Ooph

It seems as though it’s raining in many parts of the country today and while this seems perfect weather to catch up on the posts that I have been pondering over the past few weeks of inactivity — alas that will not happen. However, the end of the semester is just around the corner and the meanders will resume!

Dear people sitting next to me:

I have imbibed too much caffeine. Not as a hedon. But rather, an epicurean. I don’t like chai — it’s too sweet. I’m an undercover-bitter-girl who drinks out-of-the-closet bitter drinks. Surprisingly, I learned today that I like chai. I know that you care deeply about this. But, fear not, it’s not some warm coffee house soy chai latte that I like. No, it’s the coffee house reject from the display board: dirty chai. Dirty Chai just doesn’t look good in chalk . . .  It’s fantastic and goes pretty well with a file of deliriously boring student research papers that  is demanding my attention.

THANK YOU for sitting there, next to me. For not being grossed out by my nervous nail biting, my sketchy shiftiness on this slippery bench and my inneccesant hair twisting. You may be thinking, “God! That girl must be so sexually FRUSTRATED!” I would never admit to that . . . anything can be abstracted.

Now, to you . . . The three of you hunched over towards each other totally sound like siblings. You have been debating over how much the color scheme of a plate counts in a Thanksgiving meal for quite some time now. You want to know what I think? Definitely. It seems as though the time spent looking at the food on your plate in a long holiday meal is much longer than the actual amount of time that is spent tasting the food. Besides, aren’t there many more senses involved in “tasting food” than mere tastebuds? Smell, texture, etc?

Anyway, you have entertained and enlived my boredom. You have reminded me that there is no such thing as the normal that my eighteen year old student things he has a handle on. There are SO many other ways beyond mine, here, now in this coffee shop that I despise, but choose because I am tired of Jesus Juice.

The end of the semester is nearing … that slight frustration is increasing as I try to think about what exactly it is that I have accomplished with another five months of this meandering life that I have been leading. . .

With love and appreciation,

LuLu

 

Here’s a good Weepies lyric:  ”Citywide Rodeo”

Citywide rodeo, you set on the stage

Where all the clowns will go when they feel their age

I know that you think you’re not good for anything

The world makes you feel so small

Get on your wooden horse

This is a ride, not a fight

No need to save face, say goodnight, Grace “Good night, Grace.”

There’s dust on the stadium seats, there’s dust in your hair

You wonder how fast you’ll go when you hit the air

And oh, isn’t it strange how things can change you?

And oh, isn’t it plain that some things unname you

So don’t ask anybody else.

Citywide rodeo, step into your car

Look up at the indigo and pick out your star.

In Life All that Matters is Intent …

So, I am in a bit of a quandary tonight.

But first, here is a funny story about Carlee.

When I go to campus and work late at night I usually take her with me. Not only is she cute and good company, but this little Pit Bull Lab can be frightening in the dark. . . hopefully, right? So, we are walking up to the back door and suddenly she jerks on her leash and looks up at me with the ‘Mom I gotta take a dump’ look on her face. While I was thinking, Oh god really?, I could help but chuckle at the irony and hilarity of my dog taking an urgent shit next to the English building. I never claimed she was the most reverent dog – just among the cutest and happiest.

~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, like many businesses one of the banks near where I live has a marquee under their sign. (If I had a digital camera I would have taken a picture. So, this will have to do.) Instead of putting advertisements on this marquee, however, the bank will post cute proverbial sayings. Perhaps this is supposed to reflect some deeper investment in the community. Beats me. Nevertheless, these quips never go that deep and sometimes don’t even really seem to make sense. For example, one time they had something about a tractor and a bee in the field … ? The most recent, however, is lacking the luster of cutesy harmlessness that seems to go so well with a name like Farmers and Merchants Bank.

It reads, “In life all that matters is intent.”

Being that I now live in an often startlingly conservative neck of the woods, I am not surprised that a sign such as this would be widely received as magnanimous. . . . . . .     Wait! Yes, I am surprised! And a little taken back! Hell, I am not going to write this off as excusable and fall prey to letting them off the hook because of their intent.

