I’m using this piece as an excerpt; but you should read everything dopegirlfresh has to say about the “marriage crisis.”
& really, if marrying someone is about loving them until your last breath exits your body, can we consider one thing: the purported crisis of unmarried black women suggests that there is not enough love for us. that we are not lovable. that there is scarcity in the black community, so we must either take what we can get from black men or marry white men if we want to be married at all. this is wrong. love is infinite. there is no reason to think, for one minute, that any one of us is not lovable. that we are not desirable — to anyone, whether they be white, asian, latino, man, woman, gender non-conforming, cisgender, transgender, disabled, blue collar, white collar, no collar, or anything fucking else. if we marry because we want to spend the rest of our lives surrounded by the love, care, and support of another person then why on earth would we let fear run us off our paths?
I have to admit that I let this mode of thinking completely cloud my perceptions of love, partnership, and relationships. Dwelling on how love should happen, what factors I should be considering, and how to manifest desire for companionship within a very limited paradigm led to an eventual inability to just relate to people I respected. It wasn’t about the formation, or sitting back and enjoying whatever unfolds, or even listening to the person I desired. It was pairing an unrealistic ideal of perfect love with a vehicle who happened to be a living, breathing person. (A quite attractive living, breathing person. But I digress.)
The problem I encountered is this: I would prefer a lifelong, childfree monogamous partnership independent of marriage. These debates about black love and black marriage flew over my head for a while because (as dopegirlfresh points out in the rest of that post you should read) I wasn’t included in that paradigm. I thought I understood and entertained the other options thoughtfully before I met this man. I completely second-guessed my desire because I wanted him. And the things he wanted were the near-direct opposite of what I wanted.
Instead of doing what smart people do and saying, “okay, let’s keep it moving,” I pushed myself hard into a space where I simply will never fit and created a tempest of regrettable, embarrassing and avoidable situations. Other events in my life shot down careful plans in other, equally important arenas of my dreams — my financial security, my career path, my relationships with family. And I literally unraveled in front of this man because I couldn’t even remember where square one was, let alone return to it.
After taking some time to stop, reflect, and return to dynamics where I felt most comfortable, I realized what dopegirlfresh identifies: love is infinite, transformative, and dynamic. Love is not a blueprint; it is a finished product in itself. So when I approached something as fundamentally easy as relationship formation with a bundle of rules and expectations from who-knows-where, I set myself up for a pretty huge okey-doke. I learned to see what was in front of me by relaxing my eyes and looking, not forcing myself to squint and invent what wasn’t there. And I’m asking you, all of you, to relax that grip on Perfect Black Love and Perfect Black Family.
Think on this: a perfect and ideal Black anything exists where you are a content, healthy, affirmed and engaged part of it — whether it’s a romantic relationship, a friendship, a career, a family, a body politic or a spiritual path. The level of respect and care you receive and generate will be better than your dreams, if you keep that perspective in mind.
Brownfemipower is one of my favorite bloggers and people on the internet. She is brilliant, open, and her sense of humor is out of this world. Plus we share a deep, unabashed love for Salma Hayek’s tetas.
In order for her to stay on the internet and spread her flip flopping joy far and wee, she needs to upgrade her computer. She wants to blog and write in style, and she has selected the Apple MacBook Pro as her goal computer. As a die-hard Apple fan I am proud of her choice; but we all know Apples do not run cheap.
From now until June 23, Miss BFP is fundraising for her new machine. She has a donation/gift scenario similar to that of a PBS telethon, and the goodies are just as rewarding:
Every person who donates will receive a gift!
For those who donate between:
$5-25: You will get a personalized thank you note from yours truly!
$26-50: You will get the personalized thank you note and a newly published zine!
$51-100: You will get the personalized thank you note, and two newly published zines!
Over $100: You will get the personalized thank you note, two newly published zines, and a surprise gift (I will tell you once you order–I only have certain quantities of each, so I don’t want to list them online!).
The bad news: Because this computer breaking down has taken me by surprise, I am only in the planning stages for the zines. So it will be up to two months before those of you who order zines will get them. So that you know what stage I am at making the zines, I will be documenting the process I go through to make them here on the blog. This has the added bonus of hopefully helping other people–so many people I know have expressed interest in making zines, but have also expressed not having any damn clue how to.
Not only can you get a treat, you also get a lesson wrapped around the treat. That’s what I call a great exchange. You can’t place a price on learning… but in this case, let’s give it a shot!
I remember one time a few years ago I got into an argument with a white sex worker on a friend’s blog because we were upset over a proposed bill in a state legislature that threatened abortion rights. She kept asking us why we were so worked up about a bill that wasn’t even passed, especially since if it were successfully passed, it wouldn’t be constitutional. We kept saying the bill shouldn’t be considered in the first place, and it needed to be killed regardless of whether it were constitutionally sound. The abortion measure never succeeded, and each of us went back to our respective corners with smug confidence about why that measure never succeeded, the foam returning to the insides of our mouths and our bile settling into our livers once more.
