Red Clay Scholar

Sound the (Red Tailed) Alarm

2012-01-22T21:29:00.001-05:00

I got the memo about supporting Red Tails its opening weekend by the All Black Everything Coalition. I heeded the call. I embarrassed my husband by talking to the screen like the characters could hear me. I laughed at the awkwardness that was Ne-Yo’s ‘performing voice.’ But I was disconnected from the film. By no means am I suggesting that the narratives of the Tuskegee Airmen are not crucial enough to be brought to the movie screen – HBO’s 1995 retelling of The Tuskegee Airmen was incredibly dope – but something about this rendition irked, poked, and prodded my spirit. I sighed as I walked out the theatre to the applause of fellow moviegoers. Applause after a movie? That only happens with Tyler Perry or Idris Elba.

After engaging some twittering and chattering with hubby, colleagues, and friends, I started to formulate my concerns. The expectation and responsibility I placed on Red Tails, I guess, was too heavy, burdening the film to historicize the time period while situating it in a trajectory of (public) black protest and performance all too unfamiliar in this current cycle of cultural appropriation. Particularly peculiar about Red Tails’ storyline was the teetering performance of exaggerated and historic depictions of the airmen’s blackness. Perhaps some of that awkwardness in narration can be attributed to Aaron McGruder, a late add to the writing roster for the film. I instantly made a mental footnote of McGruder’s allusions to the Tuskegee Airmen in his “Wingmen” episode from The Boondocks. I could probably bet money that the hyped up presence of “Black Jesus” had something to do with McGruder as well as the banter between the men during down time between missions.

These performances awkwardly pivot upon placed markers of trauma and humor to accentuate the displacement of black masculinity in a deemed impenetrably white patriarchal space guised as the military. Aside from surface definitions of displacement – the abroad deployment in a foreign country – the more subtle, irksome themes of displacement dominate much of the film. The Red Tails’ home base, for example, is raggedy, run down, and secondhand. It paralleled the German prison of war camp also featured in the film. These types of markers, visual and sonic, engage the audience in a terse dance of history and entertainment, too easily dismissing the political and cultural agency of that historical moment with the murkiness and nonchalance of this one.

Yet it is the love affair between airman Joe “Lightning” Little and an Italian woman named Sophia that best bridges beliefs of a current postracial society with the lacking discourse available to articulate its existence. The lovers, separated by a language barrier, initially represent the “love is universal (language)” trope that would have, in any other circumstance, made Red Tails ‘chick flick’ approved. But the characters’ literal and figurative engagement within a recognizable racial discourse is unavailable in the historic moment represented and now. The relationship exists between a linguistic sense of displacement and its intersection with a similar 21^st century lack of discourse where race and identity politics cannot be publicly acknowledged and engaged.

Still, the sonic scripting of black masculinity in the film picked my interest most. Sound’s role in framing the airmen’s masculinity teased out ways in which sound as an alternative lens of analysis provides room for the complexities of black men’s humanity to breathe. While the film left much to be desired from this perspective, sound – voices, music, sound effects – or the lack thereof enforced and manipulated black masculinity throughout the film. The one recording I did recognize, The Andrews Sisters’ “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” encompassed the war effort and white American masculinity in general more so than contextualizing the airmen within that effort. While the airmen were on their own base, similar music played in the background, catching my attention because I was curious why “race music” was sorely lacking. The only ‘black’ music I heard came from the fiddling of a guitar by Ne-Yo’s character, representing a culturally and sonically recognizable blues aesthetic while acknowledging his own background as a singer and songwriter.

Other sonic signifiers like cadence (especially Terence Howard’s lines) and diction spoke to an (over) extended black identity tethered to an essentialized expectation of what black sounds like. Perhaps this was most represented by the exaggeration of southern accents by many of the characters. The presence of southern memes of black identity nod toward Tuskegee’s historical and cultural significance to the African American community while simultaneously rehashing stereotypical misrepresentations of southern blackness and culture (again, Black Jesus).

Considering the outpour of support for Red Tails opening weekend, I’m curious about how not only the film but the film’s publicity can represent a 21^st century notch for black protest. Perhaps purchasing power in Red Tails tickets can be seen as a form of resistance through buying power and capitalistic privilege.

Still, the very big and very white elephant in the room is George Lucas, who fronted approximately 53 million dollars for the film’s production. I can’t help but think about how Lucas embodies a similar white patron aesthetic like that from the Harlem Renaissance. While the cast and writer Anthony Hemingway are black, Lucas is, for the purpose of this film, black affiliated. He brings his own racial and cultural baggage – Jar Jar Binks, anyone? – and lends his brand, not the historical relevance of the Tuskegee Airmen, to insists the film’s legitimacy to a nonblack audience. While folks scream and holla about Red Tails as a blockbuster black film, it was still financed and brought to fruition by a white man. As abrasive as that sounds, the dollar screams louder than black cultural pride here. That is problematic, by the way.

The danger becomes bullying Red Tails into a messianic black film that delivers African American images and representations from their current path. While Red Tails certainly marks an effort to gain ground in supporting African American film, it does not carry enough weight to resuscitate (instate?) the black political and cultural agency that its publicity pushes in order to sell tickets. Red Tails needs to be put into conversation with similar era-framed movies like Spike Lee’s Miracle at Saint Ana that disappeared quicker than a straight to DVD movie. These types of conversations are important and necessary in order to appreciate and deconstruct the box mass consumed black media currently inhabits.

FWD'd at the Hands of Persons Unknown

2011-11-10T14:54:00.002-05:00

Its perplexing how easy the term lynching and its associations are being so easily thrown around in this present moment of American culture. Considering how 'traditional' lynchings were racialized demonstrations of white supremacy and spectacle at the murder and destruction of black bodies I'm further perplexed by how 'digitized' lynching subverts hegemonic (white?) privilege and its impositions on the black body through voyeurism and anonymity. Transgressive definitions of digital anonymity signify shifting performance scripts of blackness in America's public sphere. The black body, once restricted to a role of anonymous victimization, symbolized a lack of concern for African Americans within a broader context of American life.

Technology complicates this victim discourse by blurring invisibility politics with subversion of privilege indicative of the voyeurism that frames the black body in this context. Considering the Amber Cole fiasco, Herman Cain's cry of being digitally lynched, and most recently the Penn State travesty, an intriguing and developing discourse surrounding lynching's 21st century rendition is how anonymity provides a messy framework for maneuvering such privilege and its intersections with respectability politics and shame. A couple of overarching tropes especially catch my attention:

I. Anonymity as Power
This dimension of negotiating anonymity and power in cyberspace is fairly traditional, considering how few people have ever been convicted of a lynching. It was often written off as murder at the hands of persons unknown. Particularly striking about anonymity and race in cyberspace, however, is how anonymity becomes gendered and subverts hegemonic white privilege and voyeurism as an imposition of black masculine power. Thinking about the Amber Cole video and a group of young black girls' pregnancy pact photos currently circulating across the Internet the young girls' bodies are immediately accessible and spectated by not only anonymous viewers but made accessible by boys who are never seen (with the exception of the young man receiving oral sex by Cole). Impositions of respectability and responsibility are forced on the girls through essentialized and historical notions of shame attached to black women's sexuality. These impositions are troubled, however, by the girls themselves because of tricky negotiations of the Internet as a celebrated space of invisibility and the deemed critical distance associated with that invisibility - 'you don't know me. This ain't real.' The complicated and often messy negotiations of voyeurism associated with the black body in these cases are multifaceted - i.e. the girls' viewing of themselves in the mirror and in the camera intending to distribute the photo via text or MMS, the viewers of the photo, and the girls' sexual partners and fathers of their babies. How, then, can we invest in such static invisibility and shame politics when these types of sexual and personal expression are fluid and outside of these boundaries?

II. The Digitized Cultural Erotic
My analysis of this trope is still in its development stages but it speaks to a growing interest about technology's role as an agent of this current blip in the trajectory of black sexuality discourse. Aside from an exhibition of power, historic lynchings heavily invested in paroling and (re)claiming a believed overstated black sexuality, especially black men. Controlling the 'threat' of black sexuality entailed severely violent reactions, many of which at the hands of privileged yet unknown lynch mob members. The 'technology' associated with these attacks was paranoia and mouth-to-mouth spread accusations resulting in a mob of white angst. I'm curious about how this angst transcribes for this current moment of American culture where eroticism is open but racial angst is deemed irrelevant and displaced because of the anxiety surrounding an open and public acknowledgement of race.

A chapter from Siobhan Brooks' Unequal Desires, a brilliant study of cultural and sexual capital in the sex industry, discusses the implications of technology on what she calls "erotic capital," a body's "value based on a socially constructed ideal model of beauty/attractiveness held by dominant culture" (6). Brooks' discussion of erotic capital is in conversation with Tricia Rose's observations about women and erotic expression in similar hypermasculine spaces like Hip Hop, observing how women in Hip Hop use the erotic as a source of power and are not restricted to erotic expression as a form of victimization. Pairing technology and youth culture with Brooks' and Rose's observations about the shifting cultural landscape of spectatorship and ownership of black womens' bodies is a useful framework for considering how today's young girls', members of what I call the android generation, view their sexuality and how it is expressed in a digital age. Is it possible to consider the Internet as a space of sex-positive black girls' expression without victimized and therefore stigmatic attachment to shame and (lack of ) respectability politics? Or will these young girls continue to be digitally lynched by being forwarded at the hands of persons unknown?

Mad Minute: Tinkerbell ain't got ______ on Primetime!

2011-10-26T13:54:00.000-04:00

What do Tinkerbell and Deion Sanders got in common? Glittery wings.

DirectTV's NFL marketing campaign featuring Deion Sanders as a football fairy has captured my attention. Aside from Sanders' embodiment of the hypersexual black masculine body, I'm curious about how Sanders represents shifting voyeuristic tendencies surrounding the black (male) body and efforts to contextualize the black male body within a shifting cultural landscape where normativity is framed within a transgressive social-cultural space.

On the surface, Sanders satisfies negotiations of the NFL as a voyeuristic space for black male bodies. What is intriguing, however, is how Sanders' performance of black masculinity as a football fairy introduces increasingly popular maneuverings of consuming black masculinity by queering black sexuality. Draping Sanders in fairy wings and a bandanna re-negotiates what is normal and popular conceptions of the homosexual body. Deion Sanders' football fairy performance represents the murkiness of spaces in which hypersexuality and heteronormativity engage public acknowledgement and consumption of the queered black body. Further striking is how Sanders' body is (re)presented to reflect cultural capital associated with the gay community as profitable. I'm curious about the queering of Sanders' body as reflective of a believed profitability of the queer black body because of an increasingly visible place in American public and popular culture. This highly publicized re-negotiation of the black homoerotic complicates discourses about public black gender performances and voyeuristic expectations of normative blackness and highly public spaces of black body consumption like professional sports.

Swagger Jacker: Musings on the White Michael Vick

2011-08-26T17:42:00.000-04:00

I can’t lie. The first thing I did when I saw a whiteface Michael Vick was laugh.

It is a (very) off color (pun intended) attempt to open up conversations about race and sports. C’mon, America. We wanna talk about race? Of course not! That’s so 2008.

Pause.

I’ve tackled the idea of whiteface in a previous post that contextualized it as a 20th century African American rebuttal to the minstrelsy tradition situated in 19th century white supremacist discourse. But ESPN: the Magazine (and much of writer Toure’s article that it supposedly complemented) got us messed up. Aside from the pathological and straight up dumbfounding ways that both Toure and the picture essentialize black masculinity there was some serious swagger jacking involved. ESPN: the Magazine ain’t the first one to use whiteface. George Schuyler would be pissed.

For the literary aloof, George Schuyler was a master satirist and conservative kicking folks’ racial politics in the throat during the Harlem Renaissance or lack thereof. Schuyler is perhaps most recognized for his essay “The Negro Art Hokum” which dismisses the idea of black American art as essentialist and nonexistent. But it is Schuyler’s satiric novel Black No More, released in 1931, that situates him as a predecessor of progressive racial thought, weaving a delightfully absurd narrative that promotes a similarly absurd solution to America’s race problem. Make everyone white.

The novel centers around the ‘miraculous’ discovery made by German scientist Dr. Junius Crookman, that nonwhite people can turn white. The whiteness procedure is scientific, “glandular and electrical” in nature (27). Blacks frantically search for money to undergo the procedure, depleting their banking accounts and disowning loved ones to get a chance to rid themselves of their black skin, a deeply engrained and pathological manifestation of white supremacy. Race is nonexistent if everyone is white, right? The end result is as peculiar as the notion of a white, “post-race” society. Social interactions adopted to the new society by aligning privileges with “levels” of whiteness. Blacks are shunned again because they weren’t “naturally” white.

Schuyler acknowledges and exaggerates whiteness as a signifier of American privilege. Black No More takes both whites and blacks to task for their deep investment in the peculiarity of racial hegemonic discourse.

While I do not consider Toure’s article or the accompanying picture satirical, it does bring up intriguing questions about how we interpret and understand not only social constructions of racial identity/politics but its visual components as well. ESPN: the Magazine’s Vick image pivots on the peculiarity of this postracial moment of American (popular) culture by assuming it’s alright to play with race like adjusting color settings on a television. There is also a nod towards a lack of discourse available to talk about America’s shifting social-cultural landscape whose public cringes when race is “outted” as an indicator of status and Americanness. And then, of course, there’s the understanding Vick’s picture dominates and frames the space that is reserved for conversation about the article itself, reifying the notion that the American public is no longer a print culture but a visual one and will respond as such. The digital production of the picture – that damned photoshop will make or break you celeb folks – further complicates our understandings of race as a cultural product. How does technology, a possible racially neutral space because of its accessibility by a large range of ethnic groups, impact our understanding of race politics? I am by no means a digital or technology scholar but I am curious about how it promotes, buffers, and re-emphasizes implications of race in day to day social interactions.

If Schuyler wrote Black No More for today’s audience, I’m pretty sure he would’ve used the white Michael Vick as the book’s cover. For absurdity’s sake.

The Unpublishables: All Mutant Everything: Combatting Normalcy in X-Men First Class

2011-07-28T13:45:00.000-04:00

I am Marvelian. Or at least Bi-Marvelian. What does that mean? I am a Marvel stan (stalker fan). I argue with my husband weekly about why the X-Men cartoon’s theme song is the best thing ever recorded. My first introduction to the X-Men was a Mystique trading card that my best friend gave me because he “didn’t collect girl Marvel cards.” Well, to hell with that. Mystique was badass. She could shape shift. And she was blue. Mystique made being different freakin’ amazing. Being an awkward and lanky pre-pubescent tween, I could appreciate that. Her card had a permanent home in my super secret box of awesome things.

With the onslaught of Marvel films hitting theatres this summer, I can’t help but think about the significance of displacement or “Othered” narratives being (re)produced during this moment in American popular culture. This era of cultural memory and expression is peculiar. Coupled with the initial purpose of the X-Men first introduced in 1963 as a portal to a marginalized narrative and the oddity of this current moment of social-cultural history, this wave of Otherness is not by accident. There is a niche, albeit a profitable one, that has allowed for an oppressed viewpoint to be brought before a mainstream and “normal” viewership.

Those once highly identifiable traits of Americanness -- race, gender, and class -- are firmly in place throughout X-Men: First Class. Films like this that invest in 'the fringe' or, dare I say, 'alien' narratives appropriate and trouble the taut and highly discomforting realization that American normalcy is shifting.

Because, as Ta-Nehisi Coates points out in his recent New York Times Op-Ed Piece, audiences are willing to apply a “convenient suspension of disbelief,” X-Men: First Class draws us in using historicized, collective memory attached to the turbulence of the '60s. By grounding the plot in an era when markers of identity politics are easily discernible, the audience is situated and prepped to confront its own understanding of humanity, privilege, and power. There is room to interpret, dismantle, and collapse traditional viewpoints of acceptability because of the highly celebrated fall back: “It’s only entertainment.”

Looking at all this from the viewpoint of 2011, and through the lens of this film one wonders, what does 'normal' look like, these days? Does 'normal' even exist?

Initially, the most glaring conflict is cosmetic – how do mutants “pass” for human? This central question then branches out into various discourses about normalcy: Can women be normal? Human? What about nonwhite folks? This update to the passing narrative, rooted in marginalized communities, provides a space for the oppressed voice to retaliate against and discuss the peculiarity of white supremacist discourse.

The mutant narrative is pitted against a normalized standard of humanity: white, powerful men. This is blatantly clear in the characterization of Sebastian Shaw, the antagonistic leader of the HellFire Club. Initially a doctor for the Nazi Army, Shaw represents one of the most horrific and recognized manifestations of white power in history. His power is both patriarchal and supremacist, ironically embodied in his mutant ability to absorb and retract energy.

Darwin and Angel’s narratives, however, are antithetical to those like Shaw. Their narratives bridge post-slavery and the Civil Rights Movement to a generation nearly twice removed from that era. Although there was not an extended focus on the turbulence of the Black Liberation Era, especially in regard to discussions aligning Charles Xavier and Magneto to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, respectively, the insinuations were strong. As a slight aside, perhaps the reason behind the lack of attention towards the Civil Rights Movement included time constraints – that would make for one hell of a long movie – and the propagated significance of the Cold War as a marker of shifting notions of Americanness and power on an international stage. But Darwin and Angel more than make up for the direct correlations between blackness and non-normalcy.

Darwin’s character is especially perplexing, subtly playing upon notions of evolution and black masculinity within a context of white power and privilege. Darwin’s powers boast the ability to “adapt” to his environment. The lack or withholding of a “proper” government name alludes to turn of the century African American displacement narratives teased out by anonymous protagonists in works like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. As an invisible man, Darwin is only visible through his ‘performance’ of black masculinity. He adapts to preconceived expectations of how black men should act.

Once he removes himself from that framework, Darwin suffers a graphic death at the hands of Sebastian Shaw. Darwin’s death is equally as perplexing as it is troublesome. He dies from an energy explosion while trying to rescue Angel from joining Shaw’s Hellfire Club. This scene resonates within (post) slavery discourse in numerous ways. Darwin’s inability to protect Angel from Shaw (even though it was her decision to join his side) alludes to slave men’s inability to defend slave women from white masters. And then, of course, there’s the much talked about scene where Shaw gives his speech about joining his cause or being enslaved and the camera zooms in on Darwin’s confused looking face. Darwin’s inability to adapt to a normal white environment is embodied in his violent demise, an acknowledgement of the marginalization and abuse of the Othered black masculine body.

Where Darwin’s body was physically burned and destroyed (a little too similar to a lynching for me), Angel’s narrative filtered into the crowded corner reserved for black women’s hypersexuality and collective silence. Aside from her skin, Angel’s wings in rest form appear tattooed, an instant marker of difference parallel to Mystique’s blue skin. Sure, Angel said it irked her that the agents assigned to protect her sexually objectified her, a slight (very slight) nod towards feminist resistance, but from her perspective her mutation was not that she had wings or could spit fire. Her mutation was that she was a black woman. And her only “outlet” was as a sex worker. Angel’s narrative is shuffled through channels of sex and womanhood only to remain trapped within expectations of white patriarchic thoughts about the role and place of women of color.