We (me, the bank, and some other people-j/k) are in a city that is home to a fairly large HBCU that is over a hundred years old! Not only is the HBCU old, it is also a positive presence in the community. Then, we also have a HUGE state university that is literally right down the street. Point being: there are lots of people in this ‘small town.’ This community is rich in its diversity … Well, when this diversity is not glossed over with such careless quips such as this.

Then … I started thinking … and began to think about the location of this particular bank. Given the capitalist business model within which it is situated, this bank’s location does not necessarily lend it to the level of social awareness that I would like to see. So, I wonder: would the bank put up the same sign if they were located on the other side of town?

Now, this does not mean that I think that my neighbors are fine with this (not so)subtle bigotry. No. I think the issue is more about what this bank perceives. How does the bank perceive the immediate community within which it is located? How is this community constructed? Then, how does the bank deliver to this perceived pool of actual and potential consumers?

Do you see where I am going?

Yea, I am not finished thinking about the issue that my last post responded so vigorously to.

Let’s pretend that this bank was instead located on the other side of town – a side of town that is constructed as visibly populated by more African Americans. The side of town that I am thinking of also has a “reputation” that relies on this constructed identity of a community. While there just might be more people of color in the area that I am thinking of … that is not the point here… (besides, I can’t actually say that I have ever been to this area) The point is that the neighborhood where I live does not need to identify its Whiteness. It’s whiteness is already identified through a juxtaposition with “the other” side of town that is constructed as the Black side — regardless of who actually lives there.

While cycles of racism, poverty, and crime churn away banks such as this stay out. The businesses that are there, and the crime headlines that splash across the newspaper, however, ensure that this Black community remains visible as such. In the mean time, there are plenty of African Americans who live on this side of town, drive by this ignorant marquee, and remain invisible – or rather ‘not seen’ in the constructed identity that blankets this community.

I am not, actually, quite sure where this is all going. Perhaps, I am meditating on the ways in which we code race and location. If this is the case, I am guilty of the same ignorance as the bank because I am reading my area as coded ‘white.’ While there seem to be more white people here, the “code” erases all of the other people – renders them invisible and then we see ignorant quips about intent.

Btw: Which, if you are missing why I find the bank’s sign bigoted and offensive let me put it this way. . . Who can really blame Jesse Helms if he just wanted his grandchildren to grow up in a strong moral environment living the way of God? How often have we heard, “They just don’t know any better.” “Their heart was in the right place.” “It’s not their fault if they have never met a gay person before.”

However, we can push this further and ask, why/how could I consider this side of town as being coded “white” when I am not sure that anyone would actually say that this is the/a White part of town. I think that this is how a lot of racism gets off the hook… I can only say that my community is spatially coded white because there is an area in this city that is SO coded black. Thus, it works by nature of juxtaposition. If there was not a clearly identified and shaded Other, this more affluent side of town could not be so ‘innocently’ coded as White … and all of the loaded subtexts that come with it.

 

Ok, so now that I have written this it strikes me across that head that I am largely relying on Toni Morrison and the theoretical frame that she begins to lay out in Playing in the Dark — an AWESOME read and reread and reread, again!

A Response to Mark Leibovich on Barack Obama

Dear Mr. Leibovich,

What exactly is a “guys guy?” And, what in the hell does this have to do with “an often profane chief of staff?” Are we to read your (un)insightful commentary and also assume, as you seem to yourself, that Obama is only playing ball with straight men as well?

Have we forgotten that Obama is the leader of an entire nation? A nation, mind you, that blurs the lines you so glibly (and superficially) identify between male and female. I don’t know about your conversation, but mine is moving beyond these mythologized gender binaries — pal. If Ms. Dunn doesn’t want to play basketball, it’s her choice. Not yours. Or, is it that she is not enlightened enough and you need to provide her with a voice?

I cannot help but sense an underlying air of haughty elitism in this piece that relies on a contrived juxtaposition more than critical insight. The “girls” do this, the “boys” do that. Oh… I see now?! Obama shoots “hoops,” has a press secretary that relies on “sports metaphors,” and has “hoisted a beer in a peacemaking effort.” Have the other ways worked that great in the past? Or, wait, is Obama beginning to step outside of the all-to-often hollow shell of American [White, hetero-normative, Western-centric, elitist] peacemaking efforts?

