A Campaign for Me

UVA HUNGER STRIKE: Interview with Hallie Clark for Ms. Magazine Blog

2012-03-02T15:19:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hallie Clark. She was part of a 13 day hunger strike for a living wage for service workers at the University of Virginia. I learned about what was going on at the school from fellow Swarthmore alum Cecilia Márquez. Though Cecilia was not on strike, she has been an active member of the Living Wage Campaign since she started her PhD work at UVA last summer.

To learn more about the campaign and the results of the hunger strike, which garnered national media attention, click here: http://www.livingwageatuva.org/2012/03/01/the-hunger-strike-ends-the-struggle-continues/

Most exciting for me was a nod from Tulane professor and MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry. Turns out Harris-Perry grew up at UVA. Via Twitter, she said her father was the first dean of African American affairs.

Here is the interview:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/02/27/hunger-strike-at-u-of-virginia-reaches-day-10/

Hunger Strike at U. of Virginia Reaches Day 10
February 27, 2012 by Eva McKend

Twenty students at the University of Virginia are starving, but not only because they haven’t eaten in 10 days.

They’re starved for justice from an administration they say has failed to provide a living wage for its employees, and so they began a hunger strike on February 18. Their demands: Pay UVA workers more–at least $13 per hour–and ensure safe working conditions. According to UVA’s Living Wage Campaign, the lowest paid service workers at the institution are primarily women of color, making as little as $7.25 an hour. At the same time, the campaign says, six out of the top ten highest paid state workers in Virginia hold administrative positions at the school.

After 14 years of mobilizing through sit-ins, meetings, rallies and teach-ins, the group has now resorted to their most extreme act of protest in an effort to end what they describe as “a perpetuation of economic violence against the UVA workforce.”

In an exclusive interview with the Ms. Blog, striker Hallie Clark, a queer feminist of color, describes her place in the movement and why all feminists should be concerned about the living wage.

College students are often criticized for taking on big issues absent any real connection. What are the personal connections students have with living wage advocacy and how do you understand your place of privilege?

I think of my place of privilege as only a first step towards the end goal of worker empowerment. We are not, and have never been, a service organization. We are an organization that aspires to become “workers and students united” and we are hopeful that this campaign will be able to be maintained by employees with student support.

Our goal is to disrupt the power structure and open enough space so that workers can step in. Workers here are constantly afraid (and rightfully so) of retaliation. Since the hunger strike many of the contract workers have been told not to talk about the Living Wage Campaign with each other or with us. We have built deep relationships with workers; to the extent that we can we use their words, offering worker testimony with name changes for their safety.

Can you offer specific examples of the challenges workers have faced as they have dictated them to you and other people working in the movement?

I have friends, both indirect and direct employees, all African American women, who I have formed friendships with over time. I don’t talk to all of them about the campaign. Some I do, but with others, I visit their homes just to talk about their children and their lives. Many of the workers are my mom’s age while others are closer in age to me. I don’t want to fetishize them but here are examples of some of their stories:

Maya* shared with the Living Wage Campaign her observations of the discriminatory hiring and promotion practices enacted by the university and its contractors.

Elizabeth*, who has been working for UVA for almost 30 years, makes only $10.14 an hour. She told the Living Wage Campaign, “Even a small raise could help me support my sister and mother. … I always expect a raise is coming, but it never comes.”

Rachel*, who has been working at the university for 25 years, shares how she was expected to clean 15 rooms in 30 minutes and would receive only 30 minutes for lunch, although that was frequently cut short due to chronic understaffing. She began to suffer severe headaches as well as increased stress as a result of the amount of work she was expected to do.

One UVA worker whom I consider a friend has decided that she wants to speak out at rallies. Even though I urged her, this was ultimately her decision. I’m hoping more and more will feel empowered enough to start coming to meetings.

Why is this movement significant on a national scale and why should it matter to feminists?

There are some obvious ways that this is a feminist issue. The vast majority of people who are at the bottom of the pay scale, and therefore most negatively affected by low wages, are women and people of color. At UVA, African American women are particularly overrepresented in this group. While for direct employees starting salary is about $10.65 per hour, contract workers can make as little as the federal minimum. This is not enough money to live on for anyone, but particularly challenging in Charlottesville, where the cost of living is 10 percent higher than the national average.

Full-time work deserves full-time pay. As long as women occupy low-wage work and suffer from the economic violence it inflicts, a Living Wage will necessarily be a feminist issue and one we increasingly cannot ignore.

*Names in testimonies were changed to protect the identity of workers.

Photo of Hallie Clark courtesy of Seth Kaye; all rights reserved.

GUEST POST from Ferima Faye!

2011-11-22T14:04:00.001-05:00

I am pleased to present my official music video for my single Peace of Mind (NA-NA) produced by Ebonie Smith.

Here are my music links:

Official site: http://www.iamferima.com

Facebook: http://on.Fb.me/ferimafaye

Twitter: @iamferima

Bio:

Imagine having the ability to sing a beautiful song whenever you’d like; to dance to the hottest pop song and not skip a beat. FerimaFaye grew up with the notion that everyone had the ability to entertain, but as she grew older and began getting praised for her talents, she realized that life is not so. FerimaFaye was born on March 12th, in New York City. The 5’10 Amazonian knockout is of African descent. Her parents are from Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa, so she was raised with a deep connection to the motherland as well as a reverence for American culture.
So how does an African girl elevate herself to triple threat status? Well, Ferima auditioned for Professional Performing Arts High School where she was approached by the Artistic Director Chantel Renee Wright. Ferima was asked to join The Songs of Solomon Inspirational Ensemble Inc. This is where she transformed her voice into a soulful instrument. Outside of Songs Ferima trained in hip-hop, jazz, and modern dance in order to solidify herself as a true entertainer; she was given the dance name “Mirage” which means, fantasy of the human mind. She also began writing songs based on life experiences. Ferima found that she sang with more passion and connected to her audience on a greater level when she did so. On the contrary she also mastered performing Pop, R&B, and Alternative Rock songs with her own signature twist. FerimaFaye’s voice is a blend of sultry sounds and diaphragm control that keeps her fans clamoring for more, not to mention the fact that the girl is gorgeous!

This ethnically diverse entertainer’s star power transcends races and cultures. “I have the power to change the world with my voice and entertain the masses.” Also known as Coco for her porcelain-like ebony skin, she is FerimaFaye.

Important Lessons Black Men Learned About Black Women in 2011

2011-11-09T19:47:00.000-05:00

Loved this article over @ClutchMagazine

The media has been obsessed with the lives of black women in the past few years. It isn’t a surprise. The appearance of black woman that defies all the dominant media narrative of black womanhood in the national spotlight, living at the most famous address in America, has sent the establishment media into a frenzy and sent them scrambling for ways to reaffirm their damaging stereotypes and create new ones. And so much of the discussion has taken place without the voices of black women that they have had to create their own media to fight back. Black women have a lot to say and in 2011 they have found many different ways to say it. Here are the major lessons we have learned about black women in 2011:

Black women like to tell their own stories. If we learned anything from the mammoth success of The Help and the subsequent backlash from black women almost everywhere, if you’re going to tell stories about black women you should either get it right or not do it at all. Take note, Tyler Perry.

Black women do not appreciate being called ugly. Santoshi Kanazawa gave us all a lesson in exactly how NOT to approach the subject of beauty with his atrocious article in Psychology Today earlier this year. He argued that, subjectively and scientifically, black women are the least attractive of any group. Yeah, that didn’t go over so well.

Black women take rape seriously. Even though the charges were eventually dropped in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, black women came to the defense of Nafissatou Diallo when she accused the former head of the International Monetary Fund of sexual assault in the hotel in which she worked as a housekeeper. Black women also voiced their support for pop star Rihanna’s rape revenge fantasy video for the song “Man Down” when others would have had the video banned from television altogether. Black women are taking rape seriously and we should all follow their lead.

Black women can decide on their own what to do with their wombs. “The Most Dangerous Place for an African-American is in the Womb” proclaimed a billboard that went up in several major cities earlier this year as a part of an anti-abortion campaign. Combined with the GOP attack on Planned Parenthood, the message has been clear: you shouldn’t have the right to decide what to do with your own body. Black women have boldly fought back to say: stay the hell out of my uterus.

Black women don’t want your relationship advice. It really doesn’t matter who it’s coming from, be it a comedian turned relationship “author” or singer turned relationship “author,” black women would gladly appreciate if you stopped offering up your unsolicited advice on why they’re single and what they need to do to find and keep a man. Immediately.

The sad thing is, we’ll probably have to learn these lessons all over again in 2012.

Reblogged. Original article here.

South Side Native, Calmesha Givens, Tackles Film Industry

2011-11-05T12:14:00.002-04:00

Calmesha Givens raising funds to shoot her first film, ‘Fighting the Odds,’ here in Syracuse

The evening of Sunday, Oct. 30, at the Hergenhan Auditorium at Syracuse University was just as much a fundraiser as it was a welcome home celebration. South Side native Calmesha Givens, known amongst friends and family as “Caly,” hosted an evening of elegance to raise money for her first independent film “Fighting the Odds.”

The movie, which Givens will star in, tells the story of a young woman whose plan to marry an athlete leads to a threatening life situation that prompts her to take up boxing.

After recently returning from a stint in Los Angeles, Givens was met in Syracuse with open arms. The co-founders of the Faith and Hope Community Center on Montgomery Street, Bob Harrison and Eddie Beauford, trained her as a boxer, even providing her with her own set of gloves. Harrison has known Givens since she was a little girl and is proud of her efforts.

“Tonight means people such as ourselves that look like us can do positive things if given the opportunity,” he said.

The only reason Givens said she left Syracuse is because she noticed the arts programs were leaving too. She noted the symphony and the Paul Robeson Theater, where she got her start.

But Los Angeles was all about the look.

“During my time in California, it was all about appearance,” she explained. “When you’re comfortable in your skin, other people, they don’t like that. It really doesn’t work for them. They want you to be what works best for the industry.”

So she came back to familiar territory to tap into a growing base of overlooked talent.

“Syracuse is not a large metropolitan city,” she said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the same resources or the same artistic programs. That is one of the main reasons I brought this film here, because I feel we need more recognition.”

Sam Rowser, program director for On Point for College, a non-profit that helped Givens with the college admissions process, was gratified to see Givens come full circle.

“When I see her come back and give back to the community and try to help others, it’s very exciting for me,” he said.

Deborah Paul, Givens’ former tutor from Corcoran High School, welled up with tears when asked about the significance of Sunday’s event.

“I worry about so many students … that they won’t graduate and won’t have a lot of choices in life,” she said. “It’s good to see someone that we spent a lot of time with doing so well.”

Givens’ company, Eraced Productions, is looking for $16,500 in private financing to produce the film. The films co-producer and editor, Raquan Pride, whom attended Corcoran High School with Givens and worked with her as a counselor at Hillside Work Scholarship, is a 2011 alum of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at SU. He has already worked extensively with Givens’ in film editing.

Newhouse professor and local radio personality Dr. Rick Wright acted as the evenings Master of Ceremonies. He described the entire effort around “Fighting the Odds” as an eight-course meal endeavor in a landscape of mediocre fast food products.

Givens herself has fought the odds. Ten years ago, she was known as the leader of a gang and was raised by her grandmother when her parents were incarcerated. This is why this film is so important to her. As she said during at the event’s closing, “A lot of young women think they need to lean on men for financial stability. I hear young women talk about marrying athletes in our community. The best thing for me to do is create my own opportunities. We are all fighting the odds in our own way,”

To learn more and to support the film, contact Calmesha Givens at (310) 728-996 or calygivens@hotmail.com

– Story and photo by Eva McKend, Turner Diversity Fellow and S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications graduate student

http://mysouthsidestand.com/hometownnews/south-side-native-tackles-film-industry/

Black women ugly? Says who?

