Blood Sacrifice: The Exceptionalism Myth They Fight to Uphold

It's not mental illness.
It's not just self hate+fear illness.
It's settler terrorism.
It's jingoism+ xenophobia marinated in racism.
And it's a kind of endemic cultural violence that leads to civil war. 

I've been eying this road America has been on particularly since Sandy Hook. Since 2012, I said to my dear friend Vernice P. Miller, who had been working at the Whitbey School near Sandy Hook, that night, when she came home from her school's lockdown to my apt where she was staying. 

The immediate reaction to that horrific day  was to call it mental illness.
The other immediate public reaction was to call for a ban on guns to curb gun violence.
Followed immediately by the successful pushback from the NRA and Joe Blow public to preserve the right to be armed to kill. As if we were already in pending war or something...where folks where running rampant popping each other off.
At the time the gun count was just under  300million in this country...that we knew of!
And immediately after all of this
...nothing.

Those little white children were worth nothing to the GOP, the NRA, or the racist fuckers who just wanted the right to carry and to kill. 

That was very informative to my brown foreign body.

I knew I was staring down the path of a civil war, and I said it plainly...but such plainneess couldn't find root in the American consciousness or imagination,  because the #MythOfExceptionalism taught us to think "that cant happen here."

Folks...it happened here before!

And what brought the first one about has not yet been resolved, which therefore has yet to effect a true (r)evolution of belief or systemic leadership in this country.

And...this is...just a country.
Like any other.
Determined by a People.

There have been a few upRisings world wide since then, including the recent ones in Sudan, and Puerto Rico, but America for the most part has been asleep.

239 shootings between 2013 after Sandy Hook to the Parkland shooting in 2018.
to
251 mass shootings since the start of 2019.

Looks like we about to blow y'all.

So much pain for these families. So much terror for those of us trying to go about our business in public spaces.
Since I moved to Washington, an open carry state 4 years ago, there have been several local mass shootings...including at high schools where my partners kids attend.

My 17 year old friend said sullenly when I returned last night, "I'm sorry...welcome back to America."

My partner and I were bemused at how little airplay mass shootings get now. Because they are normalized. Normalized!!!
Like ...oh well, there goes another one. Nothing to see here. 

My family and friends abroad reach out in grave concern for how they see America portrayed in international news. I have lived to see media portrayals turn on a country that strove to control such optics in years past. The Third World looks so appealing now when once it was once portrayed as the place so stay clear of.

Travel advisories now issued about #ComingToAmerica by those same countries immigrating peoples left to have a better life here in the United/Divided States.

This shooter may have been a Trrump supporter, but be clear, he was not invented by Trump.
I am tired and terrified to see folks talking like this shit started under Trump.
This shit CREATED Trump! 

He is a dangerous vehicle that they ride, but they would have found another way.

So call me an alarmist.
I don't give a fuck.
I come from an unfortunate legacy of coups and civil wars.
I know what I'm looking at.
Sorry for you if you can see it straight.

Racism is a constructed sickness, and here in Amerikkka it is heavily armed which makes the color of this worldwide issue particularly ominous here.
You tell me what other ingredients are needed.

The DNC better stop with their ego driven infighting and take a note from the GOP playbook: a collective vision is the only way to turn this tide. 

The last 30 years of Republican projects and lobbies, including the Tea Party paving some of this way, have proven as much. Cuz, here we are...and those party leaders who don't even care about their own foot soldier constituents, are fanning laughing gas into these flames.

I still believe these very nationalist/supremist foot soldiers- the ones who will topple this mythological throne of supremacy themselves. But how much damage will happen before they reckon with the fact that their own heroes of death betrayed them? How much damage will they create within that reckoning?

I don't know what we do about this culturally, because this is a socio-cultural issue too.  And for all the hard realism I peddle in, I also still believe Love has to be a part of the answer and the work.  A functional proactive, hard kind of love, which is frankly the only kind that heals.  

But first - get the legislation to regulate guns once and for all!!

Please pardon any typos. Sent from my so-called 'smartphone' 

Paging Batman! Gotham is spiralling!

I've been saying to people that if we are not careful - he may just win - there are enough voting jackasses to ensure as much.  Maybe that's a bit of a panic - but most of America's voters cast their ballot as applause for entertainment, not from long deliberation as to what is best for the country as a whole.  Yes I said it. 

I have not publicly engaged in much fodder about this bored, entitled, ego-maniacal, racist, misogynistic mad man - simply because I don't want to add to the popular energy vibrations he keeps attracting with every post we share. But for real guys - if you like ANYTHING that has changed in the world in the last 4 years and wish for the world to keep those changes - WAKE THE FUCK UP and fill your platforms with talk about candidates who will keep us evolving rather than devolving. 