Angel is removed, however, from a more piercing conversation about “the woman question” that plays out between Mystique, Emma Frost, and Moira Mactaggert. The three women represent layers of normal femininity. Mystique, instead of Angel, plays the “true” Othered woman, often engaged in an unspoken conflict with Moira’s literal normalcy (no powers) and Emma’s normal appearance. Their narratives trouble the coveted Cult of True Womanhood, a manifesto of traits that exuberate finer womanhood. Emma Frost particularly stands out in this struggle to update womanhood’s definition, both engaging in domestic acts and resisting them. Blonde haired, blue eyed, and draped out in all white everything, Emma’s characterization embodies the purest and celebrated form of white womanhood. A powerful telepath with the ability to morph into diamond form, Emma physically and, to an extent, socially exceeds white beauty aesthetics. To retain her “purity” in one scene, Emma makes her Russian counterpart believe he is engaging in sexual activity with her as she sits and watches. The subversion of the male gaze and spectatorship here is brilliant. Instead of the traditional roles of male voyeurism, Emma is the voyeur, a look of disgust and smug satisfaction on her face. There is a slight nod towards Victorian sexual conservatism that suggests women do not like sex. It is a tool for procreation. Because of her telepathic abilities, Emma is able to psychologically remove herself from sexual exploitation and the ill conceived patriarchal notions that women enjoy being groped by men.

Two scenes, however, re-situate Emma into the male gaze and patriarchal social landscape. The first is Emma’s awkward and forced domestication by Shaw to refresh his drink by forcing her to shave ice off an iceberg using her powers. The other is the same scene with the Russian general. As Emma engages in combat with Magneto and Charles Xavier in her diamond form, Magneto cracks her throat and there is visible splintering of the diamond. Diamond, formed under pressure and nearly indestructible, is effortlessly cracked. By a man. Not only does this scene suggest the fragility of femininity in any form but the suppression of a woman’s voice by male subjectification.

X-men First Class provides a rich medium for teasing out the implications of normalcy and Otherness in an unstable 21st century social-cultural-racial landscape. This aim does not stray too far from Marvel’s initial purposes of creating Othered beings with non-normal superpowers. By tagging these much needed conversations to a culturally recognizable and celebrated Marvel iconography, room is made to discuss and remodel identity politics and normative discourse for the 21^st century.

K___ K_ K__: the Remix

2011-07-25T09:48:00.001-04:00

“Let’s get ratcheeeeeeeeet, let’s get ratchet.” ~Hurricane Chris

In his piece BET has Become the New KKK, Dr. Boyce Watkins goes in on how BET is a vehicle for selling the deteriorating state of black folks and black folks’ experiences. I’m down with that. BET has long strayed from the Teen Summit, BET News, Rap City, and Miss Cita’s World days. Once upon a network, BET was a balance of the ratchet and the conscious in the African American community.

Where I pause with Watkins’ argument, however, is his premise that BET is vying for the 21^st century Ku Klux Klan spot. And who is a front runner for this new Kool Kolored Kids KKK? The alien himself, Little Wayne. Okay, wait. According to Waktins, Weezy is a real life Clayton Bigsby, a blind and willing black perpetrator of white supremacy. I’m not suggesting that Wayne is slated to do a duet with Elmo on Sesame Street anytime soon, but a card carrying member of the Klan? Yikes. Watkins hammers Weezy like he owes him money.

If nothing more, Watkins’ allegory is a kick in the ass to African Americans to wakeup and think about our role in the perpetuation of what it means to be black.

From the jump, Watkins’ approach, not the majority of his points, are troubling. Instead of focusing on the corporatized blackness and pathology that BET spreads – which, by the way, is the premise of the essay – Watkins frequently targets Hip Hop via attacking Lil Wayne. Per the usual scapegoat argument, which is played, African Americans’ demise will be through Hip Hop. If the devil ain’t making us do it, Hip Hop is. Watkins’ essay reads like a witch hunt, with Weezy as the dreaded straw man (pun intended).

What is touched upon, but not driven home, is the understanding that Hip Hop, like many other forms of black cultural expression, is commodified and corporatized. There is a tangled and messy relationship between capitalism, Hip Hop as an enterprise, and the black folks that it is deemed to reflect. What Watkins’ argument and the majority of consumed rap music boils down to is the search for the real and reality in this awkward moment of American history. This moment where Hip Hop, once a black thang, is now an American thang. A moment where no clear markers of black or white publicly pull weight like previous decades. A moment where we have a black president who, because he referenced or was referenced in Hip Hop embodies what it means to be black to a nonblack audience while unemployment and poverty levels in the black American community are ridiculously high. Enter here Weezy, Ross, Jeezy, and them, who are in our face and in our ear canal every fifteen milliseconds, that say THEIR story is the real black experience. And we support that, download it, and post our renditions to social media sites like ratchet.com.

What Watkins was trying to get at, I believe, was our lack of accountability and blind consumption of this “relevant blackness” because it is shoved in our face on the regular. The danger becomes when we simply recycle what we see through our actions, in our conversations, and thought processes without any critical thought.

Perhaps more penetrating about Watkins’ article was the lack of solutions to challenge what BET and corporate America hashes out. An often overlooked concern is the much needed but lacking intergenerational dialogue to discuss the urgent state of affairs in the African American community. We need a space to talk and critically engage in conversation about the contemporary, Post-Civil Rights African American experience. We need a willingness to start and sustain dialogue between black youth and older folks who witnessed the blatant racism before and during the Civil Rights Movement to situate why these representations are problematic.

And, obviously, we need a space to confront and complicate this one dimensional understanding of (corporate) Hip Hop as sold out. Hip Hop’s agency and purpose needs to be reconsidered, reinterpreted, and reclaimed as a voice for a variety of folks. Hip Hop may be marketed as a hyperblack, hypermasculine, hyper-pathological space, but its audience is much more diverse. We can no longer be comfortable with these typecasts of what it possibly means to be (insert adjective here) and black.

It is too simple a solution to simply blame BET and Hip Hop for the violent reality that people of color face on a daily basis. Actually, this is dangerous. If we continue this destructive path of blind acceptance and do not question what is being marketed and produced, then yes, we are the new KKK – Korporate Kullud Kommodities.

Now THAT is some scary shit. No hood required.

The Unpublishables Archive: American Social-Collective Memory and the Death of Osama Bin Laden

2011-07-07T11:34:00.001-04:00

I’ve tried to take some time to let my thoughts marinate and settle on the death of Osama Bin Laden. I’m not quite sure I’ve done that yet. I, like many Americans, remember almost to the minute what I was doing on September 11, 2001. I was a senior in high school in trigonometry class (don’t believe the hype – sexy name, ugly struggle). I saw the 2^nd plane crash live. And I remember the panic of wondering where my mother was – she happened to be in D.C. on business that day.

Then there was the beyond ugly 9/11 immediate aftermath where a classmate Allan (name changed for privacy) was viciously beaten and his bones broken because he was of middle eastern descent. The fear and anger that seethed through America’s open wounds at that time festered then and fester now.

Osama Bin Laden, Family Guy style

With Bin Laden’s death I can’t help but think about the implications his memory conjures about 21^st century Americanness and the Other. He, if not any other figure besides Obama, has framed this most recent manifestation of how America perceives itself. More specifically, I’d argue Bin Laden’s memory is Janus-faced, both feared and commodified in Post 9/11 American public and popular culture. One face is feared and hated. The other is softened by cartoon-esque violence and parody that sucks out the poison and vileness that Bin Laden represents on American soil. Both (re)presentations, however, influence and bleed into each other. If Bin Laden wasn’t regarded as the ultimate antagonist, the mockery and jokes that cater to his image would not and could not be sustained.

A recent episode of South Park, for example, aired a plot that depicted Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden using planes to bomb an “infestation” of people from New Jersey to the fictional town of South Park, Colorado. A desperate final attempt to rid South Park of the Jersey intruders (a serious roast of the popular reality television show Jersey Shore), South Park sends a recorded message to Bin Laden begging for his help. The obvious joke subverted what “neo-colonization” or the antithesis of America’s immigration problems looks like. A more striking and certainly complicated punch line is questioning if enough time has passed to joke about Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to the extent South Park producers decided to include the celebration of crashing planes by Americans. There are also moments of historical relevance, including Bin Laden’s training and ties to the United States pre-9/11. The end of the episode pulled whatever shred of patriotism was left, assassinating Bin Laden as he accepted the town’s thanks (which, eerily, is strikingly similar to reports of his reported death).

Other shows like Family Guy went straight for the jugular. One episode opens with Bin Laden doing a recorded feed from a cave “somewhere in the desert.” The seriousness of the event taking place was lightened by Bin Laden’s lighthearted banter between himself and the cameraman. There were numerous “takes” because Bin Laden kept laughing and stuttering through his lines. The laughter and jokes attempt to portray Bin Laden’s humanity and not a vicious and cruel mass murderer. This Bin Laden characterization too is defeated by Americans in the form of Stewie, the baby character of Family Guy’s Griffin family.

The death of Osama Bin Laden ushers in another shift in social-political memory and consciousness. Interpretation and the definition of Americanness has changed because the standard that influenced and framed its present meaning is now deceased. What will America look like post-Bin Laden? Part of this question will play out in the tinkering of Bin Laden’s character in popular culture and the impact of his figure on this most recent generation.

Bluntly, who are we going to call the boogeyman now?

HELPING MINUTE: COLLINE FOUNDATION

2011-07-06T09:21:00.000-04:00

Hey Hey Hey Blogworld,

Yesterday I made some pretty bleak observations about a narrative on the devastation in Haiti. I want to balance out the Karma and my aunt sent me this really powerful letter and opportunity to give back. The Colline Foundation, headed and founded by Jimmy Toussaint, organizes volunteer trips and raises money to help build schools and assist children in Haiti. Below is a letter that seeks donations for their latest endeavors. Please read and give what you can. We all we got, black folks. Let's make some kinda difference, yeah? ~RCS

Hello Everyone,

I hope all is well. Colline Foundation needs a little help running this year's volunteer program. Primarily, we need a little help buying paint in Haiti and feeding the kids at the summer camp. This year, the budget for the program is almost stretched to its limit, so I am reaching out to you guys to help sponsor a program activity. The ways you can sponsor the volunteer program are listed below:

$25 - Goes towards Rice for the Summer Camp Kids

$40 - Covers water for the kids for the day

$50 - Goes towards Rice and Meat

$100 - Covers Rice and Meat for the day

$120 - Covers Rice, Meat, Some Water and Some Juice.

$150 - Goes towards Gas. (Gas is crazy expensive in Haiti)

$150 - Pays the salary of one teacher for the week.

$200 - Buys enough paint to paint one class room of Colline Academie as well as cover some of the wages of Colline Academie's staff. We will paint your name on the wall of the classroom and the room will be named after you.

$250 - Does everything that was explained for a sponsorship of $200 plus a personal thank you video will be made (Directed by Alex Horner). One of the summer camp kids will be thanking you for your contribution on video and it will be uploaded onto youtube/vimeo/bliptv

The money you donate can go to whatever you want. If you want to sponsor 3 or 4 days of Rice, just specify to me where you want your sponsorship dollars to go and I will make sure that happens. Colline Foundation is currently 501(c)3 so sponsoring this program is tax exempt. Every little bit can help.

Cordially,

Toussaint

DONATE TO THE COLLINE FOUNDATION HERE

Mad Minute: Haiti Got Sucker Punched

2011-07-05T11:55:00.000-04:00

I've been marinating over the past few days with friends and all by my lonesome about this story that Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland posted about her PTSD and its ties to Haiti. I am by no means dismissing the seriousness of PTSD nor McClelland's ordeal as I have seen people close to me suffer through it. McClelland's narrative, however, did not stress the significance of this mental condition as a result of covering a rape victim's story or the turbulence of an earthquake ravished country struggling to regain some sort of stability. Oh no. THIS narrative focused on violent sexual experiences that she used to ease her anxieties. And Haiti made her do it.

I cannot speak from the perspective of McClelland or the women journalists that held her accountable or responded. As a literary scholar, I immediately made a mental note of Conrad's Heart of Darkness and eerie similarities between McClelland's disposition and Kurtz, a European gentleman turned noble savage. Kurtz was consumed by the African continent. It ate him alive. I thought about the insinuations Conrad nuanced throughout his text, how Africa's literal and figurative darkness "changed" incorruptible, civilized whiteness. McClelland paints Haiti in a similar way, an update to the "dark continent" that is seemingly just as corrupted and irremediable. The difference between Conrad and McClelland, however, is how McClelland nearly romanticizes Haiti as a Xanadu of dangerous black sex that she engages to cope with her distress.

While the article suggests she is not raped, McClelland constructs a second hand rape discourse in which she borrows from the actual rape victim's experiences to signify her violent sexual desires. McClellands sex narrative also heavily paralleled the rape fantasy trope discussed in black male narratives like Himes' If He Hollers Let Him Go, Wright's Native Son, and Ellison's Invisible Man. McClellands predatory Haitian partner alludes to if not resuscitates and updates the hyperviolent and hypersexual insatiability of black men and their incessant lust for white women trope for a 21st century audience.

Perhaps most penetrating about McClelland's post is the Haitian woman Sybille. Oooooooh wee. Where to begin with that? The fact that Sybille was a mentally unstable AMERICAN white woman with multiple personalities and situated within a different social-cultural landscape? The fact that Haitian Sybille suffered immense psychological and physical trauma without the privilege of being able to seek treatment while being at fault for her "crime?" Or the fact that for Haitian Sybille's literal and figurative silence (McClelland reports earlier that Sybille's tongue was bitten off by one of her rapists) to be validated a non-Haitian, American woman needs to speak for her. The same woman who THEN attempts to situate her own sexual anxieties within Haitian Sybille's oppressed narrative? I'm sayin'. Where's the objectivity in that?

INTERVIEW: C.O.W.S. Program 5/29/2011

2011-05-30T01:35:00.000-04:00

This is one of my first feature interviews....ever. And we got it in. Two hours worth of getting it in. Many thanks to the C.O.W.S. (Context of White Supremacy) program and host Gus T. for having me as a guest.

Mad Minute: There (was) a bus a comin'.....

2011-05-17T09:04:00.000-04:00

I watched the Freedom Riders documentary on PBS last night with husband. As I watched, a slow burn crept through my body. It wasn't a new feeling, I've felt it before. It's the same feeling of raw power that I get whenever I hear narratives about the freedom movement in the south. I can't quite pinpoint what the root of this feeling is, whether it's mounted anger, sadness, or desire to keep fighting and be better. Perhaps part of it is the feeling that I have no right or reason to bitch and complain about my life when so many others before me literally got their asses whooped for equality. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because of my own close contact with that turbulent part of history - Albany, GA and Albany State is home to the Freedom Singers and other milestones in the Civil Rights Movement. My grandparents told me about their "behind-the-scenes" efforts to feed and make signs for the nonviolent protesters because of the shameful reality that they would lose their jobs for open retaliation against Jim Crow. Don't get it twisted, however, folks. My Paw Paw was never Jim Crow's bitch - he carried a rifle in his back window as a warning not to fuck with him.

But in all honesty, folks, I'm starting to think that slow wine of anger is not just for the ignorant shit that went down in the 1960s but my awareness of the ignorant shit that is happening in the aftermath of the Civil Rights era. I say aftermath because slowly but surely this important narrative is being pushed to the fringes. It's not discussed. And, on top of that, this inherent laziness is conducive to an era where race narratives are considered a step backwards. C'mon, shawty. Everybody doesn't and will never have similar experiences. That's far gone.

The question becomes, what are we riding for? Is the bus a comin' or is it a goin'?

Mad Minute: Revenge of the "MANmy"

2011-04-26T10:32:00.000-04:00

I am nowhere near expert status on discourses surrounding the mammy figure in black (popular) culture. For more info if that caliber check out research like Kimberly Wallace-Sanders' Mammy: a Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory (2007).

While reading Michael Rogin's Blackface, White Noise (1996) I ran across numerous still shots of what Rogin refers to as "motion picture blackface." While Rogin's book discussed the presence of Jewish blackface actors in the beginning and middle of the 20th century, what caught my attention were two pictures of black men cradling dying white men. I was slightly taken aback when the captions described the black actors as "mammy."

I wasn't so much taken aback by the actual scenes but by the descriptions of men of color as "mammy." In my own academic excursions through black popular discourse I've gendered the mammy as a woman. My next train of thought, after seeing what I'd like to call a "MANmy," was if a MANmy was just another route to the Uncle Tom archetype. Docile, nurturing, and often considered a traitor to his own race, the Uncle Tom archetype is often linked back to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1861). While similarities can certainly be drawn, I haven't quite sold myself on Uncle Tom and MANmy being kindred spirits.

While I work through my ideas, a few instances of a contemporary MANmy representations come to mind: Marion Hill, LL Cool J's character from the early 1990s NBC Series In the House, Geoffrey, Joseph Marcell's character on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Bernie Mac's title character on The Bernie Mac Show. These men, hardly considered soft or a pushover, still exude something (don't quite know what yet) that softens their masculinity so that it is accessible and consumable to a mixed audience by displaying mammy-esque characteristics that conceal their more masculine qualities.

Of course, my investigation into the MANmy is hardly clean cut. The popular drag roles of Tyler Perry, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, and Martin Lawrence trouble any understanding or implications about gender and blackness that the MANmy may represent or complicate. To further trouble this (recently) celebrated and anticipated role of black men, one must also consider the shifting racial and power dynamics posited by a 'postracial' era of American public discourse. How do these characterizations of men of color resist or re-affirm markers of African American mens' contemporary experiences? Stay tuned.

Mad Minute: When Keepin' It Re-Made Goes Wrong

2011-04-22T09:17:00.001-04:00

The street committee released a report that indicated a certain young tellem cat is playing another certain dead (but not really) legend's most memorable role in a movie about oranges. Translation: How the hell Soulja Boy Tellem gon' play Bishop in Juice when that role was and still is immortalized by the dead (but not really) Tupac Shakur? This bothers me on a few levels: not just that Soulja Boy thinks he can fill Tupac's tattoos, but can the dude actually act? Is he gon' try and bring Waka Waka Waka and crew to remake the soundtrack? Replace "Shoot 'Em Up" with "Crank Dat Juice Up?"

Another thought: why are we resuscitating the hood (sub)genre and other early 1990s aesthetics? I'm pretty sure it's not out of nostalgia for days that swiftly past. Is it to introduce this generation to a set of movies that marked an era of Hip Hop's early introductions to mainstream culture and (re)production?

Soulja Boy, follow the path of your rapping forefathers and 'nem: do a cameo on Law and Order as one of Finch's long lost kids, and THEN we'll talk about you taking on a role of this magnitude.

I'm sayin: Tupac didn't dance.

