This is a little differnt but not really.
I recently had a conversation (against my better judgement as per usual) with this 22 year old guy who felt the need to try and have a "deep" conversation with me. I use the word in quotations because well.... If conversing was akin to bodies of water, my ocean would be to his puddle.
The conversation started with him asking me about a sexual experience that I'd brought up earlier in the discussion (because let's face it, I can be as smart as a whip, but nothing will matter more than if I can fuck or not) and based on my answers and experience he called me "wild".
I just stared.
Why use the word "wild" I asked. He said because in regular (dominant) culture, even though I don't perceive my behavior as abnormal or unusual, it's still taboo. I asked him to define taboo for me because really, what is taboo these days? He then proceeded to tell me he meant it as it's used in the dictionary. Of course little Sherrill read dictionaries as a hobby when she was a kid and holds a special place in her heart for paperback books but also has the dictionary app on her iPhone 5 C. So I looked up the definition just to be sure that I was right and his argument was indeed invalid.
Here it is, taboo: forbidden to profane use of contact because of what are held to be dangerous. There's nothing taboo about my behavior... I'm an adult and it's 2014. I let him know his jargon and terminology was a bit outdated and naturally he got offended.
Because I'm a woman I'm only supposed to open my legs to one person. That one person being my boyfriend/husband. Because I'm a woman I'm not supposed to challenge his speech and judgement on my life. Because I'm a woman I'm not supposed to know anything about queer theory and how sex has no emotional ties whatsoever or that I'm not a vessel of reproduction. I'm not supposed to enjoy sex and be prideful when asked about my sexual experience. I'm supposed to know that my behavior is "out there" as he so put it. I explained to him that "regular culture" is bullshit and belittles the experience of so many cultures across the world. Dominant culture is a more acceptable term, "regular" and "normal" just shits on everyone else around and perpetuates this idea that women are "virginal" until defloured by the big bad penis monster (see Little Red Riding Hood).
There was no real point to this blog, I just felt like ranting about it. Overall, he had only had sex with one person and was intrigued that someone as myself, a woman, would openly speak about my experiences and not feel that they are dirty secrets.
I'm so sick of people trying to define themselves in relation to others. Because he hadn't done much I'm "wild", "out there' and partake in "taboo" behavior. He's a guy so naturally he's a (acceptable) whore and I'm pure? Fuck you random white guy. I like to fuck. Or as the joke in my queer theory class goes, I fuck therefore I am. I do what I want and it's not killing anyone. Maybe it's killing someones masculinty and chipping bits off of patriarchy but that's in my job description right?
“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.” -Audre Lorde.
Get your life together kid and have some life experiences. The world doesn't run on your definition of life. Ass.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
Culture of silence: Who cares about black girls?
July is a very interesting month for me... And every summer just seems to get more interesting. By interesting, I mean disturbing as hell
Many summers ago, today, I had sex for the first time. It's a funny story but every summer I party or whatever. I like to recreate a better memory each year since the first time wasn't as special as most people played it up to be. From that experience, it's taken me to queer theory and how sex, love and relationships all have nothing to do with each other. It's educational each year I reflect on it.
This brings me to a few days ago. I woke up and checked Twitter (of course) and saw that a 16 year old girl had been drugged, raped, and her attacker documented her before and after the attack. That morning, it had gone viral after two months. Kids were spreading the pictures that were taken of her after the assault had in a specific pose calling it the "Jada pose". On top of that, she's been shamed and teased by her attacker and many others who she goes to school with along with adults who seem to think this is funny to share on the internet.
I was infuriated. I am infuriated.
A year ago today, as I was commemorating, I was raped. This brought her situation very close to home for me and I had to take a step back from the internet all together. While I feel that many people value my opinion, a million flame wars on every social media site would never capture the rage I feel for this subject.
I didn't talk about my rape for a long time. I remember once I decided to actually talk about it the first thing that was said to me was "what did you expect?". So I stayed silent. This girl was forced out of her silence with these pictures and chose to fight her battle with visibility. This brave 16 year old girl does not need people who look like her to be saying and doing the things they are doing to bring her down. People are even siding with the little boy who decided to live tweet his arrest and tweet "Bail money good" with a smiley face.
Now I can talk about rape culture 101 until I'm blue in the face. I can quote lines and definitions of why Jada's situation is being met with this type of hate speech, so on and so forth. But that's not what I want to talk about. Catch me on any given day and I'm talking about rape culture, it's what I'm in school for. I'm here to talk about this culture of silence that's killing our black children that we trust to take care of us once we get up there in age. It's the silence that's fueling this flame.
I recall a debate I brought up some time ago when the "Blurred Lines" issue was still a hot topic. Feminists were in a rage about Robin Thicke's song and lyrics. Millions of parodies were released gender bending making statements that may or may not have done more harm than good. Blurred lines was released July 12, 2013 (adding more to the dismay of this month). Meanwhile, R&B singer Miguel released "How many drinks" April 10, 2013 with vividly more perturbed lyrics and nobody said a fucking word. What I made of this is as long as Robin Thicke is a threat to white women in white bars talking about crossing lines he can't distinguish, it's totally fine if Miguel stays in black spaces and buys black women alcohol in a means to coerce them to sleep with him.
