Thursday, March 31, 2005
Sarah Won!!
It was a coup of monumental proportions! She got 71% of the vote!!! I am so happy for her, for Spelman. A new day was ushered in and that is so exciting. The victory party is tonight at Javaology so be there or be square! In other news I got an e-mail in the wee hours of the morning that made me really happy. Friends are the bomb! And if that wasn't cheesy enough, although the sun is not shining outside today, it's shining in my heart!!
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
The party
I went to this party Saturday night and it was pretty fun. I think it's a little queer (pun intended) that I felt so comfortable at this LBT house party, as opposed to some AUC club party. I think it's because there wasn't a sexual component there for me. I was just having a good time dancing with my friends and being silly. The way the club is set up and the way guys just feel they can grab you and just dance on you is kinda aggravating. And then do you ignore an inappropriate grope and let him walk off validated in his objectification of you, or do you voice your outrage and risk a verbal or even physical altercation? And there's that masochistic insecurity of what if guys don't objectify you, what does that mean? But that was totally not my line of thinking as we danced the night away to PYT, Let Me Love You, and the electric slide classic old school jam Before I Let Go on Saturday. On a semi-related note, I think I need to be a dj.
Monday, March 21, 2005
It's just emotions . . .
So the new delta line premiered during the Toni Cade Conference luncheon. I was already a little perturbed by the way the conference was going and the sight of some of my favorite people on line pushed my emotions further. People told me to be optimistic, to think that this was an effort by the delta's to be more diverse and to change the greek politics on Spelman's campus. I think that's crap.
I wore my "vote for sarah" sticker on my face as the new hopefuls came out, a desperate attempt to disrupt the energy of this ridiculous spectacle of which my very presence made me culpable too. I don't think it made the kind of statement I hoped it would.
And speaking of Sarah and her campaign, they (the administration? The delta's? is there a difference?) are trying to disqualify her. This is attempt two in what look like malicious actions to block her from changing this campus for the better.
And there is trouble in the friend sanctum, trouble that I can't fix, help, or heal. I think one of my friend is having some serious financial troubles. I have money, more rightly my parents have money, that I could lend or give, not that she'd take it. I forget my own class privilege and do and say things as ignorant as white people who touch our hair without asking. I think with her it's more than just money but that's all I've managed to gather. I have another friend who after months of not speaking is back in my life again with ridiculously scary emotional and mental baggage that she is only beginning to recognize as such yet she is still locked into the problematic cycle that gave her these wounds in the first place.
There's something else too, something that I feel is settling over the people, a deep malaise that's keeping our noses to the grindstone in a working limbo and in a state of treading the water of life. I feel like we are stuck in the monotony of the day and the vision of tomorrow is gone. We, even the activists, are trying to make it from moment to moment instead of being fully aware of where we are and where we want to be ultimately. I wonder if this entry will make sense as i'm writing at almost 5 in the morning after only a few hours of rest from the week before and i have little to show for the sleep deprivation I feel.
I hope that this uneasy running in place that's going on is purposeful in the sense that things are going to pick up sooner or later. I hope this is the proverbial calm before the storm and the storm will bring the lightening and thunder to startle us all back into conscious meaningful motion and the rain to wash away the funk and grow the seeds of struggle once again in our hearts.
I wore my "vote for sarah" sticker on my face as the new hopefuls came out, a desperate attempt to disrupt the energy of this ridiculous spectacle of which my very presence made me culpable too. I don't think it made the kind of statement I hoped it would.
And speaking of Sarah and her campaign, they (the administration? The delta's? is there a difference?) are trying to disqualify her. This is attempt two in what look like malicious actions to block her from changing this campus for the better.
And there is trouble in the friend sanctum, trouble that I can't fix, help, or heal. I think one of my friend is having some serious financial troubles. I have money, more rightly my parents have money, that I could lend or give, not that she'd take it. I forget my own class privilege and do and say things as ignorant as white people who touch our hair without asking. I think with her it's more than just money but that's all I've managed to gather. I have another friend who after months of not speaking is back in my life again with ridiculously scary emotional and mental baggage that she is only beginning to recognize as such yet she is still locked into the problematic cycle that gave her these wounds in the first place.
There's something else too, something that I feel is settling over the people, a deep malaise that's keeping our noses to the grindstone in a working limbo and in a state of treading the water of life. I feel like we are stuck in the monotony of the day and the vision of tomorrow is gone. We, even the activists, are trying to make it from moment to moment instead of being fully aware of where we are and where we want to be ultimately. I wonder if this entry will make sense as i'm writing at almost 5 in the morning after only a few hours of rest from the week before and i have little to show for the sleep deprivation I feel.