Remember puppet President Bush spoke exactly about taking us to Iraq for war ON his campaign trail. I remember that very clearly and was not at all surprised when the September 11th tragedy segued straight to that.  At least it can be said there was organized madness behind that though - most of which Bush had no control over.  

Don't laugh at this dude though and what you hear him saying. Take him VERY seriously. He's an idiot to some - but he's no idiot really - he understands how to entertain the fear-mongering and the ignorant; he knew very well he'd succeed in Alabama to add to his political engine. And now the supremacists are all hoopty-do excited about him.  He states the Bible as his favorite book as a (transparent) means of promoting his own "second favorite" book.  

While I was in Washington DC a couple months ago I drove past one of his newer real estate acquisitions - the Old Post Office located at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue - a convenient new office location.  

The man truly believes anything can be bought and reorganized according to his rogue whims.  Luckily he's a real liability to the Republican party.  They don't like rogue.  They're still trying to shake off the Bush years, the Tea Party, and Palin.  He's done the rest of us a favor - by reminding us that half of America would rather tank the country on account of discriminatory ideals of capitalistic, imperialistic, racist motivations than to grow this nation according to its ONE solid ideal stated in the constitution: We the People.  And at this point one thing is quite clear… ANYone else right now looks better than this Joker.

Update Dec 2015: Perspective Update from the BBC

A Letter to Rachel Dolezal

Dear Rachel Dolezal,

As I have posted online countless times, I will offer again, in such times, my deferral to the inimitable James Baldwin:

"White is a state of mind" baby!

Meaning, as I'm sure you know, - RACE is a state of mind.  I am not mad you lady; confused by you, but not mad at you.  So you wanted
to be ME, and play a black woman in this world.  Okay.  You certainly could have chosen easier ways to practice your vocational work in civil rights and liberties efforts, an easier way to do the job as it were.  And from what I understand, you've been doing a great job, which you were not given due to any privileges.  So, this matter is a personal one then.  As far as I see it, you have not hurt the cause, or my cause, nor created any potholes in my lawn.  In fact, you may have helped in some indirect odd way.  Who woulda thunk it - a blondie that supposedly gentlemen prefer now wants to be ME!! Well I'll be.

As far as your identity issues, well - keep exploring. If most of us dig deep enough - we can relate.  After all, we are ONE right? And this is the journey we're all on really...to move from the illusive self...to an integrated self. Just keep it honest would be my only advice. People get really upset about lying you see.

And don't you agree that we should get back to the real business at hand - like flooding platforms with vehement comments and the streets with urgent cries on picket signs about the dire humanitarian crisis that is going on at the DR/Haitian border AS WE SPEAK?!  You know - that racial cleansing, stateless sanctioning, reverse forced exodus of a people just a few miles south - the Palestine of the Western Hemisphere dare I be so harsh???!!! 

I know, I know, Facebook needs this fodder, and those TV appearances and book deals are flooding in, soon to buff your bank account, but aren't you just itching to get to get back to some real work here for the true effective betterment of our black brothers and sisters?  Yeah, me too.

To the cause!! And let the forum of idle chatter scatter you transracial poster child you! But I won't call you a bad mamma-Jenner though. Nope. Don't see the connection.

Oh and nice tan and perm by the way - fooled us all, but - it cost us nothing, so over and out.

~  Sincerely from the Monuments of MLK

"If we are to have peace on Earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional.  Our loyalties must transcend
our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective."

Berette Macaulay

For Trayvon Martin: In. The Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams.

A little over a year ago I collaborated with some friends to create levitating imagery as a first reaction to the news of Trayon Martin's untimely demise. The titles of each triptych portrait were part of a whole sentence: In The Hood We Will Witness Lives and Dreams. 

The idea stemmed also from what I have noticed and experienced in American culture especially - and painfully so - the attachment society has to limited, definitive emblems and symbols of a person, rather than to recognize 'the being', the character, the soul. To state repeatedly that we all have soaring dreams whether we live in 'da hood' or in a homogenized or insulated gated community, whether we wear a suit or a hoodie, is indeed a social conditioning that must be created and pressed consistently and actively into our collective psyche if such dangerous misconceptions are ever to change. We witness not only what unfolds before us, but we create what we witness, by bringing our perceptions to a scene, a conversation, or chance meeting.  If Zimmerman saw a child instead of perceiving a black gangster, Trayvon Martin may possibly have lived, or in fact benefited from his protection rather than to be hunted.

For the triptych works - I asked friends from mixed backgrounds and professions to pose for me in their hoodies for front and back portaits, and in levitating action sequences as a visual attempt to represent the static stereotype whilst actively transcending it.

