I never thought twice about the man behind Girls Gone Wild ’til this morning. Then Susie Bright led me here:
LA Times, Girls Gone Wild producer & Anger Management
You must read this. You must read the whole thing, to the last lines.
Can you say, ‘Entitlement?’
But after reading this I think that maybe Ms. Hoffman of the LA Times proves that the pen is indeed mightier.
Atena
So - last week I said:
Consider it a homework assignment: Say something, make some vocal statement or visible action about how you feel. Dissent must been heard or seen if it’s going to make any difference. If no one hears it or sees it, then it can’t do anyone any good. Say something to someone who may not or does not agree. Let someone know that you agree with them. We have to connect. I give you a week to complete this assignment. Everyone who completes it gets an ‘A’. Creativity earns an ‘A+ ‘.
Well, the due date was last Friday, but I generously extended the assignment, and now I wanna see what you all have been doing/saying to express your dissatisfaction with what’s happening in our country and the world at large (assuming that you are dissatisfied, which you should be).
But fair’s fair - I’ll report mine first:
Honestly, after I put this out there I had no real idea what to do. Blogging has been my way of getting ideas out into the world. So finding a way to get a clear, visible message out to people in my daily circles, face-to-face, was a bit of a conundrum. Well, I ended up going the DIY, put your politics-where-your-body-is-route. My first thought was to write something in permanent ink across my forehead. I was seriously considering doing it in time for a birthday party we were going to, but I forgot. Then I realized I didn’t necessarily feel good about Sharpie pen chemicals leaching into my breastmilk through my skin. I know that our bodies are absorbing all kinds of chemicals all of the time, but I’ll do what I can to lessen the load.
So I on my way to go for a walk with a mamabuddy of mine, I quickly (but legibly) drew some pro-love, anti-killing slogans on medical tape, and then taped them across a few of the more prominent parts of my body (i.e. breasts, butt and back). The slogans included:
‘OPPOSE the SLAUGHTER of ANY Innocent Humans!!!’
‘There is value in every life’
‘Love can be radical action’
‘It is WRONG to kill innocent people in any circumstance’
I had my buddy Andrea take pics with her camera phone, but the images haven’t reached my inbox yet. I’ll post them as soon as they come through. The images make the account more interesting, but it’s the action that matters.
It felt good to have my feelings out there for people to see, though I kept forgetting I was wearing them while we were out among people. They didn’t garner any negative responses. I would have liked someone to have asked me about them, though. Alas - perhaps I sparked some dialog in someone else’s world. Sometimes we don’t get to know if we’ve made a difference.
So, now, where’s your homework? What have you all been doing? I really want to hear some tales of vocal, visible dissent - share your stories!
Atena
Today is a very nice day so far, though when I first got up, I realized about halfway through Stella’s breakfast that I was so tired. I tried putting music on, that didn’t really help. I eventually had to get up and out - Stella and I went for a walk while her Papa slumbered peacefully, got a nice masala chai on ice from the local café, and strolled about the neighborhood. We tried a new playground (which was nice - lots of running around room and tall, older trees), and eventually, the caffeine kicked in, and I woke up.
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs this week - it’s turned into a bit of a low-grade addiction. There’s so freakin’ many, just infinite blogoshpere - I love it. I love that there’s so much blogging going on that worrying about totally original ideas is pointless, because someone, somewhere is talking about what you’re talking about, and that’s totally cool! Of course, we all put our own spin on whatever, but I think it’s freeing. Spending so much time blogging has really highlighted the whole mama guilt thing for me, though, because practically any time I spend that isn’t engaging Stella somehow, part of me feels guilty about it. Intellectually, I know I shouldn’t, because I spend all kinds of time reading and talking and nursing and playing, but the guilt lives deep inside. I fight it. It’s an ongoing issue. Anyway, I’ve been having fun with the blog reading, and here’s a few of my recent favorites:
Bitch, Ph.D.