2011-05-23T01:17:00.002-04:00

Great post by LZ Granderson on CNN.com:

"If you comb through Donald Bogle's book "Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films," you'll find a long celluloid history of black women being portrayed as anything but beautiful. Their sass is a constant source of comedic relief, but rarely are they seen as complete human beings, to be romanced or capable of being vulnerable."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/19/granderson.black.women/index.html?iref=obinsite

Dead Prez "The Beauty Within"

2011-04-29T20:50:00.000-04:00

Dead Prez "The Beauty Within" from kinetikcinematix on Vimeo.

"Dedicated not to 'America's Next Top Model' but to the natural girls right next door." - stic.man '

Glee: Born This Way

2011-04-29T01:36:00.006-04:00

Mercedes was mysteriously absent from this episode. Refer to my previous post about the invisible nature of Mercedes ("Black Women Like Afrika Owes Blend into the Background of White Institutions"). However, this was one of my favorite hours of television. The "Unpretty" mashup was beautifully scored and I would be lying if I said I wasn't touched from beginning to end. I think we need to have more discussions about body image, self-love and representations of fatness in the media but this also must include the situated realities of black women.

Michael B. Jordan: The Actor of My Generation

2011-04-28T23:44:00.000-04:00

"When's the last time you named something and made it happen?" My mentor posed this question to her Facebook followers after learning I did this interview. All I can say was that it was a dream come true! To those who have been following A Campaign for Me who ever felt ignored, ostracized, or even invisible by mainstream modes of representation, keep your heads high. There are spaces of celebration and rewards for all of us. This was one of mine.

Love. Visibility. Beauty.

Eva talks with Michael B. Jordan, the "actor of her generation"

BY EVA MCKEND

Published April 28, 2011

Michael Bakari Jordan’s success lies in his unique ability to bring parts of himself into each of his characters. The result is magnetic and has produced fan favorites like Wallace from the critically acclaimed epic “The Wire” and Vince Howard from the also esteemed “Friday Night Lights.” As intrinsic as his faculties may be, Jordan does not take his career for granted. When he moved to Los Angeles, he faced the 2007 Writer’s Strike and the subsequent dearth of auditions but this never crushed his spirit or his persistence. “I’ve been blessed to continuously work and mature with my craft,” he explained in a phone interview with The Phoenix.

ACCORDING TO EVA

Ashley B. Nguyen

A New Jersey native, Jordan attended Newark Arts, a performing arts high school in his hometown. The school boasts alumni like tap dancer Savion Glover, and was also home to his mother, older sister Jamila and younger brother Khalid. “If I had the chance to go to high school again, I definitely would,” Jordan said as he laughed, recalling good times cut short by professional pursuits.

By his sophomore year, Jordan’s busy acting schedule led to home school and although he has no regrets, he often reflects on the time he missed and continues to miss with his family. “My sister and I did not get along at all when we were growing up, but we are really close now. She understands me,” Jordan said. It is a difficult and at times isolating experience for the West Coast-based actor to be separated from the people whom he credits with getting him where he is today. “It was hard for me not to be there for my brother. That’s something that always sits with me and always will. It’s time I just can’t get back. Without them, I have nothing,” he said. “But when you are in certain situations, you think of ways out …” he added as his voice trailed, a seeming observation of his humble beginnings.
His best friend and housemate Sterling is an extension of that family he holds so dear. “Sterling’s been my best friend since I was 12. If I didn’t have him out here, I’d be going crazy. He’s family. He keeps me grounded,” Jordan admitted.

The 24-year-old rising star’s determination to takeover the industry has yielded widespread respect. Last year, actress and comedian Mo’Nique called him “one of the hardest working young brothers in Hollywood” on her BET talk show. It was during this segment that we learned that although the actor does not want issues of race to dictate his life or his career, it is a harsh reality he simply cannot avoid. He missed his previously scheduled taping of the show when he was senselessly pulled out of his car by theLAPD. “It was the most humiliating and degrading situation I’ve probably been in, in my life,” he told Mo’Nique. However, when I questioned him about what could be viewed as racially problematic or bordering on stereotype in his more recent roles, he emphasized that this was not his focus.

In this season of the NBC comedy-drama “Parenthood,” created and directed by Jason Katims also of “Friday Night Lights,” Jordan plays a 19-year-old recovering alcoholic and soup kitchen manager who falls in love with the upper-middle class Haddie Braverman. “Why does it have to be a 16-year-old white girl from the suburbs and the 19-year-old black kid from the hood with no mom and no dad?” he said. “I try not to think about it that way because it taints what I am trying to do and the message I want to get across.” This is why despite the situated realities of southern poverty that affects his character Vince on “FNL,” Jordan describes him as “pretty much every kid.” He brings a certain integrity, honesty and passion to Alex and Vince regardless of the racial quandary.

The inherent racism in television is not lost on Jordan; he’s just one step ahead of it. “I know there’s not enough roles for black actors but the only way to break the cycle is to envision my own opportunities and eventually bring people with me,” he acknowledged. The industrious scene-stealer is not just waiting for auditions; he wants to write and produce his own projects. “I create my future. God has a path for me but I have to put the energy out there.”

If Jordan weren’t acting, he probably would have taken after his father, a caterer, and be working in a kitchen somewhere. “I love to cook. I eventually want to open up my own restaurant, a tapas bar,” he excitedly revealed. His ideal suitor would have to be on the same page. “I need a woman with an appetite, someone who can put some food away,” he said, laughing more richly this time.

Luckily for us, Jordan is following his dream with vigor and perseverance, prompting everyone from “GQ” to “VIBE” to take note. He will star in the upcoming George Lucas movie “Red Tails” as Maurice “Bumps” Wilson, a Tuskegee airman during World War II, fighting for his country under the pressure of segregation and Jim Crow. The film features other fresh-faced Hollywood gems such as Marcus T. Paulk (“Moesha”), Aml Ameen (“Harry’s Law”) and fellow “Wire” sensation Tristan Wilds. “We’re ushering in that new generation,” Jordan proudly asserted. “We’re trying to do something else. We got to have another name besides Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker … and the list goes where. And then what,” he argued. With aspirations of opening movies and working with veteran directors Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg, Jordan merely recognizes his great potential: “I’m going to force you to know my name.”

You can check Michael out on the fifth and final season of “Friday Night Lights” (NBC) on Fridays at 8 p.m. EST. You can also watch him on “Parenthood” (NBC) and “Lie to Me” (FOX), and follow him on Twitter @michaelb4jordan.

Eva is a senior. You can reach her at emckend1@swarthmore.edu.

http://www.swarthmorephoenix.com/2011/04/28/opinions/eva-talks-with-michael-b-jordan-the-actor-of-her-generation

Black Women Like Afrika Owes Blend into the Background of White Institutions

2011-03-28T10:45:00.000-04:00

Every time I hear about Afrika, it touches my heart. This could have been my story. There needs to be a better world for us.

Love. Visibility. Beauty.

Originally printed on March 24, 2011 in the column According to Eva for The Phoenix, the independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881

In her documentaries “I Coulda Been Your Cellmate!” and “Behind Bars,” Academy Award-winning actress and comedian Mo’Nique performed for over 2,000 inmates at the Ohio Reformatory for Women revealing situations in her past that could have landed her in their unenviable position.

The entertainer did not just visit the women’s prison to collect laughs; she highlighted the structural injustice of a punitive system that criminalizes women who have histories of severe psychological, physical and sexual abuse.

From dealing with a mentally and physically abusive spouse to just not having enough money to afford a prom dress, Mo’Nique emphasized that we are all only one poor decision away from majorly altering the course of our lives.

When I learned of the case of Afrika Owes, a young Harlem teenager who was charged last month with acting as a gun courier for her 20-year-old boyfriend Jaquan Layne and the 137th street crew, I couldn’t help but recall Mo’Nique’s haunting message.

Afrika formerly attended Deerfield Academy, a prestigious private boarding school in Massachusetts but after two years at the institution, she moved back home to enroll at Millennium High School.

Some are deeming the highly accomplished and very intelligent young woman an “Ivy League-bound drug dealer” but the characterization of Afrika as the “gangsta girl” and as “the good girl gone bad” is absent much needed feminist analysis.

Some argue Afrika fell victim to a “no snitching” code but I don’t believe the extremely bright 17-year-old was “playing thug,” hypnotized by the supposed allure of gangsterism or desperately trying to authenticate her blackness.

While the commodification and misrepresentation of life in America’s ghettos are certainly cause for concern, there are very particular challenges black women face in entering institutions where the majority of its students foundational interactions with women of color are with caregivers and housekeepers.

Afrika’s positioning as a black woman in the white space of Deerfield Academy is intrinsic to her story. Her reality speaks to a truth we are far too uncomfortable addressing and that is the devaluation of black female bodies.

This is perhaps why this case is so compelling. We live in a society that ostracizes black women from mainstream modes of celebration except when it comes time to put them under a harsh microscope. The ramifications of being excluded from prevailing notions of beauty contribute to a cycle of invisibility and desexualization.

Afrika’s pending future speaks to a racial and gendered reality that is underdiscussed. Many might argue that surely Afrika could have found a more affable suitor than an alleged drug dealer but the reality for so many black women is that the higher they rise in academic and professional success, the more unlikely it is they will find a partner at all. One might argue that such relationships, particularly at formative ages, are all together unnecessary and certainly not integral to an understanding of self.

However, heterosexual relationships are the most visible interpersonal representation in American culture and although these relationships saturate the story lines of our favorite television shows and music, black women are often not included in these narratives.

Look no further than Amber Riley’s role as Mercedes Jones on “Glee.” As the second season comes to a near conclusion, she is the only character on the series that does not have any kind of legitimate romance. While all of the white and even other students of color relationships at McKinley High School have been thoroughly explored, Mercedes remains dateless and proud. No one is attracted to the dark-skinned, heavyset, self-proclaimed diva except when it comes time for her to belt a gospel tune or chime in with a “Hell to the No.”

Mercedes’ damaging characterization is a far cry from the nuances that embody the isolated realities of black women in primarily white institutions, particularly when thinking about issues of romance.

Even though one might write off Glee as a profitable adolescent series, its highly influential message is indicative of the invisibility of young women like Afrika Owes.

Black women should not be expected to exhibit a superhuman resiliency that veils them and others to their existence as women. While it might be problematic that Afrika sought validation in a supposedly troubled young man, we live in a society that promotes these kinds of unbalanced partnerships with the unspoken assumption that women will invest more of themselves.

The implications are arguably more fatal in communities that, despite the unprecedented efforts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, do not have the social capital and white privilege to erase Afrika’s nightmare.

Heinous Billboard Reminds Us of Missing Voices of Color

2011-03-05T13:07:00.005-05:00

Abridged version originally posted on March 2, 2011 on the Ms. magazine blog. Full version appeared in the column According to Eva for The Phoenix, the independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881

Last weekend, as my friend and I left the movie theater, she expressed her frustration over her 15-year-old student whom she recently learned was pregnant. As a teacher early in her career, she is an educator in a predominantly African American and Latino Philadelphia community rife with poverty and poor access to quality education. This particular student had been accepted into some of the most competitive high schools in the city, but remained in her neighborhood school in deference to her mother’s fear of the potentially dangerous commute. My friend, just 23-years-old, has already been to the hospital once this school year for the birth of another student’s child. She was left speechless when asked to be the godmother of that child.

Little did we know, the same day my friend and I discussed her student’s unenviable position was the very day the anti-choice group Life Always took to the streets of New York to broadcast their fear mongering message. The now-removed billboard read, “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” The organization’s intention is to cajole Americans into believing a woman’s right to choose is a genocidal plot. Their diatribe comes on the heels of an aggressive effort to cut federal funding for reproductive health care facilities like Planned Parenthood.

While Life Always claims to be concerned about “unborn” people of color, from a look at their website, the conservative group does not seem too invested in black life here on Earth. I am skeptical of any organization that claims to care about “the black community” but pays no attention to institutionalized poverty, lack of access to effective health care and a cycle of oppression that remands poor people of color to places where living a life with adequate resources is all but unachievable.

Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but I do not believe incendiary billboards, 29 feet high and 16 feet wide, will overturn the now 38-year-old decision of Roe v. Wade. Anti-choice organizations have been on their tireless crusade for years and have not even succeeded in overturning the landmark ruling under Republican administrations. Of more concern is that their diatribe comes on the heels of an aggressive House Republican effort to cut federal funding for reproductive health care facilities like Planned Parenthood.