A short film was also in development to accompany this that I'm hoping to complete by the end of the year.

If only we all remembered simultaneously that it's a simple shift in one's perception that can create huge change...just like the butterfly...

In. The Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams.

Via Flickr:

In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams., a set on Flickr.

Series Title:

In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams
A response to Trayvon Martin's misidentification...

...on the Cusp of Growing Up in America

The difficulty for me each year is to figure out the answer this internal question:  How do I celebrate or participate in Black History Month? 

Those who have been in intimate company with me know the intricacies of my conclusion that the US is a nutty place to live.   It is ceaselessly astonishing to me that this daring land of the We the..free, should still be today -despite a litany of admirable efforts and results consistent with 'the dream'- so obstinately shackled in old societal clashes of race, gender, and gun violence at the near 50% dividing line in the population!  And - that the sluggish transcendence of these issues seem to go unnoticed as harbingers to our pervading inequalities in health and education, that would nurture a more autonomously creative society truly free to pursue that so-called right to happiness without these  mind-reducing and soul-crushing tensions. 

But -  to the matter of this persisting social construct of 'race' in this our 'Black History Month' - it is a rather inadequate recognition and inspires far less reverence in me than say a Date of Remembrance or any single historical event. I therefore rarely arrive at an answer that satisfies, because it is to me - the absence of this specially named  month that might remove the stigma of "Black" as something that is the victimized  "Other" and still in need of special recognition.

Some words by James Baldwin (guest of honor at the National Press Club [CSPAN 1986]) serve for me as the best summary of the urgency of this absurdity.  Drag the player to listen [from 38.16 - 40:50] where he answers questions on race relations in America today... "A modest proposal: How about White History Week?!"

view on Netflix

What would be far more useful in empowering and transcending this distinction I believe would be to return to the base, to the beginning both in the telling of all history and where it is taught.   Lost Kingdoms of Africa for instance, is not to be reserved for private video rentals or  hosted exhibitions and talks in a special month reserved for such dissemination.  It would be better to further press our institutions to assure this as mandated eduction for ALL children;  as we, and as they are now taught of the Greeks and Romans and other old Empires.  It should all be a matter of course, but we still live in a time where such knowledge is threatening for unfortunate, unfair, and frankly expired reasons and thus still face opposition in appeals for wide cultural dissemination.  This unspoken social reparation of a notable month, fought for and understandably believed to be our entitlement, is but a false right that reinforces our separation through touted celebrations of abbreviated triumphs of our 'overcoming'  in the last 50 -100 years as a people, and serves only and still to do just that …to separate and to annihalite a much longer story fitted for attention in one month out of the year(?)!!  The entitlement of this 'special interest' is an insufficient delusion that serves none of the so-called races, in any culture, least of all blacks who are  now 'integrated members' of society. To these points, I highly recommend listening to Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie who spoke so eloquently in a TED talk on "the danger of the single story" and its effect on cultural histories and contemporary  relationships.  

Wikipedia Image

Indeed there are many equalizing effects that the presence of Barack Obama and his family have had on the image of people of colour in the US and the world view to be certain, along with countless other figures; we can see it all over the media. But still and yet, here we are and more than ever divided almost violently by race.  All you have to do is turn on the local evening news in this country. Or, read a few YouTube comment threads - it's amazing how fast a reasonable discussion will descend into senseless vitriol.  2013 people!!! And this while the world considers a first black Pope - and an African to boot - to rescue the declining influence of the Catholic church - which I venture to guess would also be fun for pictures but would change little in their institutional doctrine. 

Yes.  Change,...in modern history, is certainly here, but so hypocritically welcomed that it appears as a hallucination of ironies at best. Note that in researching for this post, I found a bare few reports from any of the world news orgs on the Black Pope headliner...but much more on the international political vying over which country the next Pope will come from. Yeah - so much for separation of Church and State...  This paired with premature news fodder on who will be the 1st Woman President of the United States. Could it be Michelle Obama who is both black AND a woman?!  And on that matter - as we head towards the next Women's History Month - dare we dream that:

1) the leading religions - the heirachal power structures between Man and God that have rewritten a lot of history (ironically)in the name or preservation of God's kingdom - may consider allowing Women to participate, and lead...too?
2) the two most powerful imperial entities -America and the Vatican- will disabuse their delusional right of power over the natural, social, and spiritual worlds and allow equality and validity of all existence?  

THIS could eradicate the need for a month of head patting!


I indeed understand how the necessity these special History Months came about, I just wish we no longer had need for them.  The growing up simply isn't happening fast enough for me I guess...
Suffice it to say - this month I celebrated nothing. But I did find James Baldwin. 


Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
~ James A. Baldwin





 
PAST RELATED POSTS:
A Response to Dispatches from (A)MENDED America (December 2008)

What it means to PRIORITIZE!!! (March 2009)

"Why Do You Talk So White?!!" - (Uh oh - it's a race rant...) (March 2012)

Social Web Divisions???

I just love the endlessness of social studies on social website behaviours here in the US and around the world.  

Though I started my own work observations on this back in 2010 - I imagine that this work will continue on.  I try to read up on any new findings about how our online actions either mimic or override real life social mores and norms.

The BBC recently posted this on their site:  

Is the social web divided by race?

It's an interesting short read and video on how the different races appear to be statistically clustering to certain social sites on the internet.  Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr are featured - making Facebook glaringly absent...  Hmmm....

Check it out!

 

 

 

RELATED JOURNEY POSTS: 

Next SeBiArt Show in Miami + first time Art Basel Visit (Nov 2011)

Credit Where It's Due

I got an email today that I had to share here:




    Why is it that a Black Man can create a tiny piece called a filament (electric light - Lewis Latimer) that allows people to see in the dark?   

But can't be seen fit to lead a country to the true light.

Why is it  that a Black Man can create an instrument (clock - Benjamin Banneker) that  all people use to tell time? 

But people don't think it is time for him to run a country.


Why is it that a Black Man can design a place for the high authorities to meet in and a place for the president to live in  (The Capital and the White House Phillip Reid (a slave) and Pierre L'Enfant)? 
      
But not good enough to lead these meetings or live in himself.

Why is it that a Black Man was brilliant enough to do the first open heart surgery (Dr. Dan iel Hale Williams) and show the world how to get and preserve plasma (Dr. Charles Drew)? 

But not good enough to put a program in place where everyone can afford this surgery.

Why is it that a Black Man was creative enough to design an instrument (traffic light - Garrett Morgan) to bring multiple people (traffic) to a halt? 

But not seen creative enough to design a plan to bring all this unnecessary and worthless fighting between countries, to an end.

Why is it that a Black Man could create the soles (shoes - Jan Matzeliger) that people walk on every day? 
But not seen good enough to fill the shoes of a bad president.

Why is it that a Black Man was smart enough and brave enough to teach himself (Fredrick Douglas and Thomas Fuller - both  slaves) and others how to read, write and/or calculate math? 

But not seen smart enough and bold enough to calculate a platform to be President to a country that sure needs another first by us.

So you see my Brothers and Sisters, what I am saying is, let us not forgot our past which led us to our present and can definitely be the backbone to our future.  We were good enough, smart enough, creative enough, and bold enough then, so let us all give Obama the chance to show that we are still these things and more.  We all are as strong as our weakest link, so do not be that weak link that denies our people that chance to show we still can OVERCOME AND BE THE FIRST!   
THE PRESIDENT OF THESE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA !       

LET US ALL CONTINUE PRAYING THAT THIS PRESIDENT WILL ADHERE TO AND BE LED BY FAITH.   PASS THIS ON!       =


 

Beautiful Ironies

A persistent belief of mine, even in the most trying of times is that unexpected beauty in life shatters our monument to suffering.  When we experience an unlikely turn of events in the last minute of fitful desperation, or  witness a just reward for sacrificial work of an underdog, we cannot help but be inspired; yet to hold on to this inspiration requires a williingness to release the often irresistable need to hold blame.

While I've been busy in my little cocoon these past months, trying to figure out which way to turn next and how to get there with confidence and gratitude as my companions (because it's been a bit challenging to hold the road with them lately...) I have been slapped back to reality with three most inspiring and ironic things over the past days.

As we see a historic end to the Oprah Winfrey Show today (so many of us grew up with this woman-with-a-message, whether we watched all along or not), I tuned into one of her farewell shows last week, and she did me in AGAIN!!   It was a rainy, gloomy day and I was feeling particularly sapped of motivation - and boy did her show bring me to my senses.  She highlighted the lives of two incredibly 'unlikely' beacons of hope and true purpose (Oprah being one too, if we recall this billionaire's beginnings):  

Photo: Oprah Winfrey Website

Mattie J. T. Stepanek - Thirteen years young and centuries old in wisdom, this wheel chair bound prophet spent his very short life from the age of three, spreading messages of love, peace, joy, and delight with life.  A boy who had every reason to sing only woes of his very trying physical existence with muscular dystrophy, but chose (or was chosen) instead to guide his experience here on earth as one of consistent and constant gratitude and wonderment with life. He shared this message with millions through his writings, and by the end of his life, Mattie had 6 New York Times bestsellers of his poems and one of his essays.  He is currently being considered for sainthood!