Mad Minute: Wale Needs His Hands (and Rhymes) Back

2011-04-21T14:00:00.000-04:00

Apparently Wale downgraded from Pretty Girls to Pretty Bitches that do it with no hands. C'mon, bruh bruh. What happened to lyrical integrity and all that jazz, er, rap? Oh, I know. The record label (who, in some states is the devil) made you do it. "No Hands" sounds like you summoned your inner Bernie Mac. Hey, I'm all for a "muhfucka" here and there but that may as well have been your name for your last few cuts.

I'm hesitant to say that you're a sell out because that term at this time is under negotiation. I will, however, pull a page from my Nana's book with the "I'm so disappointed in you."

So, I suggest you look in the "Mirror Mirror" and reconsider. Had high hopes like Sinatra. We'll leave it at that.

Yeah, I went there:

Mad Minute: What's it Mean to be a Black Man in the WWE?

2011-04-19T09:31:00.000-04:00

It's all my mom's fault that I returned to watching Raw on Monday nights. Okay, maybe it was a little bit of nostalgia for those high school days where I'd watch over the phone with the bestest friend and boo. Nevertheless, I'm in that thang at 9:00pm.

The beginning of last night's episode resulted in an "attach palm to forehead and breathe deeply" moment. R-Truth, one of the few black wrestlers in the WWE, has (for me at least) secured his spot as this generation's Booker T. Truth's theme song "What's Up" garnered an eyebrow raise. But when dude talked, I had a moment.

The scenario went like this: R-Truth was in line to get a shot at the WWE Championship along with John Cena (who, soon enough, will get his own Mad Minute spot). He was talking to the crowd and another wrestler, John Morrison, interrupted and suckered him out of his title bout. A duped R-Truth royally whooped Morrison's ass after losing his title shot.

My question: what is the worth of blackness in professional wrestling? I don't wanna say or really believe that R-Truth is a hambone coon. But last night he was coon-ish, perpetuating nearly every stereotypical rendering of black masculinity with the exception of his hair. THAT looked like a job by Da Brat's "So Funkdafied" stylist. All black everything - jeans, wrist and arm bands...skin. Topped off with a white spray painted "What's Up?" on his ass. Classy.

On the one hand, R-Truth signifies the violent hypermasculine black body that is both commodifed and perpetuated in American (pop) culture. What becomes complicated, however, is how his particular hyperviolent and hyperaware black male body exists and is contextualized within a voyeuristic space of a few things - (homo)socialism and eroticism, violence, and whiteness. It's a murky undertaking to attempt sort out the discourse needed to properly discuss the implication of body and identity politics and blackness in a very white pro wrestling arena (pun intended).

That's what's up.

Mad Minute: If Nicki's Shittin' On Em I Moved

2011-04-18T08:32:00.000-04:00

I had a previous post where I took a stab at trying to deconstruct Nicki Minaj. The result of THAT post was death threats. Well, 'scuse me Nicki Stans but I'm comin' for her round two with her latest single "Shitted On 'Em" or, for you radio edit enthusiasts, "Did It on 'Em."

Aside from sounding like she took a page, er, toilet paper sheet, from Weezy, "Shitted On 'Em" can be broken down a few different ways. It's an even day (4/18) and on even days I'm a feminist so I can do a reading using Kristeva's abjection theory and the song's implications about removal of the black female body, but then it wouldn't be a mad minute write. So, I'm coming at this from a "WTF" critical angle: WTF (who and what) is the bama in the background as Nicki's hype man?!

I've listened to the joint a few times and each time I find myself wanting to punch dude in the thoat (yes, thoat. No typo.) Besides being annoying as f*ck, his ad-libbing represents everything purportedly wrong with corporate Hip Hop - misogynistic dismissal of women as bitches and hoes and an abrasive and distorted hyping up the forefront (f)emcee. I was extra done when dude has a Don Imus-esque moment: "you nappy headed stale bitches." Pause.

So here's where it gets complicated: Should it be given a pass because he was trying to, um, support Nicki and show her better than other women? Did Nicki give him the green light on that ad libbing in the back? And, for her "Barbz," how do you explain that shit? Does it run along the lines of "aw sweetie, it's all good to be Nicki's bitch. Well, you're not a bitch. You're my son. Did you listen to the song?' Ehh. Gender bending for the good of....yeah, I got nothin'.

Mad Minute: Am I Getting Old?

2011-04-14T08:06:00.000-04:00

There comes a time in every woman's life...where she prefers the edited version of rap. Am I getting old? *gasp and white girl horror movie scream here*

Aw naw, not me. No, not me.

Folks, I find myself preferring the radio friendly version of those Hip Hop joints whose aim is making a woman cringe. You know, those tracks that get a pass because the beat was banging and, well, you were at the club? Yeah. I'm finding myself going past those and preferring the 'watered down' version. What the hell happened?

I'm hesitant to call it maturity, because I, like many of my southern peers, still find a bass-filled beat irresistible. And, in the event of an emergency, I still need that crunk "beat they ass!" song in my life. Many of my music choices - YoungBloodz, OutKast, Goodie Mob, Pastor Troy, etc. - weren't saints. They cursed, they balled, and they talked about fast womens (yup, womens). But now, for some reason I can't put my finger or ear on, it's different.

Bottom line? To paraphrase a certain trap rapper, "I'd rather listen to your beats than your rhymes."

SATIRE: For Dope Boys Shufflin'

2011-04-01T17:05:00.000-04:00

**Lately, I've been channeling my inner smart ass (pun intended on all layers). I've been writing satirical pieces on some of the foolishness going on in the world, and this character is just one such manifestation. Remember, THESE IS JOKES....sorta. Reader Discretion is advised.**

Dear Legions of Fans and Fans in the Closet,

This is your beloved T.P. Fierce. I always do things fanatically, emphatically, and fantastically, so I decided to write you a letter – not necessarily four pages like Aaliyah, mind you, because I’m not a copycat. After many years of searching for my inner diva, I feel I’ve covered the scope of the black woman experience. I’ve worn a dress and a girdle. That about sums it up. Now it’s time to search for my inner nigga. I know he’s in there somewhere. And I wanted to do it with some sass on the silver, er, platinum screen. My latest and perhaps greatest project – after all, I AM T.P. Fierce – is a Hip Hop love story. So with a do-rag and a champagne flute full of a 40 on deck I began to pen For Dope Boys Shufflin’ in the Trap but Aren’t Too Menacing to Society to Talk to Jesus. I needed to summon my inner grit, so I put on some of the hardest music I know – Prince, Tiye Tribbet, and Souljah Boy. A feat of magnanimous proportions, I prayed about it and was given the green light by the HIGHEST producer, Jesus Christ and Oprah Winfrey. Without them, I wouldn’t be nothing.

As the portal of blackness to mainstream white America, this was a natural progression for me. I’ve always found the Hip Hop narrative surrounding black folks static and outdated. Why should we have to venture to the early 1990s to get an understanding of the richness of the hood experience? I could never see myself in those films. I wasn’t from the west coast. I went to church. And I loved Gospel. But T.P. Fierce is all about progression, so now it’s time for me to manhandle my interests so they merge with the popularity of Hip Hop Culture.

Here’s the plot (fabulous, I know):

Abel, a struggling gospel rapper, is pursuing the black American dream of Hip Hop superstardom. By his side is Girl Broken, a young black woman who really wants to star in Gospel rap videos and write a self help book on esteem for young black teenage girls. Abel is the first man to ever treat Girl Broken right and look past her issues of abuse and neglect. After a chance viewing of his freestyle “Cain Ain’t Abel” on Globalstar by talent scout Bush Kennedy, Abel records his track for T.F. OH! Records. Meanwhile, Abel’s dope boy brother Cain hears the “diss track” on the radio and plots revenge. After all, Abel is the reason Cain traps in the first place, a way to conceal that deep, dark, secret that makes Cain feel he’s less of a man.

Abel’s breakout success continued to mount, releasing top ten singles “Black and Yellow Cardigan in the Hood” and “The Hood Needs Jesus Love Too.” Abel, however, is troubled because he wants to stay true to the inner city and make a better life for himself and Girl Broken. Abel’s best friend and prayer partner Inconspicuous urges him to stay true to himself and his background. Abel makes the ultimate choice after a confrontation with Cain during his album release party. Cain, apologetic for his actions, releases his own single, “My Bad, It’s Society’s Fault.” He goes multi-platinum but falls to the temptations of the world and ends up back in the trap.

For Dope Boys Shufflin’ takes a look at the black man in today’s Hip Hop culture. I make sure I cover all the archetypes: the thug, his brother the light-skinnted blue collar working man in search of a rap dream who saves strippers from themselves with love ballads, and the underground Black Nationalist. I want this movie to show the dire situations of black men in Hip Hop and how easily they are tempted by capitalism and other ways of the world.Yes, Cain and Abel are taken from the Bible but their story is timeless. How far does one go in order to be successful? Are black men islands and not their brother’s keepers?

While there are a few white folks sprinkled throughout the plot – after all, T.P. Fierce is an equal opportunity hater, er, employer – this is done purposefully. Hip Hop is colorblind but not blind to color.

White folks are an invisible force. They demand a certain representation of blackness in America and we supply it. As an Oprah approved portal of blackness, my name associated with Hip Hop makes it even more accessible to a majority audience. In other words, white folks got my back. Who gon’ check me, boo?

Fear not, you black essentialists and Hip Hop purists. I understand Hip Hop’s allegiance to the hood. And their allegiance to the swag and money. Think of For Dope Boys Shufflin’ as the next wave of Hip Hop cultural expression. I’m making the hood fetish accessible in a powerful way. This is not a gentrified move. Rather, I intend to make the black experience more suburban polite.

For Dope Boys Shufflin’ wraps filming in the next few weeks. It will hit theatres this summer but not before a made-for-television version shows on BET every other day. Take care of yourselves.

~T.P. Fierce

Dear Albany...You're on that Bullsh*t

2011-03-30T20:11:00.000-04:00

Dear Albany,

If I can't talk to you, who can? It's your girl, Gina Mae. Southside raised and southside bred.

You're out of control, sir. Or madam. Whatever floats your boat. Is it the Flint water? Are we so down on ourselves that we want to live up to the hype of that horrific prophecy that Dr. King made nearly 50 years ago? That we're a failure and will never change? We're killing ourselves. And our nonchalance and obliviousness is killing our children. Before they even get a chance to see whatever little sliver is left of "The Good Life City."

Where's the city where we battled it out on the gridiron or in the paint or maybe a scuffle here and there? The Kid-O-Ramas? Boys and Girls Clubs (Jefferson Street Branch stand up!)?

My soul weeps for you. It bleeds for you. Is it so bad, Albany, that we resort to such traumatic actions? Is there nothing more to do than kill each other over...well, that's the thing. There's never a valid excuse or reason. Albany, have you ever wondered why young people, at the slightest opportunity, jump 19, 82, 300, and 75 and never look back? Have you ever wondered why there's no more good news in the good life city?

I'm trying to hold back from COMPLETELY cussing your ass out. I still align my loyalties with you but it's hard to rep my city when there's a constant rotation in my ear about child abuse and child murders by people I went to school with. Or the senseless murders of friends and their loved ones. I'm thinking about you, Josh. And Leon. And Kaywee. My closet, just like my heart, can't hold any more "R.I.P." shirts.

If you're trying out for First 48, please cut that short.

In closing, this shit has got to stop. I would say kill yo'self, but you already doing that.

Shaking My Head with Concern,

A 'Bany Girl

From the Unpublished Archives: Is Hip Hop Keepin' It Academically Sexy?

2011-03-21T15:33:00.001-04:00

I recently purchased Decoded. It was a necessity. I admire Jigga’s longevity and am intrigued by the content and design of the text. While I have not been able to curl up with it like I would like because of an ongoing Decoded custody battle with my husband, at least I’ve heard it was pretty good.

A colleague’s interest in Decoded, however, really grabbed my attention. He asked me my thoughts about teaching Decoded as a classroom text. I did not really have an answer for him because I have yet to fully read the book, but I asked him his reasons for wanting to use it. He responded, “it sounds sexy and will keep the student’s attention.”

I was concerned. What made it sexy and appropriate for the classroom?

Conversations about Decoded as a classroom text and buzz surrounding publications like Adam Bradley’s The Anthology of Rap are pointing out increasingly blurring boundaries between Hip Hop Culture and the academy.

Hip Hop IN the academy is not necessarily a new feature – peep scholarship like Black Noise, That’s the Joint or Norton Anthology of African American Literature. But let’s be clear here. Critical perspectives about Hip Hop are very new. Hip Hop’s only rounding thirty, so in academic years it is still on the umbilical chord.

While rappers and scholars coming together in an academic setting is not fresh out the box, the accessibility to social media that is in place makes this moment of Hip Hop-Academic interaction unique. Jay-Z and Cornel West’s recent talk for the New York Public Library immediately comes to mind. Millions followed the conversation via u-stream, a live internet recording of the discussion taking place.

Rap legends like Chuck D and KRS-ONE are lecturing in colleges across the country and credited with initiating the conversation surrounding Hip Hop as a cultural experience. Unfortunately, they are swept to the side because they aren’t “what’s hot in them streets” at the moment. Legend Status? Yes. Bumping on the iPod of a 15-21 year old? Hardly.

The link between social media, accessibility, and celebrity makes projects like Decoded relevant both in popular culture and the academy. Jay-Z or Wyclef Jean catches the attention of college faculty and students because of their presence in the media. Their significance parallels with their relevance because of high (damn near overdose) exposure.

To add yet another layer to this conversation, I’m curious about the next generation of Hip Hop scholarship:

-is Hip Hop’s participation in academia just a natural progression from wax to paper or is it profitable?

-is the push for a more expansive inclusion of rappers’ biographies and other rap narratives within the traditional African American canon an attempt to reclaim a voice within a space that has harshly dismissed rap music? In other words, can anthologies like Norton extend the “Hip Hop” section of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature to show how majorly representative Hip Hop is as a present day form of black (American) expression?

One major debate I’m paying close attention to is equating “street literature” as hip hop literature. Street literature is NOT a manifestation of Hip Hop but the continuation of a subgenre of African American literature from the 1960s by authors like Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines.

Cash Money Records’ new printing house Cash Money Content owns the rights to Iceberg Slim’s memoir Pimp. Can works like Pimp be considered hip hop lit because of Cash Money’s Hip Hop affiliation?

I’m optimistic that the relationship between Hip Hop, the academy, and the public continues to strengthen. The exchange of ideas, ink, and wax is a remix I look forward to hearing on repeat.

--December, 2010

Who Your People?: The Mysterious Case of Phil Barkley

2011-03-15T13:46:00.000-04:00

I'm a fan of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are. I've always enjoyed history, especially that of black folks, and the recovery of lost narratives. Who Do You Think You Are is a helluva marketing ploy for the Ancestry.com website. I bit and signed up.

I'm a military brat and have lived a little bit of everywhere, but Albany, GA is where my heart is. Literally. Not on some Davey Jones' Pirates of the Caribbean type shit, but my grandmother, my Nana boo, still lives in the 'Bany. I've always had an inexplicable connection with my grandmother, and she'll be the first to tell you that I was her baby before my parents knew if I was a boy or a girl. Anyway, my grandparents stressed the importance of family and remaining in touch with my ruts - roots, for you non-southern folks. I knew I was a Georgia girl on my dad's side of the family. My Paw Paw and his folks were from up in Jackson County, near Athens, Georgia. My Nana boo and her people were from Calhoun County, Leary, Georgia.

What started as a light activity for a dreary Saturday afternoon became an entire weekend of obsessive research. I had to find out what happened to Phil Barkley, my great-grandfather.

My great-grandfather's murder is one of the most heart wrenching stories my Nana boo shared with me. It was a story of ignorance and hatred. Phil Barkley was stabbed to death at a gas station by a white guy that he supervised at work. I always felt a slow burn as I listened to Nana boo tell the story, wishing I could whoop this anonymous white man's ass for my grandmother and great-grandmother's sake; my Nana boo was only a baby when he died.

I went to work. I typed in Phil Barkley and waited for a little green leaf to flutter on my screen as an indicator of new information. Phil Barkley's box stayed deathly still. I grew frustrated. Suddenly, a green leaf fluttered for my great-grandmother, Mary Jones Barkley, AKA Ma Mary. I clicked it and two census records popped up: 1920 and 1930. I eagerly clicked the 1920 file. I saw a sloppily written list of names, ages, and occupations, hunting for "Barkley." There he was, Phil Barkley. Twenty-Eight Years old. House full of kids. Worker. Literate. Renting his house. Powerful, powerful stuff. My Nana boo's folks lived in Leary, Georgia, the backwoods, where illiteracy was it for black folks. My great-grandfather could read and write. Very well, as I would see later - he filled out the death certificate for his son, Fred, in 1924. I felt a pride swell in my chest that matched the way I felt when I would stretch my spine to match my Paw Paw's awesomeness.

I clicked the 1930 census file. Searched for Barkley. Saw Ma Mary, no Phil. There was a "w" by Ma Mary's name for widow. I got misty eyed. My two main clues were my Nana boo's story and this census record. He died between 1920 and 1930, actual death date unknown.

I was reaching for straws. My grandmother's age is kept at Fort Knox, so I have no clue how old she is. A ten year age gap is huge! I searched the website for Phil Barkley's death certificate. Nothing.

After taking a break, I went back to looking for my great-grandfather's death certificate. I knew finding a birth certificate was probably a lost cause - white folks at the hospitals didn't keep accurate records of African American births. As I harassed Google for new methods of research, I came across a Georgia death certificate database that stored records from 1919-1998. I clicked and put in my great-grandfather's name. His name was the first to pop up. Phil Barkley, from Calhoun County, Leary, Georgia. Born May 1891. Date of death: December 30, 1926. Damn. My grandfather died a few months before his 36th birthday.

I saved a copy and took a closer look. Born in Calhoun County. Died in Albany, Georgia. Cause: illegible.
I couldn't read the cause of death to save my life. I pulled out the cell phone, pressed "2," and waited for Nana boo to pick up. I told her I found her daddy's death certificate. There was a brief moment of silence on the other end and a sigh.
"Really, Gina Lou?"
"Yes ma'am. Phil Barkley. He died Dec. 30 1926."
"I didn't know that. Does it say how he died?"
"There's a cause here. I think I made out knife, but I can't read the rest of it."
"Well, I seriously doubt they would give the actual reason for his death. White folks could put whatever they wanted and it would be taken as fact."

I didn't know what to say to my grandmother after her last statement. History is made fact by whoever writes it. I thought back to the census records I saw. There were many mistakes, including ages and names. Ma Mary's name on a census record from 1900 was misspelled "May Jones." I fact checked with my Nana to make sure the other information on the record was accurate.

My great-grandfather never got a chance to know my Nana boo or participate in her life. While I'm appreciative of the death certificate, I can't help but wonder what other information about Phil Barkley has been lost over the years due to a lack of records or simply lack of interest in a southern rural black man's life.

