Two Must-Reads For Your Day

The first is a piece I’ve written for Global Comment on hair, race, beauty standards, and the media:

I have been blessed to know many black women who wear their hair in many different ways. From completely bald to locs to weaves to braids to wigs to the simple wrap style, the women in my life and around it have found a myriad of ways to keep their hair unique and true to their individual styles. Colors and cuts are no strangers to our heads, either. So where are all the ideas that black women are not living and surviving with the hair they have (whether bought, sheared, or homegrown) coming from?

Not us. We are as “have hair; will travel (whether you like it or not)” as anybody else.

The ideas and myths come from the outside, of course. Our battles with the white establishment over our presentation stem partly from a backhanded discussion of our “conflicts” with our hair.

The second is Glenn Greenwald’s latest in Salon on the so-called American “meritocracy,” widespread political nepotism, and the lies we’ve been fed about advancement and bootstrapping:

Just to underscore a very important, related point: all of the above-listed people are examples of America’s Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work — The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor — who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice — is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

I just want to make sure that’s clear.

Check them both out; drink them in; process; enjoy.

“Dirty Diana” | Michael Jackson

I love the guitar to this song. RIP Michael. You had the stuff that we wanted; you were the thing that we needed.

Book List #1 – August 21, 2009

And mini-Häagen-Dazs for breakfast! Can I get an oh yeah, Kool-Aid Man style?

Here is my short list of books to read and process (but not in the order I’ll read them):

The Gift by Lewis Hyde – I think his book will help me process the ideas on media I posted in the entry before this one. He talks about gift economies, the industry of writing and the effect of copyright on the production of creative works. Or at least, when I first bought the book, that’s what I thought it concerned. I may be surprised; it’s been months.

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti – I bought the infernal thing. I may try to crank out an impartial book review on it. I liked Latoya Peterson’s original draft for the compilation, and there are other interesting essays in it. However, I am still pissed off that the people who wrote countless commentaries on the original call for submissions went unacknowledged in the book. If it weren’t for their vocal disagreement on what types of actions and concepts would shape the idea of a rape-free culture, I doubt the book would be as good or potentially as substantive.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere – A gift I received from a fellow activist and scholar. I’ve heard SO many good things about it. It needs to get in my brain waves as soon as possible.

Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice by Paul Butler – I saw one of my law school professors writing about the book during a conference session, and I went in the red buying a copy to read.

Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism, edited by Bushra Rehman and Daisy Hernandez – I started this book during my last semester of law school. I want to finish it. And yes, I know I probably could have graduated with a much higher law school GPA if I didn’t blog during my first year and read all manners of stuff through my second and third years. But it is what it is, and I still graduated!

Orientalism by Edward Said – This is one of those books that has haunted me since undergraduate days and a gift from my wifey. We read an excerpt during an introduction to critical theory course and a lightbulb blazed and exploded in my head. I loved what I saw and now I have to see the rest. That class, coupled with plenty of other English courses, made me wish I’d chosen an English major. (I almost had enough credits to declare an English major, too. But I went with Law & Society and Philosophy instead. I need to contact my undergraduate school and find out why Philosophy is not listed as my second major even though I fulfilled all the requirements and declared.)

Lilith’s Brood trilogy by Octavia Butler – I’m partway through Adulthood Rites now, and I am loving her fiction. I have my own sci-fi/fantasy novel idea playing through my head, and her writing is guiding some conclusions about the world I’m creating. Plus, she’s just phenomenal. We lost a muse.

A Mercy by Toni Morrison – Another author and artist I love dearly. People have been raving about this book forever, and it’s just collecting dust on my bookshelf. No more! Gonna fix that as soon as I power through a couple of the nonfiction works. My mind needs imagination breaks.

Comment and tell me some awesome things you’ve been reading, or even your thoughts on some of the books I’ve listed! I don’t believe in spoilers; but other people probably do. So just be careful with releasing too much information about what you’re sharing.

Reflections on Ideal Media — Or the New New Media

So my sister in crime Blackamazon is asking a very poignant question all over the place that I feel like answering:

What does your ideal media look like not just news art film music magazine Internet porn what does it look like? What does it do for your life?

I have a few requirements of media that would make it ideal and enjoyable for my life. This list is a mix of desires and observations I have about the topic:

Media are a teaching tool, no matter what type of medium it is. I think it’s true that men and women look to pornography and absorb different sexual practices and techniques from it, for example. People regularly adopt poetic expression to explain deeper realities and sensations. Media create new vocabulary for cultures to use.

Consequently, I think that ideal media involve accountability. While media can explore and create new worlds of imagination and association, the over-saturation of commercialized false associations has impaired our cultural discourse and understanding. I think that people retreat to old values so frequently in present-day America because while media have challenged the values of the status quo, its challenges are mainly clusters of trinkets and hierarchies of reputation and power. The resonating values we’ve had throughout time often come from nonmaterial sources, inspirations beyond our immediate control.

