The late great Shirley Chisholm, as photographed by the legendary Richard Avedon. Look…Shirley was THAT Black woman. Feminist. Humanist. Unbought. Unbossed. WORD.
Here’s a commencement address by a Black person that doesn’t involve respectability politics, “Talented Tenth” speak, bootstrap theory and reductionism of the manifestation of oppression by victim blaming via “personal responsibility” politics. (Ahem…Obama).
This commencement address is Toni Morrison at Rutgers University in 2011. Exquisite. Listen to every word carefully.
“Personal success devoid of meaningfulness, free of a steady commitment to social justice, that’s more than a barren life, it is a trivial one.” - Toni Morrison
Classic Ebony Magazine cover of Betty Shabazz (May 28, 1934 - June 23, 1997): educator, activist, mother of 6 and the widow of Malcolm X. This was only a few years after he was assassinated. I am trying to find the original article. No luck yet.
Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz - May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965. Happy Birthday.
Aaliyah loved Janet.
I love them both. Aaliyah is so missed. Her music, especially with Missy and Timbaland, help define my coming of age years; she was born only a few months before I was.
Willow Smith hugging Angela Davis! This was at the premiere of the documentary Free Angela and All Political Prisoners.
Um. My emotions right now… *sniff* :)
(Source: thugzmansion, via unapologeticexistence)
Scandal has been renewed for a third season! I previously mentioned some interesting things that were revealed would occur during a third season if it was renewed! Can’t wait for the season 2 finale next week!
(To view all of my essays, photos, and videos on Scandal, click here.)
Unlocking The Truth is a band of 2 young Black boys who write and perform their own rock and metal music. You are going to go absolutely WILD when you hear them. It is SICK. The drummer is great too. They gave me LIFE. I need their music in my iPod yesterday.
On Wednesday, I delivered the commencement address at Columbia University and Barnard’s Lavender Graduation Ceremony for the Class of 2013. Here’s a photo of me with active and graduating members of PROUD COLORS, a fly collective of queer students of color who are actively creating space for intersectionality on their campus. You can download their zines here.
Elated to hear that my dear sister reina gossett was a member during her time at Columbia. The legacy of fly brilliance is alive and well, y’all.
<3
Shonda Rhimes and Scandal Remain On Top
I just read a GREAT piece in The New York Times called Network TV Is Broken. So How Does Shonda Rhimes Keep Making Hits? by Willa Paskin. She reports that Scandal now gets 8 million viewers per week. It is the number one drama at the 10pm slot on any night, on any network and with the coveted 18-49 year old demographic. It hangs with the network television big dogs like CSI, and gets more viewers than beloved cable shows like Game of Thrones and Mad Men. It’s also the number one show on network TV among Black people.
The piece also contains an interesting test for people to really examine if racism and sexism are shaping their responses to Scandal and to Shonda Rhimes herself:
Try this blind test: A politician and a workaholic have a passionate extramarital affair that endangers their careers and national security. A scheming Washington insider murders an innocent and makes it look like a suicide to further his own career. A person assumes a false identity after a gruesome incident and uses that identity to build a new life. To protect his legacy, a man preemptively murders a former ally once essential to his success.
These are all descriptions of plot points on “Scandal” — but also on “Homeland,” “House of Cards,” “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” respectively. “Scandal” may not look or feel like TV’s other prestige dramas, in which (usually male) antiheroes mix it up under the oversight of an (almost always male) auteur who has complex feelings about entertaining his audience. Rhimes feels no such ambivalence.
Mmm hmm.
I really like that Shonda Rhimes has spoken out (more than once, actually) on her resentment of the show being called a “guilty pleasure.” She called such a label “ridiculous” and “super insulting.” I find that women and men embracing this label for shows of interest to women just reveals sexism in our society. What man has ever called anything he watches a “guilty pleasure?” I know men that watch the most ridiculous reality shows and wrestling—which is a soap opera, and do not label the shows this way. The irony of Scandal is it is not woman-centric; it’s human centric. “Olivia” gets to be human too, not just a series of stereotypes. And, as the ratings reveals, men watch Scandal too.
Only two more episodes this season!
Legendary Black women in film/television! Diahann Caroll (77), Cicely Tyson (79), Nichelle Nichols (80), Ruby Dee (90).
The line in the first tweet, which I replied to in the second tweet, is from the lyrics of Janelle Monae’s and Erykah Badu’s exquisite song “Q.U.E.E.N.”. I shared the video and my thoughts on the video and some of the lyrics in a previous post.
“Let them eat cake” is originally a line associated with the disconnection of the aristocracy (Whites, and includes “noble” and “pure” constructions of White womanhood) from the proletariat and the poor (if they didn’t have bread, how would they have cake?)
Eating wings (who’s negatively associated with chicken despite EVERYONE who is a carnivore eating chicken?) and throwing the bones on the ground? How “un-lady like!” Who gets to be “ladies?” That’s never truly included Black women, even when they obeyed respectability politics mores which include colourism and classism.
She speaks to the intraracial policing of Black womanhood too, for example: “Hey brother can you save my soul from the devil? Say is it weird to like the way she wear her tights?” and “Hey sista, am I good enough for your heaven? Say will your God accept me in my black and white?”
Theism itself (specifically Christianity) and looking feminine (i.e. dresses not tuxedos) are most certainly a part of respectability politics. Janelle defies this since she wears what is deemed men’s clothing most of the time. Think about the intraracial insults of Blue Ivy, a BABY, when other Blacks demand that Beyoncé put her in “girl” attire and suggest that the baby is a “lesbian” for not performing femininity to spec, at barely over a year old. Ridiculous. (The misogynoir hurled at Blue Ivy makes my blood BOIL. It’s worse than I’ve alluded to here; I may address it separately in the future.)
In this song, Janelle and Erykah reject the arbitrary construction of womanhood, and in many ways, both lyrically and what they themselves embody, they’re rejecting the intersectionally oppressive construction of Black womanhood and defining their own…while encouraging us to do the same.
How could I not love this song? Beyond just from a musical/artistic perspective. It’s everything. Though I love academic texts, I promise you can get womanist lessons outside of academic texts too. <3