AND, the comment about the frat house? Give me a break! (I am under the impression that) Obama has never been an active member of a fraternity …  Hmm … this is funny. You, Mr. Leibovich, accuse him of running a White House that “feels like a frat house.” You are right — in the past the White House has felt like a frat house (sexual forays with women in dark corners, the venerable good ol’ boys club) and been run off of “valuable” leadership gleened collectively from the many years that our presidency has spent in fraternities across the country. So, what is it really about frat houses that bothers you, Leibovich? The money? The drinking? The general air of hyper-masculinity? The elitism, perhaps? Or, is it the dirty under-the-table-trouble that this fraternization can land us in? Iraq, perhaps? I couldn’t agree with you more…

Except that I think this is precisely the problem. . .  We are not quite sure what to call this ‘White House.’ While it most certainly has its problems, the frat brothers are feeling the heat. Oh dear, is Obama shaking things up? making the good ol’ boys a little uncomfortable? What are we seeing when we look at the White House? What is, as you say, visible here, Mr. Leibovich? Are we having problems identifying what we see if it is neither frat boy nor good ol’ boy?  Hmmmm … President Obama might  even be pulling power from the types of people who can understand  political posturing best through sports metaphors. Just a guess. Maybe there is a Joe the Plumber out there who may not feel spoken down to, but actually spoken to. Wouldn’t you understand this sports jargon? I mean, you must. You yourself are writing along the very binary that you say you are critiquing in this often-times “testosterone brimming” piece.

While we most definitely have room to take issue with the visibility of women with the White House, do we not also need to look back upon our liberal selves and examine the lenses through which we are seeing this President, his administration, and his “social life?” When Dee Dee Myers says “Obama has a personal style that appeals to women … He is seen as a consensus builder; he is not a towel snapper and does not tell crude jokes,” ARE WE REALLY GOING TO POSITION HER AS A SPEAKER FOR PROGRESSIVISM OR “the personal style” that appeals to women? We all know women can tell crude jokes and snap towels. But, are these the wrong kind of women? Or, are these more gradient characteristics just not visible?

Best,

LuLu

Size denotes frequency:

“Man’s World at White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say”

Is this equality?

Frequency of terms within the piece referring to gender.

When Facebook Looks into the Watch Face

Ooph. I just finished what may have been a terrible idea. As many of you may be aware, tomorrow is the first celebration of the National Day on Writing. Here, we are planning a gleeful celebration of not only the designation of October 20th, but also our contribution to the National Gallery, I decided to bake a cake. However, half-assing is (sadly) only rarely in my approach to anything. In other words, this cake got way out of hand. I wanted it to look like the marquee that is on the flyers that I so obnoxiously have posted all over the English department. Needless to say the cake looks like an Easter cake. I do not know how I missed the fact that my fondant was not red at all, but pastel pink.

This brings me to something that I have been thinking about lately. . .

Last week Leticia Miranda posted a piece to WireTap Magazine entitled “Addicted to Facebook? So is everyone else.” While this short piece is no doubt interesting and perhaps a bit surprising at times, I am a bit taken back by her glib use of the term “addicted.” Sounds a little stodgy to me.

Personal story:

Before I left my life in NC to attend graduate school I had scoffed at social networking sites. I didn’t see the need for them. Between a full load at school, 23 hours a week spent bartending, and the partner with whom I was living, I saw everyone I needed/wanted to see on a fairly frequent basis. The few people who I didn’t see, but with whom I maintained close friendships, were kept in touch with via telephone. I wanted to talk to them … not “follow” them online.

Then, I moved to where I am now. While my life now is AWESOME, it is potentially isolating. First, there are not “shifts” for school. Whether teaching or taking classes myself who the hell knows when I will see people. Secondly, seeing someone neither means that I will/can/have the time to actually talk to them. Hell, I am writing this at 1:30 in the morning and have been awake since 8am.

I found that when I started grad school I almost completely stopped using my telephone to talk. Now, there are weeks when I do not talk at all on my cell phone. I just text. Why? If someone calls me when I am working, I am not going to pick up. I will text. If I want to talk to a friend, I am not going to call them. They, like me, may be taking a nap at a random time and I would hate to wake them up.