Ideal media would not manipulate simply because it is possible or simply for producing a higher profit for the manipulator. Each symbol would have deeper meaning than fatter pockets for the person soliciting its use. Discussion of its tools would be as commonplace as discussing a sports game or a book or a popular television show. In this instance, I’m speaking of emptier uses of media, such as using Photoshop to unrealistically distort and augment people’s bodies and create an unrealistic and unblemished form of beauty. Ideal media would find the beauty in people as they are, without tricks or gimmicks. It would not play to the inferiority complexes of the masses.

Ideal media would be completely accessible to everyone. There would be no inequity of distribution of tools to create. Every person who wishes to express themselves through creative means would do it. And the will of the audience would not be used as a bludgeon on people with unpopular or dissenting thoughts; media would embrace all messages. It would be up to the people to use their minds and select what they wish to experience. There would be no agency to call to protect anyone from media; people would be conscious enough to protect themselves.

Piggybacking off that point, ideal media are actively involved in our world. We would not absorb our information in sound bytes and spin jingles only. We would not sit passively in front of a screen and let the screen’s presence validate whatever media passed before our eyes. Ideal media would inform as it persuades, and it would do so honestly… lest its accountability would weaken.

Ideal media would convey messages without making another living being feel inferior or denigrated. These media would shape our discourse to facilitate communication and association, not dissent and separation. Exposing people to other’s realities on a daily basis, and not in overdone caricatures of reality, on a small and large scale — ideal media would give voices to the voiceless and let them shape how they wish for their voices to be heard.

I’m a dreamer. These types of media probably won’t happen in my lifetime. But I think people do not take media seriously. The ways I listed above would be the first steps to leading to a more conscious and enlightened society. People would more critically engage with each other, they would participate more in civic life and national politics, and they would learn to appreciate what they have instead of constantly chasing more and more. People exposed to ideal media would be able to live independent from it because while media would enrich daily life, it would not supplant it. I want media that lead to people appreciating their world for its richness and fullness. Good media encourage people to step out of the grid and do something to benefit the world and others around them. So far, that’s what media have slowly taught me, and I’m still learning and seeing the world through new eyes.

first things first.

1. I don’t know why I said I’d be gone until October. I have nothing really to do between now and October. Maybe I thought I’d be job searching, and since I do things with such intensity (snort) I thought I wouldn’t have time to post here. Or I wanted to break myself of the habit of writing. I’m hoping it was some desire to break free of the internet. I don’t like the fact that I have been avoiding writing.

2. I am job searching. Job searching is horribly demoralizing. You have to toe the line of self-promotion and modesty; you have to pretend that you are a person without severe flaws — or at least, without flaws that would impair you from doing work. I’ve been trying for federal government jobs. The types of work offered, the job security, the benefits make them all the most competitive legal jobs out there.

3. I am not particularly rushed to job search, even though I should feel rushed. I have bills to pay. I think I have enough to pay all my bills for this month and partially for next month. That’s my cushion; that’s it. So now I’m getting in the frame of mind to apply for everything my little eyes can see. It’s hard. I have no school!

4. I have no school! What the fuck? I always have school! How does it just end like this? No campuses, no professors, no clubs, no grades and papers… I mean I could do some of that stuff on my own, I guess. I don’t know. No school! Crazy shit!

5. I have to get back in good graces with temporary agencies.

6. I keep forgetting to pray. I am a Christian who forgets to pray out of shame of forgetting, out of fear of retribution for forgetting, and then out of silly pride in the knowledge that my God is not as petty as I think or as a lot of people think. So that’s what brings me around to praying. There is no Highly Favored way to pray. You just… go to Him and you ask Him what you have to ask, and you tell Him the truth. So… that’s what I have to remember to do, every day, multiple times a day. I have to remind myself I’m not alone.

7. What sorts of things should I start writing? I need to get back into the groove of composition. Synthesizing and analyzing information. Expressing my thoughts in coherent ways. (Can you tell I’ve been writing resumes and abstracts?) I also have some free time to go to conferences and things now. Especially if they’re free or they give me full scholarships. Wink, nudge. And I have a few other places where I can write. But of course, this is my first home and my sanctuary. I wouldn’t write something like this at Comments From Left Field.

8. Does anyone still read this thing? How the hell are y’all? I hear Eminem playing in the back of my mind, “Snap back to reality, look, there goes gravity…” My feet are back on solid virtual ground! Or something! Internets! Serious business!

9. Can you believe that if I want to publish poetry, I may have to take it offline? That’s a strong argument to relearn the art of writing out my thoughts in notebooks. I have plenty of notebooks, too. Guess it’s time to start copying things into them and then taking some of my words down. It won’t be like other times where I write words down and then completely destroy them.

10. Try not to start a flame war in my first blog post since… some time ago, okay? I know you want to do it; all the internet stereotypes say you do.