However, if this billboard, similar to campaigns launched by The Radiance Foundation directly targeted at people of color, has showed us anything, it is that we must begin an honest discussion in feminist, humanist and progressive communities about how we are going to diversify the voices in the abortion-rights movement. It was disheartening to see images of Foley Square, the site of a rally held to protest the House measure on Planned Parenthood funding on Saturday in New York, with such a homogeneous group of white women on the front lines.

As conservative groups continue to finance black fringe organizations to promote a politics of hate that contributes to an intensified scrutiny of the black female body, we must be ready. Feminists of all backgrounds have to be honest about where they come from in advocating for abortion rights. As a person who will soon receive a college degree, I recognize I am in a position of extreme privilege to have a platform to discuss abortion in an academic, theoretical framework. Although I am a working-class woman of color, my education has afforded me access. While I care deeply about this issue, I have never needed to utilize abortion services and no one at my high school had a child. I would encourage all feminists and those who consider themselves allies in the pro-choice struggle to be equally honest in the deconstruction of their own positioning.

Despite the glorified value ascribed to white bodies, I know bodies of color are equally worthy. However, if a uniform group of women continue to be the voice and the face of reproductive rights without a vocal recognition of their privilege, this only strengthens the base of those attempting to obscure the voices of all women.

To counter this, feminists might work with women of color to provide women in under-served communities the resources to tell their reproductive stories — an outlet to voice their views on reproductive access so that future conversations will allow these women to truly be heard. A group already doing this important work is the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Life Always also aims to make a case for their agenda by maintaining the majority of Planned Parenthood clinics are in “minority neighborhoods.” If this is the case, (although there is research produced by the Guttmacher Institute to disprove this claim) I would argue that it is intrinsic to a geographical politics that afford wealthy people the capital to ensure institutions with controversial legacies do not make it into their backyards. This, however, does not mean wealthy women do not use Planned Parenthood services.

Many of my friend’s students, including the aforementioned 15-year-old, do not even entertain the idea of abortion. In their community, terminating a pregnancy is associated with tremendous amounts of shame and dishonor. Billboards like the one erected by Life Always buttress that message of indignity. While feminists will continue to fight for the necessary services of Planned Parenthood, we also must ensure women of color, the silent majority in this debate, are passed the mic.

‘Miss Representation’ Forces Women to Reevaluate Relationship with Media

2011-02-18T13:50:00.007-05:00

Originally printed on February 17, 2011 in the column According to Eva for The Phoenix, the independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881

As I sat next to my mom and a 14-year-old family friend I often refer to as my little sister, I eagerly awaited Jane Siebel Newsom’s documentary “Miss Representation” at Barnard College’s Athena Film Festival.

Newsom painted a graphic portrait of the troubling portrayal of women in politics, news and entertainment in America. “The media is the message and the messenger,” Pat Mitchell, President & CEO of the Paley Media Center, explained in the film.

The documentary called on its viewers to think critically about the world in which we raise our girls — a world where being strong, smart and accomplished is not enough.

If from a young age, we socialize boys to believe their needs are superior, our collective conditioning over time becomes subconscious. Something as seemingly innate as leadership becomes gendered.

“Miss Representation” also made the audience understand just how invested the media is in maintaining a narrative that harbors and condones low self-worth.

Ultimately, this “political economy of media” fiscally benefits from making women feel anxious and insecure at what the film argued is too great a cost.

I became aware of some alarming statistics like 65% of American women and girls have an eating disorder, rates of depression among females have doubled in the past 10 years and 15% of rape survivors are under the age of 12, but perhaps the statistic that impacted me the most was the one I first saw in a Women’s Media Center promo just days prior.

Women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media. While I have always admired these women, I have long been interested in the more creative aspects of the industry. But perhaps women and people of color need to channel their energy and resources into attaining the business corporate positions. The documentary operated under the premise “You can’t be what you can’t see,” but this is not always the case as demonstrated by pioneering women throughout history.

The fact so many women are able to love themselves despite disparaging images is something to celebrate. “It’s all about the body, not about the brain,” one disheartened high school student said in the film. “Miss Representation” not only forced me to confront my desire for a career in such an aesthetically driven field but made me rethink my positioning as a vocal activist.

While academics may be able to recognize the media’s “symbolic annihilation,” it seems as if this consciousness is far removed from executive level decision makers. I walked out of Miller Theater Saturday evening with a better understanding of my control as a consumer, faced with a new challenge.

While I discern what it means to occupy a marginal space in society, I cannot allow it to prevent me from becoming professionally successful.

Misguided frustrations can preclude progression if it is not methodic and strategic. Marginalized people are tasked with reconciling the institutional dynamics of discrimination with the politics it takes to succeed in their work environments.

When I started college, my aunt told me joining cultural groups was a waste of time. She argued I should dedicate my energy to writing and performing. I didn’t understand her as a freshman but as a senior I realize what she meant. Employers are less interested in my involvement in cultural organizations and more concerned about my work experience.

Sometimes I wonder how effective talking about racism and sexism is within an oppressed group. It is certainly cathartic and affirming to know there are other people in the struggle but the best revenge is often success.

In speaking with a female veteran producer, she said her career was based on working hard and never complaining.

I am all too comfortable shouting from the highest hilltop when injustice is present and in media, it seems necessary when women are prized for being the sexiest female anchor rather than their ability to tell a story.

My passion for television is defined by its ability to play a tremendous role in how people see themselves. I recognize Hollywood is an old boys club but if “Miss Representation” taught me anything, it is that I too have power.

No Place I'd Rather Be Black Than in America

2011-01-20T16:26:00.005-05:00

Originally printed on January 20, 2011 in the column According to Eva for The Phoenix, the independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881

In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder called America “a nation of cowards” when it comes to dealing with issues involving race. He was met with a firestorm of criticism from conservatives who believed his comments were divisive and alienating.

“Even as we fight a war against terrorism; deal with the reality of electing an African-American, for the first time, as the president of the United States; the need to confront our racial past and to understand our racial present, and to understand the history of African people in this country — that all endures,” the Attorney General said. Although matters of race occupied a considerable amount of political coverage, Holder argued conventional discourse among everyday Americans continued to shy away from our historical reality.

Two years later, Holder’s remarks are still difficult to digest. Although we are at a time of perceived racial equality, America seems to be regressing. Look no further than the current site of intolerance that is Arizona. The state has banned ethnic studies in public schools with a particular emphasis on rooting out the possibility of Latino studies programs. As Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County appropriately concluded from this month’s horrific Tucson massacre, “The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona…has become the capital — the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

At this time of political unrest, I think about the people of color throughout history who moved elsewhere in attempt to escape American racism. I can’t help but recall the black expatriates of the 1920s who sought refuge in Europe. Home to artists like Josephine Baker and Langston Hughes, the Parisian district of Montmartre was affectionately deemed Black Paris. In the 1960s, there were also a number of black visual artists who relocated to the continent. Artist Mildred Thompson eventually immigrated to Germany after she was met with severe racial discrimination in the US.

Art historian David C. Driskell wrote in the 1978 American Quarterly article “Bibliographies in Afro-American Art,” “While the vast majority of Afro-American artists contributed in their own way to the black revolution, many felt the social pains of segregation and cultural apartheid heavily enough to choose to work in Europe.” It was “a form of cultural exile over expatriation, hoping for a better day to come.”

Some would argue that such racial hatred is not yet a distant memory and although I agree, there is no place I’d rather be black than in America. I’ve traveled to every continent in the world with the exception of Antarctica and the United States is not unique in its racial bias. In fact, it seems out of our own frustration, some Americans have wrongfully projected this mythical sense of racial utopia on every country except our own. Though Europe may once have been a place where black artists were able to gain moderate success, I am not convinced that it is the haven that it once might have been.

It certainly did not meet my expectations of racial progressivism when I studied abroad in London last year. I had anticipated a wider representation of blacks in the media and a more inclusive understanding of standards of beauty. When I approached a young British-Ghanaian student to ask her about her perceptions of race in the country as part of my radio show, The Politics of Race in London, she voiced her frustrations with not seeing dark-skinned women that looked like her in magazines.

Americans are convinced that the UK is better at just about everything and the English have successfully maintained this image. It is a convenient narrative to uphold considering the British Empire colonized what feels like almost every country in the world. Although England has become home to many disillusioned black Americans throughout the years and shows like Sister Act: The Musical gained a backing not initially garnered in the US, it would be a mistake to conflate fortuitous occurrences with this idea of total racial harmony.

Over the winter break, I spent three weeks in Australia and did not see one black person on a single visual advertisement unless it was for UNICEF or an AIDS relief organization. There was a similar absence of diversity in television. No black actors. No black news reporters. No mention of the Aboriginal people.

When I spoke to one black Australian, he said he could never comfortably refer to himself as black in the company of white Australians. He even went so far as to say that it might take an American like myself to improve their contorted condition. One indigenous woman living in the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, an activist tent community stationed on the lawn of the Old Parliament House in the Australian capital city of Canberra, similarly noted that she believes it was international interest in the racial injustice in the country that led to improved conditions.

As we approach Black History Month in America, many of us realize there is still a lot of work to do. We are a country that refuses to let go of the archaic notion that human beings should be referred to as “illegal” despite the evidence to prove it contributes to a hateful and dangerous atmosphere. It is our great nation that continues to use the criminal justice system as an instrument of torture — mercilessly imprisoning poor blacks like the Scott sisters — only suspending their draconian double life sentences on the condition that one sister donate a kidney to the other.

However, we are also a nation of great promise. America is the only Western country that can proudly sing Young Jeezy’s “My President Is Black” and, for many successful Americans of color, their story could not be conceivable in any other country in the world.

Look Out...The Adult Children Are Coming!

2010-11-21T16:33:00.003-05:00

Originally printed on September 16, 2010 in the column, According to Eva for The Phoenix, the independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore college since 1881

Children around the country begrudgingly said goodbye to their summer vacations as they returned to school this month, but Willow Smith wasn’t among them. As the nine-year-old daughter to famed actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith explained on Ryan Seacrest’s radio program last week, “I never really get to go to school because I’m always on tour, or I’m with my father or Jaden’s doing something.” She was of course referring to her slightly older brother Jaden Smith, the twelve-year-old star of the latest installation of “The Karate Kid.” Some believe that Jada Pinkett Smith has long been preparing her daughter for the stage, and that it is no coincidence that Willow and Jaden are quickly becoming household names, while college-aged cutie Trey, born of Will Smith’s previous marriage, is not on the Hollywood path.

Many are asking themselves what the world has come to as they watch grown men get crunk to Willow’s latest hit single, “Whip My Hair.” Lyrics like, “I whip my hair back and forth,” “Hop up out the bed with my swag on” and “Pay no attention to those haters cause we whip ’em off” are arguably mature for someone of her stature. The starlet admitted to being overwhelmed by the sudden attention as Seacrest expressed his shock with how young she was to be so poised and confident. “It means to be an individual. You can’t be afraid to be yourself … Lots of people don’t act like themselves, so they are not happy,” the adult child explained of her song’s deeper meaning.

There is an increasing market for these adult children, not only in mainstream media but also in our everyday lives. What more can we expect when we push college in kindergarten and begin prepping for SATs by middle school? One of the sad consequences of our urgent rush to speed kids along is that some of the adult ailments that plague our society manifest in our newly formed adult children. This is clearly portrayed in another tween hit single “Pretty Girl Bag” by the OMG Girlz. Tiny (T.I.’s wife) and Toya’s (Lil Wayne’s ex-wife) daughters rattle off a slew of designer bags before boasting, “All the boys are on me cause they see me poppin’ tags. Girls stay hatin’ cause they lovin’ my swag.” Little girls are socially ingrained to believe that they must perform their femininity in a way to fit male expectations at alarmingly young stages of life.

We can add Justin Bieber to the growing number of children metamorphosing into adults. Twelve thousand people sat outside for two days to see the heartthrob perform on the Today show this summer. Paramount Pictures has made a deal to turn his life story into a 3D film that will be released next year. Bieber is only sixteen but clearly sixteen is the new forty, the perfect age for a biopic.