 

See a short tribute clip of his life: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/A-Tribute-to-Mattie-JT-Stepanek

Your heartsong is your inner beauty.  It's the song in your heart that wants you to help make yourself a better person, and to help other people do the same. Everybody has one.

~Mattie J.T. Stepanek, 1990 - 2004~

photo: Oprah Winfrey Website

Dr. Tererai Trent, Ph.D. -  From a poor rural farming village in Zimbabwe and denied an education simply because she was girl, set her dreams of earning the highest academic credentials in the unimaginably distant United States of America.  She wrote these dreams on a piece of paper and buried them under a rock. Then proceeded to be challenged at every step - sold into marriage at 11 years old, mothering 4 children by the age of 20, being severely abused by a husband who refused her any space to learn anything let alone go to school. But she persevered against these impossible odds to see the suffix 'Ph.D.' follow her name.

Photo: Oprah Winfrey Website

I remember very well my father pointing to my brothers and the other boys in the village and saying: 'These are the breadwinners of tomorrow. We need to educate them. We need to send them to school. The girls will get married.'

~Tererai Trent~

See Tererai's story here: http://www.oprah.com/world/Tererai-Trent-Returns-to-Zimbabwe-to-Share-Her-Story-Video

Then, just yesterday we were given near unimaginable video footage to add to the unfolding shift in inspiring relationships in our world today, when Michelle and Barack Obama were greeted MOST ceremoniously by the Queen of England, complete with a 41 gun salute from antique muskets and canons by the Scottish Guard on the Buckingham Palace grounds.  I needn't wax on about the historical complexity of this image except to express my exact thoughts upon watching the footage - that seated at the 'highest' table were the most elite lineage of our collective  ancestors of slaves and slave masters toasting each other and their 'special' relationship in basically ruling the world.  I felt so awed, inspired, utterly amazed and filled by the meaning of this.  It's no small matter, and irrespective of how we may or may not feel about these people as individuals, this was a sight to behold and one that I know our parents and elders (regardless of race, culture, or social standing) would never have imagined, and unfortunately that my father, one of the first black Queens Counsel attorneys in England, never lived to see. And it got me thinking...

When people can no longer be blamed, or historical atrocities, past indiscretions, or other external circumstances can no longer utilized as reasons for the real or perceived inadequacies of our lives, it simply means we must now take real responsibility for what we dream of, where we invest our energies, and how we work to fulfill our purpose - our 'heartsong'. This is the paradoxical manifestation of desires fulfilled  - individually AND collectively; as the old adage cautions, "Be careful what you wish for..."  

One personal example of a wish, and embarrassing gripe: I keep wishing for money to purchase new camera so I can get on with my work.  But I already have a camera - it may be old, but it still works beautifully, so what do I think will change in my creative process by getting a new one??  It cannot be denied - I AM, we ARE starting at the same line of possibility each day we awake, and the attitude and energy we bring to it will determine how the race is run.  Funny how nothing could be more terrifying, or more exciting.  And how beautifully ironic.

For more footage of this, see BBC links below:

Obama toasts the Queen

The Queen toasts Barack and Michelle Obama

footage updates (may 26th) - Obama becomes the first US President to address the UK Parliament in Westminster, and was introduced most admiringly with the famous quote, so apt for this post and all the people spoken of here:

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~Abraham Lincoln

 

comment from youtube:

 "Great Speech. I am an American who lives in the UK and it feels so good not to have to apologize for my president anymore. President Obama has returned dignity, thoughtfulness and intelligence to his office."

What it means to PRIORITIZE!!!

Quick note to get some stuff off my chest here. I'm a bit exhausted by the near daily forwards now advising me to lift my fists in outrage, to march, or to boycott some product or service because of an idiot who has again successfully enraged people of color by expressing an ignorant disdain for non-whites. Are we really doing this now? Are we going to give up our time, energy, and attention to this (rather than to real problems or to our victories), to validate EVERY single minor allegation or sign of racist sentiment???

Listen - Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are educated and successful representations of us, of ALL of us, black, white, red, and blue, and one of them IS the leader of the free world. Yes, it's true. Believe it. Can we focus now on mobilizing everyone we can to roll with the changing hand of power and hopefully the driving philosophies that could possibly save our world and NOT to attention seeking idiots???!! Please???

I just bought Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines, both featuring Barack and Michelle on the covers – photographed by Anne Leibovitiz. I spent some down time looking at these photos and reading the articles – I did, and you know, it made me feel like I was above the nonsense. And gasp, I bought them both at Barnes & Noble.


Want something to foward around? Humanitarian agencies are being kicked out of Darfur as we speak!!!

