words
Words I love that I am going to try to stop using, except as random exclamations:
Lovely–makes me feel so British, and so much better than “cool” or “neat”.
Beautiful–so true of so many things that it begins to lose its punch.
Interesting–ditto
I’m not sure how to capture these emotions and states of being in a succinct way without retreating to the shelter of these words. Poets–do you have suggestions?
pause
I’m at a pause with my brother. He said a couple of things to me that really hurt–but he doesn’t realize it or why. I needed to declare a pause so I could recoup myself before I said anything I’d regret.
One of the things I was trying to explain to him was how I was so intrigued the first time I was told we are all racists (by a white missionary in Guatemala). … Well, actually I just stated that I was intrigued (not why or how this is true). Now he seems to think there is danger that I will corner his kids someday and call them racists.
Once he said that I just didn’t even know how to respond. Then I read this completely gorgeous post by Coates. Please read it. Just a taste–he starts by examining an episode of Mad Men, writing “Don is a sexist. But his sexism is not the end of his humanity.”
I would forward it to my brother, but I sort of figure he’ll just tell me yet again that I have the wrong world-view. (and somehow, at the end of all this, he says that he’s not waiting to pounce on me in judgement…I don’t really believe that yet).
A glimmer of light at the end of the Brother tunnel
My brother just responded to my long email. I think we’ve finally had a breakthrough. He says that most of his colleagues that are studying race or gender are part of the Critical Theory school, who see discrimination and oppression in everything. Their seeming goal is to prove why white men have destroyed the world. So when my brother suggests there are other things in the world to study, or that there are other world views than oppressor/oppressed, he gets shot down. So he’s been trying to prove to me that discrimination isn’t everything.
I’ve felt, though, like he’s been trying to prove that discrimination doesn’t exist. You can see the problem. I told him that the point of my entire dissertation is taking a more complicated look into African American lives. I don’t just focus on injustice, because it is very important to me to write about my folks as full human beings, with a lot of concerns, who have to deal with discrimination, but aren’t defind by it. And I also write about some white folks who are just as complicated–sometimes acting superior, sometimes acting humbly, sometimes something else. Putting them into a box of racist doesn’t help me understand them, even if they did sometimes act in a racist way.
At the same time, I encouraged my brother not to simply dismiss his colleagues because they focus so much on oppression. Does he know the rules by which they label something as discriminatory? Because I know I’ve certainly gone through a transformation, from not understanding why labelling generic humans as “he” to understanding, from not understanding what was worng with the worldview of Gone with the Wind (I never liked it, but that’s a different story) to understanding the problems with portraying slavery as a happy institution. That doesn’t mean I can’t critique the opposite extreme–labeling every day in slavery as a bottomless pit of hell, and every master as horribly abusive (it was after all a society, with rules and extremes of behavior that should be analyzed). But sometimes, I think we tend to critique the overflow of labeling things discrimination (political correctness, anyone) without understanding the discrimination in the first place.
We’ll see how he responds. And now it’s 8:51 and here I’d tried to get up earlier to start working. I’ve been depressed much of the weekend, over the brother thing, over gaining more weight, over how much I still need to accomplish this summer. The only thing that will make me feel better is accomplishing something…but that doesn’t make it any easier. Off to work!
Obama’s speech
As soon as I started seeing headlines about Obama’s speech to the NAACP just being a pull-up-your bootstraps speech, I doubted its veracity. I figured there was a lot more to the story. I listened to the speech today and indeed, it was not a simple bootstraps talk (or really not even one). The first part traced the history of the NAACP and the civil rights movement. Then he acknowledged the modern discrimination faced by African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, and homosexuals. He outlined all the structural problems, and how his government planned to address many (health care, clean energy, finance reform). Then he talked about education, and again many of the ways the government can improve it. Finally he talked about the responsibilities of African Americans.
I could go on, but this comment captures it perfectly:
The President’s message was far more nuanced — and far more reflective of mainstream black opinion — than media narratives about race ever seem to acknowledge: that while black people still feel the sting of racism, none of us see ourselves as victims incapable of improving our circumstances. Obama wasn’t wagging his finger. When he said that “all these innovative programs and expanded opportunities will not, in and of themselves, make a difference if each of us, as parents and as community leaders, fail to do our part by encouraging excellence in our children,” he was stating the obvious. That’s why everyone cheered. But if the President actually believed that all that was required was a stronger grip on our bootstraps, he wouldn’t be pushing health care reform.
