Sonya McCoy Wilson

Are You Making Natural Hair Look Bad?

2012-02-16T14:40:00.000-05:00

The natural hair revolution has unearthed a few zealots who may be sending some offensive messages to the non-natural hair population.

I was talking to one of my non-natural friends recently. We've been friends for years, and the fact that I have natural hair is not at the center of our conversations nor is it an integral part of our relationship. She has a cadre of natural friends, however, who are really making her loathe the phrase "natural hair." She told me that these particular women feel that they must represent natural hair in its raw, unadulterated state. In other words, they wake up and however their hair looks, that's their look for the day.

Not only does their hair look reminiscent of poor little "Buckwheat," the very racist representation of blackness from 1930s American media, but these women are elitist about their unkempt "naturalness." They often subjugate and ridicule other black women with chemically straightened or heat straightened hair. Apparently, these types of "Natural Nazis" are growing in numbers.

The point of any revolution should be to voice the frustrations of the people and bring about a change that the people welcome. If we are in the midst of a natural hair revolution, these natural Nazis are not likely to recruit new naturals. The "Buckwheat" fro is just not a good look. The character of Buckwheat was not constructed to represent a cute lovable ideal. He was constructed by the white mainstream media of the 1930s for the amusement of white audiences. Buckwheat's wild, electrified hair, large white eyes, and stylized dark skin was a common racist trope of the early 20th century. The "jigaboo," "spook", "porch monkey," "sambo" character represented the racist stereotypes that defined black folks as aesthetically ugly if not comical and feeble.

Natural hair can be, like any other hair type, beautiful. But purposely refusing to manipulate natural hair, like any other hair type, leaves it matted, unkempt, and unappealing. Wearing a "Buckwheat" look would not and should not encourage any non-natural to toss the chemicals. New naturals need not wear their naturalness like armor, beating everyone else over the head with it. Looking beautiful in their natural skin is what encourages other women to "go natural." And if we are waging a natural hair revolution, ultimately, we need new recruits.

Too Black Too Strong

2012-02-04T09:49:00.000-05:00

Kathleen Cleaver and Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale
Oakland, CA 1968

This is the first in a series of posts that I plan to showcase this Black History Month. This post will not contain a long exegesis of the plight of the African. I will not examine the African diaspora. Instead, I just want to display an African aesthetic that moves me deep down in my core. I hope you are moved too...

James Baldwin, Odetta Holmes, Ralph Ellison,
Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee

Malcolm X, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Angela Davis

Bob Marley

Pam Greer

Bill Cosby

Booker T. Washington

Cast of the Cosby Show 2011

Until next time...

Curls, Color, and Race

2012-01-22T13:36:00.001-05:00

Since my locs' big chop a year ago, I have learned a few things about black folks and natural hair. Until my "big chop anniversary," I wore a wash 'n' go variation every day (pictured below):

To my surprise, I received daily inquiries about my hair. The first question was always, "How do you get your hair like that?" And my response was a long run down of my co-wash conditioner and regimen, followed by my leave-in moisturizer, castor oil, and the best darn gel in the world - Eco Styler. Much to my chagrin, instead of nods and note-taking, what ensued was almost always an "ugly" twisted face followed by, "Oh, so you just have curly hair?" Reluctant to respond, I would eventually acquiesce and say, "Yes." To this, I would receive a spectrum of responses - anywhere from shoulder shrugs and ambivalence to downright hostile eye-rolling.

Mom

My mother, who is natural too and big-chopped when I did, explained similar experiences. However, some of my natural friends explained very different experiences. The key variance was that no one ever asked my friends, "How do you get your hair like that?" When I discovered this, I started to think more critically about the discrepancy. What was the difference between my mother, my friends, and I? Sadly enough, the only difference was skin color. My mother and I are dark-skinned black women, and all the natural friends in question are light-skinned black women.

The interrogation that my mother and I experienced repeatedly was the result of the two of us curly heads betraying an unspoken stereotype, a paradigm. Apparently, black folks have constructed certain images for blacks. Until I contradicted this socially constructed image, I never knew it existed. It is very simple: light-skinned people have curly hair, and dark-skinned people have kinky hair. And, as many hair blogs attest, in the politics of black hair, curls have become the holy grail.

Danielle

So when black women would stop me in the grocery store, at work, or on the street and ask, "How do you get your hair like that," they were assuming that I had "manufactured" the curls they were seeing. I, however, assumed they wanted to know how I achieved shine and staying power. So, when my lengthy response betrayed their assumptions, they would become incensed. My light-skinned counterparts are never questioned about "how" their curls occur, because the expectation is that the curls "naturally" occur. After all, light-skinned people are "supposed" to have curly hair? Right?