My adventures in family tree-ing have reaffirmed the importance of paying attention and recording the narratives of elders in the family. At least this way lost loves like Phil Barkley still have a home in our hearts.

Another Hot Joint from the Man Scott Poulson-Bryant: The VIPs Trailer!

2011-03-07T20:09:00.003-05:00

Scott Poulson-Bryant is the black James Franco (lol). A PhD student, freelancer, and living legend - I mean seriously, dude co-founded Vibe Magazine - the HUNG author is back with a juicy novel The VIPs. My pre-order is on deck. Is yours? Well, it will be. Peep the trailer. Enjoy! ~RCS

Color Me White (Ish): Eminem and Negotiations of Whiteness in Hip Hop | via TheLoop21

2011-03-04T11:46:00.005-05:00

Marshall Mathers took everybody’s money Superbowl Sunday. From his claymation ad with Lipton Iced Tea to being the face of Detroit via Chrysler, Mathers is staking his claim as one of the most visible and memorable emcees in Hip Hop. Mr. Marshall “Eminem” Mathers, I’m still trying to figure you out, sir.

I am not interested in debating Mathers’ lyrical capability or talent. I’m more so interested in his (un)conscious role in negotiating whiteness and, more specifically, white masculinity in Hip Hop. Arguably the most commodified and consumed expression of the 21^st century African American experience, Hip Hop is a space for hyper-performance of blackness. This makes Mather’s presence all the more visible and his active participation in rap music intriguing. Mathers isn’t, as Greg Tate points out, a “peculiar growth” out of Hip Hop as many manifestations of white rappers and consumers are deemed. Eminem plays the game, framing his narrative from his deprived social-economic upbringing on Detroit’s Eight Mile and pulling from a space of darkness and anger that is often reserved for black men. The difference, however, is that Eminem, regardless of his experiences, is not considered on the fringes of American society. He is able to seamlessly “crossover” between privilege and poverty, whiteness and blackness, enterprise and consumerism.

Mathers’ performance personas are particularly striking when contextualized within this peculiar moment of American history. Unlike previous white rappers like Mc Serch or The Beastie Boys, Mather’s The Slim Shady LP (1999) ushered in the need for conversation about new considerations of whiteness and Hip Hop. The Slim Shady LP was released at the beginning of the dubbed postracial era, a social period where visible markers of race and identity began to drastically shift. Although open conversations about race are considered taboo, race and identity politics remain inextricably linked. This moment of odd racial American history is reflected in the marketing of Hip Hop as a color-blind space.

Aside from Mather’s talent, I’d posit that Mather’s longevity in Hip Hop lies in his ability to distance himself from the complexities of the 21^st century black American experience. What is striking, however, is that in similar fashion to African American men, Mathers creates performance personas that cater to expectations of his identity and whiteness. These personas, Eminem and Slim Shady, cater to different purposes and audiences.

Eminem, a sober, cynical, and introspective rapper, illuminates Mather’s battles with inner and outer demons. Whether talking about the stress of family woes, substance abuse, or the hang-ups of the rap game, this dimension of Mathers spits hard, angry, and raw bars. Eminem sounds like an angry black man. For many of his listeners, white and black, Eminem’s delivery authenticates his experience, not his talent.

Mather’s counter persona, Slim Shady, is whimsical, sociopathic, and violent. Slim Shady is black pathology’s Hip Hop doppelganger. He helps black Hip Hop consumers negotiate whiteness as capable of being pathological. Mathers is especially crucial to discussions of white consumerism in this current cycle of Hip Hop because he makes whiteness visible.

READ FULL ESSAY @TheLoop21

A Beautifully Dark and Twisted Postracial Reality? | via TheLoop21

2011-02-27T19:24:00.002-05:00

Me and this latest characterization of Kanye West ain’t never been friends. Maybe associates in passing, but never in constant rotation on my playlists. There was no urgent need for me to watch West’s “Monster” video. I avoided it like I avoided my mom with a hotcomb as a kid. With all the uproar surrounding West’s latest efforts, I took the plunge and braced myself as the video loaded.

“Monster” is a brazen visual of West’s battle with black masculinity, whiteness, and art. Horrific images of hanging women, the bleakness of the plot and setting, and other representations of a distorted reality are significant because of the hypervisible and hypersexual presence of whiteness. “Monster” forces notions of white supremacy to become visible to the audience, especially with West’s treatment of white women.

While I do not intend to suggest West’s “Monster” is not problematic, I am intrigued by his treatment of what John L. Jackson refers to as “racial paranoia.” Kanye West is not the only artist that picks my interest with teasing out the relationship between racial paranoia, performance, money, and Hip Hop. I’ve pondered similar musings about other rappers including T.I., Rick Ross, and Waka Flaka Flam. The jury’s still out.

It is certainly no surprise that the most recent cycles of corporate or mainstream Hip Hop cop the top spot as capitalism’s poster child. Quips and undertones of materialism and succumbing to a cloaked form of capitalism under the more street-credit worthy “game” run rampant. This peculiar social-historical moment of American culture, however, presents a unique intersection of race and economics seldom experienced by previous generations of (African) Americans.

READ FULL ESSAY @THELOOP21

Racial Amnesiacs: What's Really the Deal Behind My Beef with Lady Antebellum?

2011-02-15T13:12:00.002-05:00

As I watched the Grammys, I noticed it was a little colorless...er, colorblind. Yeah, colorblind. That's the word I wanna use. As the country music group Lady Antebellum racked up on awards and honors I felt my spirit burn. And as I tweeted with my twitterati, I noticed I was not alone in my crooked neck moment.

I have nothing against the folks in the Lady Antebellum group. Their name, however, makes my soul quake. I flashed back to my Nana and Paw Paw's stories about their struggles to be southern and black while interacting with white folks. I also conjured up memories from my high school history classes that glorified the Confederate south, realizing that world was not meant for me or my people. The Antebellum south, as frilly and bougie as it is remembered, was certainly no lady. And this is not to say that the North was a gentleman, but southern romanticized nostalgia for plantation parties and black men dressed in tattered coattails irks the hell out of me.

Lady Antebellum's branding and their presence via the Grammys assists me in working through my ideas about race and consciousness for my dissertation. Again, it's not the music the group produces as I'm only familiar with a small snippet (like, a single song) of their work. I'm curious about the workings behind the name and why it is not discussed. Perhaps one angle to attempt to contextualize their name is with the good ol' postracial glaze. I tend to think it's dystopian instead of utopic, removing the Otherness that makes whiteness visible. Lady Antebellum flourishes because of America's intentional sleeping on race matters but also because it is profitable.

The peculiarity of this "postracial" period suggests that the historical significance of Lady Antebellum's name, because it is racially charged, is not publicly relevant. George Lipsitz refers to white America's post-Civil Rights investment in supremacist discourse as the Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Paying attention to the white supremacist notions Antebellum signifies makes whiteness visible, therefore invalidating the postracial movement. In order to maintain white privilege and dominance in this moment of history, white supremacy needs to hide in the open.

I'm not quite sure what is more disturbing, the continued investment in white supremacist culture or our avoidance of naming and addressing it in the name of racial harmony. Yeah, racial harmony. Those are the words I wanna use.

Niggas Ain't in Canada: Appropriation, Blackness, and MLK

2011-01-15T15:24:00.000-05:00

On the way home from a meeting with The Great Him (which may be classified as an ass whoopin' by some lol), I turned on my radio to listen to a live radio broadcast from a party in ATL. I love to listen to the mixes, so I turned my radio up. And just as quickly turned it all the way down when I heard:

"I see you birthday girl! Shake it! The Dream is still alive! MLK 2011!"

*Nellie Quander level side-eye here* (Happy Founder's Day, Sorors!)

Okay, pause. So all I have to do is shake my ass and Dr. King's dream is alive? When in doubt, go to the club. I'll make a note.

I've always wondered why Dr. King's likeness and blackness are so easy to water down. King was larger than some southern pacifist preacher man who gladly took ass whoopings in the name of peace and prosperity. King was a visionary. King was a radical. At the time of his untimely death, Martin Luther King was about to blow the lid off racial identity politics and economic disparity.

When we commemorate Dr. King in the form of a holiday, are we further marginalizing King's complexity and humanity? I can't help but think about how we celebrate this holiday, not in earnest, but gladness that we do not have to go to work Monday. While I applaud those organizations who participate in activities that reignite King's aspirations, I am troubled by the majority of us who only see King as a one-dimensional, "ahistorical" figure. I say a"historical" because he is not contextualized to reflect a time period of black liberatory activism. Instead, King is Hallmarked and gift carded as a black Santa-esque figure who waves to the kids and pats them gingerly on the head.

C'mon, son. Let's get real here.

To view him as incapable of reflecting frustration, anger, and unhappy feelings surrounding his purpose and actions as a man of color is SAFE. Please read (in its entirety) King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. If that's not an angry black man, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm particularly struck by our engagement with King and his legacy in this contemporary moment of the black experience. With all the talk surrounding postracial identity, privilege, and the like, I would argue that people of color too succumb to the postracial heralding of Martin Luther King, Jr. We celebrate him through an instutional, racialized lens of blackness. Instead of keeping his philosophies relevant and in conversation, he's retired to a holiday and statue.

Aaron McGruder MLK episode is powerful and relevant in ways too numerous to dedicate to a single post. What I find especially striking is McGruder's attempts to negotiate and subvert the tricky space of black consciousness and (white) capitalistic hegemony. King is unvoluntarily appropriated for profit - he repeatedly complains about not being consented for the use of his likeness and name - and neglected when he attempts to situate his fight into a contemporary setting.

The now infamous "Nigga" speech King delivers at the church "party" at the end of the episode ( a whole 'notha level of a come to Jesus meeting!), hammers the markers of blackness and black consciousness that are representative of 20th and early 21st century African Americans. The contamination of these portals of blackness - i.e. BET, the black church, etc. buffer not only King's initial efforts but those of the Civil Rights era as well. Because the tangible barriers of race that were prevalent in King's discourse have altered or are obsolete, King resorts to "niggadom" to connect with his audience and force them to confront their consciences and actions.

King's retort, "I won't get there with you, I'm moving to Canada" is also significant. The allusion to Canada as the promise land reaches back to the American slave era and runaway slaves. What Canada means to African Americans in this particular moment of American history, however, is up for discussion.

Happy MLK day, folks.

Musings: If Rape Ain't Rape, What Is?!

2010-12-10T13:35:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, footsteps in the dark aren't always a good thing.

I heard them nightly, and knew who he was. I remember his weight, I remember him grunting. I remember being afraid to scream because I was supposed to be asleep and going to school the next morning. I remember repeating the mantra of "I'm a good girl. I don't tattletale." And I remember him clumsily pulling my panties back up and scurrying out my bedroom door.

I remember that bastard and his bullshit excuse of an apology. I was nine and in fourth grade. I didn't want to be that girl who ruined people's lives. I just wanted mine back.

As I perused twitter a few months back and saw the tweet trend "It Ain't Rape If...." that little nine year old girl came back screaming. And continued to scream when I saw the rape episode of South Park. My anger was raw. Mounting. Justified. And all consuming.

I'm utterly disgusted by the desensitized affinity for rape "culture;" though I am hesitant to call it such because I associate the term with sophistication and progression. As a rape survivor it pisses me off to see pop culture trivially throw rape around like a fad.

It is alarming to suggest that rape pathology is celebrated because it is profitable and easy to market. Why is there such a critical distance from what rape signifies and how its demonstrated in popular culture? Are taboo subjects hot commodities for entertainment purposes?

What's even more troubling is how this rape discourse infests (yes, infests) and distorts our understanding of reality. Comedian Lil Duval's runaway tweet trend "It Ain't Rape If..." didn't lose interest for days. Participants gave stupid ass suggestions about how women dress, their physical and mental condition when they told a man no, and other trivial shit that nulls any logic that suggests her sincerity to not engage in sexual activity.

Duval attempted to defend himself but failed to realize there was no guarantee that all the people going in (participating) on this topic were smart enough to realize "these is jokes." There is Forrest Gumpage out there that consumes everything for what it is at face value.

With regards to rape "culture" and blackness, there is a frightening (mis)understanding that they are inextricably linked. Still. Black womens' bodies are, as Abbey Lincoln so fiercely put it, the outhouses of black and white men. Black men's bodies are bestial and sexually insatiable. What we share in common is possession of sex as a power move, and we lack in its ownership. Still.

I still nurse that little nine year old girl's wounds and cringe like she cringed in the dark that night when I see rape politics so easily dismissed instead of dismantled. Are we as a society so fixated on entertainment and scapegoating that we purposefully ignore the ticking time bomb planted in our social interactions?

What will it take? If rape aint rape, what the hell is?

Casual Musings: The Jail We Laugh In

2010-12-10T00:57:00.000-05:00

I couldn't really formulate my thoughts into a coherent essay length discussion about how I feel about humor and The Color Purple. Please bear with my randomness; I've been marinating on this since Oprah's reunion show a few weeks back.

Why the Hell am I Laughing?
The Color Purple's one liners are used in challenges to revoke folks' black cards. I knew (STILL KNOW) the movie verbatim and sing Shug Avery's "Siiiiiiiistaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" to my girlfriends because I can. At family gatherings, The Color Purple DVD is lurking somehwere. It's your favorite black family's favorite black family movie.

I'm quick to admit, however, that I was tainted by the movie before I read the book.
I remember following Celie's thoughts and being taken aback. Alice Walker left me breathless. After discussing it with my thesis advisor, the great Stephanie Hankerson, I focused on The Color Purple as my primary text for my senior thesis. Me and Shug had a deep conversation that would change how I viewed the African American woman's narrative. I felt like my paper paid homage to a fellow Georgia girl who had the ovaries to tell it like it T-I is.

Perhaps most striking to me is the relationship between the screen adaptations and the actual plot. A few musings:

-If The Color Purple was really adapted verbatim, it'd be ten hours long and its essence (troubling word, I know) would be lost (Beloved, anyone?)

-The novel's use of language - fluid, gritty, blunt - would make Nana 'nem blush. It would no longer be your favorite black family's favorite black family movie.

-If Mista was shown to be repentant of his actions, Celie's friend, and a damn good knitter, what kinda of propaganda would that be?

When I hear/see people re-enact scenes from the movie, I laugh. But the novel itself has few humorous situations. I wonder if we (myself included) laugh at the movie because its painful or to cope with our own transgressions about black women and sexuality?

Our affection for this movie serves as an investment in maintaining a subversive (hyper)awareness of the suffering narrative that frames the majority of the African American (woman) experience. This awareness fluently manifests itself in popular culture, especially in those contemporary women's narratives that are constructed by a certain dude in a dress. Nearly all of his movies about the dude in a dress playing a matriarch reference a violent scene from The Color Purple and make it funny.

I'm not suggesting that suffering does not exist within the present day black woman's narrative. There is, however, an affinity to bind this sole story to what seems to be a widely unchallenged typecast for representations of black women in a public space.

I titled my musings "The Jail We Laugh In" because I find that serious discussions about The Color Purple OUTSIDE the academy often collapse after a quick "You Tol' Harpo to Beat Me?!"

Where The Color Purple is rich in anecdotes and conversations starters, conversations fall flat in productivity and solutions because its easier just to emptily laugh at a plight instead of work it out.

Is Your Sex IQ Higher Than a 5th Grader | via NewsOne

2010-11-24T12:18:00.000-05:00

As a teenager, I lived for conversations about sex. Primarily because I was a saint by force growing up in the late 1990s, and my folks wouldn’t have it any other way. Who needed a chastity belt when I lived in one? My folks lived out in the country, never left the house for more than two hours, had bars on the windows, and blocked off the house’s bedrooms. I couldn’t get a dude in and out if I tried.

But I digress.

My discussions with my teenage friends mostly took cues from the great lovers of our time – Jodeci. Silk. Dru Hill. Ginuwine. Lil Kim. We swapped stories that often mimicked whatever R&B crooner was hot at the moment. Or whatever was on BET Uncut.

We often argued about the best ways of finally having sex or what we called “getting it in,” albeit safety and STDs often took a backseat to the actual deed. Becoming or getting someone pregnant often ended the conversation. Many of my male friends, however, often offered the tried and true technique that “their boy” used.

Intrigued, we’d ask them to reveal this secret.

“So what is it? A condom? Two?” I’d ask with a straight face.

“Naw, girl,” he’d say shaking his head with the wisdom of 1000 lovers past.

“It’s an unspoken rule. If you not carrying, you just pull out.”

Um, what?

Which is the same reaction I had when a friend of mine sent me a link to the song “She Said Don’t Cum in Me.” You’d think this joint was a spoof sketch from Dave Chappelle or The Boondocks.

A young woman soulfully croons the song’s title while the “rapper” spins a tale about “bottom bitches” and his bag of sexual tricks. The video had bikinis, beaches, bass, and candles. Yup, this is a perfectly fine example of a safe sex public service announcement if I ever did see and hear one.

Here’s what I don’t understand, folks. With all the scary shit surrounding sexual diseases and teenage pregnancy in the United States, is there really room for songs like this? Even scarier: these artists don’t need the radio to transmit this crap anymore. You got WorldStar, YouTube, and Twitter. I would say MySpace but…well, okay. . . Myspace. More importantly, you have a technologically savvy generation of youth.

Read Full Essay at NewsOne

Is Bank the New Black? | via NewsOne

2010-11-22T12:52:00.001-05:00

In this moment of history, how are we defining blackness?

African Americans and whites alike tackle this question, often in attempts to cancel out each other’s interpretations. There have been documentaries about what it means to be black in America. Movies directed. Songs sung. Countless books written about it. One common recurrence in our ongoing contemplation of what it means to be black, however, is the reflection of the cultural moment at hand.

For past generations of blacks, kernels of racial identity were often embedded in Jim Crow and the struggle to be acknowledged as human.

Here are a few manifestations of blackness from the Black Identity family tree:
–Nigger Black existed during slavery.
–Reconstruction and Turn of the 20th Century Black lived when African American bodies were mercilessly lynched out of desperation to maintain a white supremacist social structure.
–Renaissance Black dominated the late teens up to the 1930s. African American and Afro-Caribbean people retaliated against Jim Crow through writing and music to shape an independent definition of blackness in America.
–Existential black was around in the 1940s and 1950s because authors like Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin questioned the invisibility of black bodies in a racially prejudiced world.
–Raise your fist in honor of Nationalist Black. He pummeled his way into the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s because activists like

Huey P. Newton, Charles Hamilton (not the rapper), and Stokely Carmichael chopped Jim Crow in the throat. Nationalist Black advocated that being Black in a White America that sees us as inferior can kick rocks.

Now that those visible obstacles of racial prejudice are dissolving, how do we as African Americans gauge an authentic black experience?

Read Full Essay at NewsOne

What Nicki Minaj Means to Black Women| via NewsOne

2010-11-05T10:15:00.001-04:00

I’m not a fan of Nicki Minaj. Yeah, I said it. Her voice and “characters” already took my last nerve. But with her much anticipated freshman release Pink Friday dropping November 22, Minaj is in the mouths of fans and haters alike.