Reflecting on the past year or so leads me to see that Facebook has become critical to both maintaining and making new friendships. While it is certainly not the location of my relationships, it definitely facilitates them. Using this site allows me to communicate with friends whenever I feel like it … and they can communicate back in the same manner. If I want to plan something I neither have the time, nor do I want to spend the time, sitting around and hashing out the details. Let’s do it on Facebook. WAY more efficient in my opinion.

So, what does this mean? I am not “addicted” to Facebook just because I may pass through it a gazillion times a day. Are we addicted to cell phones if we leave them turned on all the time? Facebook has become part of my “online flow” just like the various e-mail accounts that I have as well as certain blogs and newspapers that I will check multiple times a day.

The application of “addiction” to checking something multiple times a day is erroneous on a deeper level, however. The judgment that Miranda makes assumes that time is a fixed measurement. For example, think about newsprint. Traditionally the news cycle has been 24 hours. Now that the medium through which we get news has shifted so dramatically that if you check the NY Times only once a day you are missing A LOT. The 7:30 am paper and coffee check barely does it anymore. And, for that matter, neither does the NY Times homepage (I would argue) expect visitors to access their site in this manner.

The same goes for Facebook. If you are fairly active in this network stuff is flying across your radar all the time. While some may chuckle and think how silly and mundane it may be – that is a value judgment. I am not discussing the value or prestige of any of my Facebook doings. While there is a personal use value to me, Facebook is simultaneously reflective of broader shifts in the occupation of space online, our navigation of time, etc. “Real” time hardly applies here. I can talk to my cousin in Taiwan (exactly a 12 hour time difference) when she is getting ready to eat lunch at the same time that I talk to a friend down the street on Facebook, drink a glass of wine, blog, and talk to my roommate and another friend who are physically present in my apartment. Oh, and I pet Carlee the whole time, too.

Am I addicted? No. Is Facebook integrated into my life? Yes. COULD this be problematized? Definitely.

French Vogue Weighs in on “Post Racial” BlackFace: Scraping through the Palimpsest of the Western Femininity

French Vogue has recently wagered in on the intersection of race, gender, art, and, hell, several hundred years of history. Now, I realize that this may not be their intention. HOWEVER, let’s try not to be too myopic on this. This magazine and these images are entering into critical assemblages within which we see the circulation of lingering issues on gender and race that are played out in the everyday live of individuals across the globe.

One of the things that I find most curious about this image is the layering of materials on Lara Stone’s body – materials that couldn’t even be considered clothing. As a matter of fact, we never actually see Lara Stone’s skin! Not to mention, is there any circumstance in which we could consider this to be her body?

On her face and neck we see some kind of crackly material. This material is more easily seen in another image from the shoot. It makes her look dead? Like an old painting? A piece of pottery? I’m not too sure what to make out of this texture. But, that’s not the point, right?

Neither do we see her arms. Instead, these otherwise uncannily enabling appendages have morphed into wings — the size of which make her hands look like lamed talons.  Fuck – these wings aren’t even functional. Were her arms any more functional?

With knees spread wide, her delicate hands rest on her thighs. But, wait! They are black. Should I spell this with a capital B?

Then, as our eyes travel down her legs we come across another morphing of this frail body – it appears as though white paint (White Wash?) has been literally brushed onto her shins.

Many voices are waging in on the way in which this particular spread is flaunting black face. However, the perversity of this image is functioning both horizontally and vertically. In other words, it goes both deep and wide. This image is operating with the grace and sensitivity of a bull in a china shop. Ugh. Completely irresponsible. Art is one thing – but, really?, I think Vogue has taken on a little more than they can handle.

The literal and figurative layers of meaning that are (re)inscribed on this frail gap-teethed body need to be peeled back. While the nerves that are struck by the images run deep into the collective memory of Western cultures, what is perhaps most disturbing is the way in which these nerves are glibly tangled together. Not only am I fearing that Lara Stone’s skeletal frame cannot handle this cultural unloading – but, really?, can the spine of this fashion magazine handle it either?

On second thought, Lara Stone’s body is NO WHERE in this image! It is dismembered by the intersecting currents of race and gender that are awash across these glossy pages.