The dominant storyline from the NAACP speech is “no excuses,” because that message makes so many Americans feel as though their obligations to deal with intolerance and bigotry have been met, because it soothes the white guilt of those who would like to prefer not to see black problems as “American problems.” But if that’s all people took away from the president’s speech, they simply weren’t listening.
also
Obama Tells Fellow Blacks–’No Excuses’ For Any Failure
from Ta-Nehisi CoatesThat’s the New York Times headline on Obama’s speech to the NAACP. I don’t even know what to say anymore. I haven’t heard Obama’s speech. But I’ve seen this play out so many times, that I’m fairly sure what happened. Obama probably said a lot of things, and in the midst of it spent a few minutes on “putting down the Playstation and turning off the Ipod.”And then he probably said something about not accepting any excuses from our kids. And thus we have a reductive headline.
Like I said earlier this week–so much of this isn’t about Obama himself, but a deep-seated desire to get out from under history. Expiation on the cheap. White guilt isn’t anyone’s friend. Least of all black people’s.
(I guess the NY Times changed their headline.)
That point about white guilt, coupled with legitimate self-interest, is so true. I feel like I’ve been dealing with it all weekend in my conversations. Please, let’s just move on (not to a somehow post-racial universe) but to a place where racial reconcilliation meetings are rehashing the same concerns I read about whites and blacks discussing eighty years ago.
I’m glad a couple of people asked me about the NAACP talk because I had meant to listen to it, but that spurred me on. It was a great speech.
history of God, pt 2
A. Stone talked me out of reading The Evolution of God. Well, that and seeing that the author is a journalist. I’ve no complaint against journalists. They often write much more lyrical prose than us tweedy historians. But I think if I am going to delve into religious history in a meaningful way, it should be, for the sake of my own dirty soul, someone using methodology I agree with. And those who sweep through vast swaths of history like that book often don’t understand the nitty gritty details.
But what to read? I so hate wasting what little time I have for non-diss stuff on things not worthwhile. Well, I’ll poke around a bit, I guess. Maybe ask my advisor, who is after all, a religious historian. I still think, though, that my greatest attraction to The Evolution of God is that it actually explores the ways that humans have interpreted God differently over the years. I feel this is really the only way to understand the differences between the OT and NT. One of the most profound pieces of insights into the Bible I have picked up since college was when I read somewhere that the OT charts the emerging steps of a civilization–for example, from tribal leadership to monarchy. And yet, most churches I’ve been in take everything in the OT as coming from the exact same situation, the same God as the NT. Including things like killing off large swaths of people (mentioned most recently a couple of weeks ago in my parents’ church, with much glee, I might add).
continuing brother saga
Just sent a very frank email to my brother and am tensely trying to decide whether to go to bed or wait and see if he responds. He wants to try to develop a closer relationship with me… I guess because
I’d like to have a relationship with you, and it makes me uncomfortable to not have that and then talk about you having one with my kids.
*sigh* I of course hear the negative aspects of this sentence uncomfortable with you having a relationship with my kids), not the positive (I want to have a relationship with you). I’m fairly well convinced that if he knows me better–my illogic, my problems with faith, my liberal opinions–he wouldn’t want to have a relationship with me anyway. But the surface relationship we’ve been building all these years is evidently no longer sufficient. So after spending a ton of time describing how I got into black history, I told him that in order to communicate, we need to realize that we will both have preconceptions of the other based on our general political views (conservative/liberal) and that he needs to know that I argue differently than him. To him, logic is everything. To me, art, emotion and experience flesh out logic. I do not find logic extracted from human experience enough to find the “truth.”
I wonder if I should copy my trajectory towards black history here? Would someone like that? (vain attempt to get someone to leave a comment. of course when O. left a brilliant comment a while ago I wasn’t insightful enough to keep the conversation going). Now if that isn’t a late night statement, shouldn’t be published, I don’t know what is.
The extra weight was the confirmation: once a fat kid, always a fat kid, never moving through the world in the carefree fashion of people unaccustomed to worrying about their weight, never as inconspicuous. It was the stubborn thing I seemed least able to control, and I often felt that all my shortcomings flowed from it — were somehow wrapped into and perpetuated by it.
God in history
I want to read The Evolution of God based upon this review in the NY Times. I am immediately attracted to the idea that human conceptions of God have evolved over time, just like our ideas about politics, love, relationships, human nature, etc. have changed over time. My monthly audio book is ready to be chosen, and I’m thinking I’ll get this one. I wonder if anyone in my circle would be willing to talk about it? It seems so far beyond the pale of what evangelicals would accept in conversation and yet, like I said, I am immediately drawn to it. I think I’m feeling edgy again about creating conflict in my circles after two weeks among very conservative Christians in AZ (and my less conservative parents and in-laws who are nonetheless fully evangelical). Although, if I never try to talk to people, I’ll just continue to be terrified of condemnation. I’m working on stating my opinions more forcefully (instead of trying to say what people want to hear), while still in a loving manner. I confronted my in-laws over a few things this trip in what I think was a very profitable interaction.