My experiences over the last decade and half with natural hair are reaffirming rather than contradicting my theories about race and identity. As much as India Arie and others proclaim proudly that "they are not their hair," there is so much evidence to the contrary. Women's hair (regardless of race) has been a symbol of beauty, femininity, piety, reverence, patriarchy, sexuality, and the list goes on. In our contemporary world, we cannot trivialize black women's hair and what it symbolizes.

End Piracy, Not Liberty - Google

2012-01-18T20:45:00.000-05:00

TAKE A STAND! LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!

Sign the Petition

I Still Have a Dream

2012-01-16T17:28:00.000-05:00

"That one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood...When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sometimes all we have is our dreams, and sometimes dreams come true. Thank God I can still dream...

What it Means to be Them

2012-01-10T11:46:00.000-05:00

photo courtesy of blackstarproject.org

After all of the chaotic, sweaty, frenzied energy that goes into making it all happen - registration, keeping enrollment numbers up, student retention, increased graduation rates, and the adjunct-instructor- recruitment-hell, the smoke clears, and I remember why I do this.

After the first day's proselytizing, introductions, and syllabi, I remember what it means to be them - a young, vibrant, raging combination of angst, fear, hope, and possibility. Sometimes I forget, even while I am harping on about accountability and the "Attendance Policy" on page 3, what it means to be them.

I forget what it means to have your whole life ahead of you and not know it, what it means to look forward to working an unpaid internship, what it means to be poor but not impoverished, what it means when homework is your biggest responsibility, what it means to have college loan debt in the single digits or not to have any college loan debt at all.

It's a strangely symbiotic relationship - the one between teacher and student. They promise to read and write and think and discuss. And I promise to give them my all each term and to do it all over again the next. And in the end, this relationship changes us all (irrevocably) for the better. Because, ultimately, I am them and they are me.

On Hair: Curl Enhancing Smoothie

2012-01-07T14:41:00.000-05:00

Since I have transcended my TWA (teeny weeny afro) phase, the sky has opened, the divine light has come down, and the Hallelujah Chorus is playing.

For the past year since my BC (big chop), I had been wearing my hair in a shrunken WNG (wash 'n' go). This was a very orchestrated choice on my part. I do not have the kind of lifestyle which affords me the time to spend hours during the week styling my hair. Any other style on less than 6 inches of hair requires lots of "attention." Therefore, the WNG style below freed me up to work the 12 hour days I normally put in every week and be a mother and wife.

Wash n Go 12/2011

I am no longer a slave to the WNG! I have graduated to the Twist-Out. So, I had to do a complete overhaul of my weekly (if not daily) regimen.

I achieved my WNG with my former holy grail product, Eco Styler Olive Oil Gel. However, I knew that gel was not the product I wanted to use to twist my hair. I did not want crunchy, tacky, sticky curls.

Shea Moisture's Curl Enhancing Smoothie is my new holy grail product. Not that I am tossing my Eco Styler Gel. I will definitely keep it for my WNG and summer wet styles.

I achieved my Twist-Out below using the Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie.

This twist-out was done with larger twists than I describe below

How I achieve my Twist-Out:

1. Co-wash as usual.
2. Braid in six big braids to keep my hair stretched while styling.
3. Apply leave-in conditioner. I still love Carefree Curl Gold.
4. Apply dime size amounts of castor oil.
5. Apply Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie (a nickel to quarter size). This size is based on a
huge section of hair. Remember, I had already sectioned my hair in six big braids. So a little of this
product goes a very long way.
6. Finger-part off a very small (1/2 inch) section of hair and twist tightly to the ends. Because of my
coily curl pattern, my hair responds best to small twists. Yes, this takes an hour. But I do this early
Saturday morning, and I'm done well before noon. (Note: my hair is still damp while twisting)
7. I let my twists stay in for at least 24 hours (to "set" them). Then I untwist them.
8. At night, I re-twist in very large twists. I realized very quickly that my hair cannot remain loose at
night. The re-twisting only takes me 30 minutes. This is a reasonable amount of time for my
lifestyle. The untwisting in the morning takes about 15 minutes (also reasonable). If I'm really
pushed in the morning, I untwist in the car on my way to work (I have a 45-minute drive and I use
one hand).

Why I love Curl Enhancing Smoothie:

1. It keeps my hair moisturized for at least 5 days without reapplying during the 5 days.
2. It keeps my hair baby soft for at least 5 days
3. It's not sticky or tacky
4. It's not greasy
5. It's 99% natural
6. It smells good
7. It's cost effective: $9.99 for the 12 oz. jar above at Target

Tribute to the Black Hair Revolution

2012-01-02T21:08:00.000-05:00

Vlogger kinkypeaches1 illustrates the ideas I blogged about in my Kinky Curly Paradigm post. Enjoy!

Cheers for the New Year!