Read about it HERE

Sign the Petition HERE . I just did.

And the Congo is on a real fast track to hell!!!

Read About it here at the NY TIMES - "The Invisible War"

For God's sake folks - a swapped around book in a Barnes & Noble window in ONE neighborhood in all of Florida???!!! Offensive yes...grand scheme importance? None.
PLEASE PRIORITIZE!!!!

the Barnes & Noble Picture...

So no doubt you've seen or heard this one today...

-----Original Message-----

Barnes & Noble

Let us not be lulled into a sense of complacency, due to the recent political success of President Obama!

Racism still exists in this country. Like all things, nothing is perfect on this planet, in this world.

We have an obligation to be active on issues that simply cannot be ignored.
Along these lines we should all actively spread the word of how Barnes and Noble apparently feels about black people or at least our President.

Please forward this to as many people you think should be aware of it and would be offended by this.


Boycotting Barnes and Noble will show the economic effect of people who will not tolerate racism.


Barnes and Noble had this as their store front display in Coral Gables, FL, in the Miracle Mile Mall. I am totally disgusted and I think it isimportant that we all find a different place to buy our books. Obviously this is a place of extreme ignorance. How far have we really come?

God bless the CP race!


----
AND I SAY:

Is this a joke? I’m sorry but I don’t agree with this at all.

1)
As a photographer I have to note that if this was indeed a B&N window and I wanted to point out this outrage to the world, I would have ensured that there was an entire storefront photo to help market my outrage. Since this is not the case I have to question whether if this is a joke or not (considering there are so many folklore sights out there invalidating this issue)

2)
This has indeed put B&N in quite the tricky position of having to apologize as an institution for an occurrence at ONE store in one of the more racist states in the country, where it may have been a stupid prank by a customer or store worker. And so now, I should boycott the ENTIRE company (that does not sanction nationwide uniform corporate displays) for this supposed act????

3)
I live in New York and if you walk into ANY B&N here you feel proud of Barack Obama who has all but been immortalized in full show more than any other figure I’ve ever seen in ANY bookstore!

4)
The world now knows how overly sensitive we’ve become to the jokes, snears, and primate comparisons (which of course are not to be tolerated), but be careful that those who mean to offend us also mean to distract us in time wasting matters, lest we keep our attention steadfastly on continuing to build positive symbols of our obvious greatness, while enjoying the discounts off the very books that document just that. Ha!

It’s time to LIVE IN GLORY people. Pick the battles carefully, do no wear yourselves out on a win that may not count. The only satisfaction won here as I see it is the attention the prankster fool is getting out of this.

Long live the HUMAN race!

The Black List Project and the conversations it provokes..

I must sleep and digest what I just saw and heard at the Brooklyn Museum today - and then return to this entry. But for starters - I was invited by another female photographer of color, Amanda Adams Louis, to attend a special event, a panel discussion "What's Black Got To Do with It?" at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium. The summary of this was as follows:

This panel discussion, moderated by Elvis Mitchell, interviewer for The Black List Project, continues the exhibition’s consideration of how race, history, and each individual's striving shape and enrich their stories of success. The discussion will center on what the next four years might hold for Black women now that First Lady Obama and her daughters have moved into the White House. Panelists will include Studio Museum in Harlem Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden, acclaimed artist Lorna Simpson , and CNN Entertainment Correspondent Lola Ogunnaike.

I had wanted very much to see this project featuring large format portraits by Timothy Greenfield Saunders - so the topic of discussion was simply an added bonus. Sitting in that auditorium and listening to these women, and to Elvis Mitchell, made me realize and remember a simple truth...it is really important to congregate, to gather and share your experience. I heard things that I thought in my self imposed isolation were my own concerns or observations. Gosh what a shock to realize how common it was that women of color do so revel in Michelle Obamas skin tone and features, and what meaning it brings to how we feel we will be perceived henceforth.



There were many areas of discussion enveloped in the question of "What's Black Got to do with it?" such as:

-How we will weather the complete destabilization, well, destruction of our federal funding for the arts, and how that will challenge particularly non-commercial artists of color. Lorna Simpson made some incredible points about the technological inequities that exist, where access and ability to participate in the new world of internet exposure is sharply limited among people of color, particularly in the poor nations of the world, in Africa and the Caribbean. The irony is that its much cheaper to get your work seen in today's digital world - but you must have access to those cheaper means in order to benefit from this advancement. When and how, in today's economy will we have sufficient initiatives to bridge this gap? At least, I heard today, that Obama's stimulus proposal will include $50 million to the Nat'l Endow. for the Arts. It's a start...