I’m not concerned here, however, with Minaj’s lyricism or talent. I’m interested in what Minaj’s multiple identies suggest about women in hip-hop.

During the 2010 BET Hip Hop Awards, DJ Khaled introduced self-proclaimed entertainer Minaj as “Nicki Minaj, Nicki Minaj, Nicki Minaj, Nicki Minaj, and Nicki Minaj.” As Minaj began to speak, she significantly altered her voice five times to show her “multiple personas.” People cheered.

Whether in the capacity of video models or (f)emcees, women in hip-hop are so underrepresented that they are always fighting against the current. In the powerful (and long overdue) documentary My Mic Sounds Nice old school artists like Roxanne Shante, Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte, and Yo Yo talked about the need to lyrically keep their game up. Battling for them was a way to be acknowledged, heard, and visible.

Back in the day, women rappers’ worth was proved by their freestyle form instead of their physical one. Unfortunately, as time marched on, femcees rapping off the top of the dome dwindled to spitting about giving it. Hide your Sprite cans and two liters.

Black women and hypersexuality is not a new conversation. The contemporary moment in which hip-hop women exist, however, is unique. Unlike the earlier wave of female rappers, the most visible women in mainstream hip-hop take stereotypical notions of black women and make them profitable. Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Trina, Khia and Jacki-O branded themselves as peddlers of the freak nasty.

Cue Nicki Minaj—who is building on this tradition—and making bank as one of the most visible women in the game.

What is particularly striking about her rebranding this old idea is the way she interconnects brand and identity. To Minaj, like Lil’ Kim before her, there’s a need to navigate both hypersexuality and what I call “hypo-visibility,” the underwhelming presence of black women to construct their own, independent identity.

So on the one hand the beef between her and Lil’ Kim is laughable because Minaj uses her sexuality to grab attention and, um, entertain. Young girls sing Minaj’s lyrics down the hallway at school the same way I did Kim’s back in ’97. In much the same way that Lil’ Kim rode with Notorious B.I.G. and Junior Mafia, she’s aligned with the male dominated Young Money. Ditto Karrine Steffans (who got her “big break” on Mystikal’s “Been So Long” video by wearing the most hoochie coo outfit available), Trina who got put on with Trick Daddy and Slip-N-Side), and others.

So what’s the difference? What stands out about Minaj is the way she juggles black women’s sexuality with notions of insanity to create her own space that she colored “pink.” Minaj collapses accepted notions about black women, and in their wake she carves out an alternative space of expression.

Minaj’s images of mental instability pivot on the fear of the crazy black woman and materialism. In her collabo with Ludacris “My Chick Bad,” Minaj rhymes “they say my shoe game crazy, the mental asylum’s lookin’ for me.” Trey Songz’ “Bottoms Up” video visually demonstrates instability by using an unstable camera and jagged movements to show unbalance. Minaj’s delivery follows suit, using a shaky sounding delivery to ask (beg?) Songz for alcohol and attention.

What’s crazy for Black women’s identity politics is that it’s difficult to distinguish Minaj’s acting from her reality. This is especially significant when looking at Minaj’s impact on young women.

A few years back a young, excited woman called in to speak with Minaj on a Shade45 radio interview. After pleasantries, the woman proudly declared that her three year old daughter could recite Minaj’s lyrics verbatim. While Minaj gushed about “how cute that is,” the little girl could be heard in the background reciting explicit lyrics.

A three-year old. Probably in diapers and barely counting to five. But she has a future—as a Nicki Minaj impersonator. Chile boo.

Unfortunately, it is common occurrence that performance identities are removed from their intended spaces. Once removed, they heavily influence social interactions and often promote stereotypes. This is especially true for women. Here’s to hoping American popular culture doesn’t slay Nicki’s monster celebrity out of revenge. Roman or otherwise.

Forget Me Not Friday: Damn that Ginufine

2010-10-29T13:52:00.000-04:00

This post is painful to remember. *Deep breath* it's so difficult to talk about...my seventh grade spring dance. An exotic dancer I shall never be.

If I could erase any year from memory, it'd be 1997. I would choke the life out of it. I was 13, just starting middle school, awkward, and part of the Beat It Entourage with my all-white-everything socks and highwater jeans. Trust, if I was a dude, babies down the line would've been difficult.

It was the end of the school year and I was determined to unleash a new Gina (the "Mae" would be added later which is a whole 'notha "Forget Me Not Friday").

This dance was the business because one of the DJs from WKYS 93.9 was deejaying for our party. I borrowed one of the BFF's high school ensembles and showed off a little of my skinnty leg. No stanky for me that day! Oh NO! Not me and my high school outfit.

I repeated positive mantras in my head:
"You kinda cute. With your matching color braces!"
"You are way more fly than that bitch Lanisha."
"Just do what the popular girls do. The boys will follow."

I was ready. I had practiced the night before during the GoGo hour on the radio. I talked to the BFF about some dance moves they do in high school. High School. I can't go wrong.

And...I watched the "Pony" video I recorded on my VHS. Repeatedly.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaass. Who DIDN'T want Ginuwine? "Pony" was the business. I had a choreographed dance for this song and needed it to be played at the dance! I hyped myself up so high that Ginuwine himself couldn't tell me I wasn't that deal. I was going to get a boyfriend. Or at least a number. A number.

The day went by slow. I anxiously sat through sixth period. Who cared about science and the bucking crawfish on THIS DAY. This miraculous day of days that would let me change my image?! Change my unpopular, overlooked, and under-appreciated life?! I drifted in and out of class hearing snippets of "Pony" and rehearsing my dance in my head.

Finally, the words were spoken: "All seventh graders attending the spring dance please report to the cafeteria." Show time.

The cafeteria looked like....the cafeteria. No chemistry yet. Girls were still huddled by the door and the guys were lined up at the foot of the stage. Cool pose my ass. I nervously glanced over to the boy I wanted to impress. Thomas. Wit his fine ass. But I saw him looking at Sophia. She was beautiful and really sweet. No braces. Big booty and hazel eyes. She was THE 7th grader.

And that pissed me off. Why couldn't I be Sophia? I was sweet. I was nice. But she had something I didn't. Thomas' attention. And her body could flow with the music.

People started edging towards each other. Seventh and eigth graders mingling under only this acceptable circumstance. I kept my distance. My song hadn't played yet. But I did like the mix, so I edged closer and closer to the middle of the floor.

And then..."I'm just a bachelor...."

I put aside my fear and started moving side to side. The boys started looking at me in all my awkward glory. Probably because I had got my growth spurt and I towered. Maybe out of curiosity. But they were looking in my direction.

One of them nudged Thomas. I got a lil' confident. I turned to face the male lineup and my man in my head. I stood tall, legs shoulder length apart and started to sway my non-existent hips. I got so excited I got off beat. I tried to regain my swag by beckoning to the boys. They laughed and shook their head. I was already out there and embarassed. I countered their laugh with my own. Defeated. And stuck. Why won't this damn song END!?!?

What made it worse? The DEEJAY shouted out my trainwreck: "Fellas ya'll gon' leave her hangin' like that?!"

Finally, Ginuwine shut the hell up.

I retreated to the back of the cafeteria. Thomas returned his attention to Sophia. And all was right in the middle school world. I guess.

But dammit, I looked fly. So I saved whatever shred of popularity I had left and danced with my friends.

And Derrick was looking kinda good.....

From the Awesomenss Archives: Indiana University Upward Bound Interview July 2008

2010-10-29T11:25:00.009-04:00

My tenure as an English instructor for the Indiana University Bloomington Upward Bound program (Summer 2007, Summer 2008) are some of my most cherished memories. These kids changed my life. I hope I had a fraction of that impact on them.

We really need to save Upward Bound and ALL TRIO programs. I'm always hearing "oh the children, the children..." well, it's time to back that up like Juvenile.

The following video was shot the last week of the program after we found out it was shutting down. And yes, that's a snippet of "Excuses" on the chalkboard LOL.

Many thanks to Malinda Aston of the Indiana Daily Student for hooking me up!

Regina Barnett Discusses Upward Bound's Future

All the Good Black Men are DSGBs

2010-10-26T21:36:00.003-04:00

This is the honest, straight-from-the-"little"-A truth about why there's supposedly a shortage of good black men. I'm serious. No lie. Coming from the ovaries. Scientifically researched, all business account of how to attract and maintain the elusive good black man. For real though. No smiles appeared in the writing of this post. *mean mug*

I'm just a simple servant of the quill blessed with many friends and ideas. And a southern twang.

So you (yes you, miss lady crying in the corner over there) are praying, hoping, whining, hoochie coo-ing for, or talking shit about the lack of one of those rare creatures known as a good black man. He's more elusive than Eddie Long's real hairline. Or Tiger Woods fidelity. Or...okay, he's hard to find. Well, after extensive qualitative, quantitative, and field research, and speaking with undercover agents in secret meetings, I have discovered where all the good black men are hiding.

Shhhhhh, don't tell everybody. This is sensitive information.

Ladies (maybe gentlemen?), prepare your passports. Open your eyes. Yes ma'ams, after extensive research all the good black men are in South Georgia.

While attending my best friend's wedding this past weekend (which, by the way, was gorgeous), I overheard an increasingly common conversation about the lack of "good, available black men" during the reception. I can understand these ladies' angst. The bouquet had been thrown, late 20s are the new 50, and the clock (however you define that) is becoming louder and louder. I exhale and look gratefully at my husband.

Suddenly, a revelation. My husband is from South Georgia. My best friend's new husband is from South Georgia. My daddy, Paw Paw, Godfather, play play cousins and male friends were from South Georgia. The majority of the groomsmen were from...you guessed it, South Georgia. Many of the great available men I know are southern who happen to be from Jawja. Chuch.

A few field notes about DSGBs (Down South Georgia Boys):
--They travel in packs and have extensive colonies in Albany, Camilla, Bainbridge, Cuthbert, Americus, Sylvester, Thomasville, Cairo, Cordele, Valdosta, and Dawson, Georgia.
--If you hear crunk music, move the hell out the way. It's a dangerous situation. Unless, of course, you like living dangerously. Learn to throw 'bows!
--Not all DSGBs are the same, but they are united by their ministry of music spearheaded by Pastor Troy.

So I talked to my husband about it (yes, I will milk this dry. My husband is awesome. Awesomely handsome, awesomely good, and *gasp* awesomely black) and came up with the "Country Boy Eat His Ass Up" kit. Get the following to catch your own DSGB :

A consultation in South Georgianese
This is critical in opening verbal communication. Learn the dialect and slang so you can learn how to bike it up, shawty. Understand what they be talmbout, aight cuh?

Gangsta Grillz Mixtape
Try to make it one of the more recent mixes with as many "Free T.I., Big Pookie, Weezy, and 'nem" adlibs as possible. Or, if you really want to step your game up, buy one of theirs.

Popeyes Spicy Chicken Box
There's nothing like Popeyes Spicy Chicken. It's like crack. Have you ever seen or been in a Popeye's line? If you got that kitchen swag, whip up your own. Country boys EXPECT good eatin'.

Hair Clippers
Most south Georgia boys line themselves up or know a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy who cuts hair. Clippers are a peace offering. Ladies take note, a jacked up tape is a serious, often unforgivable offense. It's a traumatic experience. If you meet a southern man with a jacked up line, don't stare. Act like you don't know the difference...

A Pit Bull or Rottweiler
In country boy speak, nothing screams "my nuts are bigger than yours" than owning a Pit or Rott. If you're afraid, don't fret. Point the guy in the right direction (No Vick).

A Big Body
Oh, you don't know what that means? I'ma need you to check that out.

Specialize your kit with the following:
Black and Milds
Cheese Grits

Not willing to travel to the boondock collage to search for your new boo thang? No worries. I hear there are good men further north and out (mid) west too. I'm not too familiar, though. I'm a DSGG.

For Harriet Inaugural Roundtable Discussion

2010-10-20T11:33:00.003-04:00

For Harriet, a recently minted online magazine for women of color, recorded their inaugural roundtable session yesterday. Your girl was fortunate enough to be invited to participate alongside phenomenal women Deesha Philyaw, Desiree Adaway, and Starr Rhett. Thank you Kimberly Foster for the opportunity to be part of history. Enjoy!

John Legend Tweets Hip Hop Soul

2010-10-19T21:51:00.001-04:00

Recently, John Legend tweeted that he was about to perform with the hip-hop group The Roots and threw out the term “hip hop soul.” Fascinated, I tried to think of some sexy, academic way to place this term in our current state of hip-hop culture. I got nothin’.

Well, almost nothing. Legend’s blending of rap and Soul music speaks to an attempt to bridge generations. It also seeks to address how memory is shaping contemporary black music and identity.

Black music has long been a gauge of the temperament and social trauma afflicting African Americans. Often it eased, uplifted, and re-enforced the African American spirit.

Here’s an abbreviated walk through:

Black music’s complex formula of intertwining agency and aesthetics is especially prevalent in its trajectory. Negro Spirituals, for example, reflected the fusion and critique of Anglo-Christian theology with slave culture. Using the Biblical Old Testament and, more specifically, the book of Exodus, slaves coded messages of escape and disdain through their communal singing.

Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues,” Curtis Mayfield’s “Freddie’s Dead,” and Bobby Womack’s “Across 110^th Street” are only a sampling of the soundtrack that mirrored the struggle and frustration echoed by blacks in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. Soul’s integration into mid 20^th century black life is a fascinating journey. It gave voice to the grittier aspects of the African American experience that gospel music often attempted to ameliorate or overlook.

Soul music made space for hip-hop, reflecting a change in generational observations about similar social ills that afflicted their predecessors. Any suppressed anger left over from the Black Power and Civil Rights Movements extrapolated in rap narratives.

Read Complete Essay at NEWSONE

Step Your Academic Game Up: 2011 Summer Humanities Institute

2010-10-18T00:07:00.000-04:00

I am a UCLA Summer Humanities Institute alum (fellowship class of 2006). It was the best academic bootcamp I've ever had in my life. I learned to think more critically, sophisticate my writing, and lose my fear of the red pen. Thanks, Dr. Berky Nelson. You're my dude for life.

The application process is open for the fellow class of 2011. If you're an undergrad or recent graduate who has not started graduate school, please apply. The opportunity is life changing. And so sexy on the CV. APPLY!

SHI 2011 Application Process

Chalky Under the Boardwalk: Race and Entitlement in Boardwalk Empire

2010-10-13T16:49:00.002-04:00

Let me go ahead and get this out the way. HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is blanched. Like a white ass that hasn’t seen a tanning bed. Ever. You see the occasional black person (don’t blink now, hear?) but it’s good.
While I can’t even get mad at Boardwalk’s strive to maintain an accurate historical context, I am intrigued by the inclusion of Michael K. Williams’ character Chalky White in the lineup.

Williams’ portrayal of Chalky is just as, ahem, intoxicating as his previous HBO character Omar Little of The Wire. An African American bootlegger with southern roots, Chalky maneuvers his way through the dealings of prohibition era Atlantic City, New Jersey. On the surface, Chalky is the token black character of the series. He has dialogue instead of literal one-liners that restrict fellow African American cast members.

The muteness of black characters in the series is in part due to the series’ blatant white (male) supremacist discourse. The inextricable linkage of entitlement and white patriarchal privilege frames the Boardwalk Empire narrative. This relationship teeters on a multifaceted platform of gender, class, and race.

Chalky’s presence, however, is more significant and complicated than being Boardwalk’s token black guy. He embodies the struggle for access to entitlement afforded to men like main character Nucky Thompson because of his whiteness. Chalky’s name also symbolizes this struggle, doubly signifying how whiteness is a social construct and his effort to one-up “the man” (chalk also means to score). He challenges the embedded privilege of whiteness and class. These privileges are inaccessible to marginalized Black men.

Read Complete Essay at NEWSONE

For Colored Girls Who Think Tyler Perry is Enough

2010-10-11T10:43:00.004-04:00

My first encounter with Tyler Perry was back in 2003 during an all-nighter freshman year at Albany State University (shameless plug. Go Rams!). A girlfriend called me into her room and put in the stage play Madea’s Family Reunion. I’d never heard of Tyler Perry or Madea, but enjoyed the stage play sans the seemingly infinite gospel interludes – probably because I am Methodist and used to operatic singing of hymns.

The Madea character and Perry in general did not get “scholarly” for me until I taught a black gender archetype course last year. By the time I found myself in a position to analyze Perry’s impact on black and American popular culture he was no longer a member of the underground stage play chitilin-esque circuit. Perry’s catapulting into Hollywood as a legit producer because of crossover successes including movie adaptations of his stage plays, a hand in the film Precious (2009) and his latest screen adaptation For Colored Girls set to hit theatres at the end of the year suggest Perry not only as a powerhouse of African American film but also as a gateway for the interpretation of blackness and, more particularly, late 20th and 21st century black women’s experiences. The majority of Perry’s women characters validate their blackness and ultimately their womanhood through overcoming horrifically traumatic ordeals. Perry’s presentations of black women’s narratives are often monolithic and all consuming, which has lead many critics and Shange enthusiasts to voice concerns about how Perry manhandled (pun intended) the script. Perhaps the biggest question/fear is if Madea makes a cameo appearance as the lady in drag.

This essay, however, is not to address whether or not Perry qualifies as a legit producer or screenwriter for For Colored Girls. Rather, I am intrigued by the advertisement of the film and, more particularly, the individual actress posters released to market it. I was particularly struck by the vividness of the colors (or lack thereof) used for each actress and how those details paralleled the narratives being presented in each frame.

Read Complete Essay at TheLoop21

Rackin' Up on the Down Low: Profiting off of Queer Sexuality

2010-10-07T21:40:00.004-04:00

Oprah tried to show out with her revisit to the downlow on today's show. I'm not even going to front, I fidgeted in my seat just a lil'. Not because of the content but the timing and presentation of the topic. While I applaud your effort to bring this grave concern to the forefront, Oprah boo, you should have really thought this one though just a little bit longer. Is it because you're still mad at Kanye?

The media circus surrounding Bishop Eddie Long's supposed sexual trysts and their impact on the consumption of black sexual identities is still at category 5 - black mandingo status. Oprah's show, which may have been recorded before the Long drama even took hold of the national media's attention, added to this whirlwind of attention that casts not only African American men but African American gay men into a deeper pigeonhole of a victimizer with sexual insatiability.

What is even more fascinating is how the media's depictions have constructed an archetype of a down low black male predator that poses a greater threat than the heterosexual African American male body. Down low stereotypes blend two major fears - the general fear of the black male body and homophobia. I intentionally use "the" because of the accepted practice of making the black man a monolithic being incapable of digressing from any preconceived notions of black masculine identity.

The down low "predator" is made hyperaware within African American circles. This was made especially prevalent with Oprah's guests J.L. King and his wife Brenda. I don't know how I really feel about King except for "ehh."