Now, we see the dangers of assuming that everyone automatically gets it and bad stuff will just go away because it’s illegal and bad with the passage of SB 1070 in Arizona — a horrifying anti-immigration measure that criminalizes all Latin@s living in Arizona and places the burden on them to prove their citizenship to law enforcement in all encounters. If Arizona police have any suspicion that you are illegally in the United States (because we know that can be determined by sight), you can be held for investigation. Despite protests, petitions, public statements and entreaties after the bill passed both legislative houses, Governor Jan Brewer signed the law into existence as a giant slap in the face to her state’s communities and a giant handshake with her state’s bigotry and racism. And former presidential candidate and Senator John McCain has joined her campaign to march in the wrong direction.
Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican describes what happens when you roll over the racist pig in the middle of immigration and leave it on its back:
This bill makes the racists happy. Just dig the comment threads on any videos on this topic. Sweet lord, these vile, selfish, thoughtless creeps who cluster to threads on immigration oughtta be shipped out to their very own island as far as I’m concerned. Judging by 90% of the noise they make, they simply are not fit to share a community or society with other people. They should be airlifted to an island and stuck there with a library of history books and made to work their own land and wait on their own damn tables and watch their own kids and chop up their own steers and otherwise bootstrap their asses to their own private, ridiculous destiny and leave the rest of us out.
There are going to be ample opportunities for this law to be challenged in courts if police officers do as they are now told at traffic stops, according to the Tuscon Citizen:
There is no way to determine citizenship status by just looking at someone. So the officer must ask. And, in order not to run afoul of the equal protection clause, police will have to ask everyone.
So now what if our white driver, who does not speak with a foreign accent, refuses to answer the question? What will the officer do? The law says an Arizona’s driver’s license or state-issued ID card suffice as proof of citizenship. But what if the driver doesn’t have a driver’s license in his or her possession?
Can you imagine any scenario in which the officer would develop a “reasonable suspicion” that the white driver is in the country illegally? I can’t (if this was Vermont, I could).
Now change the white driver to a Hispanic driver. Is refusing to answer the question “reasonable suspicion?” Or is failure to have a driver’s license?
In a state with several hundred thousand illegal immigrants entering it every year, and several hundred thousand more living here, a reasonable person would have to argue that it is “reasonable suspicion.” But it’s reasonable suspicion based on race and that’s just not Constitutionally viable.
And what about the merits of “harboring” a person in the state illegally? Again, I return to brownfemipower’s piece at Feministe, where many commenters point out to her the presence of nonimmigrant visas for women and children who face sexual assault and intimate partner violence. If they weren’t planning on calling law enforcement in Arizona before the passage of this law, they surely won’t be moving forward with that move now. Also, think of situations where non-citizens are family members — husbands, wives, children, cousins, parents and grandparents. The law is forcing people to choose to send them away or to keep them home. The law is driving a population of people who WANT to be citizens of this country further underground and out of the public eye, increasing the strain on public service organizations who attempt to reach these populations with assistance, and creating an impetus for other southern border states to follow its lead.
President Obama has called the bill “misguided.” But if he fulfilled his early promise to pass comprehensive immigration reform, Arizona would have had clear guidance on the nation’s immigration policy. There is a lot on his plate. It has to be done right. But Arizona has now proven that we cannot afford to wait.
I’ve already seen people invoking the poem from Martin Niemöller, the First they came for… poem that makes people feel the grip of fascism around their throats. People are readily likening this to Nazi Germany during the early part of the Third Reich, when all Jews were ordered to carry identification with them and wear stars identifying them as Juden. I wish that invoking the specter of the most popular genocide were enough; but considering the numerous genocides in other countries since the 1940s, I’m not sure if we underestimate the brutality of genocide or if we’re inured to its existence around the world until our own bathtubs are boiling hot. Even our president fails to call genocide what it is, when the evidence of what happened is apparent. Genocide no longer describes the systematic extermination of groups of people; genocide is now a politically loaded term that hurts the perpetrators’ feelings.
I don’t want to do a first they came chant. They’ve never stopped coming. They come through half-cocked racist philosophies; they come through brutal murders and attacks; they come in board rooms and conference rooms; they reduce humanity and need to numbers and ledgers. They won’t stop coming until we the people as a humane, peacemaking force make them never want to come again. Constant vigilance precludes passivity. When they come, and they always do, let them come knowing every step they take closer to fascism is a hazard to their power, their money, and their sense of morality.
We no longer wait for them to come. First we fight.
Update: Arizona rapper Swindoe makes a powerful song and video about crossing the border that you’ve gotta see: “Phony People.” Thanks to The Southern Shift for sharing and Davey D for tweeting.
Update 2: Prof Susurro at Like a Whisper offers lists of the negative effects of SB1070, along with videos.