2011-12-31T21:57:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

I think I am not alone in welcoming a new year, as 2011 was often turbulent and filled with many global highs and lows. 2011 was, as People Magazine proclaimed, the year of "The Protestor." The Arab Spring was the watershed event that gave way to the Occupy Movement. The global community rejoiced when the Egyptian people's voices were finally heard. However, we learned that the price of freedom is high.

The new year, however, brings with it possibility, hope, and maybe the change we've all been waiting for. I am hopeful and vigilant.

May you all find peace and happiness in 2012.

Cheers!

Kinky Curly Paradigm

2011-12-29T18:42:00.000-05:00

A year ago, I decided to cut off my locked hair of 8 years. I blogged about my "Big Chop", it's significance, and the politics of black women's hair. While I was reflecting on the past year, I stumbled upon Larry D. Rosalez-Lewis, a freelance photographer. He was recently featured on BGLH (a natural hair blog), and he had something very profound to say about hair:

Wearing my hair natural was never an epic decision or affirmation of my blackness, but the way people respond has caused me to really examine my thoughts about natural hair, blackness and race relations, and the spiritual aspects of hair.

This is exactly what I have been pondering for the last year. Both men and women of African descent have the same curly/kinky, Afro-textured strands growing from their heads. Yet, until now, black women have been held to a separate set of standards for hair and beauty - a white paradigm instead of a black one. I discussed the white paradigm of beauty at length in my blog post a year ago. So I won't rehash it here. I will say, however, that Black women who "go natural" are met with the most resistance from other black people. There are still too many black people who believe that natural hair is "unprofessional," "unkempt," "unclean" and just plain "ugly." However, naturals all over the country attest to the acceptance and even intrigue their hair receives from whites.

Things are changing, though. The new generation of natural haired black women are trailblazers in the quest for affirmative black female identity. Bloggers like Curly Nikki, Afrobella, Kurly Bella, Natural Chica, and Vloggers like Kimmaytube, BeautifulBrwnBabyDol, and KinkyKurlyQueen have reconstructed black female identity (literally) from the hair follicles down. I don't know which came first - the blogs or the changing attitudes about black women and natural hair. Whatever the case may be, everyone is fascinated with kinky, curly Afro-textured hair. I no longer get aggravated when people "just want to touch it." I understand. Hair that grows out and not down is like nothing else. There is a spirit about it that is difficult to articulate.

Although, there are some unenlightened black folks still lurking behind weaves, wigs, pieces, and lye, naturals represent a significant percentage of the black female population. According to a recent USA Today article, "The number of black women who say they do not use products to chemically relax or straighten their hair jumped to 36% in 2011, up from 26% in 2010, according to a report by Mintel, a consumer spending and market research firm. Sales of relaxer kits dropped by 17% between 2006 and 2011, according to Mintel." Maybe one day we can put the "relaxer" folks out of business.

I feel a kinky, curly paradigm shift in the air.

Drama in the Fitting Room

2011-12-05T21:06:00.000-05:00

I think it's safe to say that every woman would like nothing better than to sachet into the fitting room with several, single-digit-sized skinny jeans and slip effortlessly into them without needing a crane, a vat of grease, or a few Hail Mary's.

We've all experienced stressful visits to the fitting room, when nothing that supposed to fit actually fits, and the mirror seems like a magnifying glass illuminating every lump, bump, and imperfection under the cruel and unforgiving florescent lights.

I was talking about this to a colleague of mine who recently lost a significant amount of weight. She was recounting to me how refreshing it is to go shopping for clothes now, and how she is no longer subjected to the "Women's World" suits. She wondered why so many plus-sized women's suits came in obnoxious colors like purple, pink, and electric blue. Having no other alternative, she would grab an arm full of these pink and purple nightmares and head to the fitting room hoping for a miracle. There she stood looking like she was on her way to a Deaconess meeting. For years, she said, the thought of professional attire was frightening.

But now, after shedding so many pounds, she feels as though she is a part of entirely new world. She had traded pink and purple for navy and black and elastic waists for buttons, belts, and "hooks and eyes."

Thankful

2011-11-21T11:13:00.001-05:00

So many of us Writing professors care so deeply about our students, the academy, teaching. That, I think, is the message that gets lost among all of the state and federal battles.

Ultimately, teaching Writing is a labor of love. The act of writing is so very personal, even for students who they think they are terrible writers, and especially when they think they are terrible writers (and most of them believe this at first). The relationship between the Writing instructor and the Writing student is an intimate one. Beyond the intimacies of the narrative mode of discourse, there is a sort of testimony that comes with all the other modes as well. To be a witness to all of this spilling of human frailty is a special thing. Most days, I feel proud to be a part of it all – to shape the imaginations, ideologies, and experiences of humanity is rare. And I get to do it every day. And somebody pays me (albeit meager) to do it. For this, I am priveleged and thankful.