I hope that this uneasy running in place that's going on is purposeful in the sense that things are going to pick up sooner or later. I hope this is the proverbial calm before the storm and the storm will bring the lightening and thunder to startle us all back into conscious meaningful motion and the rain to wash away the funk and grow the seeds of struggle once again in our hearts.
Friday, March 11, 2005
What's my motha f*ckin' name?
I got a semi-frantic e-mail from one of the Deans at Spelman. Apparently Snoop has his own search engine called gizoogle and a search for Spelman brings up some pretty problematic descriptions of rather innocuous sites associated with the school. She alerted me because in a search for Spelman my name comes up as "Mizzy Bailey" and it says I'm a "comparative bitchez studies" major. Upon my own investigation, gizoogle seems to just translate websites into Snoop's signature pimp influenced vernacular, and it does not appear to be directly attacking Spelman or our rather public efforts to discuss misogyny in hip-hop. Additionally, it's not connected to google so blogging about this is fortunately not as ironic as it initially seemed. At any rate, happy gizoogling!!
Thursday, March 03, 2005
I'm about to get raw!
Dear Diary,
I am now officially a mad black woman! I've been so invested in rejecting this title b/c it had been assigned to me I never thought it might be applicable. Now it is and I'm claiming it, not reclaiming it but using it of my own volition to serve my own agenda. I'm about to be on a Michele Wallace type "rant" so read on with caution! I can not for the life of me understand why black male comedians dress up like black women for a laugh. That's not funny! It's ludicrous (which I can't even spell now b/c of luda)! We won't support Don Cheadle in a movie about the continuing pain of our people in the supposed "motherland," but we will go out in droves to make diary of a mad black woman the number one movie in America?! Do you understand how f*cked up that is? tyler perry has caricatures of us on screen and we are supporting it; you can't convince me that white people were going to see madea on opening weekend.
As a film version of the oh so popular black church plays, it tries to offer up a message of morality and Christian values as well as entertain. Preachers took entire congregations to see this movie! In my cynical conspiracy theory believing head this is just another example of how the black church is being co-opted by the right. The prosperity gospel and increasing attacks on homosexuality are new to the sermons of late but they do nothing to speak to the real issues of the congregation. As Dr. Stanley put it, the church has become a corporation as opposed to a hospital for those in need. But the hospital has been a corporation in this country for a minute, so I guess that move in the religious sector was inevitable as well.
I'm not mad at my girl Elise, she can act and apparently these black church movies are the only movies with majority black casts getting made right now, despite halle and denzel breaking through the glass ceiling three long years ago. But seriously, can black people get some decent roles in Hollywood? Can we grow up thinking that being a filmmaker is an option? Can we be techies? Can we get someone i.e. spike or who ever to financially support black people tryin' to go into film/tech school? Can we want to write screenplays?I didn't see the oscars, but I heard enough of the fall out to know that chris's comedy may have been misinterpreted by whites and blacks alike. What was supposed to be a satirical poke at the oscars detachment from regular folk, came off to many, including myself, as a jab at black people's inevitable unculturedness. He didn't comment on the fact that the films nominated are usually not wide released, that they don't normal have black people in them either. I know as a black person I'm supposed to be crunk about jamie winning for ray, but I'm not. You can't tell me that jamie was better than don chedle, you can't tell me if jamie wasn't the token black friend that Hollywood wants to have he still would have one. I couldn't believe that he took tom cruise to Harlem to kind of show him around the neighborhood. What is that?! Like the ghetto's a safari or something.
Further still this war on images of black people is unending and we aren't even critiquing it anymore. We have reached bamboozled proportions and people are laughing!! As jalylah says, if you set it up as a supposed satire, then people feel free not to question it which is absolutely ridiculous! The more I think about race-o-rama, recent SNL skits, etc. The angrier I get. Just b/c you have black people involved doesn't mean it isn't racist.
Ali called to tell me 20/20 was doing a segment on colorism. We tuned in and were outraged. John Stossle began by saying, "Did you know that some blacks discriminate against other blacks?" what?! This comment assumes both an all white audience and that white people didn't event colorism in the first place. If there wasn't differential treatment based on skin color, there wouldn't be colorism. He talked to students and black actors who spoke about how that plays out in Hollywood, light skinned blacks get professional type roles while dark skinned actors play crackheads and gang members. But this is of course another indication of how white people can be implicated in colorism too, b/c clearly black people certainly aren't casting agents if we make it into the industry at all. Where is the NAACP on this? Doesn't anyone else see the ways in which our image is being constructed in the national media? And these aren't videos, this is supposed to be journalism!!
