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Presenting ¡PRESENTE!

Presenting Presente.org:

And from Nezua:

And spread the word via twitter:

Posted by elle at 12:10 PM No comments: Links to this post 
A New Meme: Please Get One

ETA please see Nezua's post at The Sanctuary 

That doesn't make them any less disturbing, however.

**Deeky expands on that sentiment here.

Posted by elle at 2:35 PM No comments: Links to this post Labels: Health, Immigration, Race, Racism



Trigger Warning

And it all makes perfect sense.

*Description begins on page 15

Posted by elle at 1:09 PM 1 comment: Links to this post 
Le Sigh

I gave my niece
the car
a grocery list
my debit card
my child (for a trip to the barbershop).

Televisions are off.
Lights are dimmed.
two chocolate chip cookies,
ice cold milk,
a thick, steamy novel.

The weekend:
it begins!
Posted by elle at 4:04 PM No comments: Links to this post Labels: Family, Silly Me

On Having a President Who's Not Like the Others

The first thing I said when I saw the shirtless-Obama Washingtonian cover?





Was it supposed to be cute? Daring? The editors have defended the image by noting that President Obama isn't like other presidents, by which they almost certainly mean he's generally regarded as more conventionally attractive than most American presidents, or "hot." But that's clearly not the only way in which Obama is different than every other American president -- and, while it might be new to have a black president, there is nothing new about objectifying black men and focusing on their sexual "hotness." It is undoubtedly more convenient for them to ignore that context, so they might pretend they're not playing into it.

There is a long history of black men being reduced to the physical, being defined in terms of their (often exaggerated) sexuality. Hell, the mindset of Southern whites for centuries—and especially after 1865--rested partially on the notion that pure white women had to be protected from the irrepressible urges of the oversexed, black male savage.*

This is an image we have internalized. In the case of black men, they face the dilemma of living in a patriarchal, heterosexist society, that demands that they prove their manhood, and a racist one, that denies them the traditional means of proving it—namely through the roles of “provider** and protector.” They are often left to demonstrate their “manliness” through physical and verbal violence (though I would argue that this is true across race and class lines) and sexual prowess, determined by the number of female “conquests” they’ve made.

In those respects, this cover disregards history. But it also captures a very present-day phenomenon—the projection of an aura of “casualness” around the Obamas. I get that people want to make them seem approachable in a they’re-just-like-you-and-me way. It’s a way to ease a country in denial about its racism into the reality of having a black first family. There’s another effect of this “casualization” though, rooted deeply in racism and classism. While the Obamas are commonly compared to the Kennedys, what goes unspoken is that they lack the pedigree, the lifelong experience with “the formal” that John and Jacqueline had. What I read over and over, from people who critique Michelle Obama's fashion sense, is the implication that she is too casual—she does not know how to dress appropriately. I believe the Washingtonian cover reveals a similar sentiment about President Obama.

Finally, I’d like to point to the Washingtonian’s narrow definition of hot that focuses on the physicality of the President. Now, of course, we live in a country obsessed with appearances and operating with a very narrow concept of attractiveness, so the Washingtonian is not alone. But I think some of the “hottest” things about Obama are his intelligence, the respect and love he seems to have for his wife, and the alternative image of black masculinity he represents—no shirtless image required to portray any of that.

*Neither is there anything new about putting black bodies on display to titillate or entertain or to determine their physical desirability.

** One interesting thing to note is that while black men might play the provider, it is cast in a different context than white men’s role. Black men might shell out money, but it is in a context in which black women are assumed to be playing the role of the greedy gold-digger who "sells" herself to a temporary “provider.” As Lisa Jones noted, “Between rappers turning ‘ho’ into a national chant and [the movie Waiting to] Exhale telling African Americans that our real problem is the shortage of brothers who are both well hung and well paid, I’m getting to think that all we can offer each other is genitalia and the paycheck.” Quoted in Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought.

Posted by elle at 10:49 AM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Men of Color, President Obama, Race, The Media
 Another 11-year-old child, Jaheem Herrera, has hanged himself "after enduring extreme daily bullying that included antigay taunts."