Engaging the Palimpsest: French Vogue puts Black Face on the Faceless

Postmodern Whiplash

This post is going to, perhaps, be a little more personal the usual. Hopefully, however, I will not end where I begin.

I have many flaws. Some are really more of an annoyance than a problem. Some are funny. Some are humorous. And, some …. are just asinine. Perhaps one of the reasons that I like talking about space so much is that I find occupying space to often be  excruciatingly difficult.

After being on campus for most of the day I emerged into rather cool Tallahassee evening to head off to a poetry reading. Bundled in my hoodie and with a cup of coffee – as if it’s ever actually cold in Tallahassee – I shuffled off across the parking lot.

I arrive at the reading. I sit in the back. In the dark. Cuddled up in my favorite purple zip-up. Cooped up in my head. I wander off. Across the globe. Horizontally in time. I think about standing on foreign shores. That inexplicable feeling of watching salt and water slosh around. Of standing on a new shore and seeing an old friend in the water – water that I may have thrown myself into the first time that I stepped up to the edge of this big mixing bowl. Water in which I stood beside Julia — together, feeling smooth pebbles breath the cadence of time beneath our feet.

I am no longer in a dust heap of lumber and exposed wires. Those crazy wings that span high on the wall – they are no longer looming over me. I have left the hot, sweaty palm of this dark room. In this moment I am no longer yearning for my Nalgene of whiskey and hairy armpits.

The reading ends. I stand there. There are too many people around me. I am stuck in a traffic flow. I turn away from this flow of bodies and see a friend. Standing there. With my shoulders drawn up to my ears. I say hello.

After a few minutes I am under the impression that I am talking – having a conversation. That this exchange has had some meaning. That utterances have been both given and received. . . Then, my friend leans in to me and says, “I haven’t understood a thing that you have been saying.”

WHAT!

HOW?

W-H-E-R-E have I been?

Suddenly I am not in my mind. I am not in that room. I feel vulnerable. Taken back. DUPPED! No longer in the sexy nape of my mind’s eye. No longer in a crease of this sweaty palm.

Not again.

_______________________________________________________

What does it mean to be in a room?

Do we rely on meaning in order to know when we are somewhere? I thought that I was having an exchange with a friend. I thought that I could pinpoint my location. Would it have been this alleged exchange that located me there? When I realized that my conversation was merely a figment of my imagination was I rendered nowhere?

When we talk, when we dialogue, are we merely colonizing a space? Making it our own? Inflicting a discourse? Creating a terrain from the idle flapping of our tongues? Was I absent when I thought I was present? The object when I thought I was the subject? When we talk with another are we merely travelling down parallel lines that look sideways over the grassy verge?

Is Derrion Alberts at the epicenter of a broader dialogue: Nas, Obama

Over the past few weeks a conversation has been gaining momentum in this neighborhood of the blogosphere. At the epicenter – the death of 16 year old Derrion Alberts. Derrion was walking home from school on Tuesday, September 29^th when he was attacked. Or, caught in what the AP describes as a “melee.” Caught on video with a bystander’s cell phone, Derrion was struck several times over the head with a wooden plank before he finally died on the scene. At a press conference the following Monday his family wore t-shirts with their honor-student-son wearing in a cap and gown. Below the image was the caption, “Gone too soon, too young.”

“Gone too soon, too young.”

When I first read this story, I was sad, of course, but I did not foresee the ramifications of it. Unfortunately, like many, I was sad but dismissive. Close screen. Back to my life. My attention has, however, been abruptly brought back to this story. Well, this story and a nebulous of stories immediately surrounding it.

I’ll start with a comment made to an AP reporter by Annette Holt. Annette survives her son Blair Holt, a Chicago Public Schools student who was shot on a bus two years ago. She comments, “Someone said he (Derrion) was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, he wasn’t. He was in the right place. He was coming from school.” The individual who made the first comment happened to be a friend of Derrion’s who was interviewed by another reporter at the press conference.

“the right place”

“the right time”

“the wrong time”

A week after the attack on Derrion another teenager was beaten. This time the student was a 14 year old high school Freshman. The circumstances of this beating are different: this student reportedly had poor attendance in school, the beating was gang related, and although his skull was fractured, he survived.