With knowledge comes power, and if children are figuring out of their own volition how to arm themselves with resources to help them out of other adult-created problems, like poverty and racism, maybe being an adult child isn’t all bad, but the days of tugging on your mom’s sleeve to ask her where babies come from will soon become a distant dream. One of the implications of this expedited adulthood is that children will inevitably have access to sexual education like nothing we’ve ever seen.

It is a powerful tool for young people to know about their bodies and particularly for young women to be informed about their reproductive rights. I just wonder what childhood will mean in the years to come as it takes on a new definition. When hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, who recently signed Willow Smith onto his record label Roc Nation, called into Seacrest’s program, Seacrest asked him if he thought Willow might be too young. “You have to start somewhere … There’s no such thing as too young,” he said. Perhaps someone should have forwarded Michael Jackson the memo.

A Campaign for Me: Seshat Young

2010-08-16T11:09:00.002-04:00

A Special Kind of Person, Episode 1

2010-08-09T19:55:00.012-04:00

Not long ago, I was sitting in a tiny London flat when I realized that I am A Special Kind of Person. When I discovered this truth, I wanted to scream, cry and laugh at the same time because as much as I knew being special was a gift, I also understood that it would be a great challenge. Unfortunately, the word special in recent times has appropriated a negative connotation. Futile minds (clearly people that aren't very special) have decided to capitalize on its association with the disabled (truly extraordinary people, See Adam) for comedic enterprise, but if anyone has good enough sense to open up a dictionary you will find the following:

special |ˈspe sh əl|
adjective
better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual

I decided to create this series because there are Special Kind of People all around. They may not be in designer clothes or have a lot of money. They may not hold degrees from brand name universities. They may not be very popular, lusted for, coveted after or well connected. They may not have the latest hairstyles or speak with eloquence but if you turn to your left the next time you are on the Subway, you may just be sitting next to A Special Kind of Person, somebody that our society has overlooked, decided they don't have time for and does not deserve a second glance.

Make the time. Join the movement. Join A Campaign for Me.

Do you consider yourself A Special Kind of Person? Drop me a line at emckend1@gmail.com and tell me your story.

Love. Visibility. Beauty

Racial Profiling Leads to A Presumption of Guilt

2010-07-10T00:58:00.005-04:00

Check out my article on ESSENCE.com

When Can I Forgive Chris Brown?

2010-06-28T02:46:00.006-04:00

Check out my article on ESSENCE.com

Our Inconvenient History

2010-06-22T23:30:00.005-04:00

Ever since Governor Jan Brewer passed SB1070, Arizona has been under national scrutiny and for that I am grateful. The states latest attack on civil rights includes the passing of HB2281. The law hopes to eliminate ethnic studies in public schools and is said to specifically target Chicano studies programs. When I heard about this ban, my reaction was similar to the one I had when the immigration law was passed; I was in absolute disbelief. In the coming days, the situation continued to get more real.

Last month on CNN’s AC360, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and Tom Horne, the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, debated the ethnic studies law. Horne argued that ethnic studies classes encouraged a politics of hate in ethnic communities and spent too much time reinforcing oppression and fostering anger. Dyson argued that people of color historically have been denied the right to learn about their own rich histories in the classroom and that these programs, which many civil rights leaders fought and died for, are finally giving all students, regardless of race, that crucial opportunity. Throughout the debate, I found myself unsurprisingly co-signing with Dyson but I would be lying if I said that my thoughts and even my emotions weren't challenged by Horne’s argument. It must be said that Horne couldn't hold a candle to Professor Dyson. To make matters worse Horne initially misquoted Dr. King's "I Have a Dream” speech and mispronounced the name of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire to which Dyson pretentiously informed him.

As I have studied abroad at a university in London, it became immediately apparent to me that people do not talk about race like they do at progressive liberal arts colleges in America. There does not seem to be a constant dialogue on the implications of white privilege, nor is there a celebration of revolutionary ethnic leaders. Women don't talk about themselves as of color and many black and Caribbean students don't feel a need to join clubs and activities that speak to issues of their racial and cultural identity. There isn’t really a codified understanding of black culture. There are no black celebrity blogs. There is no TV One or BET. There aren’t historically black colleges and universities. One British black woman laughed in my face at the insinuation that being black had anything to do with who she is as an individual. It was a tremendous transformation for me, coming from a place where my peers, both white and non-white, continually confront racism and white privilege to an environment that seemed to be striving to be color blind.

However, after my year in Europe, I find myself questioning if ignorance really is bliss. Knowing how modes of oppression work and being armed with these resources doesn't always make me happier; it often makes me very depressed. In fact, as a person of color, it seems as though the more I know about white oppression, the more difficult it is to foster deep and meaningful relationships with people that don’t operate with a similar understanding. As the world famous psychologist Dr. Paul Ekman noted about his “microexpression” lie detection technique, once you know how to detect involuntary facial expressions, it is not as if you can shut it off. Learning about the cycle of oppression puts one in a comparable position; once the rhetoric and the language of racism and white privilege are recognized, it is hard to ignore. You can pretend to suppress the ignorance that surrounds you but not effectively and not for very long. I have to wonder if people that don’t operate with this framework and haven’t come from a society that has drilled this into their head since young ages are overall happier people.

Horne went on to argue that with the option of ethnic studies, students of color often took classes that directly corresponded to their ethnic backgrounds, further ostracizing themselves from their white counterparts and dividing themselves based on minority group. “America is the land of opportunity. We should not teach them [students of color] the downer, that they are oppressed, they can’t get anywhere and that they should be angry against their government and their country,” to which Dyson argued, “The history of America is to seek relief from the oppression of the British so we could establish this country…it is ludicrous to assume that the entire history and culture of a people can be reduced to responses to white supremacy, social injustice and inequality.” Dyson went on to explain that the American government has been the most radically separatist organization in the country. He reasoned the only way of understanding the greatness of America is to bring the truth out into the open. We cannot progress as a nation if we pretend that racism and oppression played no role in our history and subsequently plays no role institutionally in our present.

I will never forget when one of my hall mates back in America shared with me that throughout her life things were happening to her and going on around her, things she couldn't properly deconstruct until she got to college and was introduced to a new language. It was when she started to read the words of bell hooks that she began to better understand herself. I suppose this is why in spite of my capricious emotion, I will always be a firm believer in ethnic studies. One way that slavery was enabled was through the maintenance of ignorance; it would be unfortunate to recreate a contemporary form of enslavement. Sidelining the history of oppression is only beneficial to the oppressor. If we think in earnest about all the countries around the world that the British and the United States have colonized, occupied and destroyed, it would only make sense for those who have long benefited from this ruination to suppress this reality as much as possible.

The histories of people of color seem to be awfully inconvenient especially in a society in which few like to own their privilege. The election of Barack Obama has ironically created a platform for oppression under a new guise, breeding grounds for hysterical rhetoric of a post-racial society in which anyone that demands to talk about these imperative issues is deemed race obsessed. I must wonder what will be the fate of those of us who have the gall to continue to fight this uphill battle. Racism doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; it merely seems to be reinventing itself in colorful new forms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH0tpEm8ns0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gOW2vBGHBU&NR=1

Interracial Dating in London

2010-05-08T05:59:00.003-04:00

Check out this edition of my show "The Politics of Race in London" for a special on Interracial Dating in the city. Head on over to The Pod radio. My show is number 6.

http://thepodradio.co.uk/content/podcasts.html

They May Ballyhoo, We’ll Stay Focused on Black Women

2010-03-12T08:44:00.002-05:00

Crossposted @ MS. Blog

This February, billboards that read “black children are an endangered species” were plastered across Atlanta. They were sponsored by anti-abortion groups Georgia Right to Life (GRTL) and the Radiance Foundation, and they were meant to imply that abortion-rights activists target pregnant black women for eugenics reasons.

I know firsthand that it’s easy for the unwary to be seduced–or at least shaken–by these arguments. I watched bits and pieces of the slickly produced 2009 documentary Maafa 21, the foundation for these kind of billboards, which alleges a “black genocide” perpetrated by the likes of Planned Parenthood, and I admit it threw me. I had no idea that Planned Parenthood, in its original incarnation as the American Birth Control League, was helmed by Margaret Sanger, who made many questionable assertions about race in her lifetime.

But in times of ballyhoo, it is always sage to revisit the facts.

Fact: Yes, a black woman is almost four times as likely as a white woman to have an abortion, but that is due to a higher rate of unintended pregnancy among African American women.

Fact: In 2002, about 15 percent of black women who were at risk for unintended pregnancy were not practicing contraception, compared to 12 percent of Latino and 9 percent of white women. But …

Fact: Black women are disproportionately low income and many contraceptives have exorbitant upfront costs; therefore, black woman are less able to afford prescription birth control methods or have access to highly effective contraception over extended periods of time.

Fact: When we are told to view issues of reproductive rights as separate from the larger narrative of public health, we must be skeptical.

Following the display of these billboards, legislation was introduced in the Georgia Legislature– House Bill 1155, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act–that would criminalize providers who solicit abortion “with racial intent.” While this sounds reasonable in theory, Loretta Ross, national coordinator of the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, explains that this bill could require health-care providers to ask patients why they are seeking abortions. Getting an abortion is already a stigmatized experience in our society without seekers having to undergo an inquisition. Ross also notes that the bill does not define what constitutes “solicitation,” meaning that its actual effect could be to create an abortion ban in Georgia by using incensed African Americans who may not have otherwise supported the cause.

Even though the bill has moved through the subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, Ross remains hopeful that it won’t pass:

It is very hard to persuade African American women in the city of Atlanta that this legislation headlined by rural white Republicans is truly about saving black children. These are the same legislators…that have fought against improving our schools, getting guns off the street and getting children into the SCHIP [State Children’s Health Insurance Program]…these are not people whose votes indicate that they care about children of color once they are here.

In the “endangered species” promotional video–almost insultingly backed with a hip-hop beat–there are truths. However, they are incomplete narratives that create divisions rather than solutions. The full story is that since Margaret Sanger’s death in 1966, the reproductive rights movement has seen dramatic changes in its leadership and relationships with women of color. Although we must always remain critical, it would do us all a great disservice to discount the importance of reproductive health care services in their contemporary context, especially for women of color. This includes access to prenatal care, which constitutes 90 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services.

Cecilia Marquez, a Swarthmore College student and reproductive justice advocate, reasonably argues:

If we’re really worried about genocide of the black community, we need to think about prison abolition. If we are really worried about this supposed genocide, let us talk about real solutions for HIV/AIDS. If we really care about genocide in the black community then we need to talk about gross inequities in our healthcare system–we don’t need to limit black women’s reproductive freedom.

It appears that the same white conservative leaders who consistently reject reform are the very people now trying to court the black community. As noted by journalist Michelle Goldberg:

For several years now, the religious right has been trying to appropriate the moral authority of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s an audacious strategy, given that Christian conservative politics were forged in the white Southern backlash to school integration. But it’s had some successes, particularly in rousing black churches against the gay rights movement. Now, the anti-abortion movement is making a push to enlist African Americans in their cause by framing abortion as a tool of eugenics and genocide.

The fact that abortion rates are disproportionately higher in communities of color is neither the fault of black women nor of a conspiring group of women’s health-care providers. It is because of racist and classist public-health policy that has long rendered black women invisible.

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/03/11/they-may-ballyhoo-well-stay-focused-on-black-women/

The "It" Girl

2010-01-18T19:28:00.006-05:00

Who would have thought that being a single black woman would be all the rage? If you’ve clued-in to the blogosphere over the past few weeks, you probably have noticed the trend. From Helena Andrews’ forthcoming book and film Bitch is the New Black to ABC’s Nightline segment on single black women, I am starting to feel like the “it” girl. Everybody seems to be talking about me and I’ve never been more ready for my close up. After all, there are serious issues at play that could really use the airtime.

As an underappreciated beautiful black woman, I hope that you would understand my trepidation over being haphazardly catapulted into stardom. For those of us who know, being single isn’t always cute and certainly isn’t something to exploit. It can be lonely and desperately painful but can be an unfortunate reality for so many black women.