This is how his best friend described Jaheem's agony to Jaheem's mother:

Posted by elle at 12:13 PM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Children, Homophobia, Schools, Students


I’ve been thinking,
for various reasons,
about how ideas of deservingness
impact women’s lives.
About how,
we fashion ideas
of what women
do and don’t deserve.
I notice
that we deserve the violence enacted against us daily
because of
What we wear
Where we go
How much we drink
With whom we socialize.
because our identity is presumed to be
a lie
because our breasts develop
before middle school
because we stay
in abusive relationships
(Though no one has worked out a formula for how we can assure our safety when we leave)
because we didn’t deserve to be mothers
because we aren't "citizens"
because we don’t deserve to be heard.
so much
too much.
And then she posed a different type of question
about what we deserve.
Knowing what you know now,
she asked,
“What would you do
for the little kid you used to be?”
Write it down, she said.
And I tried.
But when I thought about
what that little girl deserved,
my tears flowed faster
than my fingers could.
But I had to try
for that little girl.
I think that I would just sit next to her
So that she didn’t feel so lonely
So that she didn’t feel compelled to look down,
See if her chest had become the dark, achy, empty space
It sometimes felt like.
I think I would tell her to scream
and make a spectacle of herself
Because her silence had not protected her.
But mostly
I think
I would wrap my arms around her,
A shield of sorts,
Because what she deserved
What we all deserve
Is some sort of
From all the things
They tell us
we deserve.
Posted by elle at 10:41 AM 6 comments: Links to this post Labels: Children, Immigration, Misogyny, Motherhood, My Life, Poetry, Racism, Sexual Violence, Violence, Women, Writing

Dear Lord

I haven't done the bargaining prayer--"Dear God, if you let 'a' not happen, then I promise I will never again 'b' "--in a long time, but I'm on the verge.

As soon as I can figure out what "b" will be.

I have the beginning worked out, though:

Dear God, please don't let this woman become a martyr, sacrificed on the evil altar of teh radical homosekshul agenda.

I realize that it might be easy for her to overlook the absolute lack of clarity or logic in her I-am-brave-enough-to-stand-up-against-political-correctness answer, or the competition she faced in Kristen Dalton, Miss North Carolina USA, but dear Lord, if you will 1) disabuse her of the notion that her answer "did cost me my crown," and 2) stop marriage equality opponents from spreading the meme, I promise that I will never again...

That's where I get stuck.
Posted by elle at 7:42 AM 1 comment: Links to this post Labels: Get A Clue, Homophobia, The Media


Support Justice for Angie Zapata

From VivirLatino:

Angie Zapata was a transgender woman who was brutally murdered in Colorado last year. Next week, her killer goes to trial, and an online campaign by ProgressNow Colorado is encouraging us to remember Angie’s life and death at this difficult time.

Light a Candle for Angie is a Facebook application designed to draw attention to the issue of hate crimes. If you are a Facebook member, why not join the iniative?

If you are a Twitter member, you can follow all of the activities around the online campaign by adding Justice for Angie, or searching #zapata for other online conversations around anti-hate activism in Angie’s name.

H/T bfp
Posted by elle at 10:28 PM 3 comments: Links to this post Labels: LGBTQI, Violence, Women of Color

Ancient history through a very modern lens *

These new coins rescue us, again, from those questions.

**Though the debate about Cleopatra's beauty predates this.

Posted by elle at 11:04 AM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Africa, Sexism, Stopping Violence, Women

I've Referenced This Book Before...

...but I'm so glad, Wednesday, 15 April 2009, a Terrible, Horrible,
No Good, Very Bad Day, is over.

Usually, my solution is to go to bed and relish starting over, but I'm going to watch some totally mind-numbing T.V.
Posted by elle at 12:06 AM No comments: Links to this post 

Notes from the Academy

My colleagues and I talk a lot about students’ sense of entitlement and (depending on where you teach) privilege. Some of the things they ask demand are unbelievable.