- We are now by default made to return to important conversations and cultural observations of our place, our growth, our importance, and our contributions to society, now that the "bling bling" era of self-serving materialistic distraction has now been brought to a sudden and jarring halt.

-We must now consider how to quantify the significance or gravitas of Michelle Obama's win, how black women will be viewed, and what will now be expected of them, of us; the excitement and concern of what it means to suddenly be shifted from invisibility to complete and utter important symbolic visibility..., hers, her daughters, and thus our sudden and near ubiquitous image now and forever and positively included in the photographic history of America...of the world!

Lola Ogunnaike was repeatedly noting that in her experience, she was constantly responding to comments of how her presence as a dark-skinned black woman on CNN was of particular importance to many sisters, that the meaning of this has apparently swelled with Michelle Obama's ascent to First Lady in the White House.

-There was too, a question by Elvis Mitchell whether all people of color, will disappear AFTER Obama - like how TV land looked post the Cosby Show? Could this attention be just for the moment? Where will we be in four years? And someone asked too - what is Black History Month now going to be like - and will it become redundant?

There were indeed SO many things I wanted to discuss regarding my understanding of the significance of this time - through the eyes of an immigrant, a perpetual immigrant...a West African (Sierra Leoneon born), raised, and schooled in the Caribbean, British, and American societies, seeped in the social sensitivities of the black diaspora from three very distinct points of view. I asked what I thought was quite an important question:

So now that our image has been positively redesigned in the likeness of the Obamas for other 'races' - what will this do for relationships WITHIN the black race? How does this address intra-racism? And since this panel is specifically about black women - how does this affect the relationships among all sisters of color?


More anon - but in the meantime...I've found the Black List playlist on youtube. Check it:

A Response to DISPATCHES FROM (A)MENDED AMERICA

I received a most moving email describing the new endeavors of my acting professor Godfrey Simmons Jr, inspired by Barack Obama's Historic victory. (See my Favourite Blog List or go directly to www.dispatchesfromamendedamerica.blogspot.com). I was immediately inspired by his appeal and responded to it with a most personal account of my journey as a black immigrant here in the United States. First a synopsis of his project - followed by my response:

In the month leading up to the Presidential Inauguration, I will be traveling throughout America with my friend and colleague Brandt Adams to interview Americans about this watershed event. The guiding questions will be: What does the election of America's first African American President mean to you? Has this changed your life and if so, how? Has this changed America? What do we do now? We feel we can best investigate these questions by soliciting real Americans' own stories of the 2008 presidential election through their eyes and in their own words. What are their hopes for the President elected on hope? What suggestions can they give to an Obama administration that would keep them engaged in the governance of our country?

The interviews, which will be digitally recorded either on audio or video, will form the basis of a documentary theatre piece called DISPATCHES FROM (A)MENDED AMERICA. Brandt and I, two displaced sons of the South, will begin traveling on December 28th along the same routes used by The Freedom Riders in 1960 and then make our way from Mississippi, North toward Chicago, retracing The Great Migration of African Americans from 1910-1940. Finally, we'll make our way eastward through Philadelphia, finally landing in Washington DC on January 19th in time for the Presidential Inaugural Ceremony. We plan to interview people in Farmville, Virginia, home to one of the school districts included in the original five cases comprising Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; Greensboro, site of the first civil rights sit-in at Woolworth's; and Oxford, Mississippi, where James Meredith integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962. The fact that Brandt is a 25-year-old white man born and raised in Virginia and I am a 42-year-old black man raised in Virginia only serves to amplify the resonance of this project to us both personally and politically.

My Response

I would like to share a couple of thoughts with you on this if you don't mind. I know I'm not an American, and so there's a particular meaning that this election has had for African Americans that I can't share in a historical or cultural context, but I can certainly share in an emotional one, as a black immigrant in this country. As you know, I am the daughter of two attorneys/human rights activists - of West African and German decent. I grew up as a foreigner in every country I've lived, in Jamaica, the UK, and now here, raised with ideals that espouse the same values as those lofty ones upon which this country was built...We The People... .  I moved here with, as I was told, a blanket over my eyes. I therefore lived to, and relished in cracking the glass of stereotypes. I was lucky to make it to my mid-twenties with no idea, experience, or frankly belief in racism; with no tolerance for the so-called existence of it in my daily life; no real empathy for any one who cried from its contemporary lashes; and I certainly didn't identify with the living meaning of 'minority' - for you see, I had that middle class up-bringing in nations where either BLACK was the majority (and so therefore I've seen black leaders of nations), or in the UK where being 'an educated black' was lauded so much so that it was barely even noticed! A far cry from America where being black was a point to be noted no matter WHAT you do or where you are from! You're black first, and then the rest of your demographic or personal details can be organized into some pre-ordained section of the social quilt.