Although it was not without flaw, I am comforted when I see television specials like that of the ABC segment. The largest blemish was Steve Harvey’s perpetuation of binary gender roles and antiquated irrelevant advice that only further contributed to the rhetoric of assault on women. The relationship advice in his book, which he predicates his comments on, encourages women to constantly be altering their physical and emotional selves to fit the male gaze. Apart from this disappointment and some problems with the numbers (the eligible numbers should have included black male college graduates but I suppose they didn’t want us to hurl ourselves off of the Brooklyn Bridge and should have subtracted gay black men), I felt solace in hearing other black women facing what I am. It makes me feel as though I am part of a community grappling with a common struggle and ultimately as if I am not alone. However, not all black women share this sentiment. If Essence's relationships editor Demetria L. Lucas could, “she would climb under a rock…to avoid the onslaught of articles, primetime TV segments, books, and countless blog discussions.” While Lucas very eloquently iterates her frustrations with the white constructed “Black Man Shortage” narrative, I don’t see what we have to gain from hiding from this reality. I do not deny that major networks do in fact pull out this story ever so often to sensationalize the issue but I wonder if we can start using these specials as a springboard to discuss what is really going on in our community. Many black women and men ask, why we are still talking about this. To them I answer, because it continues to be a dire circumstance with no trace of getting any better.

Many of my black college educated male peers are disheartened and even angered by this discourse. It is almost as if they feel as though their masculinity is being challenged. I can’t tell anyone how to feel but I wish rather than get insulted, educated black men reflected on these reports as heavily as educated black women do. Admittedly, I am coming from a privileged perspective and I cannot speak for every community. I don’t know any black men in my age group who are not in college, even fewer who are not at the best institutions in the country, but I wonder why my peers and even some of my friends are, as the school counselor Chato Waters lamented, juggling four quality women in rotation. As blessed as I have been to be amongst what I perceive to be intelligent company, with it comes a sense of arrogance. My fear is that as young black men are patting themselves on the back and brushing their shoulders off, they are missing opportunities to codify healthy relationships with black women and even perhaps sleeping on the possibility to pull up even younger legions of black men. I would be foolish not to acknowledge that this is symptomatic of the behavior of many young men regardless of race but with a lot of things, black folks have to hold themselves to a higher standard. We don’t have time for games. Our community is hanging on by tiny threads of overworked black women. I appreciated a recent video I saw posted by Christopher Johnson but as one of my friends saliently noted; while he makes a plea for the good guys, he never really tackles the issues at hand. He never even addresses the numbers.

There are a host of problems that perpetuate this issue. Black women continue to have minimal representation in the media especially in all of our diverse hues, hair textures and body types. We all know that we very rarely see dark skinned women, full figured women and women who sport their God given hair. This contributes to a socialization that is hard to break yet we continue to watch and support the very mediums that do not reflect who we are. I just saw the preview for Jennifer Lopez’s next film The Back-Up Plan. I am always amazed at her ability to consistently attain romantic comedy movie roles where she plays opposite a white male lead—the subject of her race never being the focal point of the film. In fact, the same seems to be true for other women of color yet there continues to be black people who want to shy away from the specificity of our plight. Interracial dating is often suggested but for many black women, especially those who find themselves on the margins of celebrated beauty norms, this is not an easy task.

Additionally, young black men need mentors. I heard a young girl call into the WBGO Newark Today radio program to voice to her mayor, Cory Booker, her concerns about her brother who she feared was no longer attending high school but out on the street hustling. Over the course of the hour, Booker and other Newark residents made a plea, particularly to older black men, to become mentors. We need more black men teaching black young men the importance in loving black women.

I could go on and on about our problems as a community. We have lots of them. The fact that too many black women are single is only the tip of the iceberg but by engaging the issue rather than hiding under a rock, we could pick away at the glaciers. We could turn this single black woman talk into a discussion and ultimately a solution to the underlying issues.

Unfortunately you can’t really get over something that is still there. You cannot jump over a barrier that has not yet been knocked down. We can pretend but smacking that wall sure will hurt. What we can do and what we should do is use this ongoing hysteria to our benefit all the while highlighting the surrounding issues we face as a community. After all, Americans have a short attention span, being the “it” girl won’t last forever.

SOURCES

Bitch is the New Black
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120904546.html

ABC Segment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJGMAhWpDF8

Essence Commentary
http://www.essence.com/relationships/commentary_3/black_women_arent_the_only_ones_looking.php

Christopher Johnson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klv4fbqmYlI

Newark Today with Cory Booker
http://www.wbgo.org/ontheair/2007/NewarkToday_CoryBooker_DCruz.php

http://clutchmagonline.com/lifeculture/feature/the-it-girl/

Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman

2009-12-05T03:55:00.003-05:00

Originally Posted on Ms. Magazine.com

By Eva McKend

In Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant’s emotionally stirring new book, Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman: Voice and the Embodiment of a Costly Performance (Temple University Press), she unpacks the superwoman persona that so many Black women are expected to assume. In an interview with Ms., she explains that as we live the world that slavery and patriarchy continues to create, the idea of “strength” maintains race-based differences and creates a social distance between women. And that distance becomes part of the oppression. Beauboeuf-Lafontant, a sociology professor at DePauw University, does not leave us in despair, though, but celebrates the power of transcending strength and acknowledging vulnerability.

Ms.: Why is the message of this book so important to you?

Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafantant: When I was in graduate school, many of my black female friends would use this term SBW—strong black woman. They reasoned that if black women could make it through slavery, they could make it through anything. I began to wonder how strength misrepresents not just what black women are capable of but what people assume they can sustain. Too often we use the term “strong black woman” to dismiss legitimate claims and needs. I don’t think that black women are cut from a different cloth, but I think they have been expected, given historical circumstances, to operate as something other than human.

Ms.: Why has appearing strong become so critically important to black women?

TB-L: I believe this idea of the strong black woman is tied to the understanding of black women as mammies and mules of the world. It starts with slavery and the assumptions of black womanhood as this thing completely opposite to white womanhood. As a black community we’ve taken in a lot of those assumptions and have tried to find a redeeming aspect to them. A strong black woman is a woman who expresses a lot of fortitude, a deep wealth of caring and a lot of persistence—those can be seen as noble qualities. [But] they were used against us during slavery and I think they continued to be used against us by the white community and by black patriarchy. You can extort a lot of work from people who subscribe to the notion that they are strong and invulnerable.

Ms.: What are the dangers of this seeming invulnerability?

TB-L: The biggest vulnerabilities are those that you probably wouldn’t connect with black women: eating disorders and depression. The idea of the strong black woman is a very convincing tale, but only a half-told tale. What we don’t hear and don’t acknowledge is any sense of suffering and harm that may have happened to these women. In talking to the women that I interviewed, I realized that there is a psychological backstage. This is what one woman referred to as her deep-down inside, an internal repository for all the emotions that she isn’t allowed to express. It comes out through their bodies.

Ms.: You describe the role of strength in black women as both a social expectation and a personal strategy.

TB-L: It is one of the only options we have for being good women, both outside of our communities and within them. The idea of a strong black woman is a woman that you can count on, a woman who is going to be selfless and reliable. The fact that so many women in my study talked about how they were actresses and that this wasn’t who they were but who they had to be suggests that on some level they know that this is not an accurate representation of their totality.

Black women are more than just strong. I would want black women to have a sense of self that allows them the whole gamut of human emotions.

Ms.: What do you think will be the most effective way to dispel the myth of the strong black woman?

TB-L: I know that within my own raising of my 12-year-old daughter, I’ve been very careful to not present myself as being without the complexity that we all have as human beings. I was really blessed that my mother did not subscribe to this notion of [strong] black womanhood. My mother was one person who always said, “I love you all, but I love me more,” and she would tell me stories of when she was growing up of how she refused to settle for less than she thought she deserved.

Eva McKend is a student at Swarthmore College, where she founded A Campaign for Me to address black female representation in the media. She is a former Ms. intern.

Comments on this piece? We want to hear them! Sent to letterstotheeditor@msmagazine.com. To have your letter considered for publication, please include your city and state.

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http://www.msmagazine.com/Fall2009/behindthemask.asp

A Different Reality

2009-07-20T05:27:00.010-04:00

GUEST BLOGGER: Kaitlin Has Her Say

2009-06-13T14:11:00.005-04:00

I am so flattered that my friend Eva asked me to share some of my experience as a multiracial black woman. I'm not sure where to begin because this is such a huge topic, but perhaps I should just start by saying that I really appreciate Eva's insistence on addressing many salient issues in black popular culture, but of particular relevance to my own experience, issues of colorism for black women. While I know that some of Eva's readers do not share her perspective about the privileges supplied by light skin in the black community, my experience as a light-skinned black woman seems to support her view. It's very clear to me that many light-skinned black people often enjoy privileges that many darker skinned black people simply do not. While I do not think that there is some sort of threshold for light-skinnedednes and dark-skinnedness that divides people in two opposing groups, I think that people fall within a continuum that, though complicated by other factors such as one's degree of phenotypically African features, has great consequences for everyone on it.

To suggest that everyone who is black is just black and shares in common a singular experience of struggle is, from my perspective, a notion that obscures too many issues to count, especially the reality that black people can and do marginalize each other. Just as one does not need to be Bill Gates to benefit from class privilege, one does not need to be white to experience privilege resulting from their skin color and European features. This has certainly been my experience as a multiracial black woman (my mother is white and my father is African-American). In many ways, it's difficult for me to separate the ways that I have been privileged as a result of color and phenotypical features from the ways that I have been privileged by association (with a white family and friends). To avoid generalizing about experiences that aren't my own, I'll just discuss my experience and maybe someone who is light-skinned but not raised by a white parent or who has light skin but more phenotypically African features will be willing to give their two cents on their possibly different experience of light-skindedness.

In addition to being privileged by association, I think that most of my privilege as a multiracial person stems from people assuming/convincing themselves that I'm not black. I was raised by a white mother and extended family (the black side of my family really had no role in raising me except for my dad) in a predominantly white suburb where my mom and extended family did not speak in any Black Vernacular English or participate in the black community there (though all of my mother's closest friends that she's had since before I was born have been black and they served as kind of role models for me). This combined with my family's class position (it shifted from, i'd say, lower-m.c. to m.c. over the course of my upbringing), afforded me certain opportunities, e.g. going to a suburban public school where I was surrounded by white students (most of whom didn't particularly like me but in their minds, at least I wasn't black black); attending a serious ballet school that took up a lot of my time, for a while gave me my social network, and further differentiated me from other black kids I knew. Being so caught up in that world and performing aspects of that lifestyle, I believe, contributed to people reading me as something-other-than-black because they were ill equipped to conceive of blackness as something more varied and expansive.

Another source of this confusion is my physical racial ambiguity. While people's ideas about my background depend largely on where I happen to be, people almost never correctly guess that I am African-American (black people are the only exception). While I am usually flattered when people are interested in learning about me, it seems that they often don't want to know the truth which is that I'm a mixed girl from Cleveland--nothing special or imported about that. Instead, I think that very often, people want to believe that I'm from some far off place, often framing me as some "island girl" of indeterminate origin (that's a direct quote from a very puzzled man) even after I've disclosed my background because it's easier than acknowledging the truth. I think that if people weren't so busy kidding themselves, they'd be forced to expand their understanding of the diversity of black women as a demographic--that contrary to what Beyonce videos might tell them, we don't all like to shake our butts; some of us might even shy away from social dancing and prefer ballet. That one shouldn't assume that a black woman who speaks Standard American English, does ballet, is an excellent student, or does fill-in-the-blank "white" thing is from another proverbial planet because real black women are somehow less accomplished or diverse in terms of lifestyle. Rather, she's just as black as other black women and her existence should be taken as proof of black women's diversity, not used to reinforce narrow and degrading definitions of what a black woman must be.