I want to share a story with y’all, a bit of what I alluded to at the beginning of this post and here. I spent quite a bit of time talking about the freedom movements of the 1950s and 1960s in my post-45 class. I heard by way of one student, that another older, white, male student liked my class, but since he’d “lived through all of that,” he’d really wanted to hear more about Sputnik and the space race than I’d offered. The student who relayed the story to me said that she asked him, “Did you look on the history site and see what her specialties are?”

I was glad for her little nudge, but this is something I’ve encountered repeatedly, albeit not always so nicely worded. In my first set of evaluations eons ago, I had a student say, “She’s a good teacher, but she talks too much about race.” I also “focus a lot” on gender. I get related comments often—if not in bulk (one or two a semester, at most).

Those comments used to get under my skin. I now take them as a compliment of sorts. Somewhere along the way, I had a moment of clarity. I won’t say that students can’t help determine what I teach—I love when they ask to hear more about a subject, for example. And I try to give examples that are relevant to where they are (Texas)—in my survey, when we talk about other ways PoC tried to better their conditions during the Depression (since they were so often left out of the New Deal), we spend a nice amount of time on the San Antonio pecan shellers’ strike and the revitalization of the NAACP in Texas during the 1930s.

But for students to think that they can demand that I, a black woman historian, teach in a way that excludes or doesn’t “focus a lot” on race or class or a number of other factors, when my syllabus lists as an objective “To enable you, as a participant, to… recognize the role factors such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability have played in shaping policy, institutions and relationships within the U.S.” is ridiculous.

In a sense, they are asking me to teach a history that disappears me.

I'm starting to think that my life in the academy will teach me as much about race and gender privilege as my life in a rural, southern town.

Posted by elle at 10:59 AM 1 comment: Links to this post Labels: History, Sistorian, Students, Teaching


Gentle Reminder...

Have you gotten your SPEAK! CD yet?

Well, why the hell not?!!!
Posted by elle at 11:33 AM 3 comments: Links to this post Labels: Art, SPEAK, Women of Color

Really, Steven?

Trigger warning

Dear Mr. Ward,

I will admit that I don’t watch your show, Tough Love. I think I am exceedingly glad that I don’t.

Still, I was quite nonplussed when I read that you opined that one of the women on the show, Arian, was going to end up “getting raped” if her present pattern of behavior—raunchy and inappropriate, I believe were your words?—continued. She enjoys taking risks, said you, putting herself “in that position,” and there are consequences! Arian should be more “classy!”

Hmmm, I thought, is Mr. Ward really suffering under the ildelusion that “classy” women don’t get raped? That rape occurs because “raunchy and inappropriate” women “ask for it?” Surely not!

But, in case you are, I’d like to point you here (or here or here) and here, where the entirety of the blog deconstructs and proves the fallacies of rape apologies like yours.

And I’d like to challenge you, Mr. Ward, to realize that “in that position” often means existing as a woman or anyone perceived as weaker or more vulnerable in a rape culture.

Yes, a rape culture.

How else would you describe a culture in which the logical consequence of acting a certain way or wearing a certain thing is understood to be the violation of one’s bodily autonomy?



P.S. Oh, and expect more letters.

H/T Alessia via belledame on twitter Labels: Get A Clue, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual Violence, Television


My Weekend Question Is Back!!

For the wise ones, how do you let go?

Y'all would not believe the things I obsess over at night while staring at the ceiling. One example, I showed pictures of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and one of my students asked how far did it extend into the sky. I didn't know the answer off hand. I worried about that.

Okay, I shouldn't paint it as an isolated event that I went crazy over--the survey class I have this semester has a knack for missing the point, sometimes, and asking me all sorts of questions like that. My old advisor told me, "Tell them that's something that they can easily look up on their own."

But while I don't get a malicious feel from them, I am aware of the fact that because I am black, a woman, and young-looking, some students take it upon themselves to "prove" I don't know everything, and I'm not at a point where I can be as dismissive as advisor advises. :-)

Y'all would believe that I've blown this semester into the worst-thing-ever to the point that I can't even hear the students who tell me "This is my favorite class" or "I love when we do so-and-so" or "I never thought about that." A thicker skin, my female colleagues advise me, will grow.