Over the years, I have felt the blanket I came here with fall from my eyes. I can no longer argue, shut off, or close my eyes to the fact that I have been fighting a thing I never fought before. I have to fight to be me, to be 'Berette'. I know undeniably now how "the angry black woman" is formed. Not so much because of I've become one, but because of moments when I channeled the feeling of one because I felt denied the right to be the educated, beautiful, mild mannered, sexy, intelligent and sophisticated being that I actually am. Yes I said it! ha! When I open my mouth and this nondescript accent comes out, I am no longer blinded to the confusion it causes - I am now hurt by it. When I speak in well constructed sentences, and offer bridge-tales for a desperate connection - or as an explanation, I have felt saddened by the fascination and incredulousness in the eyes of some of my listeners or audience, and no longer enjoy the acceptance I gain, as it is often in the form of exotification if you will. If I don't dress in fashionable duds, I can't get a cab or service in a store. I can't deny that the woman I am, that many of my sisters are, is not seen in the media or represented in a way to reinforce the validation of my apparent freakish existence. I can't believe that I find myself now seeing, feeling, and experiencing things I never saw, felt, or heard in my childhood. As a woman, a black woman, I have come to experience and understand the burden of this ascribed status and its place at the bottom of the totem pole. I have come to understand as a quiet social rule that I am not a status prize on the arm of men, and most painfully therefore of black men who have further to climb. I have taken on damaging thoughts of myself. After over a decade, I have fallen from my parents' idealistic heights and now live as a 'minority'.

I was going through an emotional break - a sense of a loss of self, and I needed to get out, for in my subjective world, - I came to conclude that while living here, America was apparently teaching me to hate myself. Then Barack Obama came along, with that wife of his. :) Let me state that since March of this year, it was Michelle Obama who held my interest most. It was her, who gave him deep character in my eyes. It was her interviews and speeches I paid closest attention to - most of them featured on CSPAN. He was easy for me to accept - as we have seen this (type of) man represented in politics and media before - and frankly I grew up around men like that, his rhetoric, his sentiments, wishes, projections, dreams were refreshingly familiar to me. His style of debate woke up an unused part of my mind and heart and brought my father back to me.  But his wife - she represents CHANGE, in a way that will I believe, quietly shift and alter far more in the current paradigm of the world than even his win.   I grew up with women like this all around me too - my mother being one cut from the same cloth.  But rarely have I seen these women commonly featured plainly in politics, high academia, or media, if at all, the lack of which contributed to my forgetfulness and diminutive perception of myself in America.  Oh, to be so priviliged to be a little black girl in the world today to see her, a tall dark-skinned, broad-nosed, well spoken educated, black woman as the First Lady of a first world white majority nation!  As she said, and I paraphrase 'to be a girl who will be a woman my age some day living in a world where she can take this for granted!'  INDEED.  What privilige to be black adult female to see that too. WE needed that. I NEEDED, I NEEDED to see THAT in my lifetime. How will this change how black women are seen? How will this lift some of the burden? How will this remove: the xenophobia, the concubine crown, the mammi cap, the animalistic vulgarness expected of us, the anger, the pain, bipolar post-traumatic stress and confusion, the lashes of thankless expectation of strength, the lack of positive reinforcement, the lack of permission to be weak or to be great? How will this remove the invisibility? Will this give black women the right to be unremarkably yet respectfully normal? Godfrey, this is what I wept for that night.

Strangely enough - I really didn't experience doubt about the trajectory of Barack's campaign. It seemed ordained and so I believed, but not with a blanket over my eyes, rather with a knowing and a worry frankly, of how he would be regarded by the end of 2009. For anyone who would have won, love and popularity would not be theirs' to hold by the holidays of next year, but I felt weary of the first black president having to endure the impatience from the public from what will be hardcore third world political choices imposed on us to fix the mess of that nitwit Bush. It will be interesting to see how long and how tightly we can hold on to the hopes we now project onto our Son of Hope. He will need our faith and our patience and our belief and our celebration more a year from now - it is key that we know this now - for the romance will end shortly.

My mum called me from Jamaica - and we wept - and she said - "You see Berette, you see what he what he has done? Look at his supporters: an even mix of every type person jumping together as one force - that is the world we raised you to see, that is the world we wanted to you to live in." And I cried out, LOUDLY and vigourously, because that night, I remembered the girl I was when I moved here and my heart opened to begin loving myself in the American context  again.

I wish you every possible blessing on this journey. I wish for you to be filled and for you to find all you seek, I anxiously await the blog entries and the theatrical work that will be birthed from this effort.

Peace with much ease dear brother, teacher, and old friend,

Berette