I feel that in being mistaken for other races or an ambiguous and unnamed other, I am often able to fly under the radar--that is, not have certain negative black stereotypes attributed to me. People often don't know what to make of me and I think it's difficult, though not impossible, to discriminate against someone when you don't know on what grounds they are inferior to you. Despite the ways in which these experiences have alienated me from the black community and rendered my experiences rather invisible, I feel that this invisibility in many ways translates to opportunities for increased visibility and mobility in the dominant culture--or at least the ability to enter the public sphere as a less/differently marked individual. This is complicated of course by the fact that I am sometimes mistaken for Latina and certain other racial backgrounds depending on region. This usually fades, however, as soon as I open my mouth and it's revealed that I speak with a midwestern accent and am probably not actually Latina (though some people still feel the need to out-Latina me...?). Confused looks from people puzzled by my background aside, more often than not, I am able to fly under the radar as the average person doesn't seem to know how to place me--and I think that being unmarked/differently marked in this way is certainly a more privileged position than being marked as definitively black, for example.

I want to end this post by adding to Eva's discussion about how not speaking openly and honestly about the effects of colorism and related inequalities damages sisterhood. I know that what follows will seem like a departure from the rest of the entry, but I think it's important to share this aspect of my experience. To avoid delving too deeply into my life story, I'll just say that I learned early on (elementary school) that looking attractive and having romantic relationships with guys (black or white) put me immediately at odds with other black girls (all of them raised by two black parents and most of them considerably darker). I resolved that in order to have friends, I couldn't take pride in my appearance or have relationships with guys, having learned that attracting any attention to myself or projecting confidence would doom me to friendlessness. But as fate would have it, I did not even retain those friendships I was so ardently trying to hold onto in hiding myself. While I know now that this is more of a reflection of the plight of all black women in America and the way in which our attractiveness as determined by the dominant culture is predicated on skin color, degree of European features, and European body type, this was a very difficult lesson for me to learn as a little kid. And while I've understood for a long time that this fraught relationship with my then friends was largely a function of my relative privilege, it's taken me an equally long time to figure out how to love and take pride of the skin I'm in given my relative privilege. My purpose in saying this is not to melodramatically proclaim that woe is me or that being mixed or light-skinned is so endlessly painful and tragic--it's clear to me that it supplies a number of significant privileges despite the challenges it presents. I just want to underscore how white supremacy undermined the self-esteem of both me and my friends, regardless of our varying degrees of melanin. Even though I always wanted my friends to feel good about themselves and be in the relationships they desired and deserved, I didn't believe I had the right to take pride in my self or be noticed--in my mind, I just didn't deserve it because I hadn't earned it. I think it's a shame that it's taken me so long to realize that I too am a black woman who deserves to be loved and admired and, just like my friends, I shouldn't have to apologize to anyone for it.

Despite the sad end to these childhood friendships and the ways in which this situation continues to challenge me, I think it's more concerning that there doesn't seem to be an open, ongoing, and reciprocal conversation going on about colorism and other related power differentials in this community today. I think it's one thing for little kids to get jealous and do things to each other out of anger, but another for young adult women to continue to beat themselves and each other up over something that can be addressed through conversation. That's not to say that in doing so, the inequalities linked to color will magically evaporate, but that an intentional series of conversations could get people to realize that our fates in this area are ultimately linked. White supremacy and aesthetics are what place us all together on this oppressive color continuum. We don't live in opposing light-skinned and dark-skinned universes, with our fates operating independently of the other group. While I'm not sure where this conversation ought to go from here, I am thankful for Eva's bravery in broaching a topic that it seems so many people have taken great lengths to avoid. Though I am quite light-skinned and part of my stake in this conversation is disclosing the privilege I feel I experience in relation to a lot of other black women, I'm convinced that dismantling this form of white supremacy in our lives can't happen if we are concentrated on apologizing (or eliciting apologies from women) for who and what we (or they) are. Addressing this form of white supremacy in our lives will require us to lift one another up, regardless of where each of us falls on the color continuum.

Putting the Sluts and the Whores to Rest

2009-06-05T01:36:00.003-04:00

I have been fortunate enough to only wonder what it would be like if someone, with the intention of defaming my character, called me a slut to my face. I often hear it amongst friends jokingly and dare I say affectionately but seldom with mal intention. Perhaps, that’s why these words have become so engrained in our contemporary vocabulary as they sort of just roll off the tongue: “That little slut,” “She’s such a whore,” “This bitch is crazy,” “Hey bitchhhhh!” It’s funny, just a joke and no one is really being serious.

I was recently moved by the story of Jesse Logan, a teenage girl from Ohio. 18-year-old Logan sent a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend. To her misfortune, soon after the break-up, her ex-boyfriend sent the naked photo to various girls in his school. It sadly did not occur to his primitive mind that Logan’s bare body was not for communal display. This subsequently lead to a very public humiliation as students from various schools in the surrounding area relentlessly harassed her, deeming her a slut and a whore for this mere picture. According to the victim’s mother, Cynthia Logan, her daughter was miserable, depressed and even afraid to go to school. Last summer Ms. Logan walked into Jesse’s room only to find her daughter hanging from a rope—Jesse took her own life.

I began to think more critically about the words that I use and the words that I hear. What does it really mean to be a slut? What does it really mean to be a whore? By its textbook definition a slut is a slovenly or a promiscuous woman. A slut is a woman, in some cases a prostitute, that engages in sexual activity casually and without much rumination. The word whore differs in that it literally means prostitute. A whore sells her body as a commodity for financial gain.

By revisiting the precise definitions of words like slut and whore, it becomes clear that we use these words in our daily discourse outside of their original context. For a long time, I did not think that this was a big deal but it is evident that this misuse is causing real pain, the real pain of women. Even though there are words like man-whore and man-slut, they do not hold the same power. The words continue to be implicitly feminine. In Jesse Logan’s instance, the words or rather the shaming that resulted from the words drove her to the grave. So I must wonder why we continue to use divisive language that dehumanizes and degrades women?

Bitch seems to be a different story. Many new-wave white feminists seem to have affectionately and proudly reclaimed the word. Although I am not altogether comfortable with this reclamation as I am still trying to navigate my own personal understanding of bitch, I find it difficult to similarly reclaim slut and whore. These words tear at the fabric of our sisterhood and continue to push women into humiliation, shame and guilt. As we remain speaking the language that demeans us, we perpetuate a shaming and a narrow interpretation of our sexuality when men are so often not put in the same stringent positions.

While the stories of women of color may not make NBC news, our realities are just as painful. We too engage in language that negatively challenges our sisterhood and diminishes our character. Although we like to believe that there aren’t dire consequences like suicide, the only ones we are fooling are ourselves. For black women, manipulation and humiliation by men are not foreign concepts and despite contorted representations of our sexuality, we think sincerely about the value of our bodies and how they are portrayed. I will not dare to call for some ceremonial burial of misogynist put-down words. I am in no such position. I only wonder if we could think more deeply about the implications of the things that we say. Perhaps through earnest discernment, we might be able to put them to rest.

Sources:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slut
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whore

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It Doesn’t Soothe My Soul

2009-03-28T11:45:00.017-04:00

I don’t hate Beyoncé! Really, I don’t. My hating Beyoncé would not miraculously improve the conditions of my circumstance nor would it ease the pain of my sisters who do not fit into the rubric of societal beauty norms. I recently came across an article in Clutch magazine entitled, “Top 15 Reasons Why People Hate Beyoncé.” “You remind me of a girl that I once knew,” was the first reason. Alaina Lewis, the article’s author, talks about how Beyoncé is like a girl that we all knew and hated in high school. “If Beyoncé reminds you of someone in your past, it may not exactly be a pleasant memory,” she says. She goes on to ask, “Did I forget to mention that she was also dating the captain of the football team while you were still combing through the school directory hoping to will yourself a first date? Beyoncé may unconsciously remind you of that girl that you hated who with the blink of an eye had and did everything you wanted.” With her “gobs of make up and hair extensions,” “the sexiest woman alive,” “carries the torch of defining perfected beauty.” “Barbie…doesn’t take into account the plight of the real single ladies of the world. If we run out and dump our men just because they didn’t pop the question in our matrimonial time frame, then we’ll be up in the club feeling unnecessarily lonely.” Ouch, right? But wait, Lewis really takes it to her hard, “We all know Beyoncé is a red bone, but even being that light isn’t enough to satisfy the media. In 2005, Vanity Fair denies rumors of lightening her image on the cover of their magazine, but now L’Oreal is currently under the radar for doing the same skin altering. I don’t know about you, but I love my brown skin,” she reasons.

I often hear my lighter skinned sisters speak of how they only like dark skinned men. “I won’t mess with him. He’s too light,” I often hear. It’s as if in order to compensate for having lighter skin, they need to align themselves with a dark skin chocolate African looking brother. Real dark! My sisters also make comments about how they wish that their skin could be darker and how it excites them when they are able to get tans. “I love getting darker,” I also hear. These things didn’t use to bother me but as of late, in reflection, I thought of how much my sisters are discounting their privilege. While my sister is sitting thinking about which man she prefers, a dark skin sister, like myself, is alone. And while she is talking about the niceties of getting a darker tan in the summer, my dark skin is something that is constant. It doesn’t get lighter in the wintertime and is something that I can never turn off. Think of how it would be if I said that I wanted to be lighter. It would not be appropriate nor socially acceptable. People would hold forums and fireside chats over my self-hatred as they psychoanalyze my lack of self-love. What if I said that I only liked light skin men? I would run into similar issues. “I only like light skin men, real yellow, like William Demps and Chris Brown pre battering stage,” do we not see the problem?

It doesn’t soothe my soul. So stop! Shut up, really. It’s kind of annoying. While you are debating over which man you want, light, dark or purple, I am sitting over here wishing that the television would reflect my image. What would help and what would actually quell my pain is if my lighter skinned sisters who have more Eurocentric features and attributes that are continually celebrated, accepted their elevated status, denounced their privilege and discouraged men from solely chasing after their aesthetic. Don’t play into it, don’t act innocent as if you don’t recognize the issue and don’t play with men as you use your aesthetic as leverage. It’s insulting.

I was at a party this summer. My friend and I were thinking about going to see John Legend in the park but it was raining. While my friend said that she no longer wanted to go, before either of us could blink an eye, a brother trying to impress her, boxed me out of the conversation to let her know that she would be fine in the rain because she had “good hair.” I was looking at her to see what she would say. I was beginning to become quite enamored with her and had hope for the outcome of this common scenario. But to my disappointment, she said nothing. This would have been a prime opportunity for her to ask this black gentleman, what exactly he meant by “good hair” but she cutely smiled and changed the subject. In these all-to-likely occurrences, I am often the one that has to speak up and it gets exhausting. I get cast as the bitter dark skinned woman who must have problems loving herself. Newsflash! I love myself. I find my dark skin, my commanding dark brown eyes, my natural hair and my intelligence sexy. I am not a negative person. However, I do recognize the conditions in which I live as a phenotypically African woman problematic and intolerable; I try to do everything I can to shed light on this injustice. I cannot be white-girl bubbly because the life that I lead is not bubilicous. Instead of rolling your eyes at me in pain, I call for my lighter skinned sisters to stand with me in fighting the evil forces that try to rip our sisterhood apart. Don’t be patronizing or condescending especially if you don’t know what it is like to be alone. Understand the hurt and stand with me in solidarity. I love you.

I recognize the problematic nature of reconciling light skin visibility as “privilege.” While I do in fact feel as though it is a privilege, I understand why many do not. Until, I find better language to navigate this issue, it will be the terminology that I continue to use as it is how I feel based on the experience I have endured. Former Essence Beauty Editor and current Editor-in-Chief of Honeymag.com, Michaela Angela Davis argues, “There’s no privilege to me to walk into a room full of sisters and I automatically get set apart. There’s no privilege in knowing that a man is checking you just because your light-skinned, I’ve had that experience before and it’s wack. Anything that tears us apart as sisters, there’s no privilege in, we have equal pain, it’s just different and has been processed and presented to us in different ways.” Halle Berry and Mariah Carey have also spoken about their confusion and frustration grappling with “tragic mulatto” syndrome. I do not look to Beyoncé as my role model or representation. I recognized long ago that she is not going to be my voice. That, however, does not mean that I hate her. Hating her would be antithetical to advancing the issues that I care most deeply about. Hate is a waste of time and wouldn't solve the issue. I understand that all lighter skinned women do not share a universal experience. Light skin means nothing if you do not fit into the rubric of acceptable weight, hair type, and other aesthetical Eurocentric attributes. Lastly, there are lighter skinned women who fit societal beauty norms who often denounce these contorted standards of beauty. I am appreciative of this recognition and find it to be necessary and productive.