So what about Jada? Because Jada is a black girl, she gets ridiculed, taunted and her rape goes viral. We hear things like "She should've known better", "she was a ho that cried rape because she was exposed" "she's a thot" and all this unnecessary otherness. If this were the inverse, the entire black boys criminal record would be in question and all focus on his blackness would be on blast. There is simply no space to exist as a black girl or a black women.
Originally, nothing belonged to us. We were brought to this country and given a religion, given a sexuality, forced to reproduce, forced to work, our entire identity has never belonged to us and even in the wake of harassment, despair and travesty we can't even be given victimization. The culture of silence that was created by our ancestors is what made Jada's rape seem like a mock worthy event. Because no one ever talks about it, it's in the dark, it's dirty, it's a secret so be ashamed, we'll shame you for it. We don't talk about our own experiences. All of our lives are surrounded by those of white women. We know they're struggles, their successes. what's expected of them. how they deal with it and what move they're think of next. Because no one is talking to out black children about our experiences, Jada's experience was quickly belittled and exploited because we don't know this to be something that happens to little black girls. Or at least it ain't something we talk about.
Jade broke that silence.
Jada was just like me. She went somewhere expecting to have a good night. Sadly she couldn't trust the people around her. We're not saving each other so who will save us? Black women are at the bottom of the food chain with politics of responsibility running through our family like a bad biological disposition. Even if this little monster gets locked away for the rest of his teen years, Jada will still have to face those children she goes to school with. If she moves, her face and body has been plastered all over the internet and can be immediately recognized.
I saw this picture of three young women posing like Rosie the riveter taking back #JadaPose. I think this is a powerful and uplifting thing to do so that when people with ill intentions go to look for these harmful images of this girl vulnerable, layed splayed on the floor used. Instead of seeing that, they see powerful black and brown women showing their strength and courage yelling about their experiences in the faces of their oppressors and rapists. So I'm challenging every black, brown, and non-black or brown person to show support. Talk about your life. Talk about your experiences. It hurts like hell but you are human and have a right to exist in the skin you're in. Let other black and brown girls know that what happened to them isn't something to be silent about.
Scream with me. I was Jada. I am Jada.
I was infuriated. I am infuriated.
A year ago today, as I was commemorating, I was raped. This brought her situation very close to home for me and I had to take a step back from the internet all together. While I feel that many people value my opinion, a million flame wars on every social media site would never capture the rage I feel for this subject.
I didn't talk about my rape for a long time. I remember once I decided to actually talk about it the first thing that was said to me was "what did you expect?". So I stayed silent. This girl was forced out of her silence with these pictures and chose to fight her battle with visibility. This brave 16 year old girl does not need people who look like her to be saying and doing the things they are doing to bring her down. People are even siding with the little boy who decided to live tweet his arrest and tweet "Bail money good" with a smiley face.
Now I can talk about rape culture 101 until I'm blue in the face. I can quote lines and definitions of why Jada's situation is being met with this type of hate speech, so on and so forth. But that's not what I want to talk about. Catch me on any given day and I'm talking about rape culture, it's what I'm in school for. I'm here to talk about this culture of silence that's killing our black children that we trust to take care of us once we get up there in age. It's the silence that's fueling this flame.
I recall a debate I brought up some time ago when the "Blurred Lines" issue was still a hot topic. Feminists were in a rage about Robin Thicke's song and lyrics. Millions of parodies were released gender bending making statements that may or may not have done more harm than good. Blurred lines was released July 12, 2013 (adding more to the dismay of this month). Meanwhile, R&B singer Miguel released "How many drinks" April 10, 2013 with vividly more perturbed lyrics and nobody said a fucking word. What I made of this is as long as Robin Thicke is a threat to white women in white bars talking about crossing lines he can't distinguish, it's totally fine if Miguel stays in black spaces and buys black women alcohol in a means to coerce them to sleep with him.
So what about Jada? Because Jada is a black girl, she gets ridiculed, taunted and her rape goes viral. We hear things like "She should've known better", "she was a ho that cried rape because she was exposed" "she's a thot" and all this unnecessary otherness. If this were the inverse, the entire black boys criminal record would be in question and all focus on his blackness would be on blast. There is simply no space to exist as a black girl or a black women.
Originally, nothing belonged to us. We were brought to this country and given a religion, given a sexuality, forced to reproduce, forced to work, our entire identity has never belonged to us and even in the wake of harassment, despair and travesty we can't even be given victimization. The culture of silence that was created by our ancestors is what made Jada's rape seem like a mock worthy event. Because no one ever talks about it, it's in the dark, it's dirty, it's a secret so be ashamed, we'll shame you for it. We don't talk about our own experiences. All of our lives are surrounded by those of white women. We know they're struggles, their successes. what's expected of them. how they deal with it and what move they're think of next. Because no one is talking to out black children about our experiences, Jada's experience was quickly belittled and exploited because we don't know this to be something that happens to little black girls. Or at least it ain't something we talk about.