My first introduction to King was back in 2003 during a convocation my sophomore year at Albany State. Before King's book, down low connoted a secret, heterosexual affair that R. Kelly got his ass whooped about. He gave a talk about sexual awareness and attempted to address questions about the down low. I remember King vividly because he rolled a condom down his arm as a demonstration of how condoms don't break, much to the horror of some of my classmates and the humor of others. Any kind of seriousness was quickly dismissed afterward. The conversation completely broke down. Many folks left with the same "what the hell" look on their face that they came in with.

Here's my hangup with King: what exactly is he advocating? How is he contributing to the eradication of this problem? King is one of the primary people to profit from this "phenomenon" and continues to do so nearly a decade after coming out to America through a book deal.

What is extremely disheartening about the (lack of) constructive discourse surrounding down low activity is how profitable it is. Aside from King and King's ex-wife Brenda, it has been increasingly visible and capitalized upon in pop culture ( The Boondocks and an episode of Law and Order:SVU immediately come to mind), literature (E. Lynn Harris arguably jump started his career with down low narratives), and social-political commentary. While today's Oprah was heart wrenching, the woman Bridget B.'s interview and her primary reason for being on the show was the $12 million dollar settlement she received after being infected with HIV because of (the orientation of?) her ex-husband's outside sexual activity. There was little discussion about ways to prevent these occurrences as well as the spread of AIDS. Any opportunity to advocate a solution was severely underutilized.

We live in an increasingly awkward social climate desperately attempting to cling to a fast unraveling social hierarchy stratified by traditional perceptions of gender and race. The responses to these social-cultural shifts are increasingly violent and disturbing. With the recent explosion of queer expression into mainstream American culture and social practices there needs to be an equivalent action to address the concerns surrounding the queer body, gay culture, and gay social concerns. The fusion of non-heteronormative culture with mainstream America should be respected and not reduced to a profitable social fad.

Held to His Unchanging Hand: My Paw Paw, Eugene Barnett, Jr.

2010-10-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

Allow me to say from the offset that I'm privileged, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, all the world bows at my feet, and I have no idea what the term "struggle" entails. Now that I have acknowledged any factor that would misconstrue, distort, misinterpret, or disrespect the intent of this personal narrative, I have yet one more disclaimer: this essay is about my grandaddy, my Paw Paw. And if one so desires to do any of the above, I will unapologetically and with no regrets use said privilege to whoop yo ass.

My granddaddy Eugene Barnett was Superman. He didn't have that lame red cape - he was an Omega man, after all - but he had the strength and swagger of 50 men. As a little girl, I stood wide-eyed with amazement at how easily Paw Paw lifted me in the air or how quickly he maneuvered that belt. Whenever we went to town (we lived in the boonies!) there was an immediate acknowledgement of my Paw Paw's gangsta. He always stood to every inch of his 6'3 frame, never cowering. Always looking people in the face. He demanded respect without saying a word. I would stretch my spine to stand a little taller when with Paw Paw out of adoration. I guess some of that authority rubbed off on me, because every time I went out alone I'd catch whispers of "Hey now. That's Mr. Barnett's granddaughter."

Paw Paw was the epitome of "grown ass man."     His gangsta spanned decades, confronting an openly racist 1950s and 1960s Albany, GA by carrying a shotgun in the back window of his truck as warning not to fuck with him. Often to my grandmother's chagrin, he never held his tongue. Paw Paw was an original Down South Georgia Boy.

My grandaddy was a hustler. Nana boo would tell me stories of she and granddaddy's financial struggles as newlyweds. She talked about how Paw Paw worked 3-4 jobs at a time, often coming home from teaching to go to his night job(s). And, perhaps most importantly, Paw Paw was adamant about pursuing an education. He viewed his hard work as being repaid with his children and grandchildren excelling in school.

When I was about eight years old, I got my first taste of my grandfather's attitude about education. He hoisted me on his lap, gave me a big hug, and straight forwardly stated, "Gina Lou, you're a beautiful, bright little black girl. So, so smart. White people underestimate that. They think niggas don't like to read. They put that knowledge into a book. I'm so happy you love to read.  That makes you a threat. You got smarts, girl. Use 'em. Use 'em!" At first, I didn't really understand why he was so adamant about my reading and doing well in school, but it had to be a damn good reason - what Paw Paw said was law. I obliged.

Education became my top priority. For the most part my earlier academic ambitions were selfish - a sista had to go the parties, keep the car, be able to live my life. My friends still can't believe my grandfather made me sign a contract to maintain my GPA in order to keep my car. That ambition served me well. I graduated high school. College. And Paw Paw was front row. Proud. Winking at me like I was the best in the world.

Then Paw Paw started to show he wasn't Superman.

He started frequenting the hospital more often. Increasingly too weak to get out of the bed.  One night while visiting my folks on vacation from Indiana I heard my grandmother screaming for me to come to the bathroom.  Paw Paw fell on the floor. The look in his eyes didn't show embarrassment but vulnerability. It struck me hard. I went into action, cutting jokes and making him smile as we helped him to the bed. I felt a fierce loyalty to this man and his well being. I called him everyday. Tried to make granddaddy laugh and lift his spirits. But his health continued to deteriorate. Paw Paw's battle gave a whole new meaning to "the mind is willing but the body ain't able." His spirit was inspiring. Granddaddy embodied triumph over multiple adversities. I wanted to transfer his pain onto my own body because I knew Paw Paw would do the same for me.

I wanted to make my Paw Paw proud. Those days when I wanted to quit my doctoral coursework, I called him, cussing and all. He told me, "Barnetts don't quit. Keep praying, keep fighting, keep pushin'." If my Paw Paw could keep on keepin' on, I had no excuse not to do the same. I hung up, re-focused.

A few months before his death, I was helping him get ready for dialysis. He couldn't hoist me in his lap like he used to. Couldn't give me those awesome hugs that shielded me from the world. But he held me tight as he could and said, "you've never seen me this sick, huh baby? I'm going to fight. We're fighters, Lou. I'm going to see you get that PhD!" I turned my head and felt hot tears drop on my cheeks.

My grandfather fought until he died October 2, 2009. My superman was gone.

It's been a year. I've reached doctoral candidacy. Got married. Lost direction.  Struggled with staying inspired, retaining ambition.   My grandfather's loss is still fresh. Perhaps because Paw Paw was my best friend and I never had to censor how I was feeling. Perhaps because we were kindred spirits. More importantly, however, my Paw Paw was unchanging. He never left my life. Never was out of sight. When I had strained relationships with my father and ex-stepfather, my grandfather had my back. I take back what I said about my grandfather being Superman. He wasn't. He was a phenomenal man.

No cape required.

Smilin' Serpent: the Violent Passion of Tupac Shakur

2010-09-13T03:21:00.002-04:00

In the event of my demise

When my heart can beat no more

I hope I die for a principle

Or a belief that I had lived 4 ~Tupac Amaru Shakur

A rebel. Violently Passionate. The rose that grew from concrete. A black man combating inner demons. Methinks he made Shakespeare proud. Made Geronimo proud. Set the standard. Exceeded expectations. Deliciously Complex. My older cousin's and her friends' imaginary baby daddy (Yes, he was just that fine). Ghetto Poet Laureate. Piccolo. The Hip Hop Generation's Trouble Man. The Hood Prince. Constantly in revelation. Consistently pushing to be better. The laughing, Shining Serpent. Self-eulogizer. Gone too soon.

As I tried to write this post, so many thoughts raced through my head about the man, the myth, and the legend of Tupac Amaru Shakur, a lost cub of the Black Panther Party. I was only twelve at his death, an awkward seventh grader who only spit common knowledge trivia questions about Tupac to fit in: he was with Death Row, beefed with Biggie, He was T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E., from Baltimore, wrote "Dear Mama," and ran with Digital Underground early in his career. Saw him a few times in movies that I snuck to watch at my cousin's house like Poetic Justice, Juice, and Above the Rim. At that time I couldn't appreciate Shakur's complexity, his open battle with inner demons, his struggles to maintain an identity that both fed into and separated from expectations of black masculinity in American (popular) culture. For many, Shakur provided the bridge between the black nationalist thought of the 1960s and Hip Hoppers of the 1980s and 1990s. This was especially prevalent in his poetry, with poems like "Lady Liberty Needs Glasses," "When Ure Hero Falls," and "How can We Be Free."

What's fascinating to me as a scholar and as a Hip Hop enthusiast is the pulsating presence Shakur maintains in a frivolous rap and black American culture. Even more intriguing about Shakur's perceptions of life and death was Shakur's spontaneous and often inexplicable laugh at horrific situations sprinkled throughout his creative catalog. Shakur's tragicomic outlook dictated not only his performance but interpersonal relationships. Many of his interviews show not only a lyricist but a waxer of philosophy, often working out ideas and theories while answering questions.

I'd argue that Shakur's life and influence in contemporary black culture serves as the metanarrative (master narrative) of Hip Hop post those stories waxed after 1996. What is most striking about Shakur's narrative is his desire to openly connect audience to his innermost battles, critiquing the same temptations and corruptions that he embraces as a young African American man. While exposing his insecurities and shortcomings, Shakur maintains control of his stories, both in reality and imagined mediums like his movie roles. He borrowed from difficult situations (i.e. the relationship with his mother or his rape case in 1994) to serve as the undercurrent for much of his creativity.

Projects revealed Shakur's pseudo-schizophrenic obsession with death and resurrection. These tropes manifested in videos like "I Ain't Mad Atcha" or the collabo featuring Scarface"Smile," and the coverart of The Don Illuminati: the 7 Day Theory (1996). Frighteningly accurate, "I Ain't Mad Atcha's" violent demise of Shakur's character in the arms of a then relatively unknown Bokeem Woodbine echoes his own violent death in Las Vegas. Shakur's embrace of violence, passion, and death reflected his understanding of not only his personal convictions but those surrounding the consumption of his work (and his black body) through a public American lens engrained in the stereotypical representations of the black male experience. As a metanarrative, Shakur set up shop for the juxtapositions of African American manhood through rap music. DMX and TI immediately come to mind -but certainly not the only followers of this model -borrowing from Shakur's model of being self-eulogizing, a streetlife bard, and openly embracing death at an early age.

On a personal note, I added to my Tupac memory archive over the years. My most cherished one occurred in July 2008 while teaching Upward Bound in Indiana. One of my students, Zeke, initially struggled in my English class with his writing and was soft spoken. After a lot of encouragement, re-enforcement, and a little hoodrich pedagogy - You best bust ya ass on this paper and leave these lil girls alone!!! - Zeke was coming full circle with tremendous force and passion. The last assignment of the summer was a personal narrative about how the student defined success. I cried as I read Zeke's essay. He reflected about his life in Gary, Indiana, how teachers doomed him before he even gave himself a chance, and ended the essay with how fucked up he was at witnessing the murder of his best friend. I decided to share one of my favorite poems "In the Event of my Demise." It's one of those poems that resounded most deeply in my spirit and helped me get through many dark moments like the deaths of my father and my own best friend. We talked about it at tutoring. This poem must've softened a rough patch in Zeke's soul too. He referenced the poem in his last journal entries and class discussions. The last day of class I asked him to stay behind. I gave him my copy of The Rose that Grew from Concrete.

Secret Window: Dissertation Rant #1

2010-09-06T12:11:00.003-04:00

--The title pretty much says all I'm thinking. I'm in a frustrative space where only the people in my head know I'm making sense.

--I need a voodoo doll with "DISSERTATION" written across the chest....just to give it as much pain as I feel about it.

-- People sayin' it will be okay and yada yada yada:

A.) are unfamiliar

B.) are too Familiar and been through this dark land

C.) are Know it Alls who wish to pour their infinite amounts of wisdom into a closed and battered urn. Sometimes, you just gotta rant.

--This sucks...this sucks...this sucks...

--This prospectus shit is for the birds

--Will I EVER read enough and feel comfortable writing about it?

--Once, just once, I wish I had a TYPE I.D.G.F. personality.....

--No, for real, this Prospectus Shit is for the BIRRRRRRRDS-ZUH!

--I can't quit because of my ego...too many people have told I can't do it for various reasons

--Wanted to slap this chick at the bookstore because she had the audacity to claim all I'm doing is reading and writing about something "academic-y" because her friend who just started grad school said so....GIRL BYE! I'M WRITING A BOOK OF MY OWN CRITICAL THOUGHTS! RUN TELL THAT!

--Maybe I need to take up residency in Radio Raheem's Radio....or Frederick Douglass' beard for encouragement and direction

--Writing a Dissertation about African American humor and not once have I laughed in the process.

--Quittin' is for bitches....but my fingers have graced the application.

--If brilliance is an indication of insanity well...

--Political Correctness is a wedgie in my thought process...

--Everybody is offended/disgruntled/sensitive to every damn thing. I'm crackin' the code...I don't give a flying....be offended. Just be offended.

--When I look at the greats in my field, I tremble in fear I just won't make the cut.

--Trying to keep my faith by the chokehold. I'm wrestling you, God. I'm ready for my blessing.

Manicured Street Dreams and Dreamers: Street Authenticity and Rap Culture

2010-08-27T11:52:00.003-04:00

411: I submitted this piece for the XXL Magazine Guest 360 Blogger Competition. I loved the question, didn't make it to the spot...maybe I sounded too nerdy LOL. It's all good I enjoyed writing it!
---

I’m surprised the idea of street still has such relevance as a gauge of authenticity in Hip Hop Culture. This is a capitalistic era where experiences are manufactured and imagined for a consumer audience who often does not have a clue. Street culture and music can make a profit. For the most part, today’s idea and interpretation of street music is often subjected to trend and demand – what was once representative of inner city black America is now also synonymous with manicured lawns in the ‘burbs. To be street is an option, not a requirement; a business move instead of an experience.

Initially, street music that was released or absorbed into mainstream American culture spoke to the chaos and anxiety African-Americans were facing. The street was a designated space of struggle and survival, often negative but always a marker of one’s authenticity and reality. Street rap, like its predecessors, provided a space for discussing the dangers of being black. Cue Public Enemy’s 1990 release Fear of a Black Planet, with the anthems “Fight the Power,” “911 is a Joke,” and “Welcome to the Terror Dome.” They defined street rap as protest music, speaking to tragedies of police brutality, poverty, and why being black in America was such a damn raw deal.

What I applaud Young Jeezy for in his interview with Rondell Conway was his acknowledgement of both his personal experience and the business aspect of his music. While referring to his “way of life,” Jeezy also points out that he has to sell his “brand.” As Conway points out, “he [Jeezy] is confident that his brand of trap music has permanently impacted hip hop and made him one of the last authentic street dudes in rap.” Jeezy’s branding of his life and music represents a fairly recent trend in rap music to trademark one’s experience in order to observe and authenticate them – “If I verbally and entrepreneurially claim rights to what I’ve been through and put it on wax no one can test me.” There is a dual need to prove one’s lived experience in the literal street and that of the public imagination. Often these two space conflict and cause friction for the artist personally and otherwise – look at T.I.’s T.I. vs. T.I.P. (2007). Jeezy appears to have mastered that delicate line and it suits him well.

Shyne, however, is extremely unique for two reasons –he is international (literally) and was most active in the previous decade. What was most intriguing about Shyne’s interview was not only his brutal honesty about his situation but his dedication to the resuscitation of his home country of Belize and street culture. His answers read like a throwback black nationalist, (re)dedicating his life and music to represent “doin’ what’s right for sufferers and for poor people and for muthufuckas on the bottom.” Shyne’s international perspective is especially intriguing because it aligns most closely to the purpose of street culture from the 1960s in America and that ideology of ‘by whatever means necessary’ (cue your power fist, folks!). Even more gangsta about this man is his refusal (inability?) to distinguish the barriers between his music, his persona, and Hip Hop as a business. There is no distinction between street and reality. One has to wonder if Shyne’s brand of music even fits into today’s scene because of how, dare I say, authentic he seemingly proves himself to be. If he never comes back to the U.S., he can always get Wood Harris to perform for him. You know they’re twins, right?

Keeping Consciousness in the Ivory Tower

2010-08-20T09:51:00.000-04:00

Authenticity debates exist outside the realm of Hip Hop Culture and rap music.
Let me give an example from my archives:

I met with tenured Professor Guy X (or your favorite alphabet letter) back when I first started my MA. He called me into his office of books - I'm a fiend for and always salivate at a sexy library - and asked me where I saw my career heading in the next twenty years. Twenty years? Chile boo. Can I get past this first semester? Not pee a little when I look at my weekly reading schedule, who, if it could talk, would probably say "do you really want this ass whoopin'?!"

"Well, sir, I.....I hope to teach and really contribute something to the understanding of people of color," I stammered. If one my best girlfriends the superdiva pageant queen heard my response, she would just shake her head. I didn't move him at all.

"Miss Barnett, seeing that you are fairly young and inexperienced in the academe, let me stress to you the importance of not only dedicating your life to your work but also understanding how cut throat the academy can be, especially to scholars of color. You have to prepare yourself, immerse yourself..." I zoned out after that.

There go those damn moon crickets again.

I quickly scooted from his office. I barely committed myself to pursuing a graduate degree and dude was pushing for a lifetime commitment of scholastic excellence? No dinner and wooing first? Apparently not. As a first semester, 22 year old MA student, it scared me shitless how some professors expected some ingenious, carefully crafted theoretical framework to speak to the ills facing the African Diaspora. Basically what the brotha was trying to tell me was that all that "leisure" time was dead and gone. No more going to Club Pendergrass Sunday through Thursday nights, professing full out support of procrastination, and just merrily drifting through my twenties. Oh no, not you, you wanna be scholar.

That's when the panic attacks and four or five times a day phone calls home and to my future husband started. I couldn't handle being seen in a strictly academic lens. *Cue Rocky theme music* But I adjusted, I adapted, and carried on. And then, something bad happened. I went home.

My first trip back home, I felt a big disconnect from those same friends, sorors, and bruhs I was JUST clubbin' with not even six months before. How the hell do I feel like a visitor to my own city?! Just like that, I lost my pass. All I wanted to talk about was...school or some interesting theory I was tinkering with or some ideas I had floating around in my head. And I expected my folks to know where I was coming from because they knew me. That got shut down when one of my boys kindly shrugged it off and said, "Gina Mae, that ain't got shit to do with me or what's going down in life. How is that relevant?" Pow.

One of the drawbacks to being, ahem, a "schooooooluuuuuuuh" is often losing the ability to link your academic approaches to the real world. Bruh was more scholastic that day than me with his observations. And I didn't understand where he was coming from until this past January. Oh yes, it took me until my candidacy exams to realize that in order for my interests to make sense they HAD to stay relevant and current.

In my Hip Hop writing course this past spring we discussed how to situate Hip Hop into and write about it in the academy. Our textbook was Mark Anthony Neal and Murray Forman's edited anthology That's the Joint!: the Hip Hop Studies Reader (2001). We discussed articles anchored in the following questions:
1.) What makes this cat an expert in said area of Hip Hop Culture?
2.) How do they keep their research fresh and relevant?
3.) What writing approach do they use to address these themes and issues seen in Hip Hop Culture?