So until I am old and gray, foaming at the mouth and before my precious Lord comes to take me home, I will continue to address my peculiar circumstance. I don’t enjoy when folk discount my experience, make a mockery of me or find my pain amusing. It’s not a game nor a joke. Recognize the very real issue of colorism. Though we like to believe we have entered the post-racial era, the issue is not dated and still causes real hurt. While this will be my life’s work, it is a difficult war to fight alone. Stand with me in cohesion. Don’t just write me off as that angry dark-skinned girl. You think you know, but you have no idea.

Positive feedback, I have gotten on my blog:

“I love that you discuss issues of beauty. Personally I've always felt so alone about it. And it’s really encouraging to know that I'm/we aren't alone.”

Thanks for reading Michaela Yisrael!

Love. Visibility. Beauty.
Eva

Sources:
“Top 15 Reasons Why People Hate Beyoncé”
http://clutchmagonline.com/lifeculture/feature/top-15-reasons-people-hate-beyonce/#1

"What A Doll Tells Us About Race"
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=7213714&page=1

“Amid Furor, DJ Cancels Party for ‘light-skinned’ Black Women”
http://clutchmagonline.com/newsgossipinfo/amid-furor-dj-cancels-party-for-light-skinned-black-women/#2

“Black Students Still Favor Lighter Skin, Study Finds”
http://www.blackcollegewire.org/index.php?option=com_ywp_blog&task=view&id=5260

“Michaela Angela Davis: The Makings of an Urbanista”
http://clutchmagonline.com/lifeculture/feature/michaela-angela-davis-the-makings-of-an-urbanista/#2

Please look at 15:23 – 17:43, everything else is irrelevant.

Why I Love, Sex, Magic...And May Be The Only One

2009-03-27T18:29:00.006-04:00

I appeared this morning on Sable Mensah and Sylvia Boateng's Kiss My Sass radio show here at Swarthmore College. I spoke about the Love, Sex, Magic music video of which I seem to be a stand-alone fan on this campus. Watch the video and then listen to my commentary below. I am about 14 minutes in...but listen to the whole show. The woman after me railed on me hard. She was not pleased with my comments, to put it kindly.
http://wsrnfm.org/media/shows/454_2009-03-27.mp3

Love. Visibility. Beauty.
Eva

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

2009-03-25T13:13:00.002-04:00

“Race doesn’t really matter.”
“I embrace diversity.”
“I date all girls. Pretty girls are pretty girls. Skin color doesn’t matter to me.”
I have recently become quite taken by a fabulous new show on FOX. Lie to Me tells the story of Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth) aided by his colleague Dr. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams) who detect deception by observing body language and microexpressions through the Facial Action Coding System. The team uses uniquely fascinating talent to assist clients, often law enforcement. Perhaps, I am particularly enthralled by the show because I don’t find myself to be a good liar. If I am thinking something, you can usually see it all over my face. It wouldn’t even take one of these incredible agents to spot me. The common man can easily catch me in a lie. I try to stay as honest as possible, for my own sake. That doesn't discount my inclination to lie, sometimes naturally. I always joke with my friend that often when people ask you how you are doing, they don't really care. They are just expecting you to say "I'm fine," "Pretty good," "Can't complain." Imagine if people always answered that question honestly. I was so proud when I asked a brother from Dartmouth a few weeks ago, how school was treating him and he said "To be honest, it's pretty miserable." I certainly, did not exude such courage in my response.

Last summer, Young Berg showed his behind as he made some out of pocket comments about black women. “I don’t do no dark butts,” he said. “I don’t mess with dark butts. I like girls with skin my complexion and lighter,” he repeated. Berg, in all of his irrelevancy, decided to make this outlandish and if nothing more, distasteful comment about black women. Why on Earth he would make such a comment as an unattractive male that stands at 4’2 in such an image conscious medium like entertainment is beyond my level of comprehension. It seems as if Berg should be sympathetic to black women, as he potentially must deal with societal aesthetical barriers of his own. In the proceeding days, after the unfortunate vomit of the mouth, Berg was crucified. Black bloggers and radio talk-heads told him to sit his country behind down. Soon after, Berg apologized to the world with a “heartfelt” video in which he claimed, “I love all women. My momma is a lovely dark skinned woman.” I wonder what the reason was for this dramatic reversal in a span of just 48 hours. One minute, “he didn’t do dark butts” and the next he was ready to stand with sisters in solidarity. Was he lying? I don’t really care. What I find even more problematic is all those that came out in the proceeding days, denouncing his comments. Folks that very clearly hold these same biases. The only difference between Berg and them is that they are liars! They don’t articulate their preferences but they are evident. Actions speak louder than words.

It truly sickens me when I hear men, particularly black men, say that they don’t have aesthetic preferences when considering women. According to them, society and the media plays no role in their decisions. Yet these are the same men that will have girlfriends that consistently look the same. If you are a black man and have had 10 girlfriends all of whom have looked ethnically ambiguous/the same but you claim that you don’t have a preference, clearly something is not adding up. There needs to be a sense of ownership and accountability for the inevitable psychological toll. Admitting you have a problem is the first step. Actions speak louder than words.

People have a tough time being honest with themselves. It’s a shame because the best person to tell you about yourself is…yourself! When reflecting on the New York City private school scene, everyone in certain circles looked and talked the same. No one was too ugly, too dark or too fat. However, certain clicks never said a thing about not liking fat people. They didn’t have too. Avowing that you don’t like fat people is not socially acceptable. It would be largely inappropriate. People would shun you even if they held the same views. We live in a society of liars. Pathological liars and folks that have merely grown accustomed to what society dictates is appropriate according to the unspoken and unwritten social contract, so much so that they don’t even realize they are spewing untruths.

Dr. Gregory House puts it best when he speaks of envying an Autistic kid who never has to conform to correctness (that’s just a nice way of saying LYING):

House: See skinny socially privileged white people get to draw this neat little circle and everyone inside the circle is normal. Everyone outside the circle should be beaten, broken and reset so they can be brought into the circle, feeling that they should be institutionalized or worse pitied.

Dr. Allison Cameron: So, it's wrong to feel sorry for this little boy.

House: Why would you feel sorry for someone who gets to opt out of the inane courteous formalities which are utterly meaningless, insincere and therefore degrading? This kid doesn't have to pretend to be interested in your back pains or your excretions or grandmas itchy place. Could you imagine how liberating it would be to live a life free of all the mind numbing social niceness. I don't pity this kid. I envy him.

My roommate, a white female, and I were up pretty late last night. She said that because I talk about issues of black femininity so much, she was inspired to ask some of her white guy friends if they were attracted to black females. To her surprise, although definitely not to mine, she learned that a lot of these white males would never be interested in dating black women. She was frustrated, as was I, but at the end of the conversation, we both reconciled that we appreciated that they told the truth.

Sources:

Lie to Me:
http://www.fox.com/lietome

House:
http://www.fox.com/house/

Young Berg:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydPt1YO88ro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNdOfTvET6M&feature=related

Sweating It Out In '09: I'm On Strike

2009-01-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

As my mom and I walked into the lobby of our apartment building, Mark, a friendly neighbor held the door open for us as we sluggishly made our way inside. This was kind of him, I thought. Our doorman, George, must be on his dinner break, I reasoned. But as we walked in, lo and behold, George was sitting down behind the front lobby desk. As I proceeded into the building, I greeted George and thought the scenario rather unusual. Then it occurred to me, George hasn’t been opening the door for quite some time now. When we got upstairs and entered our apartment, I asked my mom if she had noticed what I had. In response, she said, “You know it’s getting cold outside and George is tired.” Whether it is this winter’s bitter cold or all the snooty people moving into our building that probably don’t feel the need to say thank you—after all these years, George is tired.

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved getting dressed to the nines. Whenever my mom asked me to take out the trash, my aunt would joke that I needed to put on my make-up first. In elementary school, my aunt used to tie bows in my hair to match my pink and plaid uniforms. In middle school, I was worse, begging for the latest in Juicy Couture and Coach even though we definitely did not have the money. While I had a genuine passion for fashion, I also just liked looking nice. My mom helped as best as she could, fueling the madness as she helped me “Keep Up with the Steins.” Yes, in my case, it would be the Steins. I went to a private independent school in New York City for 13 years of my life. Entering into college, I brought with me this same high fashion mentality. It didn’t matter what time my class was or what day of the week, I would look cute and have my outfits together. This, of course, is far from the norm at Swarthmore College. Even the nice dressers are somewhat understated with their ensembles. It’s a bit of a different story a few blocks down the road at Penn, but most Swatties just don’t seem to care all that much.

While in high school, I would say that I dressed up for myself. It made me feel better when I looked nice. However, a small piece of me just knew that someone would notice how cute I was. As the years ticked by—not a sole did. I would get the occasional nod from a fellow female classmate but no one really paid me much attention. College unfortunately, seemed to be very similar. Waking up early and getting all gussied up everyday didn’t heed to anything. At the end of the day, nobody cared and after while, neither did I. First semester of this academic year, when I was still dressing to impress, a white male classmate of mine confused me with another black female, exactly one foot taller than myself. She’s 6’1 and I am a little over 5 feet tall. We look nothing alike but apparently, after a year and a half, he couldn't bother himself to look.

For the first two weeks of this semester (second semester of my sophomore year), I have worn sweatpants everyday. In fact, it was the only thing that I asked my mother for, for Christmas. Besides my closest friend making a few comments, nobody really seems to notice. I halted my high fashion trendy couture because, after all these years, it makes me feel worse to put in so much effort to merely go unnoticed. When you look like a slob, you don’t expect much. There is not even a glimmer of expectation or hope. My black female self cannot bear to continue strutting my stuff when the world thumps on my esteem.

So, like George, I’m kind of tired and it sure is cold outside. And after nearly 20 years on this blessed Earth, nobody appreciates my phenotypically African, dark skin, shorthair, broad nose, full smile, and highly opinionated brown skin beauty. So I would say, I’m comfortably sweating it all out in ’09. I’ve got no one to impress and besides, no one is really looking.

J To The Hello?

2009-01-28T15:12:00.002-05:00

It was a comfortable December day and I was at home relaxing on the couch in the living room. As I began to embark on some serious channel surfing, I stumbled upon The Wedding Planner—classic TNT. I had seen this movie or at least snippets of this movie many times before. I had all the cheesy string of events committed to memory and was mostly just watching out of comfort, something familiar. I knew what to expect; it would be mindless fun. It was about 20 minutes into the film and Steve Edison (Matthew McConaughey) was romancing Mary Fiore (Jennifer Lopez) under the whistling sounds of tree leaves brushing together in the park. It was cute.

Then things started to get personal.

Mary Fiore started telling Steve about her parents whom had migrated from Italy. Pause. Mary Fiore’s parents were from where? Lopez/Fiore…Fiore/Lopez? Jennifer Lopez just slid on into being a white girl. Well…wasn’t that easy. And there it was, Jennifer Lopez couldn’t be white but Jennifer Lopez as Mary Fiore could be. My, my, what a quick and effortless transition, I thought. Remember that God-awful movie Gigli? Wasn’t our home girl JLO Italian in that one too. Towards the beginning of her career, Jennifer Lopez played women like Melinda Lopez (Second Chances), Young Maria (My Family), Grace Santiago (Money Train), Gabriela (Blood and Wine) and Terri Flores (Anaconda). Jennifer Lopez began her career consistently being type cast and after while seemingly gained enough star power to demand that she no longer be subject to roles where she was “that Hispanic girl”. This is awesome and I commend her success but I think it must be understood and made very plain that Lopez has a privilege. Whiteness is a privilege and with a quick name change, Jenny from the Block has the ability to easily slip herself on into the cast of The Sopranos.