Jade broke that silence.
Jada was just like me. She went somewhere expecting to have a good night. Sadly she couldn't trust the people around her. We're not saving each other so who will save us? Black women are at the bottom of the food chain with politics of responsibility running through our family like a bad biological disposition. Even if this little monster gets locked away for the rest of his teen years, Jada will still have to face those children she goes to school with. If she moves, her face and body has been plastered all over the internet and can be immediately recognized.
I saw this picture of three young women posing like Rosie the riveter taking back #JadaPose. I think this is a powerful and uplifting thing to do so that when people with ill intentions go to look for these harmful images of this girl vulnerable, layed splayed on the floor used. Instead of seeing that, they see powerful black and brown women showing their strength and courage yelling about their experiences in the faces of their oppressors and rapists. So I'm challenging every black, brown, and non-black or brown person to show support. Talk about your life. Talk about your experiences. It hurts like hell but you are human and have a right to exist in the skin you're in. Let other black and brown girls know that what happened to them isn't something to be silent about.
Scream with me. I was Jada. I am Jada.
#JadaPose #IAmJada #SupportJada
Monday, July 7, 2014
Blackness and Culture: Who's lens are we looking through?
Ignorance is truly bliss...
Being a Gender and Sexuality studies major I notice a LOT of things that most people pass off as "normal". I can spot centuries of bad habits in one phrase from a small child that doesn't know any better. It's a curse when my audience isn't receptive to the lesson and a gift when I finally get open ears.
People just want to remain ignorant. I can't live with that. These last couple days I've struggled with it mostly because I have a lot of free time and have been a slave to social media, the most ignorant place to spend one's free time as a self identified womanist/feminist.
My big sister and best friend who have to deal with my in-your-face womanism likes to tag and share videos with me. I usually don't respond due to the ignorant responses that will follow or already exist in most comment sections (First rule of feminism: DON'T READ THE COMMENTS). Last night my best friend sent me a video and she added a comment "This... is why I need to leave this (New Orleans) city. This... is not ok". Beneath it was a video of a little girl and her sister "twerking" or before the millennials took over we called it popping (GO HOME MILEY, YOU'RE DRUNK).
Now I watched the video in its entirety and I'm thinking to myself, what is not ok with this? First thing I did after was broke rule number one: I read the comments. Someone commented and said "Now when this girl is 12 and pregnant, refer back to this video." I was done after that. I called my best friend and I told her my opinion about it. I don't think the little girl was doing anything wrong. Sure the dance in itself is 95% pelvis and reproductive organs wielded without disregard but that child in the video had to be about four years old. I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand sex or pregnancy.
Bounce music and popping has been apart of New Orleans culture since I can remember. Before their were camera phones and FaceBook, little 5 year old Sherrill popped in her moms living room, birthday parties, graduations celebrations, etc. while DJ Jubilee called out the steps while my own mom laughed yelling "Look at my baby dancing!". It's a dance, it's who I am, it's how we express ourselves like any other art form. I had no idea of the implications and no one placed sexuality on my body in doing so. Now we're in a time where anything you do can be recorded and the second it hits the internet, you're subjected to be judged for it and your entire future is predicted from this one moment in time.
This generational gap has only made more room to keep people "in their place". By society's standards this little girl should be playing tea party with her sister and not listening to "Ass everywhere". But who's culture is that? When I turned 12 my moms cheers turned to "you better not be dancing like that in front of those boys". That's how they were looking at me, not how I'm presenting. But that's a blog for another day...
Fast forward to this morning. Being a faithful servant to social media, I logged in to see that my sister posted a video of African children dancing. There was quite a bit of pelvic thrusting and sexually suggestive moves BUT all the comments under this video were "This made me happy" "These kids are beautiful. Very talented!", nothing but good comments. So it made me think... As African Americans, why do we shame our own culture and fetishize others? Personally I thought the little girl popping was talented. I'm an adult who still can't get my butt to move like that and I've been dancing to bounce music way longer than she has. It looks like our blackness is only going as far as white society is letting us take it.
How are we judging talent? Why are we placing sexuality on the bodies of children that possibly just want to dance? What are we telling our future culture makers about ourselves? What are we telling them about themselves and what they should do? What are we expressing to white and non-black America or people all over the world? I'm really boggled by this... I think both videos are great and the kids seem to be having fun. Can we not have fun anymore?
Here are the videos in question:
Little girl "twerking"
African Children dancing
Monday, May 5, 2014
Welcome to the show!
Ok I just finished a 10 page queer theory paper on queering black respectability so please excuse me, I'm tired...
I want to actually document my summer. I mean actually.. At one point I used to vlog and blog and all that good stuff. So many great things are happening I need to record and share, so this will be the place.
Hopefully I don't drop the ball like I always do.
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