Our conversations often rested on the third question and their responses were fascinating. Eric Michael Dyson, for example, really "got did in" by my students because of the arduous language he uses to talk about rap music. One of my students opened the conversation with "it's a damn shame I have to pick up a dictionary to understand every other word Dyson is attempting to use." There it is.

While it's pretty apparent that Dyson's audience is majorily academic, his realm extends outside of the Ivory Tower into a lay audience of everyday folks. In my own studies, I'm always intrigued by those experts in the field who pompously speak for all, transcend all, and are superior to all. Dr. Such-and-Such writes about rap or popular culture yet you also blatantly and frequently profess you stopped listening, stopped watching, and gave up on the exact topics you claim expertise in?

Everyone has their beautiful struggle. For me, it's maintaining a sense of where I'm from with my training as a scholar. There is a constant struggle between the 'Bany girl "Gina Mae" and the doctoral candidate "Regina," with little room for the two to exchange fluidly and fluently. I am attempting to navigate a rigid space that allows for little breathing room. On top of that, you'll be damned if you breathe the wrong way. I, like many other next generation cultural and social critics, am trying to keep a choke-hold on my passion and experiences while finding a way to make what I am passionate about academic. Like an IV, the academy, popular culture, and "real life" are slowly dripping into each other and becoming inextricably linked. When will our scholastic approaches indicate this on a grand scale?

Can't Rep a Side, Just Stuck in the Middle - My Personal Experiences with Colorism and Class

2010-08-18T12:09:00.002-04:00

From as far back as my youngin' days, I've been consistently reminded of light skinntedness and dark skinntedness. Skin color and class are inextricably linked where I'm from. In the 'Bany, the sides of town were often framed and stratified by skin color - amongst the black folks! The east and south sides were supposedly the working class folks who happened to have a little more melanin than most. The west and north sides were reserved for well off, bougie lighter blacks who "were tryna front and be whiter than they ass really was." I didn't rep a side at concerts and football games. I was in the boonies. I lived in the field, literally - my house was surrounded by corn and cotton fields outside the city limits. I repped Dougherty County. As I got older and wanted to socialize, my grandparents were weary of certain places in which I was forbidden to go - football games on the eastside, friend's houses on the eastside....wait, just the eastside in general. That was the nigga side of town, my Paw Paw stressed. What, I couldn't be a nigga? Or nigga by affiliation? Is it 'cause I'm lightskinned? But I digress...

There was a particular incident in high school that really made colorism tangible for me. My senior year I was a debutante. I was talking to a girlfriend about how debutante practice was getting on my last nerve. I ranted, "who cares if I know how to do a box waltz or whatever the hell that little bougie two step is!?" Girlfriend looked at me quizzically and said, "you're light skinned, you got money, and if you didn't do it, you'd be a fake."

Daddy and Me, 2001
courtesy of Yaz Photography

I didn't know what to say. I was beggin' my folks for weekly allowance like er'body else. I concurred with what Claire Huxtable told Vanessa after she got into a fight at school - "you're not rich, Vanessa. Your father and I are." If my folks had this mystery money my friend so fiercely believed they had, they were being stingier than a republican on Sunday.

Fastforward to college. I really struggled with the question of whether or not I wanted to, ahem, join a Black Greek Letter Organization. Colorism busted my ass again at the age of 20:
"You gonna do AKA ain't you?!?! You're a shoe-in. You lightskinnted!"
"You gonna do AKA ain't you?!?! You got money!"
"You gonna do AKA ain't you?!?! If you don't, your grandmama 'nem gon' whoop yo ass!"

I tried my damndest not to join Alpha Kappa Alpha because of the stigmas attached to it. But, you can't run from who you are. I feel like a neo defending my honor when I say this but I joined because of the women who lifted me up - and they were light and dark complected...and about their business.

For one of our townhall meeting conversations, I helped organize a panel to talk about the role of intra-racial relations and identity. We opened with the notorious "paper bag test." I took it. I failed. And the room was wide-eyed with amazement. Even some of my chapter sorors gasped. I don't know why. I got some melanin. Chuch.

Graduated college, went to graduate school, started coming into my own and comfortable with my blackness, and then...I went to a conference. Met a very beautiful, Afro'ed like Angela Davis sista who stayed after to chat with me about my paper. Everything started out with those formal niceties:
"your paper was enjoyable..."
"Thanks..."
"Have you considered X, Y, and Z..."
"Hmmm, not in that context but I will, thanks for the suggestions..."

And then.....the big one:
"Sis, why do you relax your hair? How do you consider yourself a blossoming scholar in black culture and you look like that? Are you ashamed of your blackness?"
*moon crickets*

How was I supposed to politely sidestep and side EYE this question. Honestly, I did it because I wanted to. I liked the way it looked. And, partly, it was how I was raised. Which leads to my last little bit....
why this colorism thing is a pain in my ass.

I don't think the sista from the conference was trying to be condescending or start a rumble in the hotel conference room. But I did find myself perturbed by it. She's not the first person to question me about my grooming - peers in my MA program (which, by the way, was African American and African Diaspora Studies), friends, even that random ranter on the street corner.

My sister and my Mother
on my Wedding Day 17 July 2010

My folks, however, never really questioned it nor made me conscious of race. My mother is German and African-American, my father was straight Negro. Many of my aunts and uncles are white or Asian, and my sister had grey eyes when she was born. If this was the 1900-1920s many of my kinfolk could "pass." My paternal grandparents, however, did make me conscious of race because of their past experiences. They showed me things as a teaching tool, to make me aware that there were some folks in the world - black, white, and other - who paid attention to race in often trivial ways. And yet, something that I continuously battle and struggle with is this idea of being unabashedly black when, often, so many of my experiences and characteristics that I have are interpreted to scream I'm trying to embrace my inner white girl. This has got to stop - being educated, enjoying a diverse group of friends, and a little Miracle Whip on my sandwich doesn't mean I'm expulsing or even exorcising my inner black woman.

What is frightening is that while living in a society that is attempting to expunge race as an identity factor, African-Americans are keeping racial identity alive through stratifying ourselves based on various shades of blackness. As if we have a meeting with the Creator like "hey, I want 20% melanin." I didn't have a choice in how black I am. What's problematic is that how black I look is how black I'm perceived to be. Whatever that means.

Bust Ya Ass on the Black Ice and Laugh: The Tragi-Comedic Generation

2010-08-16T12:36:00.000-04:00

I'm an '84 baby. According to Walter Kimbrough and Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar I barely made the Hip Hop Generation. I don't really remember the "golden" era of Hip Hop culture as lived experience - I was too busy with He-Man, Care Bears, Lite Brites, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - but I went back later on in life and appreciated that moment in history.

What I DO remember, however, is what I was doing on September 13, 1996 and March 9, 1997.

That date in September was a Friday (go figure) and I was watching MTV music videos and on the phone with the BFF. Suddenly, the screen switched to a flashing "this just in" announcement that the rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur died from the gunshot wounds he sustained the week before in a drive-by shooting. The next morning when I got together with the crew, people were outside in my neighborhood walking the streets as if they had lost a dear family member. Tupac's music seeped into the streets from open windows and, already, folks were wearing homemade "R.I.P. 'Pac" shirts. It was a similar scene when Biggie Smalls died that March. He died late that Sunday night. The next day, I was at school in Band class. Our teacher, Mrs. Dobberstein (which, by the way, is the most trill white woman THIS side of the 'Sippi) announced that he passed and we'd have a moment of silence for his memory.

Still, I was around for, remember, and could appreciate other moments in the last twenty years that my students make me feel old for remembering - like Bill Clinton being the first black president; Buying OutKast albums as new releases; watching the live news report about 50 Cent being shot nine times; Eminem's first major album drop; and Dave Chappelle pre- Chappelle's Show. I guess in similar fashion to generations past and future, life for me began with a certain moment in history that I latched onto as the epicenter of that generation's identity. What is so fascinating about my generation, however, is the notion that the majority of our milestone events are tragic or comedic (or both) in nature.

I'd argue that my era of folks - those people born between 1980 and 1990 - are the tragi-comedic generation. This decade is unique because of not only the memories of the Tupac and B.I.G. deaths referenced earlier, but also the assistance with and election of the first U.S. president of color Barack Obama. I stopped at 1990 because those folks were 18 and eligible to vote in the 2008 presidential election. To include 1990, however, was iffy for me. My youngest brother, who was born in 1990, and his friends, born the same year or later, believe that rap music started with Gucci Mane and OJ da Juiceman (smh). Tragic-comedy as defined by Shakespearean scholars and Ralph Ellison is the act of dark, bitter comedy to speak to a socially relevant issue or concern. Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) speaks to the existential question of humanity in American society with a nod toward how that impacts the understanding of blackness. Often profound in his thinking, Ellison once situated his use of tragi-comedic writing as the most formidable approach for him to talk about the underlying tropes of Americanism:

Ralph Ellison

"Maybe ultimately what I write always turns out to be tragicomedy, which I think has proved to be the underlying mode of American experience. We don't remember enough; we don't allow ourselves to remember events, and I suppose this helps us to continue our belief in progress."

While Ellison refused to pigeonhole himself into strictly African Americanist thought and literature, his thoughts about the ideas of remembrance keenly speak to the current situation of black American culture and our understanding of community. While Ellison spoke to a generation that looked to overcoming tangible racial barriers of prejudice and oppression, today's tragi-comedic generation does not. Many of us have been taught by parents to take a hold of the American mantra of manifest destiny and "get in where we fit in." The opportunities to advance (capitalistically and otherwise) are not stigmatized outwardly by those issues faced by many of our parents and grandparents who fought for access to those rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

Us 1980s babies perceive America through a different lens than that of folks before or after us. We were born and grew up in an era where blackness indefinitely crossed over, i.e. the year 1986 when the historical collaboration between Hip Hop pioneers Run D.M.C. and Aerosmith "Walk this Way" (a remake of Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" from their 1975 album Toys in the Attic) became wildly popular and talk show legend Oprah Winfrey's show The Oprah Winfrey Show was nationally syndicated. Blackness was no longer presented as a monolithic struggle - it was no longer televised images of dogs attacking weaponless marchers in the south or beret and leather jacket wearing, mean-mugging black men calling for whites to kiss their asses. Instead, in a nearly "Kum Bah Yah" moment, black folks seemed to be successful. The tides shifted and there was an audience for the "new" black America in a white public space.

Cue Ellison's warning about forgetting the past. That is a dangerously prophetic notion to discuss present day black culture. What is, unfortunately, severely overlooked are the remembrances of those horrific notions of racial consciousness that shaped generations past. The "passing down" of previous experiences is no longer common practice. The generation gap that is referenced so often in both academic and lay conversations about the state of African-Americans is widening. The need to remember is overshadowed by the desire to focus on the present.

Usher in the need to find a way to collapse the rickety discourses about blackness and American life in the late 20th and 21st centuries. Cue African American humor.

As critic Bambi Haggins points out, "no longer was the laughter solely to keep from crying; the [post] civil rights moment marked the beginning of black humor's potential power as an unabashed tool for social change for the unfiltered venting of cultural and political anger, and for the annunciation of blackness." The 1990 debut of Keenen Ivory Wayans' comedy sketch show In Living Color carved itself a niche as a filter for the rapidly changing racial and social-cultural front of American (popular) culture. The inclusion of white comics - a la a young James (Jim) Carrey - suggested a shift in race relations and spoke to the changing tide of social acceptability and consumption of black comedy and culture. In Living Color challenged people to re-think what was appropiate to laugh at and what should be left alone.Wayans' intentional grappling of social-cultural taboo issues - (homo)sexuality, prison, and taunts at hegemonic white privilege - forced the show's audience to (re)consider those underlying motifs framing American society and its experiences. Wayans' work set up shop for later comedic variety shows like Mad TV (1995) and the now infamous Chappelle's Show (2004).

The question, then, is how African American Humor shapes not only our understanding of the black experience but how it is transforming the narratives that are coming out of the last 20 years.

I'm working on it.

Fortress of In-Solitude: Representations of Mental Health in Black America

2010-08-13T13:29:00.006-04:00

Within the last year, the idea of black folks having (the capacity to have?) mental health concerns has surfaced through the American popular culture. From the media frenzy surrounding Fantasia Barrino's suicide attempt to Ron Artest's shoutout to his psychiatrist after the Lakers won this year's NBA Finals, a quickly emerging albeit intriguing disposition is rising to the top of our daily conversations: how do we deal with the taboo issues of the African American psyche?

Not talking about it is going out of style faster than shaving 1/2 your head (which, for some, could definitely be a cry for help because of its H.A.Mness). The idea that mental affliction is a white dis-ease and that blacks are immune to such misfortunes blankets both our understanding of mental health in the African American community as well as its treatment. There is a widespread (mis)understanding that to acknowledge issues of depression, suicide, bi-polarism, schizoprhenia, and other psychological concerns would be to suggest that in addition to being black, being "touched-ed" in the head makes African-Americans further reprehensible.

I am not suggesting that the black psyche is unexplored. Rather, in popular culture, its presence is increasingly apparent, demanding attention and ways to approach situate its position in (African) American discourses. Fascinatingly, the ways in which it is explored are telling signs of how African-Americans treat this problem. Humor, for example, often outlines our perception of mental health. The often absurdly exaggerated images of blacks with mental disorders in minstrel-esque or over-imaginative roles creates a forced space of acknowledgement for mental health yet enough distance that the audience's disassociates itself with it. In other words, we laugh at that in which we do not see ourselves, creating a barrier between proactive resolve and re-active contribution.

Other manifestations of the African American psyche are often dark and unforgiving, inextricably linked with circumstance and racial prejudice. Representations of black men's incoherency are often violent and explosive, an ultimatum of social circumstance and frustration. Black male characters often implode under the weight of their own indiscretions and refusal to "allow anyone in" because of the premise they would be less of a man if they acknowledged their problems publicly. Toni Morrison's characters Paul D in Beloved (1987) and Shadrack from her 1973 novel Sula find unhealthy ways to deal with their growingly schizophrenic episodes. Shadrack, in fear of someone taking his life, suggests an annual National Suicide day on January 3rd to his fellow citizens of The Bottoms. Richard Wright's Bigger Thomas and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man also show signs of insanity as coping mechanisms, often a result of a traumatic or turbulent experience inflicted upon them because of their blackness and gender.

African-American women, however, often brunt their burdens taciturnly. This is apparent in both liberatory and neo-liberatory narratives of slave women who disclose their suffering through letters instead of direct, vocal disclosure. Trudier Harris' essay "This Dis-Ease Called Strength: Some Observations on the Compensating Construction of Black Female Character" addresses the danger of viewing the "strength" of remaining silent about stressors regarding black women as a positive attribute. Morrison's Beloved and Alice Walker's novels -especially The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) and The Color Purple (1982) - confront the unpleasantries and damaging impacts of slavery on the psyches of women of color. Edward P. Jones' addresses "touched-ed"-ness slightly differently in the creation of the character Alice from The Known World (2001). Alice purposefully presents herself as mentally disabled in order to maintain some sense of freedom and understanding of herself. Her utilization of mental handicap as a coping mechanism not only speaks to her refusal to succumb to her abrasive environment but also her ability to find a way to remove herself from the racist discourse that sought to define her identity.

While the black psyche has continued to diverge from private to public scrutiny, the recent hash of events speaks to something quite disturbing - how can we view the seriousness of some of these concerns as a trend? In other words, Fantasia's suicide attempt, Artest's shoutouts, and this notion of black mental instability is what's hot in them streets. Cue my favorite saying: where they do that at? While Artest acknowledging his seeking of professional help is to be applauded, the premise of his shoutout is further complicated - only folks with some money can seek out help, it is a luxury. For a brief moment, race is replaced by class. Instead of bringing attention to these afflictions as such, they are dismissed as simply part of "what black people (celebrities) do." This (not really) new avenue of black suffering is profitable. What is undermined is the critical need to address such concerns from a perspective of healing. Instead, it is distorted as another popular means of black expression.

Mental affliction for African-American is real. How we approach it however, is from distanced and imaginary perspectives. This ideology needs to be collapsed and replaced by a discourse that allows for people of color to confront psychological issues without fear of being ridiculed or reprimanded for their acknowledgement.

Keepin' it Novacaine: Desensitization and Social-Cultural Awareness in America

2010-07-23T13:31:00.002-04:00

My first "scared shitless" moment occurred when I was five. My mom and I went to the video store Friday night per our weekly ritual to rent videos for the weekend. Out the corner of my eye, next to the Rainbow Brite VHSs I saw it. Black cover, blood red writing, and a picture of my boyfriend Michael Jackson: THRILLER. I heard the song on my folk's vinyl and already ruined two Moonwalker (1988) videotapes from over-watching them. Yes, THRILLER seemed a perfect replacement. I was grown. I was five. And my mom shot down my dreams.

I tried the next week and she finally relented and gave me the dollar for the rental. I hoped my mom would hurry the hell up so I could see it. My sweaty hands covered the box with anticipation of seeing MJ on the video. I popped it in. It started out cool enough. Date in the boonies. Car runs out of gas. Full moon. And then....he changed. Those eyes ran my blood cold. That was all I could take. And I ran behind my mother's chair scared to death to finish watching the tape. My loving, dear mother's response? "You been getting on my nerves these past two weeks to watch the damn video so watch it! Get over here!" I couldn't do it. Not until I was 20 years old.

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is still the top Halloween anthem. Jackson's transformation from the shy, handsome high school athlete into the hideous werewolf and zombie further into the video pleasantly and (in my case) fearfully shocked the audience into watching it. While this merits its own analysis - suppressed animosity, sexuality, etc. etc. etc. - I'm especially intrigued by the idea of the weight of shock value in American (popular) culture and its relation to social-cultural awareness.

Does being black still shock the masses?
Even in this present racial space of "multiculturalism," blackness still strikes fear into the heart of white society. The push to mold Americans into a nonpalpable mass of racial harmony is countered by the flooding of the often exaggerated, stereotypical representations of those same various ethnic identities that comprise the United States. Thus, the desensitization of America and its culture falls within the same normative discourse that has been the stronghold of white supremacist ideology since this country's inception.

What has changed, however, are the mediums presented. Instead of blatant, direct references to racial inferiority of the past like minstrel shows and films like Birth of a Nation (1915) public culture tip toes around racial inferences with Satire/Parody, fantasy, and apologist approaches. Shows like the brilliantly written series The Wire reflected a dark, gritty underworld of blackness that drew audiences in but still allowed them to change the channel after the credits rolled. The shock value of the show lessened each season, with it's finale sparking sentiments of "damn, that was good television writing" instead of "damn, that's scary reality for some folks." It's horrific to think that some of those same sentiments surrounded Oscar Grant's murder that was caught on tape and posted on YouTube.