At the same time, I’m trying to weigh several other possibilities for listening: I’m feeling a rather large vacancy in my education for the period before and after mine (in part because I’ve been focusing on the 20s and 30s for so long). It would be good for my general education and teacher preparation to read some more books about slavery and about the hip-hop generation. Yet most of the times that I’ve tried to listen to history books, the efforts have not gone well. Audio books really need to have a strong narrative drive to succeed and keep my interest.
I’m also intrigued by This Republic of Suffering by Harvard’s new president, Drew Gilpin Faust (first woman pres). It has garnered a lot of public attention (beyond academia) and won a major book award. She’s also been interviewed in several podcasts I’ve listened to. So this would be part of my intellectual history education… but wouldn’t necessarily further any concrete goals in the moment.
And finally, often I use audio books for my novel outlet. If I don’t have time to read a novel, at least I can listen to one while exercising, doing the dishes, etc.
Thoughts?
fragility
I’ve been fascinated by all the tributes to Jackson (not on tv, as I haven’t watched any of the coverage, only read about it), particularly from African Americans. But this week’s Village Voice is the first I’ve seen to capture a real sense of nuance and historical context. First, check out the cover and the discussion of the cover, then this article by Greg Tate. Dad and Dad-in-law are both disgusted by the coverage of someone they see as a freak and a criminal; I don’t know that this is an unusual opinion among whites (though certainly not the only one). I think it is incredibly useful to probe the reasons for such a stark difference of opinion; I think it has a lot to do with the different way American history has shaped (many) African Americans and (many) white folk.
From Tate:
Michael’s post-Motown life and career are a testament to all the cultural greatness that Motown and the chitlin circuit wrought, but also all the acute identity crises those entities helped set in motion in the same funky breath.
…
my official all-time-favorite Michael clip is the one of him on Oprah viciously beatboxing [his 808 kick sound could straight castrate even Rahzel's!] and freestyling a new jam into creation—instantaneously connecting Michael in a syncopating heartbeat to those spiritual tributaries that Langston Hughes described, the ones “ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.” Bottom line: Anyone whose racial-litmus-test challenge to Michael came with a rhythm-and-blues battle royale event would have gotten their ass royally waxed.
…
At what point did the Man in the Mirror turn into Dorian Gray? When did the Warholian creature that Michael created to deflect access to his inner life turn on him and virally rot him from the inside?
Real Soul Men eat self-destruction, chased by catastrophic forces from birth and then set upon by the hounds of hell the moment someone pays them cash-money for using the voice of God to sing about secular adult passion.
…
The unfortunate blessing of his departure is that we can now all go back to loving him as we first found him, without shame, despair, or complication.
Go read the whole article. It’s better that than I keep extracting.
Artistic expression
Those of you who know me know that I have nursed a secret ambition to be an actress since I was a wee one. All through growing up in my ueber-small town, I planned to be on that black, open to every possibility stage. In high school I did everything I could to find acting experiences. Then I hit a brick wall of being offered a part in a play that I could not morally accept (I was way more conservative back then; the problem was an out-of-wedlock birth–pretty mild stuff in comparison to where I am now. But I knew there would be all these little brothers and sisters in the audience! *sigh*).
That was when I was a senior in high school. Here I had spent my whole life planning to major in theater. What else could I do? I flopped around a bit. Thought if I got into a Christian college I could still major in theater (did get in, but didn’t get enough scholarship help). I ended up at a big public university where I knew there’d be way more experimental plays than I’d come up against in high school. I mean, my goodness, I’d remembered hearing the complaints in my little corner of the desert that this school had dropped Shakespeare in favor of (gasp!) modern feminist plays! Oh my, what a place I grew up in.
Throughout college, as I got more internally liberal (though not so much in my behavior. Still have never been drunk, and married my one and only boyfriend at 21), I kept thinking about turning back to being an acting major. I’d walk the halls of the theater department and it just made me ache. I’d watch a performance and I could hardly enjoy it for the sake of wishing I was in the actor’s shoes. I even went to a Christian performing arts camp–my first serious acting training–and again thought seriously about switching my major.
A couple of things stopped me. One, I felt I wasn’t serious enough. If I really wanted this as much as I said I did, I’d be doing everything to make it happen. Instead, my homework always happened and then I would (sometimes) seek out other stuff. But, my goodness, even my non-actor roommate ended up in a production of the Vagina Monologues (after I’d already graduated, or I probably would have tried to join her). Also, I came away from the arts camp not sure I had the talent or versatility. And, I was deeply shaken by the final group photo where my double bulk blinked like an angry blaring light. I couldn’t imagine someone my size finding many parts.