The First 'Black' Lady: Re-Constructing Black Womanhood

2011-10-29T19:53:00.000-04:00

Michelle Obama
Vogue 2009
Photo by Annie Leibovitz

I often update my Facebook status with whatever random theoretical thoughts happen to come up. Today I posted the following:

Ok, so this just occurred to me (I know. I'm late). For those of us who've been immersed in Gender and Race Studies in America, how deliciously ironic is it that the first lady is an unambiguous black woman?

Several posts later, one of the commenters asked:

What do you mean by unambiguous?

To which I responded:

Unambiguous-as-in-she-could-not-be mistaken-for-anyone-except-a-black-woman. She couldn't be biracial or Hispanic or Asian or Indian or anything else but African/Black/Negro/Colored.

Although he understood my meaning of the term "unambiguous," I had the feeling that the full meaning and implications of the post were lost on him. And if the irony was lost on him (a pretty astute, well-educated, progressive-minded guy), then quite possibly the full significance of the post had been lost on many others. The remainder of this blog post is my attempt to find what has been lost.

In 2008, the entire world paused for a moment of deep reverence when America elected its first Black president. The historical, cultural, and socio-political significance of that moment was apparent to the entire global world, even though many white Americans attempted to disavow the watershed event of America electing its first African American president - America - the same country who just 145 years ago defined Africans as subhuman accidents of evolution bound to the yoke of chattel slavery irrevocably. No, this moment was not lost on anyone.

However, another watershed event simultaneously occurred when Barack Obama took the oath of the highest office in the land. Michelle Obama became the "First Lady" of the United States of America.

So, here is where I return to my Facebook post. I said that it was "deliciously ironic that the first lady is an unambiguous black woman." Here's the irony. The office of the "First Lady" (and it is an office) was, of course, constructed and shaped over the years by powerful first ladies like Dolly Madison, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jackie Kennedy. If the President (the first man) epitomizes the power, masculinity, and patriarchy of an entire nation, then the first lady epitomizes the purity, femininity, and domesticity of that same nation. We could debate some of the latter descriptors; however, the point is that the first lady is the paradigm of Western womanhood. Historically (in spite of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd wave feminism), Western womanhood equals "white womanhood," and in 1966, Barbara Welter defined this "cult of true womanhood" as piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Although Welter was defining white womanhood in the nineteenth century, her definition lingered well into the twentieth, and I would venture to say, the twenty first century.

Historically, black womanhood was the antithesis of white womanhood. During and well after slavery, black women were defined as the binary opposites of white women. Of course these definitions were not their own. If white women were viewed as "naturally" pious, then black women were deemed "naturally" evil. If white women were pure, black women were "jezebels." If white women were submissive, black women were unpleasantly aggressive. And if white women were "naturally" domestic, black women were "naturally" cut out for hard labor and toil. Granted, there are contemporary progressives who will debunk all of this theorizing. However, these racist stereotypes, although historical relics, have found their way into contemporary American society. Just scratch the surface of any pop culture icon.

Michelle Obama
Vogue 2009
Photo by Annie Leibovitz

Enter Michelle Obama - a black woman - and now the paradigm of American womanhood. And she has charmed the hearts and minds of Americans (white, black, and other). She has turned the "cult of true womanhood" on its head. More importantly, however, she has deconstructed pejorative images of black womanhood and re-constructed a new black woman for all the world to see and emulate.

Unlike her husband, her poise, grace, intellect, and beauty cannot be accredited to any other race except African American. Not that it isn't wonderful that President Obama is biracial. In fact, I think it's absolutely fitting that the first African American president is half white and half African. And I think it doubly fitting that the first African American First Lady is unambiguously black. She has no café au lait skin or European facial or body structure. Mrs. Obama, for all intents and purposes, is a black woman - a little sugar - but no cream. Indeed, this is deliciously ironic.

If...

2011-10-15T09:42:00.000-04:00

As an individual, Rudyard Kipling was probably a real SOB. He was an imperialist, a racist I'm sure, and author of the infamous, "White Man's Burden." However, there is one poem, to which I will pay tribute here, that I think he got right. It's beauty can not only be found in it's content, but it's form which represents the perseverance and tenacity about which it speaks. Embarrassingly enough, I get choked up and verklempt each time I hear it read or read it myself. I have lived my life by it for years and will continue to do so. If you have never read it, enjoy. If you have read it yet never liked it, read it with new eyes today.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

My Plant Based Diet Cured My Hypertension

2011-09-27T10:49:00.005-04:00

I'm writing this post as follow-up to a post I wrote earlier this year singing praises to plant based diets. And now, I decided that I would "testify" (keeping with the tradition of the Black Church). As a result of my change in lifestyle, from a Western, meat based diet to an Eastern plant based diet, I am completely bp medicine free!

This is not a gimmick. I am not advertising for any group, doctor, or pharmaceutical company (LOL!). I am hoping to change a few lives - lives of people who, like me, want to take their health in their own hands and free themselves from the escalating bondage of prescription drugs. Let the church say, "Amen!"