Fascinatingly, those attempts that try to retain the avant guarde of the African American experience- intentionally shock their audience for purpose and reflection - are all too often devalued as a trend or fad. While I am not a huge fan, Sapphire's novel Push (1989) and its screen adaptation Precious (2009) have received critical acclaim and also kicked up a little dust in the process. The novel speaks to the overly strenuous battles of Claireece Precious Jones, an overweight, illiterate, teenage mother who is HIV positive because of the horrific incestuous abuse by her father. While I do not intend to take away from Sapphire's message of survival and transcendence, Precious steers the audience away from some of those underlying themes and focuses on the tragic, often unidimensional (stereotypical) aspects of black womens' experiences.

This was especially prevalent during this year's Oscars when the "best screenplay adaptation" nominees were announced. Although there were numerous powerful scenes adapted from the passages of the book to the screen, the scene chosen to represent the brilliance of screenplay adaptation was the scene where Precious steals a bucket of chicken and hauls ass down the street while eating it?! Not only does this display nonchalance towards the significance of the work, it also reaffirms those (mis)understandings of African American to a majorily white audience (and award selection committee).

Another example is Kara Walker's controversial and often awe-inspiring artwork gives voice to the black slave woman's experience. And, instead of attempting to deconstruct and interpret its meaning, it is often viewed strictly within "collector's must-have" and brushed off as uncomfortably trendy. Jean-Michel Basquiat fits into this category as well.

Kara Walker, Untitled

Where the lived experiences African Americans faced once sufficed to shock a nation into action (or at least force some acknowledgement of a difference in life for people of color from whites), those same images and narratives today would probably be shrugged off like Kanye. There is no gauge of social responsibility. The numbness and lack of social awareness exhibited by our society reflects not only in our popular culture but our responses to those real life travesties that influence made-for-TV melodramas and movies.

Keepin' it Novacaine is killin' us slowly. And we don't feel a thing.

Ridiculous Track: Backbone, "Been Blowin' Money"

2010-07-22T16:14:00.003-04:00

Now what kinda Red Clay Scholar would I be if I didn't include some of the tastes of the red clay that made me who I am? This is a new track by ATL bred rapper Backbone of the Dungeon Family (FIRST Generation) courtesy of the As the World Spins website. Get an Atlanta history lesson you can ride to.

Backbone - Been Blowin' Money by AsTheWorldSpins.com

Stayin' in the Trenches: A Sit Down with Legendary DJ Jelly

2010-07-22T14:56:00.001-04:00

Atlanta’s skyline mesmerized me as I went to meet with one of its living legends. Mind racing, I reviewed my questions and notes, eagerly anticipating this sit down with DJ Jelly. My new husband and I arrive at the J.R. Crickets in Castleberry Hill, taking in the very chill vibe. And, just as chill, Jelly greeted me with a warm hug and dap.

Jelly oozed enthusiasm and Hip Hop, downloading music on his apple computer while joking and laughing around with us. Various other folks occasionally dropped into our conversation, including fans, well wishers, and another ATL legendary DJ, DJ Shabazz. Originally from St. Louis, Jelly has been on the map for nearly the last two decades. Citing Biz Markie as an influence of including CD Jaying in his own style, Jelly moved from St. Louis to Atlanta in the late 1980s. From his first gig at Magic City in 1990 to the present, Jelly lives by the creed he teaches to his mentees – “you gotta get in the trenches.”

Those trenches shifted since he’s been in the game. And a legendary DJ understands the factors behind those changes.

Jelly reminisced about 1990s Atlanta and its music scene. “There was a sense of community here, but it wasn’t about Hip Hop at first. It was bass music out of Florida and R&B. LaFace was running things with acts like TLC. When I got a gig over at V103, we had an hour to showcase Hip Hop music. I got in a few years before OutKast and them got on the map,” Jelly reflects. His first intro to a then unknown OutKast was the single “Playa’s Ball” on the A LaFace Family Christmas compilation album in 1993. Jelly was not overly impressed. “I wasn’t really feeling the single like that. It was good, but I wasn’t like ‘damn!’” His mind changed after watching OutKast’s first video and watching Big Boi and Andre 3000 in action – “they had a presence,” Jelly remembers – and that appreciation escalated when Jelly got involved with Organized Noize and the Dungeon Family (comprised of OutKast, Goodie Mob, Backbone, and other Atlanta area emcees).

Jelly credits Organized Noize with bringing a new dimension of Hip Hop to Atlanta. “Ray (Murray), Ric (Wade), and Sleepy Brown had a vision. They didn’t want to be just southern rap. They wanted to bring Hip Hop to the next level. And they did. The lyricism and creation of the music they made was brilliant. Not everyone can be Organized Noize or ‘Kast. In today’s music climate, though, they don’t want to be and don’t need to be.” Our conversation shifted to how Jelly viewed today’s music scene and the illusive “1% percenters.”

He defined those one percenters as emcees with nearly impeccable lyricism and genius that is missing in today’s rap music. Very few dwell here but include OutKast, Goodie Mob, Jay-Z, and Cee-Lo Green. Andre 3000’s lyricism is especially mystifying, disappearing for extended amounts of time and returning as a guest lyricist and murdering nearly every emcee in the game with only 16 bars. “That’s Dre,” Jelly remarks. “That’s why he’s in that one percent. He’s a genuine artist – always thinking, marinating, over thinking. One of the coolest cats you’d ever meet, but this cat’s the truth. He’s deadly.”

And relevant. Even in this latest decade of new southern-dom. Artists like Lil’ Jon, T.I., and David Banner ushered in “the New South” in the early 2000s. Along with a shift in sound (minus the likes of Organized Noize) there was also a shift in content. The consciousness and spirituality raised by groups like Goodie Mob got pushed to the background of strip club anthems like Ying Yang Twins’ “Get Low” or the hardcore street musings of Pastor Troy, Baby D, and Young Jeezy. There was no room for a balanced representation of the southern experience. The lack of complexity returned southern rap back to the restrictive spaces “street” and “booty.” Lyricism became unnecessary. “As a Hip Hop (especially southern rap) enthusiast, I appreciate the music for what it is,” Jelly says. “But I miss it for the wide spectrum it used to have. I enjoyed the lyricism, the dance songs, the bass music, because all of them were represented. That’s missing today. There’s no variety.”

So, where do we go from here? Jelly cites Alabama native Yelawolf and Atlanta’s B.O.B. and Pill as a resuscitation of lyricism in southern rap music. “They got potential, they just need to stay in the trenches, kiss the babies, dap up the people on and in the streets who will have their back.” He credits much of Gucci Mane and Waka Flaka Flam’s success to their trench work. “They stay in the hearts and minds of their fans. They’ve built the foundation. People might not think much of Gucci lyrically, but he’s put in work,” Jelly states.

The constant shift in what’s hot – bass and “stripper music,” social consciousness, crunk, snap, and the latest dance era engulfing Atlanta’s music scene – currently suggests a loss of connection with southern music’s origins. Jelly argues there’s a multi-branched reason for that: “The music is produced for the youth. The youth don’t give a fuck about the past. The past isn’t relevant. And that’s a problem because what they are seeing as ‘new’ has been around for a minute. There’s a generation gap.” When the spotlight and Hip Hop community began to focus on Atlanta, the sense of community dissolved. “It’s deeper than a lack of presence in music,” Jelly points out. “Old and new artists didn’t connect, selfishness took over. We need to reconnect and pay our respects to how this shit got started in the first place.”

Radio and DJ culture further troubled the relationship between music and a sense of community. The constant need to stay relevant (read: trendy) overshadows the need to search for good music and connect the past with the present, which Jelly prides himself in with his own craft. “I use technology. I stay up on what’s current. But I’m still old school. I still spin, I work on my craft,” he says. Mentorship is also important for Atlanta’s Hip Hop legacy. Jelly points out that lack of mentorship as problematic: “we need to re-develop a sense of mentorship between DJs and artists. DJs need to know their role and understand they are the liaison between their [young] audience and music.” Jelly prides himself in doing just that. “My focus is developing artists. I’m on the hunt for talent,” he asserts. Jelly’s blog and website As the World Spins and upcoming television show Rising reflect his intentions, focusing on the discovery and development of such lyrical diamonds and deejays in the rough.

Stayin’ in the trenches. Respect.

Hit 'Em in the Chest, Fred!: Satirism in Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"

2010-07-05T11:51:00.001-04:00

Frederick Douglass was and is that dude.

A master orator, Douglass often found himself in uncomfortable spaces of racial agitation and disfunction. Due to his past experiences as a slave, however, Douglass floated through these social landmines effortlessly and fluidly. He epitomized the fear of black men - tall, dark, and educated. In his powerful speech "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" delivered July 5th, 1852, Douglass found himself in front of a northern white audience of anti-slavery empathizers. What he did, however, was not thank them blindly for their concern over his enslaved brethen. He did not hambone. He hit them in the THOAT! Yes, folks, thoat.

Douglass advertently fires shots at the hypocrisy of a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) nation celebrating freedom yet enslaving a people believed to be inferior and inhuman. I'd like to propose a different way to address this critical gem of African American thought. Douglass, in his mastery of oration, introduces another trait of intellectual prowess to his delivery - satirical eloquence.

While satirism often aligns with laugh-out-loud humor, it also serves as a potent tool of social analysis. Satirism, in its best forms, often stings the audience spiritually and possesses an avant-guardism that is soon not forgotten. Douglass did not perform a Chappelle-esque bit. He sarcastically addresses his audience - "fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today?" - while holding back anger in his realization that he is considered second class (emphasis mine). The repitition of "fellow-citizen" displays Douglass' view of his humanity and those of his fellow slaves as equal to their white counterparts. He was not a pity case. Douglass demonstrated not only his high intellect but the ability to sharply interact with a white audience while intuitively retaining his blackness. This is embodied through his wit and boldness to mock the holiday that he has been invited to memorialize.The feigned concern of not disturbing protocol and the timidness in seeking allowance to speak directly to whites draws in Douglass' audience because of their acceptance and familiarity with these social practices. What happens, however, is Douglass' assertion of himself through his lived experience (first hand account) of slavery. He looks directly into their faces and does not back down from his displeasure in the irony of his invitation to speak at Corinthian Hall for a freedom that he had to steal instead of enjoy by right.

While I cannot suggest that there were not sincere empathizers and abolitionists in Douglass' audience, I'd like to push this conversation further by inferring that there were members of his audience that came to the speech for entertainment. A (former) black male slave who was eloquent enough to speak in public? Blasphemy! And Douglass, while preparing for his oration, was probably conscious of these attendants.

I was not put on to Douglass' speech until the end of my undergraduate career. It is the type of text that needs repeated readings because of its richness in allusion, imagery, and anger. Douglass' strong sense of wit arguably places him as one of the early satirists of African American culture. Gotta laugh to keep from crying.

If you are interested in further scholarship surrounding Frederick Douglass' 5th of July speech, please see James Colaiaco's Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July (2006). Also, please see below James Earl Jones' reading of this revolutionary text.

Happy 5th of July!

The Race to "Post": Can We Handle Current Business First?

2010-06-28T19:51:00.000-04:00

This is an experimental post with some thoughts that are floating around in my mind.

I'm trying to get into my dissertation grind mode. I frequently find myself in bookstores and online looking for titles that might possibly help me with my endeavors. As I was glancing through my latest search of books, the term "Post Hip Hop" came up. I turned my head slightly sideways and said, "que?"

I went ahead and ordered the book and have yet to receive it. First thought that immediately came to mind while looking at the title: "what the hell is 'Post Hip-Hop?'" My second question: "why?"

I hope you can feel me on this one, folks. We are in the post "whatever-the-hell-you-want-here-to-make-it sexy" age. Postracialism, Postindustrialism, post Hip Hop-ism, Post....Americanism? I have yet to wrap my mind around this concept for a couple of reasons:

1.) The push to live in a post society overlooks the need to identify the experiences, people, and events within America that assisted in its construction. This band-aid approach to dealing with those issues and concerns that cloud utopic dreams of equality also dismiss the critical traumatic moments that frame and influence ethnic identity in American society. Which leads me to my next thought: Post-ism for who? It seems that these campaigns address the erasure of ethnic identity and do not attempt to deconstruct white discourse and normalcy. In other words, it's the black and brown folks that need to dismiss race as an indicator of identity and lived experience.

Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist (1998) has a brilliant scene that challenges these notions of racial privilege, obliviousness, and identity performance. African American elevator inspector Pompeii and his white colleagues are at the company's annual Christmas Party. A minstrel show ensues and Pompeii laughs the loudest and hardest, painfully neglecting the ignorance being performed in front of him. One way to approach this scene is to think of it as "the quiet negro is the safe negro" complex. Pompeii's non-reaction indicates a numbness not only to his (lack of) blackness but also his dismissed masculinity. He is safe and no longer in need of attention because he simply accepts his position (both racially and within the company's hierarchy). Pompeii's participation in the minstrel show can be seen as a survival move - both to protect his life from his drunken white companions and to save his job so that he can continue to provide for his family. Spike Lee's Bamboozled (let's be real, the MAJORITY of Lee's catalog) address similar themes of hushed subordination and its consequences on self-identity and blackness.

2) These attempts are rushed. Now, one of the post-movements that makes complete sense is Post-colonialism because it reflects the struggle and need to address a previously embattled people and the residue influences of their (often European) oppressors on social-cultural interaction. Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Chinua Achebe, and more recently Vijay Prashad acknowledge and explore the racial divide often motivated by colonial rule.

In American society, our celebration of reaching post-dom is a trend, a fad that is often embodied in distinct "moments" of racial harmony and bliss (or such intentions). Take, for example, the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s. With the ruling of racial segregation as unconstitutional, legislation was put into place for incorporation into American social practice to ban the racial inferiority complex. What was not taken into consideration was the fact that social practice does not change overnight. Racial attitude and interpretation is so deeply embedded into our fiber that racial profiling is second nature. The election of President Barack Obama also seems to coincide with the initiation of postracial America. Right. We do not simply have another president. This time we have a president who is so scrutinized that he has to hide any brotha tendencies lol.

To play that girl, I'll take the bait and entertain the idea that we are in a post-racial America. What I will NOT accept, however, is that we are colorblind. As I stated in a previous post Prashad's astute observations that American society refuses to face color in an effort to present a monolithic American society and, perhaps more importantly, a monolithic ethnic American community, will prove detrimental to our progression as a nation.

Instead of becoming a "clear" community with no indications of race, wouldn't a more proper definition of post-racial be the acknowledgement of ethnic identity sans the bias behind those associations?

Moonwalkin' in the Briar Patch: The Trickster Legacy of Michael Jackson

2010-06-25T10:46:00.002-04:00

It is only appropriate that Red Clay Scholar bow down to the best that ever did it. We miss you, Michael.

My parents had all the vinyl, tapes, CDs, and even bootleg (later years, with Invicible) that MJ produced. My house was a subject in the Jackson kingdom. Plagued in later years by personal strife that reflected in his lack of music production towards the end of his career, Jackson, unfortunately, got lost in the shuffle...er, moonwalk.While I thoroughly enjoy his talent as an artist, I've always been intrigued by his versatility as an artist and the lessons he invoked with his lyrical content. Besides Br'er Rabbit 'nem, Michael Jackson quite possibly could be one of the best Tricksters that ever did it.

The trickster figure in folklore uses his wits and cunning to remove himself from difficult situations, to teach a lesson, or instill awareness to those around him. (In this case) He was unable to be restricted to a rigid space and often found comfort (and identity) in difficult situations. The Br'er (Brother) stories/fables often showcased the antics of Br'er Rabbit, the original "one-upper." In slave stories, Br'er Rabbit not only outwitted his fellow animals but also the white farmer, whom he taunted consistently and fervently. In "Tar Baby," Br'er Rabbit is tricked by Farmer (or Brer Fox or Bear, depending on the adaptation) and gets stuck to a tar baby (doll made out of tar). Facing death, Br'er Rabbit begs and pleads for his captors not to throw him into the nearby thorny briar patch because it would be a tortuous demise. Pleased with the thought of (finally) harming Br'er Rabbit, Farmer throws him into the briar patch waiting to hear the sounds of Br'er Rabbit's slow death. Instead, Farmer hears Rabbit's laughter and taunting, stating his comfort in his birthplace, and escapes.

While the briar patch suggests a problematic, often impossible space to navigate, Br'er Rabbit signifies the ability to do so. Br'er Rabbit was a folk hero, able to do the impossible - get over on the white man. His creation and comfort to navigate those spaces speak to the black experience in white America and slaves desire to rebel against the social hierarchy that viewed them as inferior. Toni Morrison's Tar Baby (1981) stretches the Tar Baby plantation story to construct and contextualize black masculinity. Morrison creates her own Br'er Rabbit in Son, a young black man who manipulates both racial and gender spaces on a plantation on La Isles de Chevaliers and New York in order to progress and survive. Son performs whatever role is placed on him - charmer, bad nigger, buck, abuser, manchild.

Michael Jackson both aggrandized and fell victim to these spaces. Through one lens, Jackson transcended both his blackness and even genre to become the King of Pop Music. I guess King of R&B was being held hostage by Bobby Brown at the time of crowning. MJ's ability to blend and deconstruct musical genres to produce a new sound or concept only rivaled the genius of Prince. Jackson pushed the envelope, refusing to be restricted to static indicators of black music. Collaborations with artists ranging from Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney to Guns N' Roses Slash shook the spirit, captivated the mind, and left the listener breathless.

Even though Jackson catered his music to all people, I can't help but think about the trajectory of his music in terms of blackness and his masculinity. An inherent need to understand and self-create his manhood reflected throughout his career: "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "Dirty Diana," "Bad," and "Remember the Time" only sample how Jackson positioned himself as a dual performer (as a singer and as a black man). "Remember the Time," an aesthetic marvel, also paid homage to Jackson's "lost" blackness thought to be voided out of Jackson's life and career.

While his music experimentation blasted him into unrivaled greatness, Jackson's fame was his tar baby and personal life his briar patch. The strictness and severity of father Joe Jackson while prepping the Jackson 5 in Gary, Indiana to allegations of child abuse in his adult life seeped through Jackson's music and his identity. He navigated these spaces through his music and interviews fawning the desire for privacy as well as utilizing the media's relentlessness to bring awareness to his politics and humanitarian efforts.

Jackson whisked through the thorns and bobbles, straight to an untimely demise June 25, 2009. And, similar fashion to Br'er Rabbit, blazed a trail and didn't look back.

Keep moonwalkin' through the Briar Patch, Br'er Michael.

My I Got Nominated for the 2010 Black Weblog Awards Dance

2010-06-23T14:16:00.002-04:00

What's up Blog Nation?
I've been nominated for "Best Writing in a Blog" for the 2010 Black Weblog Awards. I've been told to continue to ask for nominations to better my chances of winning. Please nominate this blog for "Best Writing in a Blog" HERE:

2010 Black Weblog Awards Nominations

When it is time to vote, please keep me in mind to be worthy of your vote...and I'll keep writing like my dissertation director is mean mugging me from his desk =).

~rnb