Nevertheless, these attacks along with several others that have occurred over the past month have attracted some powerful attention.

Mayor Daily has asked for federal funding to increase the presence of police officers “either dedicated to schools or generally.” NPR correspondent Mary Curtis also reports that “The mayor also wants to “better align” Justice Department resources in Chicago with local “efforts to break up gangs, fight guns and address youth violence.’”

Addressing youth violence:

Justice Departement

Increased presence of cops in schools

In their Friday night broadcast, Chicago station WGN aired footage of public school superintendent Jodi Weis saying, “The real problem behind this is how a groups of kids can have this level of hatred in their hearts.” Weis also references the Obama administration that has observed, “you can’t regulate what is in people’s hearts.”

What’s in our hearts?

Now, for perhaps one of the most incendiary responses: Nas released an open letter to young men in response to the violence that I have referenced above. Repeatedly referring to his readers as “young warriors” and using the first person plural 10 times in a letter that is only 338 words, he closes with the following two paragraphs:

Dear Young warriors…. We are WASTING more and more time. We gotta get on our jobs and take over the world. Cuz this movie left the theaters years ago, Juice, Menace, Boys n the Hood , Blood n Blood Out, Belly!

When we see each other why do we see hatred? Why were we born in a storm, born soldiers, WARRIORS….and instead of building each other up we are at war with each other.. May the soul of this young person find peace with the almighty. I’m with you young warriors. You’re me and I’m you. But trust me! you are fighting the wrong war.

Young Warriors

Now, I ask, how do we begin to synthesize and make sense of the intersections of place, identity, race, and class here? How do we even begin to bring Obama’s comment about what we find in the hearts of these young men and women into conversation with Annette’s observation that Derrion was in exactly the right place at the right time?

The boundaries of race and class intersect in many intricate configurations … how do we find meaning here? How to we make sense or even begin to express how ABSURD Weis’ comment was?

Old Navy SuperModelquins: Mid-Town Flash

I look at this ad and it feels eerily familiar.

As many of you may already be aware, this is video vixen Karrine Steffans on the shoot for Mystikal’s Danger. Some background to this image…

Steffans writes in Confessions of a Video Vixen:

One this particular shoot, the conditions were harsh. I can’t recall the exact time of year, but it was still chilly in Los Angeles, and even colder fifty miles north of Los Angeles in the desert, which is where we were filming. The location was a western saloon that stood, literally, in the middle of nowhere. The dusty road that led to the location was barren, except for the occasional roadkill, which in that neck of the desert consisted mostly of wild boars and armadillos. It was about forty degrees and the wind was whipping sand around at about fifteen miles an hour. We were all miserable. However, I had a job to do.

In her memoir Steffans describes how she was late to the shoot and most of the costumes/outfits had already been taken by the other girls. As she was lamenting that all of the “shocking” items had been taken, the stylist held up to gold-star pasties and asked, “What do you think of these?” Steffans continues:

I stalled for a moment to think of the ramifications of wearing gold stars over my nipples. Minutes later, with the scent of eureka in the air, I smiled, “I love them!”

What does this have to do with the Old Navy “Mid-Town Flash?” Karrine’s barren body in the dessert made Mystikal and many others in the industry a lot of money. Videos such as these present more than thwarted views of sexuality and poignant commentaries on masculinity in the African American community – they present objects of what has traditionally been the white male gaze.

This gaze is actually played out in the Old Navy advertisement as the naked Black woman’s Black husband reaches over to cover the eyes of the married white man standing next to him. The white man is, however, quick to observe that they are mannequins and the Black man in unable to close the gap between his fingers.

The correlations between this Old Navy advertisement and the example of Karrine Steffans go beyond disturbing and are certainly not merely coincidental. Imagery such as this represents the increased normalization of social attitudes towards gender, race, and sexuality. For heavens sakes! This ad is for an “everyman” clothing store that is all about “normal.” “What, like you haven’t seen plastic?” —  Let’s read — What like you haven’t seen my vagina objectified and flashed before the nation? Get used to it! This is “normal” and you are buying it.