While taking blood pressure meds (for the past 10 years), my sistolic ranged anywhere from 125 to 130. My diastolic lingered around 80 to 90. All of you who are hypertensive or pre-hypertensive know that these numbers are considered borderline. No matter how much I exercised, even when I was running 6 miles/day, I still "needed" the meds to maintain a 120/80 reading (and 120/80 is no longer considered normal). For someone who was at the pinnacle of fitness and already taking blood pressure medicine, these were scary numbers. These are numbers that make physicians grab the prescription pad. And of course, one new medicine necessitates another new medicine to manage the side-effects of the first medicine and so on and so on. Then, pretty soon, you wake up in the morning to a cocktail of medicines to "manage" your "condition." I decided that I was too young and too smart to let this thing beat me. As I explained in the previous post, my doctor not only supported this effort, it was her idea.

Now, my sistolic ranges anywhere from 105 to 117, and diastolic from 56 to 64. I know what you are thinking. No, I really don't exercise much. Yes, I should. And, yes, I need to. But, between work and family, I (like you) have little time to be a slave to the gym or a weekend warrior. I run about 2 miles every other week. This miraculous cure that I have experienced lies solely in what I eat, or what I don't eat (depends on how you choose to perceive it). Most days, I am a vegan. This means, I eat no dairy products (and of course no meat). Dairy consists of eggs, butter, dairy cheese, and dairy milk. No, I don't deprive myself of these things. I simply eat plant-based versions of them. I drink coconut milk (yum!), and I eat vegan butter and soy or rice cheese. Other days (when I am eating at restaurants without a vegan menu), I am a vegetarian. This means, I am eating food cooked with eggs and garnished with dairy cheese. However, I never consume animal flesh (yes, that means fish too). I stay away from junk food. I do eat too many potato chips even though they are usually organic and vegan.

I never feel deprived or hungry. Quite the contrary, I feel satisfied and happy. I changed my thinking and my grocery list, and I learned how to cook all over again. And, no, I do not miss steak, hamburgers, chicken, pork chops, or fish. For me, eating meat would be nothing short of suicidal. Some may consider this dramatic (in true "tree hugger" form). But what I have experienced is dramatic.

Ultimately, my doctor did not do this for me. I did this for myself. And so can you.

The Taming of the Shrew: The Struggles of the Alpha Female

2011-09-04T12:46:00.001-04:00

The dialectic of how women would function in positions of power began, of course, during second wave feminism when women broke through the professional glass ceilings that had heretofore prevented them from competing with their male counterparts.

As Rebecca Walker so famously stated, "I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave." Although I am among the generation of women who have enjoyed the fruits of their mother's labors, I have come to realize that there is still a deep abiding sense that women don't belong in power, or at the very least, they are ill suited for positions of power and therefore must be "tolerated" and placated. Since the second wave, women have held some of the highest positions in government, education, and the private sector. But so many still believe that their presence in these high ranking offices has been a big social experiment gone wrong.

For the past few years, I have occasionally been faced with subtle male resistance/combativeness in the classroom. And now, as the head of an academic department, the resistance has taken on a more insidious form. In the classroom, I have always handled these situations like Hemingway would have said, with "grace under pressure." And by the end of the semester, said male combative student would be eating out of my hand, drinking whatever Kool-Aid and blue pills I offered. Later, I would dismiss these incidents because some part of me empathized with students like this. After all, it must be difficult to have one's Alphaness challenged by an Alpha female who is the ultimate authority figure in the room.

Or is that just it? Do Alpha females face more resistance when they are in positions of power than Beta females? Are both men and women uncomfortable with assertive, strong-willed women?

As we know, gender (like many other aspects of the human condition), is socially constructed. Therefore, we expect men and women to remain in their respective corners with regard to "performing" gender. When a woman steps outside these social mandates of gender, she has transgressed a boundary, she is "trying to act like a man," she is (when all other adjectives fail) a "bitch."

The situation becomes more complex (of course) when we consider race and gender. Not to diminish any other women's struggles, but it seems that those of us who are female academics experience this kind of gender resistance in a very immediate and confrontational way. The front of a classroom is a very visible and constructed place of power. Those of us who are black, female academics experience both gender and racial resistance.

For example, black male students perceive black females as either potential love interests or mother figures. When black male students find that their professor is neither mother or lover, and that she is the authority in the room despite her genitalia, they experience a loss of context (to say the least). On the other hand, black female students perceive their black female professor as sexual competition until they discover that neither is competing for quite the same resources. It is my experience that white students, both male and female, initially perceive a black female instructor as somehow substandard and undeserving of the position of power in which she has been placed. This set of assumptions, while racially motivated, creates a dynamic that most black women are more equipped to handle. After all, we have always been forced to prove our intellectual merit, and we find ourselves quite comfortable doing so.