So, given that always finishing my homework thing, I thought–my insides must want academics more than they want theater. So here I am in graduate school.
But it is still the case that I get the greatest thrill from being on stage. But it’s been so long since I’ve been directed…when I get to do just about any theater (at church) I am under my own direction. I recently watched a tape of a performance of mine…I really need outside direction. I was very rough in spots. Very rough.
Why is this all coming up tonight? My father-in-law helps sponsors an arts camp in the summer and two of the teachers (a married couple, both actors) stayed in his guest house for two weeks. He wanted me to meet them, so we went down to their studio tonight. They have a major green screen, actors training facility, and production areas. They have already hosted and/or produced several major commercials and more than one TV pilot. The woman has been in a Lifetime movie, among other things. After seeing their facilities, we went out to dinner. They invited me to be their guest in one or two of their acting courses…which I’m going to do next week. My energy and excitement just spilled out of me throughout the entire evening. I soaked up everything they had to say.
Why am I feeling torn despite the energy of the evening? We were asking all sorts of opener questions (desert island, dinner party, etc.) and they asked me if money was no object, where would I live and what would I do? And I said, oh that’s easy, New York and Broadway. But is that really true? Am I not a serious homebody who needs alone time and down time? Do I actually have the energy to race down an acting job?
And then, the way they spoke about Christianity. She, especially, seemed the kind of Christian who is so intensely focused on the identity that there is actually little substance to it. Oh that’s probably not fair. But throughout the meal she would drop things about how God had arranged this or arranged that just for them. About how she met another Christian at the lifetime movie film shoot and they just totally jived together, had sniffed each other out (because she mentioned how blessed she was). I can’t quite explain why this kind of talking (I’m not capturing it very well) bugs me. It’s so unfair of me… I think what especially got me was when she talked about the movie Amazing Grace and how sad it was that the producers had insisted that the filmmaker take out a lot of stuff about the main dude’s conversion in favor of all that abolition stuff. To me, the fact that he became an abolitionist *is* his conversion…not some midnight prayer or emotional experience. That’s part of it. I haven’ t seen the movie, so maybe what is lacking is a direct connection between Christianity and his change, but I think that’s there.
Also, I was describing the Diving Bell and the Butterfly–an incredibly beautiful, artistic movie (and not one that would have fit the moral standards of that earlier mold of myself) that reaches deep into the human experience. Maybe cliche in some ways, but beautiful in many others. Or maybe just my writing about it is cliche. At any rate, she said,
oh yah! I was on this film shoot and met an actor. We both exchanged “must-see” movie lists. His was divided into English-language, Foreign films, black and white, etc and that movie was on it. And here mine was just a list of chick flicks. He had never heard of “How to Lose a Man in 10 Days.” When he asked who Kate Hudson was [she quite resembles that actress] I threw up my hands and said go look it up.
Now, “How to Lose a Man in 10 Days” soured me on romantic comedies pretty much for all time. I had already been going that way, but it was so false, so shallow, so horrendous….well you get my drift.
Oh, and did I mention that this couple is putting together a “Faith Based Movie” and is already getting the backing for it? And support from several people in the business? The plot is a basic conversion story, I’m guessing from the nutshell they gave me. About a badly injured man returning to faith. That could make for a rich story … but not if the end goal is forever the Romans Road and the story is bound by what is acceptable Christianity, not what is actual lived experience.
Hah! So when I was a conservative Christian, I turned my nose up at an opportunity to act b/c it didn’t fit my moral sensibilities and now that I’m a liberal [something or other], I turn my nose up at faith based actors b/c they don’t fit my artistic sensibilities?
At any rate, I was still incredibly psyched to meet them and we are probably going to their comedy show on Friday. They have an improv show. I loooove improv! And I will probably take them up on their incredibly kind offer to let me join two classes next week (Cold Reading and improv). Who knows, maybe someday I will be able to combine history and acting like some part of my soul still wants to do.
I am definitely not economically minded…academic professor or theater actress. [Let's remember that I'm plus sized and can't sing]. I have somewhere between 300-400 pages written on my dissertation. Maybe I will become a published author? Part of me thinks it would be wonderful to earn a living from my writing. Be able to travel around giving talks (not leading discussion sections, pulling teeth all the while, not grading). Maybe that would satisfy that acting bug still jarring my insides at times. But that is so incredibly unlikely. Most authors still teach. And part of me does like to teach. That is a part I need to cultivate strongly as I think about the job market. It is, after all, July 1st! Ack!