Update 3: Kai provides some more actions for people to investigate/do in a comment on Feministe‘s Arizona immigration law round-up:
From what I heard on a conference call yesterday about SB 1070, hosted by RI4A, with local, state, and national organizers and advocates, right now organizers in Arizona are making “3 asks” of people outside their state: (1) hold solidarity vigils and actions in your own community, and send pictures or video to rlopez@communitychange.org; (2) escalate May Day demonstrations into a vocal protest against SB 1070; and (3) put pressure on President Obama and your Congressional representatives (House; Senate) to seek a federal injunction against the implemenation of SB 1070 because local and state police are not authorized to enforce federal law, and to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform.
There will surely be more targeted actions and campaigns, seeking to apply economic and political pressure on key points, as peeps get some more time for research and strategic deliberation.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is trying to find a way to arouse people’s attention without being arrested again. “How to End the Slavery Blame-Game,” an op-ed he penned for the New York Times, appears to be working. In it, Gates argues that because African kingdoms were complicit in selling their kinsmen during the transatlantic slave trade, an economic system responsible for bringing millions to the American continent for over two centuries of enslavement, crafting a system of reparations for descendants of African slaves would be difficult.
Skip Gates sells the concept of reparations very short by presuming that Black Americans want reparations solely to get back at a dehumanized specter of a supremacist White America. The conversation on reparations does not center how badly Blacks were treated by Whites; it centers the ongoing legacy of economic stability that White-dominated institutions have enjoyed by law and tradition over centuries, compared to the economic blight that Black Americans face on an ongoing basis. Despite the hard work our ancestors invested against their will in the future of America, we do not share in any legacy of economic benefit. Opportunities, while admirable and prevalent, are not wealth. Affirmative action, while an attempt to level the playing field, cannot equip Black Americans to move ahead in a system designed to keep a minority underclass thriving without more centuries of underpaid and undervalued work. Bootstrapping isn’t feasible if you have to manufacture the boot and the straps from scratch while everyone else is wearing boots and owning multiple pairs.
The solution conceivably would lie in direct economic investment in Black America and its institutions — the ones that exist and ones needing to be created. However, as Skip Gates reveals in his other flawed assumption, that solution will not begin or end with Obama’s presidential power. President Obama’s election cannot singlehandedly defeat the White supremacy on which this nation and its systems were founded. But unlike Gates, I don’t think many in Black America expected it to do so.
Updated: While I revived a defense of reparations, Omi tackled Gates and his shortsighted historical evaluation of the slave trade. Also, a great 9-point takedown from Kwame Shabazz.
If you haven’t made your way over to brownfemipower’s guest post at Feministe on citizenship’s impact on reporting sexual assault, please read it over and take its message to heart.
When I wrote my review of Erykah Badu’s latest album release and video, I struggled about how to self-identify. I am sick of pigeonholing myself into movements that could give a damn about me on a personal level and my experiences. Ask me why I haven’t blogged for months since graduating and receiving my license to practice law. Ask me how far my entitlement from receiving an education took me when those loans came due and those pieces of paper weren’t the right color green to keep me afloat in the recession. Ask me how I feel about personally knowing my wealth is barely above $5 at this particular moment. Ask me how this knowledge has affected my health and my relationships. At the same time, I know that what I’ve gone through is not the worst in a life as a self-identified woman. People are deporting us, are abusing us, are assaulting us, are shorting us of what we fairly earn. I’m not sure a united cry under Feminism’s* banner will resolve those problems.
You see, it’s not enough to claim the identity of Feminist or to claim the identity of woman. In our society, you often need privileges to back up that assertion. When you identify as transgender, or you are not a U.S. citizen, or your economic means is precarious, or you are not white, or you are not heterosexual, your emphatic declaration of your identity is not enough. It is never enough. There are expectations — performative and otherwise — a person must fulfill for basic consideration of her humanity.
Part of the reason the debates concerning “I’m not a feminist, but” are frustrating is simply declaring that you are a Feminist is not the crux of capital-F Feminism. Feminism and gender equality have evolved to the point that some of their battles exist on completely different poles. When Feminists and their ideological institutions ignore women who are not citizens, dismiss the concerns of transgender women, permit sexist character attacks on women they disagree with, or allow minority voices to fade for the benefit of assessing the movement’s strides, there is no but about the matter. There is no ambiguity. It’s a very first-world centered, very white, very upper-class, and very privileged movement that centers itself in the midst of many feminisms and womanisms that pick up Feminism’s burden with far fewer resources and respect.
People who identify under the Feminist moniker would do better to show their work than to demand some Borg affinity to their cause by virtue of being a woman. Especially since in this world, many women barely reach “female” status.
*Feminism and Feminist are capitalized because the institution — the one that collects money, that conducts lobbying, that distributes publishing deals and brokers its representatives on the mainstream media outlets it claims to detest — is the main entity claiming that identification as a Feminist is critical to its success. Much as Nike and K Swiss and McDonald’s make consuming its product the ultimate determination of your worth in relation to its goals. It doesn’t matter what you do with the products afterward… so long as you buy them and buy into what they’re selling.