Of course, as with anything, there are exceptions to the absolutes that I have posited above. I am still left with more questions than answers. Does everyone feel as if they need to "tame the shrew?" Are women in power a threat or an asset? Are black women in power a double threat?

What do you think?

Bad Apples

2011-08-15T14:44:00.002-04:00

If you've worked in any professional setting in America (corporate, education, government, non-profit), you've seen and taken a personality test. There are the Jung and Briggs Meyers tests that attempt to tap into the consciousness. There's the A B C personality typing, and the colors personality typing. I have always been intrigued by this type of occupational psychology. The deep flaw in all of the tests; however, is the margin of error imbedded in the tests based on the "performativity" of the test-taker. To what degree does the test-taker simply give answers based on his or her knowledge of the desired outcome? In other words, people say what they believe the tester wants to hear. People become who they know they are supposed to be.

At one time or another, we have all had the misfortune of watching employees behave very badly. Most data attributes employee bad behavior to the stressors of the weak economy: generally employees who are overworked and underpaid. What about employees who are paid well? What causes privileged workers to act out?

I think I have a few answers.

Incorporating some of the personality traits we already know from Briggs Meyers, Jung, and the like, I have created some additional more reductive types.

Enter The Producer. The producer is, as the name implies, the task master. She gets the job done or better yet gets many jobs done at once. This employee is any employer's dream. She is highly productive, deadline oriented, and self-motivated.

Enter The Slacker. The slacker is a true sloth. He wants to get paid for nothing. This is the employee who is content to play on the internet all day or catch a nap when no one is watching. He is exactly the opposite of the Producer. The Slacker waits until the very last possible minute to complete any deadline. In fact, he often misses deadlines.

Enter The Brown Noser. The Brown Noser may double as a slacker, but most of all, the Brown Noser finds out whose ass to kiss and does so ad nauseam.

Enter The Havoc Wreaker. The Havoc Wreaker is bad news. He finds a weak spot in any team of workers and monopolizes on that weakness. This employee is dangerous to the employer and the other employees. The Havoc Wreaker deplores rules simply because they exist. He is a rebel without a cause. He undermines and sabotages all authority figures a soon as they ask him to do something he doesn't like or want to do. He is argumentative and never wrong. The Havoc Wreaker is a master manipulator and will easily win over Slackers and Brown Nosers. Slackers like the Havoc Wreaker because he likes to break rules - hence avoid work he deems pointless. And we know slackers hate work. Brown Nosers like the Havoc Wreaker because they see him as the next potential ass to kiss.

Inevitably Producers bump heads with Havoc Wreakers and Slackers. This conflict could end in confrontation, workplace violence, termination, and even jail time. And, indeed, it already has.

I am quite sure that no employer thinks they have hired the Slacker, the Brown Noser, or worst yet, the Havoc Wreaker. I am learning, however, that these employees seem to be in great supply.

Do interview performances hide these serious flaws, or are there early indicators of bad behavior? And better yet, why do well-educated adults act out in such egregious ways?

Teachers Have Sick Patients Too

2011-07-20T20:41:00.002-04:00

As the American system of education continues to decline, the grumblings of college professors all over the country rise to a rallying cry. At every level of higher education (the community college, the technical college, and the university), instructors complain that their students are more unprepared, irresponsible, and insipid than ever before. Those same instructors have developed an entire line of rhetoric surrounding this issue. Ultimately, they throw up their hands in defeat, hold shorter office hours, and retreat into the safe haven of cynicism and apathy.

Imagine for a moment that you have been suffering for several days with a fever of 105°, coughing, and complaining of chest pains. You finally muster up the strength to make an appointment to see a doctor and drive yourself to his office. Once the doctor walks into the examining room to consult with you, he immediately begins to berate you. "Where are all of these sick people coming from!" he yells, slamming his clipboard onto the counter. "I didn't go to Medical school and spend all of those years in residency only to be inundated by all of these sick people. They can't pay me enough to keep doing this!" And with that, he walks out, storms into his office, and slams the door behind him, leaving you and the nurses silent and bewildered.

Of course, this scenario is absurd. Doctors don't get angry with their sick patients for being sick, because it's their job to make them well. Indeed, they went to medical school to find cures for diseases and to improve their patients' quality of life. In fact, sick patients keep them in business. There's capital in disease (but that's another discussion).

So if we (teachers) know this to be a kind of a priori truth about doctors, why then do we consider it an affront to our profession when those blasted high schools keep sending us unprepared, underprepared, and miseducated students? If the job of the doctor is to heal his patients, then the job of the teacher is to teach her students. Yes, the raw material sucks sometimes. But it's easy to teach bright, insightful, intellectually fit students. However, it is phenomenal to create bright, insightful, intellectually fit students.

