negro life which is “quaint,” the phase which evokes a piteous smile on the lips of the “superior” race.”

Richard thought Zora was perpetually cooning, apolitical and setting the movement back.

Zora was affirming our humanity.

So how does this fit with my crush and Dilla?

A couple of weeks ago, my homie J-boogie invited me to a party at the end of February. Yeah for slowly? making new friends who invite me to stuff! WoOter. I learned that a friend of his, that I had recently peeped would be there, so I asked if he was single, liked Black girls and whether he was a raging misogynist. The answer was yes, yes and no, so I said, word? Crush Bears!

Silver leggings, green eye shadow. Outfit planned!

Fast forward to this past Saturday night. I walked into a function with Ms. Nikon Jawn and who would you know, my crush, KB is there.

I have a bit of a rubber face, so I was stuck, because my face said what my mind thought, which was “What ‘chu doing here, is that really you?” I had to collect myself. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t suppose to happen like this.

I had already mentioned to my homie Ms. Nikon the deal, so she insisted, “YO, go say something.” I was like, furrowed eyebrows, “NO!”

So we danced, chilled and danced and I kept an eye out for him.

Couple hours later, Ms.Nikon Jawn I are taking a breather,
and KB walks by. I stare, he waves. He comes over and introduces,
Ms. Nikon bounces upstairs to check on the time and I gather my courage to speak my piece:

KB: I saw you looking at me earlier, like you were mad at me.
R: Naw, I wasn’t angry, I was just surprised to see you, see
I know who you are, you are my crush, we both know J boogie,
and I planned on introducing myself at his function at the end of the month.
KB: He having a party? I didn’t know about that. [wow]
R: Yup, end of the month.
KB: So why me, not every day pretty girls come up to dudes, and say they have crushes.
R: I am at a point in my life where I am interested in being around people who are comfortable being themselves, and you strike me as one of those people. Your performance of Black male masculinity, is comfortable and eccentric. Me Gusta.

He nodded.

We chatted more.

We decided to leave and eat.
I checked in with my girl, said good bye and said,
“I see you, ummm hmm.” Told her to text me when she got in.

KB and I left to get something to eat.

I felt like Janey. Not letting the fear of rejection polarize me, choosing desire,
stating my piece and giving the outcome to God.

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He teased me, calling me Renina Jenkins. I was like stop or imma poke you.
Asked me how old I was, I handed him my ID, people
always ask me that ish, ‘cuz I read young but sound old.
I never show anyone my id. But I did that night.

Vulnerable y Fearless.

We talked about the fact that I have an old snow tubing tag
on my coat.
At one point he was being a little sassy and hurt my feelings
and I was like, yo, why you talking like that…he responded, I was just trying to impress you and be funny. I was like just be yourself, that’s good money as is. We were cool again.

We talked about his art.

Then somehow the Slum Village song, came to my head, it goes:

Le feeee, leee faaa, ohhh hhh aha aaaaaaaaaaaaah.

He was like, “They are saying, Don’t Sell Yourself
to Fall in Love.”

I was like “REALLY? Wow, I kill rap lyrics.”

“How you know which song I meant?”

He said, “I could hear the melody, what does your hair look like?”

Done.

Two hours go by, talking and I realized that I enjoyed the conversation
because it was just that, a conversation.

Not where do you work, live, study? etc. After three questions from someone, I be feeling like am being interrogated.

On the real, sometimes, I be feeling like I want to hand people a resume when I first meet them just to get all those questions out the way. It was simply affirming to kick it with someone who didn’t act hella confused by my usage of “love bear” language, or the other eccentricities that entail this #blackgirlfromthefuture.

In fact, I mentioned to him that #blackgirlsarefromthe future.

He responded, “You should put that on t-shirts.”

“Its already in the works.”

In the end, I don’t know what will come of it.
We will may not ever see each other again. While I don’t wish for that I am cool with it.

You see, on Wednesday, I saw a conversation on gmail buzz that kinda had my heart in my throat. This crush experience was a nice recovery because it reminded me that, life is cool and that things happen on Gods time, not mine.

It also reminded me that yes, there are people in the world that feel me and can keep up, with they eccentric selves.? Umm hmm. I just have to be patient and remind myself that Change and Love are always possible.

#Crushbears2010!

You have any crushes lately?

You tell ’em ? Why or why not?

Zora and Dilla in the same post = #somuchwin

Black Women Who Run from Their Genius (May) Make Themselves Sick. ~Kathleen Collins

How Zora and Jay Dilla Helped Me Claim My Crush