My Life as A Radical Whore/Madonna

In the aftermath of Michael Richards’ racist tirade, I’m thinking about the things he said and the reactions I’ve been reading in blogs. It has me wondering about people who do not hold claim to African American identity and history: how many of them have any idea of the effect these kinds of things have on us?

I wonder how many people consider the epoch of slavery, and the following years of socially sanctioned hatred and abuse against free blacks as a healed wound? For many, the very idea of slavery is hidden behind layers of ignorance. A short section in a few history classes, that no one was really asked to think about. Portrayals in movies, usually Alex Haley’s Roots, with little opportunity for engaging conversation on what such a history might mean to people today. Whatever exposure people have to this history, it is certainly not ongoing. It is compartmentalized, usually into Black History Month (I saw bell hooks give a lecture at Northwestern University and she called it ‘Negro Employment Month’ - I laughed so hard!).

So people are able to think about "The Past" (including, but not limited to slavery, lynchings, segregation, and the general systematic denial and/or obstruction of rights) as being over and done with. No longer an issue. I get the feeling that some people are thinking about these things as a single issue, and that the issue has been resolved. I’m wondering how many people are thinking along these lines. How many people do I walk by every day, how many people do I talk to, smile at, hold the elevator for - that really believe that lynching is something that happened in the past, and that there’s no connection to it now?

Some things will always be painful. What has happened in the history of this country that these wounds should be healed? The Emancipation Proclamation? No. Desegregation? Also no. Civil rights? Hardly. Every advance made by people of color in America has been through a hailstorm of hatred and contempt. Contempt is poisonous, and in this country, we get dosed with it every day. Like mercury in the water supply - we don’t even know that we’re drinking it, and that it’s making everybody crazy.

This is the metaphor I’ve come up with: Slavery was us being put in a meat grinder. That’s not happening anymore. But when we weren’t being put through the meat grinder anymore, we were still being shot at, trapped, vivisected and occasionally still "accidentally" getting knocked into the meat grinder. This went on for generations, then when the "Civil Rights Era" happened, it was clear that the meat grinder was no longer publicly sanctioned, and all other forms of hunting and trapping were strongly discouraged. But so many traps were set, that we still get caught in them. And the weapons have evolved, so a lot of people either don’t know they’re using them, or know full well that they’re using them, and that they won’t be held accountable.

In the meantime, we haven’t forgotten the meat grinder. Or any other stabbings, bludgeonings, shootings, etc. And we’re still bleeding and scared.

When people are cavalier about other people’s post-traumatic stress, they undo some of whatever healing may have happened. Then our minds and souls have to revisit our trauma and put energy into healing ourselves again, and this process is painful (this is why people should not make jokes about being raped, or use the word ‘rape’ lightly. You could really fuck up somebody’s day by ripping open the scars of their trauma).

So, when Michael Richards says (on stage, with a microphone) "Fifty years ago, you’d have been hanging from a tree with a fork up your ass!" He’s not just making a horrible, horrible, horrible faux pas. He is invoking something much bigger than he - a painful history of power, hatred, fear and terror. Yes, American terrorism. He’s unleashing that torrent on everyone who hears his words, and I believe that for the reasons that I’ve just explained, it will be particularly disturbing for any black Americans who experience it.

All this to say history is not just in the past. It is all around us, we experience it everyday because we carry it with us with every step, every action, every word. Take care with what you say and do, and don’t take "The Past" for granted. It can still hurt.

Poor, poor decisionmaking skills (I am, in fact, shaking my head).  I thought that by now people would at least know that they’re not supposed to talk like that in public.

I also think, however, that comedians tend to get a little carried away with themselves and what being funny gives them licence to say and do.  This is why it’s a problem when people try to write off offensive humor by saying "It’s only a joke."  In this case, it’s "I was just so mad."  Unacceptable.

When I get mad, I don’t randomly pull racial slurs and epithets out of my ass willy nilly.  To follow that reasoning, Richards must call everybody a nigger when he gets mad.  Something tells me that’s not the case.

What’s unfortunate, in my opinion, is that Richards was not able to do anything but fly the "I’m really not a racist!" flag.  Whatever he thinks he is or is not, his behavior was profoundly racist.  He needs to own up to that, at least, if he wants to regain any respectability.  And, as a friend pointed out, the power dynamic he was trying to wield was totally fucked up.  I mean, to invoke the idea of lynching?  "This is what happens when you interrupt the white man?"  You CANNOT go there without mutual agreement, in a public arena, with a microphone ON A STAGE, as a celebrity and expect anything but big fucking problems.  That history is too painful.  Too raw, and too volatile. 

I think that we’ve gotten to a point as a media-based culture where we should be prepared for things like this to happen.  Where we should be holding performers to standards based on their own personality and ethics, and not those of the characters they portray.

But then, up until now, did we really have any ethical expectations of Michael Richard the actor? 

I hope that people can take a lesson on celebrity idolization from this.  Celebrities have their own stanky shit.  Some of them are bigots and assholes, just like any other random sample of people from the population.  Many of them are priviliged and ignorant.  Many are poor decisionmakers.

That’s what I have to say about that.  For now.

Atena

I have to admit to being genuinely shocked that a woman would be removed from one of your flights for refusing to cover herself with a blanket.  This is apalling!  And kind of amazing, really. 

Laws do not state that a woman must breastfeed discretely to be protected by the law.  If a nursing mother does not wish to cover her child with a blanket while her child is eating, that’s her prerogative and the fact that not one, but two of your employees saw this as an appropriate way to handle the situation indicates that Delta does not educate its employees about respecting families and is not a company I want to do business with.