A New Story by Sonya McCoy Wilson Appears in Phati'tude Literary Magazine

2011-07-13T21:16:00.050-04:00

Check out my new story:

"The Test"in the Winter 2011 issue of Phati'tude Literary Magazine

Available on Amazon

"The Test"

As the teachers approached her, they could see that she was missing all

of her front teeth. Her hair was hidden beneath rags tied like a scarf, and she wore a pair of men's slippers, red sweatpants, and a sweatshirt that barely covered her distended belly printed with the

words: I Love Jesus.

"You all must be the teachers," she said.

"Yes. Good morning. I'm Mrs. Goodwin and this is Mrs. Lovejoy."

   "Morning. I'm Brenda, Neesie's mama." She rubbed her hand on her sweatpants and shook the teachers' hands.

   When Mrs. Lovejoy thought no one was watching, she quickly wiped her hand on the back of her slacks then stuck it in her pocket.

"This is Neesie's Grandma," Brenda motioned to the other woman still sitting in a chair beside the front door.

"Hello," said Mrs. Goodwin and Mrs. Lovejoy.

To Mrs. Lovejoy's relief, the grandmother did not offer her hand. Instead, she mumbled something unintelligible and smiled widely showing off a toothless grin.

"You ladies come in," offered Brenda.

The teachers obeyed and wished they hadn't when the smell of sour mop, vomit, fried pork, and pine sol met them at the front door. Mrs. Lovejoy took out a bottle of hand sanitizer from her designer handbag, squirted an innocuous puddle in her hand, and rubbed furiously. She then slipped it to Mrs. Goodwin who did the same.

Mrs. Lovejoy looked around the cramped apartment, noted the grime along with the smells, and found it difficult to sit in the chair that Brenda had offered. The teacher acquiesced after an agonizing fifteen seconds. After doing so, she thought sure she felt wetness seep into her slacks. She panicked, biting her lip, and imagining the long list of disgusting possibilities. But there was nothing wet in the chair, so she sat frozen, repulsed, and dizzy from the miscellany of odors.

Mrs. Lovejoy envied Mrs. Goodwin's wooden chair, for she had averted the risk of contagion – the filth, the banality, the poverty – she thought would surely infect them after a day with these people. A carnival of the grotesque they were.

The teachers had driven together, in one car, the two of them, barely acquainted before they were asked to do such a strange thing. They talked a lot about nothing on the way there, just trying to fill the space – the silence that people think they have to fill with words. They were doing more than evading the silence, though. They were avoiding what they both later discovered they were both hoping they did not encounter. So, as they pulled into the "The Oasis" apartments, they both exhaled ever so slightly when there were no crack heads greeting them at the entrance, and the hookers and pimps they had envisioned turned out to be a few middle-aged men and women walking home from the nearby bus stop. But, they had not been prepared for the people who were now playing host to them in this cramped little room.

Grandma, as the rest referred to her, sat in a semi-catatonic state, mumbling incoherent sentences to the others while a mixture of grits, eggs, and government cheese fell from her toothless mouth onto her makeshift bib assembled from an old dishcloth.   Beside Grandma was "Auntie," who periodically wiped the spittle from Grandma's mouth and engaged her in dialogue, which neither of the teachers could decipher.   Auntie wore a close-cut, mostly bald head, men's jeans, a Budweiser T-shirt, and no bra. She had almond-shaped eyes, a flattened head, and a protruding tongue. Occasionally, she blurted out a few phrases between the huge gap of missing teeth, but the teachers glanced quickly at each other as acknowledgment that neither of them could understand her. Helping Brenda fry the pork and eggs and boil the grits in the kitchen was the other auntie whose name was Cynthia. She walked with a pronounced limp, and one of her legs was much larger than the other. The only man in the bunch was "Uncle" – as the others referred to him. Uncle had a distended belly that matched his sister's. He wore jeans and a sleeveless undershirt that had been white some time ago but now was covered in the same dingy film that covered everything else in the grim apartment.

Between all of the aunties and the deluge of clutter and filth, there was Neesie, the child that had been the reason for their visit. She was "sick" – the teachers had been told. They never received a straight answer when they inquired about her sickness, so they stopped asking. They were told that her affliction prevented her from writing, or sitting too long, or coming to school, so they would have to test her at home. One teacher would mark Neesie's answers on the answer sheet, and the other teacher would oversee the process – because there was always a scandal in the school district about cheating on state tests – because the teachers and the state and the whole country for that matter assumed these kids were too dumb to pass on their own anyway.

Neesie stood up with the help of Brenda and Auntie, each on either side of Neesie as her support. Hanging from her frail frame was a bloody T-shirt that read, Thomas Jefferson Middle School. Neesie also wore a baggy pair of pants and no shoes. Her hair was an angry mess on top of her head, but she smiled with a full mouth of teeth and greeted the teachers who had never met her.