In the meantime, I obsess.

Tell me how not to!
Posted by elle at 4:32 PM 7 comments: Links to this post Labels: Weekend Question

More than Words


Most of the kids who are bullied and harrassed never report.

And there you have a peek into this meandering mind.

**See this from Petulant's round-up at Shakesville. Labels: Bullying, Homophobia, LGBTQI, Schools, Violence



So said Nez when he tweeted about this story: Police chief fired for using taser on wife (News video there).

From the AP:

OAKWOOD, Texas (AP) — The chief of a small Central Texas town's police department has been fired and jailed for allegedly using a Taser gun on his wife.

Former Oakwood police chief Oly Ivy is in Leon County Jail in Centerville on Wednesday, charged with aggravated assault. Bond is $100,000.

I don't have a lot to add--we know that abusive police officers prey on vulnerable and marginalized people and communities. So it's no surprise that women who live with men who are abusive and who are trained how to restrain people and how to use deadly force, are at risk.

They might be, as this fact sheet describes, "uniquely vulnerable."

Posted by elle at 8:16 AM 3 comments: Links to this post Labels: Misogyny, Police, Violence


I Just Realized How Country I Am

I just yelled at my kid to "Go get a bath!!"

I forgot that was even in the ellexicon.

Bless my heart!
Posted by elle at 10:17 PM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Children, Family, Silly Me

Really? Could You De-center for a Moment, Even?

What I think she really wanted to say:

"See, this is why I mumble and grumble about 'indigestible immigrant blocs' (and I don't give a damn if you've been here five generations, you're still not really American) and the fragmenting of America and how our totally homogeneous culture is being lost.

You expect me to learn your name? That'd be like learning your difficult language, and I totally don't have to learn another language, cuz I'm American and we are the center of the woooooooooooooooooooooooorld!!!!!!!

God Bless America!!"

Posted by elle at 12:16 PM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Get A Clue, Racism

Yes, water.

And I could not swim. Never even learned.

I am afraid the pitying, disgusted gaze will be mine.

So I learned to suppress the desire to swim.

Mostly. Sometimes it overwhelms me.

Why else would I crave it so?

Posted by elle at 10:56 AM 5 comments: Links to this post 


A Timely Video...

..considering my post yesterday on skin bleaching. Via Kameelah, a clip on "A Family of Skin Bleachers in Jamaica."

No transcript, but I want to point out a few things the daughter says:

Nothing sells in town like rubbings [meaning the skin bleach], hair, and clothes. Even food doesn’t sell as much as bleaching. Everyday you talk about being hungry, but if I have $1.50, I will go and run to buy one of them. They say beauty brings pain. Style is what we want, so we just have to bear it.*

And later, she smiles as she describes how the bleach has its desired effect:

…nobody can say anything; we are white*.

The video also talks briefly about men who have begun bleaching.

*All emphases mine
Posted by elle at 3:03 PM 4 comments: Links to this post "Whites Only"

To create the “whites only” illusion,

Posted by elle at 10:31 AM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Africa, African Americans, Men of Color, Racism, The Military, White Supremacy


Lighter Is Better

I cannot pinpoint the moment that I, as a little black girl, began to absorb the messages about the desirability, the attractiveness of lighter skin. There were all the moments my mother admonished me to stay out of the sun, a lifetime of growing up with the knowledge that, of my three aunts, the fair-skinned one with the green eyes was considered the “prettiest,” the childhood argument/fight experiences in which adding “with your black (meaning dark) self!” made an insult even worse.

There were the times I watched pregnant women in my community grab the hands of straight or curly haired, light-skinned people and rub those hands across their stomachs—so the “good” hair and light skin would rub off on the baby. There were the times people asked my sister and I if we had the same father, because I was lighter than she. There was also the fact that I was an early romance-novel reader; I wish now I had a nickel for all the mentions of “pale” or “alabaster” flesh (quivering flesh—it was always quivering flesh!)

And then there was the media—I was bombarded with images of black women who were attractive because of their long, straight hair, fair skin, and non-brown eyes.