I saw a commercial for Zulu ringtones that had an old school caricature of an African with a bone in his hair and big lips and eyes. Where is the aclu on this? Am I the only one seeing this?
I can't comment on halle in "Their eyes were watching God" just yet b/c I had to tape it. But I'm going to hazard that my blogging sister fecundmellow is on the right track.
I feel like I'm really about to be on some turn the TV off b/c really this is just too much for me. I feel like I'm screaming and no ones listening. Maybe I will write some letters, and sign them "from an actual mad black woman." Maybe . . .
I am now officially a mad black woman! I've been so invested in rejecting this title b/c it had been assigned to me I never thought it might be applicable. Now it is and I'm claiming it, not reclaiming it but using it of my own volition to serve my own agenda. I'm about to be on a Michele Wallace type "rant" so read on with caution! I can not for the life of me understand why black male comedians dress up like black women for a laugh. That's not funny! It's ludicrous (which I can't even spell now b/c of luda)! We won't support Don Cheadle in a movie about the continuing pain of our people in the supposed "motherland," but we will go out in droves to make diary of a mad black woman the number one movie in America?! Do you understand how f*cked up that is? tyler perry has caricatures of us on screen and we are supporting it; you can't convince me that white people were going to see madea on opening weekend.
As a film version of the oh so popular black church plays, it tries to offer up a message of morality and Christian values as well as entertain. Preachers took entire congregations to see this movie! In my cynical conspiracy theory believing head this is just another example of how the black church is being co-opted by the right. The prosperity gospel and increasing attacks on homosexuality are new to the sermons of late but they do nothing to speak to the real issues of the congregation. As Dr. Stanley put it, the church has become a corporation as opposed to a hospital for those in need. But the hospital has been a corporation in this country for a minute, so I guess that move in the religious sector was inevitable as well.
I'm not mad at my girl Elise, she can act and apparently these black church movies are the only movies with majority black casts getting made right now, despite halle and denzel breaking through the glass ceiling three long years ago. But seriously, can black people get some decent roles in Hollywood? Can we grow up thinking that being a filmmaker is an option? Can we be techies? Can we get someone i.e. spike or who ever to financially support black people tryin' to go into film/tech school? Can we want to write screenplays?I didn't see the oscars, but I heard enough of the fall out to know that chris's comedy may have been misinterpreted by whites and blacks alike. What was supposed to be a satirical poke at the oscars detachment from regular folk, came off to many, including myself, as a jab at black people's inevitable unculturedness. He didn't comment on the fact that the films nominated are usually not wide released, that they don't normal have black people in them either. I know as a black person I'm supposed to be crunk about jamie winning for ray, but I'm not. You can't tell me that jamie was better than don chedle, you can't tell me if jamie wasn't the token black friend that Hollywood wants to have he still would have one. I couldn't believe that he took tom cruise to Harlem to kind of show him around the neighborhood. What is that?! Like the ghetto's a safari or something.
Further still this war on images of black people is unending and we aren't even critiquing it anymore. We have reached bamboozled proportions and people are laughing!! As jalylah says, if you set it up as a supposed satire, then people feel free not to question it which is absolutely ridiculous! The more I think about race-o-rama, recent SNL skits, etc. The angrier I get. Just b/c you have black people involved doesn't mean it isn't racist.
Ali called to tell me 20/20 was doing a segment on colorism. We tuned in and were outraged. John Stossle began by saying, "Did you know that some blacks discriminate against other blacks?" what?! This comment assumes both an all white audience and that white people didn't event colorism in the first place. If there wasn't differential treatment based on skin color, there wouldn't be colorism. He talked to students and black actors who spoke about how that plays out in Hollywood, light skinned blacks get professional type roles while dark skinned actors play crackheads and gang members. But this is of course another indication of how white people can be implicated in colorism too, b/c clearly black people certainly aren't casting agents if we make it into the industry at all. Where is the NAACP on this? Doesn't anyone else see the ways in which our image is being constructed in the national media? And these aren't videos, this is supposed to be journalism!!
I saw a commercial for Zulu ringtones that had an old school caricature of an African with a bone in his hair and big lips and eyes. Where is the aclu on this? Am I the only one seeing this?
I can't comment on halle in "Their eyes were watching God" just yet b/c I had to tape it. But I'm going to hazard that my blogging sister fecundmellow is on the right track.
I feel like I'm really about to be on some turn the TV off b/c really this is just too much for me. I feel like I'm screaming and no ones listening. Maybe I will write some letters, and sign them "from an actual mad black woman." Maybe . . .
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