Angry Black Bitch
Susie Bright’s Blog
The hair issue has been coming up again and again for me. I’ve been trying to reconcile with my hair, make peace and get into a new groove. I realized that I’ll be entering back into the professional sphere, and that I need to “do somethin’ with my head” as it were. So I went to Nappturality.com (which is SO AWESOME!), and found some nice natural hair care articles and recipes, and as I was going through it all, I realized the extent to which my hair and me had kind of parted ways.
After I started grad school, I pretty much let my hair go. The program was super-intense, and really, who the fuck has the time? I’ve never been much for hair care - my own personal hairstyling history is one of suffering and humiliation, so I have a deep aversion to dealing with my hair at all. But when I started my dredlocks (or rather, when Vonetta started my dredlocks), I was so happy to be committing to a hair relationship that I could deal with. Fast-forward 7 years, and I’m in school again, busting my ass, wrapping a scarf around my fuzzy roots and fantasizing about having enough time or money to go to a salon and have it taken care of. On top of that, come 2nd semester, I find out I’m pregnant, and proceed to be so exhausted that the idea of washing and twisting my hair seems like a joke.
So, now I’m making up with my hair - we’ve enjoyed a couple of lovely herbal rinses together, some shampooing, olive oil and vigorous scalp massage and scratching. Life is better with a happy scalp and clean, well fed dreds. I’ve also started taking my vitamins again, for healthier scalp, to discourage dandruff.
But I realized, for all of the noble feeling I had about my dreds, I wasn’t taking very good care of them (i.e., me). And after spending time reading the stuff on Nappturality.com, I realized that I was still subjecting myself to unnecessary hair terror. I had convinced myself that taking care of my hair could only be an ordeal, that it was a pain and a nuissance and not worth the time, compared to all of the other important things I was doing. I guess I never quite outgrew that piece of hair trauma, and was applying my old feelings to my new hair situation.
I wrote a paper about this during my final year of undergrad. I was supposed to write about a textile, but I didn’t find one in time, so I figured my hair was interesting enough to pull off a final paper when I was pressed for time. I recently revised the paper, and since I started that, I’ve been coming upon hair stories, connections, etc. Among the blogs I’ve been reading, I’ve read a couple of good stories - one on The Angry Black Woman’s blog, and an excellent post about not touching black women’s hair on Anovelista.com. Then yesterday, I got an email from a friend about a documentary that’s been made on black women’s hair. I’m annoyed, ’cause our computer doesn’t do streaming video so well, so I haven’t been able to finish watching it (Also, it’s in about 5 parts). From what I did see, and from what I read in the comments, there seems to be a lot of focus on how Koreans are taking money from black communities. I can’t comment on exactly what the video says about that, but a comment on the general concept:
For fuck’s sake. Koreans face discrimination in this country - all people of color do in some form. They are no better and no worse than anyone else, and I seriously doubt they’re running a deliberate campaign to keep us down by selling us beauty products. They’re running a deliberate campaign to take care of themselves in a country where they could get screwed at any minute, like the rest of us. If people have seriously problems with Koreans (or any non-black people) selling them beauty supplies, nobody says they have to buy the beauty supplies. Go find a black-owned store. If it’s worth the complaining, it must be worth the extra trip. Or better still, change your lifestyle, stop perming, lose the extensions, the pressing and curling irons, the gels and sprays, etc… Go au natural, save some cash and invest it. Or save up, start your own beauty supply store, and take that money from the people in your own community (because I guess it’s not a waste of our resources if black people sell hair junk to each other). Maybe people should look away from the Koreans (or whomever) and look in there mirror.
Anyway. I actually gotta wrap this up, ’cause we’re going to a birthday party, and I should help with the leaving-house prep. Perhaps I’ll revisit this later on. It’s just been on my mind and I wanted to get my thoughts out.
Peace & hair grease,
Atena