"A breast-feeding mother is perfectly acceptable on an aircraft, providing she is feeding the child in a discreet way,” that doesn’t bother others, said Paul Skellon, spokesman for Phoenix-based Freedom.

If this quote is accurate, then your affiliate is doing your company a damaging disservice.  Your company needs to have a  policy for dealing with breastfeeding families and it needs to indicate that families will never again be treated this way. 

If you can get kicked off of a flight for "bothering others," then I’m really looking forward to my next flight that should have no loud talkers, no snoring, no arguing couples, or whatever else I’m not in the mood to deal with that day.  Oh wait - except the Nobody Can Bother Anyone Else service is only offered on Delta, which I’ll be avoiding from now on.

We’re feeding our children, not masturbating.  I hope you can understand the difference.

Sincerely,

Atena O. Danner-McPhaden

If you, too, would like to share your thoughts with Delta on this issue, do so here:
http://www.delta.com/emailus/servlet/EmailUs?cmd=go

Unfamiliar with this crazy-ass story?  Read about it here:
Woman booted off of plane for "indiscrete" breastfeeding!
Mamas fight back with Nurse-In!

And here’s more action opps:
Momsrising.org Petition
Planet Feedback

Seriously, if recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and actual laws are not enough to get people to support breastfeeding moms (or at least leave us the fuck alone, goddamn it!  As if flying with kids wasn’t hard enough…) then we obviously  have to be our own advocates.  Somebody out there raise some hell about this, okay?

Love,

Atena Oyadi

I love this! Brilliance!

Dying to Become a Mother: Mandating Maternal Death in Nicaragua

Atena

This post has been supplanted from antibias.wordpress.com

I had a great conversation with A. yesterday, talking about the assumptions that people make about children’s gender and race. I’m so inspired by how she doesn’t tolerate it. Not that I believe that less tolerance is necessarily the solution to our problems, but I have to admit that I wish I could draw the line the way she does about certain things.

I’ll back up a bit, give some context: A is my friend who provides excellent care for my daughter 3 days/week. She’s an outstanding care provider and a supercool ladygirl. So while I’m downtown shaping curricula and hanging out with other people’s children, A. is at my place, or in my neighborhood, guiding Babygirl through all kinds of journeys and adventures.

Stella is one of the sweetest-faced children you’ll ever live to meet, and leaving the house with her means hearing a lot of comments about said sweetness. Really, it’s like being with a celebrity sometimes. Of course, due to the rampantly huge-to-the-point-of-invisibility racism in this country, coupled with people’s natural curiosity, many comments that are essentially about her sweetness are mixed in with comments about her complexion, her hair texture and (if she’s with anyone but her father), tentative questions about her parentage (Babygirl’s skin is a nice honey brown, just like her Papa, whereas my skin is darker, like brownies and our nanny is white. I’m not sure what food to compare her to). She is also mistaken for a boy on a regular basis. This is mostly because we make no effort to put clear gender ID tags on her (e.g. barrettes, pink clothes, frilly whatnot). We seldom style her hair - it’s too short to bother, and I’m more concerned with it being clean than anything else. Though there have been times where she was wearing a pink dress and still was mistaken for a boy. I think it was lack of hair accessories.

I’ve long been decidedly against this society’s fetishistic gendering of small children through apparel. It’s not that I won’t dress Stella in pink, or put barrettes in her hair, etc. It’s more that I refuse to behave as though my daughter’s identity and well being are based on whether I adorn her with sexualized garments and accessories. I refuse to base her identity on something as changeable as colors and clothes. And I absolutely reject the idea that there’s something wrong with me as a parent for maintaining these ideals.

So yeah, back to the conversation with A: She described to me an incident where she encountered all of these issues at once in a woman who first complimented what a handsome boy Stella is, and then went on to bumble her way through comments on her possible biracial parentage. And A. had the wherewithall to just tell the woman to stop.

Now, I can’t say that I would choose to confront a well-meaning-but-clearly-inappropriate stranger in this way, but I do think that A. is pretty courageous in this. I’m more likely to either raise my eyebrows, smile stiffly and try to get away asap, then feel bad later for not giving the lady a verbal smack, OR I’ll posit a few gentle statements to challenge and discourage her assumptions and generalizations and offer a gentle lesson about race and gender. God - I hate being so gentle all the damn time!

But it’s the age-old question - Do you offer the lesson and possibly teach someone something they didn’t know (adding another brick to your tower of racism/whateverism-induced exhaustion), or do you react and leave them as ignorant as you found them (and possibly less open to learning due to embarrassment or anger)? Do you seize the teachable moment, or do you just go on with your day?

Many people of color take the stance that it’s not their job to teach ignorant people about race. My position is that whenever you are tired of ignorance, it becomes your job to do something about it. If you have knowledge, you have power and the associated responsibility.

I also believe that people of color (and any people who have knowledge that others do not have) are not “on-call teachers” as it were, meaning don’t think you’re entitled to a lesson on race, culture, whatever in the middle of the grocery store just ’cause you realized it’s time for you to learn something. That’s where the problem lies, I think - we have to be able to control when and how we respond to ignorance. Otherwise, it becomes another form of oppression. And we can only respond in the context of our own reality, i.e., it won’t be a universally applicable lesson.

This has got me to thinking that I need to be more in control of when and how I offer knowledge about my child and my self and my circumstances. Maybe that lets me off the hook for being so gentle all the time - it can be frustrating. I guess we’ll see. I’ve never been the kind of person to say “That’s none of your business.” Maybe I’ll try it - I don’t know. But A. has inspired me to consider that I don’t have to endure people making asses of themselves about my child’s race and gender every single time it happens. That’s kind of exciting.

Atena