The message sank in early—one of my first school memories is walking to my kindergarten classroom, hand-in-hand with my white classmate, Robin. I remember looking down at our clasped hands and wishing mine was more like hers.

I was four years old.

I began with a personal story, but the belief that lighter-is-better is a problematic one throughout black communities, particularly for black women. I remember, as a child, watching a Whoopi Goldberg monologue in which she was pretending to be a little girl. She, too desired lighter skin, and decided to try with chlorine bleach. “All I got,” her character said, “Was burned.” The character was half right—chlorine was not the solution, but bleaching was. And the agent of choice, increasingly in the U.S., was hydroquinone.

Flipping through old black newspapers and magazines, you can see the ads for Fashion Fair’s Vantex, Ambi, and Dr. Palmer’s. Back in the day, they were more to the point, promising to lighten and whiten the skin. In the aftermath of black pride movements, they promise that their 2% hydroquinone formulas will fade or lighten discolorations and give you a more even skin tone. How can we argue with that? Unspoken, of course, is that the undesirable “dark spot” in need of fading/lightening is the entirety of our brown and black skin. (Though, given the image at the top of this page, and the name of the product, you can give “Fair & White” credit for being honest, I suppose.)

I cannot pinpoint the moment that I realized that the lighter-is-better issue was an issue for many other WoC, either. In grad school, my friend Jesse—who was Mexican American—told me a story about his mother’s despair that his sister looked “native” while he himself was fairer. His uncle had tried to console his mom by reasoning, “At least she’s pretty.”

And then I began to read stories about various African countries in which skin bleaching was unbelievably popular—even after hydroquinone and the mercury used in some products caused burns, and other painful ailments, and were linked to conditions like ochronosis, which is marked by

marked by the darkening and thickening of the skin, as well as the appearance of tiny dome-shaped bumps and grayish-brown spots.

Women in Mali reported being shunned if they didn’t use the product. And a hairdresser in Tanzania explained her use of skin bleach:

You hear that if you want to look beautiful, then you have to look like a white person and to look like a white person you have to use these creams.

Asian women are targeted, as well—a couple of month’s ago Women’s E-news described an ad on Hong Kong’s public transit system:

One video you might easily find yourself staring at promotes lingerie and is made by the Japanese company Wacoal.

In the lingerie ad, a serious young man first runs his hands over the bosom and buttocks of a thin woman with dark hair. He is then shown working in a futuristic laboratory crafting undergarments from his observations. In the final scene, an Asian woman with long blond hair and light skin wears a diaphanous gown to highlight her newly sculpted hourglass figure and turns to smile seductively at viewers: She has taken on Caucasian features.

And if you have the heart (and the stomach), you only have to click over to youtube to look at some of the Fair & Lovely ads for India.

Being lighter, being closer to white, makes PoC more successful, more confident, more attractive. That message is drummed into us over and over. So when Maegan drew my attention to the Ponds’ Flawless White series on youtube that posits that being lighter also helps you win your lost love! (and being darker makes you greedy and evuhl), I should not have been surprised.

But, well, damn. And so, without further ado, I bring you this nightmare*:


Ponds Flawless White
Reduces dark spots and lightens skin in just seven days
Love’s Helping Hand

*I am also interested in the ways this intersects with class. In one of the articles I read about skin bleaching creams in Asia, the author noted that darker skin was associated with working outdoors and manual labor, a designation many women didn’t want. I am aware of a similar sentiment in my community. Then, in one of the articles about Africa, a doctor expressed the belief that skin bleaching was more prevalent among the less educated. This is problematic for lower socio-economic class women whose low wages mean they turn to cheaper products (often black market) that are even riskier and that they may spend a disproportionate amount of their income on these “beauty” products.

Posted by elle at 1:52 PM 1 comment: Links to this post Labels: Africa, Asia, Colorism, People of Color, Racism, The Media, Women of Color
Revelations and ruminations from one southern sistorian... Source Material Sometimes, You Can Find Me... We Are Speaking What History Teaches Us...

speak your mind even if your voice shakes My Other Love... My Other Love... (continued) Look! People Actually Read Me!