Lopez has never denied her Puerto Rican roots. This could have been because of a personal allegiance to her upbringing or the fact that her handlers were wise enough to know, absent her "On the 6" marketability, they would have had little to work with. Let’s remember her Pre-Poppa Diddy Pop, it was Jennifer who? Lopez has always openly celebrated her culture and the Latin American world seems to love them some Jenny. She remains a consistent face in both Latina magazine and People en Español and a constant winner at the ALMA awards. There are even talks of her trying to bring the musical, In the Heights, to the big screen. So, hateration aside, I can’t begin to emphasize what an influence Lopez must be for Puerto Rican little girls from the South Bronx and Latina women from around the world. This, however, does not negate the powerful nature of her roles.

As black women, we can never be white! We aren’t asking to be. But let’s just remember, you won’t ever hear Angela Basset recollecting about her parents migrating from Italy. Lopez has the privilege of taking film roles in which her identity is never the subject of the film. When will this be the case for black women? My ultimate frustration is that there are rarely black women cast in roles with a husband or a love interest outside of their race in which the subject of race is not the film’s leading plot. I want to see Jennifer Hudson, a dark skinned curvaceous beautiful black woman, play opposite Adam Brody in a romantic comedy. I don’t want her to be close in hue and composition to white people, so much so that she could pass because so many of us black women cannot. I don’t want the subject of the film to be her race (Guess Who, Something New). I appreciate films that have addressed interracial dating specifically as it relates to black women but a new day has come. When I spoke to a friend of mine, a black male at Penn State, he said that black women are yet to be seen as beautiful by all of our society. He explained that as filmmakers and producers assemble films, they have to be sure that they are going to be able to make money. Not everyone will be comfortable with Gabrielle Union opposite Ryan Gosling. Finally he reasoned, as beautiful as Gabrielle Union is to us, this matter-of-fact recognition is just not as apparent amongst white people. But if Michelle Obama is the Hit Black Chick In Charge, can’t Jennifer Hudson be more than Sarah Jessica Parker’s lowly secretary (Sex And the City: The Movie). Can’t SHE be the one jet setting around the world with Mr. Big. Right? Right? Right? Hello…

Russy Russ, You May Need to Fall Back, Boo…It’s Just Not About You!

2008-12-18T22:28:00.002-05:00

Outraged! Yes, he was outraged. Honored to still be relevant but outraged nonetheless. Often in the blogosphere, Russell Simmons, the hip-hop philanthropist and entrepreneur, is teased for his scandalous snapshots with white women. Recently, Simmons has fired back calling the racism against him part of a “pollutant in his community.” According to him, in these times of a newly elected black president and post-racialism, issues of race as it relates to dating are no longer relevant. He denounced the ideology of black people calling their "views much more telling about them than about those who do find a physical, spiritual, mental and emotional connection with someone who looks different than themselves." Simmons suggests that there is something wrong with black people that are still taking issue with interracial dating and they themselves must be nothing more than ignorant racists, confused and in dire need of getting with the times.

I for one don't care who Russell Simmons dates. That is his predilection and whatever his decision...God, bless him. What I do take issue with, however, is this pretentious way in which he discusses the issue, not even entertaining the scope of his privilege. His attitude: Get over it. For a lot of black people, particularly black women 'getting over it' is simply not feasible.

Russell Simmons has tremendous power. As a hip hop mogul, he is 'The Image Manager' for black folks and often acts as the mediation between our images and white owned industries. Whether we like it or not, he is so often the point person when large institutions need consulting on black images also known as targeting that urban wallet. In his many years in the entertainment industry, I have never heard Simmons speak out against the industry's dehumanization and ostracism of dark skinned phenotypically African black women.

While I understand that these issues may never be of personal relevance to him or the women that he is often surrounded with, I--as part of his constituency do not feel represented. Let me be clear, I am not denouncing his former marriage to Kimora Lee Simmons or his present relationship with Porschla Coleman, these are both exceptionally beautiful black women. To question their blackness would only perpetuate the current failing system that says light is beautiful and dark is ugly. I want to move towards a discourse that promotes all beauty. However, these women do not face the kind of image warfare that so many black women are forced to confront. His young daughters too will not have to battle such pain--but this does not make this pain invisible.

Simmons' whining is actually more insulting than insightful. He has long had the power to facilitate a process that changes the images we see but has not done so. The artists that he has brought to prominence through the years have never pledged any semblance of support to dispelling the marginalization black women face in media representation. It is Simmons' job to infuse hip-hop culture into mainstream America, creating alliances with white institutions so that they can better market and profit off of black folks. He still stands as one of the most influential moguls in hip-hop yet it is still cause for celebration every time I see a woman that looks like me when I turn on the TV.

In his response, he also felt it necessary to defend, his dear friend, Veronica Varekova, a model from the Czech Republic. I wonder who is there to show the same loyalty for the Pecola Breedlove's of the world.

Lastly, bloggers discussing Simmons' dating habits is not as racist as it is a performance of black pain. Black women do not have the luxury of dating outside their race as easily as black men do. Our images and our sexuality have been so stigmatized that the opportunity is often unavailable.

Now, with my back against the wall, as it has been for far too long, I wonder what the CEO of hip-hop is doing for me. I wonder what the CEO of an organization entitled Ethnic Understanding is doing to address the plight of black women.

Maybe one day, Russ and I can sit down together and hash things out like grown folks. Perhaps if he was educated on the painfully gripping circumstances of black women, unlike the ones of the upper echelon that he dates, he would be silenced into submission--changing the images that we see--after all, he does have the whole world in his hands, the whole world in his hands.

Sources:
http://globalgrind.com/content/246905/Russells-Blog-Dating-and-Race/
http://bossip.com/63817/quote-of-the-day-russell-simmons/

A Tragic Episode of Sorts: Big Up To My Fly Asian Brothers

2008-11-01T20:04:00.001-04:00

Why are black women absent from the interracial relationship discourse on college campuses?

On Thursday night I attended a forum being held here at Swarthmore to talk about interracial dating. The event was hosted by Multi, an organization that prides itself on providing a safe environment for people of multiple heritages here in the community. The moderator began the discussion with some ground rules; one of which emphasized that for those who usually have a lot to say to step back and let others speak, challenging them to take on a different role. Another words, she told the blabbermouths, like myself, to keep it cool. I had no problem with this, as I was genuinely interested to hear the thoughts of my peers on this very important personal issue.

About an hour after the tortuous experience, I had to remove myself from the room, for I knew if I had stayed any longer, I would have acted in a way that was irresponsible.

The first person to speak during the discussion was a black male. He spoke of his disappointment with his mother and sister for being unsympathetic to the fact that he dates outside of his race. He reasoned that he does so, not because he is purposely excluding black women but seeks after a woman for her personality. He then went on to iterate an argument that we have all seen countless times, black women feel as though all the good black men are leaving them for the white girls. This argument is not only tired but extremely simplistic. REALITY CHECK: Not all black women are holding out for that black man to come riding down on his white horse. We know the statistics and we are not oblivious; 70% of African American women are single. The discourse can no longer afford to be about black men and white women anymore. However, the inevitable frustration and hurt must be honored. Black women, many of whom are single, are allowed to be saddened when they see a disproportionate number of black men dating outside of their race. The higher black women ascend in education, the more likely they are to lead a completely single life, entirely absent of marriage. That is cause for legitimate sorrow. I couldn’t help but notice there was not one black female with a significant other at this very well attended discussion.

What was absent from the forum…

Black women are largely antithetical to the accepted standard of beauty in America. While many bear the burdens of image warfare and exclusion, not all black women can understand the experience. The experience of exclusion becomes completely singular in that some black women, particularly those who are closer in hue and composition to the white aesthetic don’t feel the remnants as severely, if ever. This is why I often hear some of my black female peers telling me that it’s not that bad. This is true, it isn’t that bad for some black women, but for others it is a deeply painful daily struggle that cannot be compared to white female image warfare nor the warfare of women of color. I refuse to rank the scale to which women face oppression but it is in fact problematic when we begin to compare a phenotypically African woman to an overweight white woman or a curvaceous Latino woman. I can tell you that as a black woman on a college campus I feel the circumstances of my black female hood every day and sometimes it sends me to sleep at night crying. I must wake up each day knowing that for the next four years I will lead a completely dissimilar experience from many of the white girls on my college campus, in that I will most likely never date anyone. So excuse me if I have no sympathy for the black male who feels oppressed. Oppression looks like attending the yearly Black Love Formal alone. Oppression looks like standing anxiously outside of my Spanish language class senior year of high school to slip the boy of my dreams a cute note with his favorite candy attached to ask him to prom with many onlookers as he just looked at me and said no. Oppression looks like seeking depression support groups. Oppression looks like turning on the television and not seeing black women that look like me glorified and appreciated. Oppression looks likes a permeating loneliness that so many black women feel across America.

Also absent from the forum...

There are many Asian men who also feel the unfortunate remnants of image warfare and desexualization. There are a disproportional number of Asian women who date outside their race. However, Asian men continue to pledge an allegiance to Asian women concurrent with some black women who maintain a delusional sense of loyalty to black men. In my near 20 years of life, I have never seen a black female-Asian male relationship, yet black women and Asian men continue to be the most neglected groups in America. Why aren’t they dating each other, I often wonder? Especially when there are so many fine Asian brothers and fabulous black women!

We merely cannot afford to have a discussion about interracial relationships in which we suppress the black female voice. The stakes are high and the potential is too great. Interracial relationships will be integral to the mental and physical survival of black women.

Welcome to A Camapaign for Me!

2008-08-16T11:02:00.001-04:00

A Campaign for Me is a campaign set forth by Swarthmore College student Eva McKend to elevate black women out of a painful dark and into a place of love, visibility and beauty. Absent from popular media and marginalized by multiple facets of American society, the glorification of the white aesthetic has contributed to the degradation, dehumanization and devaluation of black women. The white aesthetic is the constant perpetuation of Western ideals of beauty and phenotypically white features, so much so that over time whiteness as a standard of beauty becomes naturalized. If the average white child is told they are beautiful five times a day, then the black child needs to be told twenty-five times to make up for every billboard, every commercial, every magazine and every television show that tells him or her otherwise.

The campaign will unravel triple fold, beginning with extensive research that will reveal the aesthetical divisions within the black community and the deep-seated self-esteem issues that plague the race. The middle stage of the campaign will include the collection of testimony from black women of all ages. The last stage is advocacy, a call to action that includes extensive fliering, advertisements, commercials and a culminating film project that inspires a movement and reflects the findings of my research.

From the time she is born, the black woman is taught to hate how she looks: society tells her she must strive for Eurocentric attributes. While some black women lead lives unaffected by such abasement, many black women become plagued by the notion that what is white is what is beautiful. This campaign will work to aid the internalization of self-hatred within the African American community as well as influence outside races, particularly the dominant culture about the wide spectrum of black female beauty.

Coming from a private independent school after thirteen years and now attending a predominantly white collegiate institution, I have experienced coming of age as a black female in predominantly white environments. Cultural strengths and strong familial support is not enough. It is an unrealistic approach to create spaces of celebration solely within our own communities. By passing out fliers that read “have you told a black woman she is beautiful today” with images of black women that aren’t usually seen, the campaign will move forward the ongoing discussion, entertain the idea of our beauty and inspire other races to think about black women of all complexions, all hair textures and varying bone structures as beautiful. This movement will work to educate the dominant culture about the immeasurable beauty amongst black women.

A Campaign for Me will also work to critically analyze the social effects of the glorification of the white aesthetic on black females over time by looking into the lives of women from as young as six to as seasoned as sixty. This campaign will be sustainable; over time I will work to get government officials and corporate executives alike involved. The United States Department of Health & Human Services and executives at media institutions across the nation need to be held accountable as well as pledge specific tactics that they will integrate into their institutions to change a system that has failed black women since inception. Private independent schools as well as urban schools need to be infused with a curriculum that enforces the study of aesthetic at younger ages. A Campaign for Me will work to include all black women into the aesthetic that make the quintessential everyday woman beautiful.