The teachers followed behind as Brenda and Auntie took Neesie into a bedroom lined with clear plastic bags full of clothes the same dingy color as Uncle's undershirt. The room had no furniture aside from the chair that was meant for Neesie. Mrs. Lovejoy quickly eyeballed a spot on the floor that appeared dry and free of debris. Mrs. Goodwin looked around agitatedly and finally found a spot on the floor near her colleague.

"Neesie be alright. That girl – she smart," Auntie said to the teachers, tapping the temple of her own head.

Auntie didn't know much, but she did know, as they all did, that the test was more important than the Language Arts, Reading, Social Studies, Science, and Math that it "tested." If Neesie passed the test, her school would get new computers and real books in the library that the students could actually check out. If Neesie passed the test, her school lunch might consist of a balanced meal, and her school would get money to fumigate and rid itself of the hundred year-old roaches and rats that had called the place home since the turn of the century. If Neesie passed the test, her district would get more money, and her school would be taken off the state's "failing list." And if her school was taken off the state's failing list, housing contractors might be encouraged to rebuild the community, and if they rebuilt the community, people with families brimming with smart kids might buy houses in her neighborhood. And if those smart kids came to her school, they could pass the test, and her school would get new computers, and real books in the library that students could actually check out…

During the testing, Neesie's nose kept bleeding through the tissues and dropping onto the same pool of dried blood on her school shirt. Mrs. Goodwin couldn't bear to see her wearing that bloody shirt, but when she called Brenda in to change the shirt, Brenda said that she had been trying to get Neesie to change that shirt all day, but she wouldn't. Neesie had wanted to show her school spirit while she took the test.

After six hours of testing, seven trips to the bathroom, two more nosebleeds, four cups of water, two bags of Hot Cheetos, and a Snicker bar, Neesie finished the test. On the day the test results were in, the teachers received two phone calls. The first one came in at 8'oclock that morning announcing that Neesie was the only student at Thomas Jefferson Middle to make a perfect score on the test. The other came in at 9'oclock notifying them that Neesie was dead. She had died of complications due to her illness, whatever that was, and she just stopped breathing some time during the night. Neesie's perfect score was the only one in the district, and Thomas Jefferson Middle remained on the states' failing list.

On Daddy's Girls

2011-06-19T08:15:00.000-04:00

I loved my father so much, I wanted to be him. I wanted to run like wild horses, as fast as the wind, because my Daddy was a runner, and that's how fast he was. I wanted to wear jeans and T-shirts and sweat suits and sneakers on my feet, because until I was 10, these were the only clothes my Daddy ever wore. He gave the best horse-back rides in the world because he could bench press a couple of men his size, so I was just a lilliputian on top of his shoulders. But up there, I could see the world.

When I got too old to sit on top of his shoulders or on his lap, I still remembered how fun that used to be. I still thought I had the coolest Dad in the world, who had traded his track suit for a three-piece suit and a badge. He was tough, no-nonsense, optimistic, and practical. I was anything but. I was an impractical, irrational, hysterical teenaged girl, and he did not understand me. And I did not understand myself.

One day, I looked around, and I had grown up. Strangely enough, I kept having little boys. My father was so tickled about this, he was without words. And I was tough, no-nonsense, optimistic, and practical. I don't remember when it happened, but my Dad's words started spilling from my mouth: "Never quit, ever." "There's nothing to fear except fear itself." "Get back up and brush yourself off." "There's no crying in baseball!" (He didn't really say that, but he would have if Tom Hanks hadn't said it first)

My Dad has become the best part of me. I have survived the cruelties of life and come out on the other side with my sanity and sense of humor intact largely because of my Daddy. God gives you the parents that you are supposed to have, and thank God he gave me my Dad. If strength can be inherited, I know that my Dad gave me a little of his.

And now, as his dark thick hair has turned thin and gray, he has traded his rough edges for soft one's. He is a sweet old grandpa to his grandsons and I love him for it.

Everyday is Father's Day in my world. I love you, Daddy...

The Traffic in Black Beauty

2011-06-17T13:47:00.010-04:00

Vogue Italia "Black Issue" 2011

Black women are the most beautiful women in the world (full stop). But, of course, I'm biased because I'm a Black woman with a Black mother and Black aunties and Black children and Black family. When judging female aesthetics, I tend to privilege dark skin, kinky curly hair, full lips, chiseled cheek bones, curvy hips, and shapely legs -- the features that make Black women's bodies so beautiful. And isn't that the issue at hand with respect to beauty? Beauty is SUBJECTIVE -- perhaps the most subjective concept of the human condition. However, stupid and/or racist people keep trying to make it objective.

Vogue Italia

Apparently, there was a "boycott of Black models" on the spring fashion runways this year. In short, there were no Black models. In reaction to the so called boycott, Vogue Italia published a "Black Issue" (May 2011) featuring the most stunning Black women I have ever seen (many of which I feature here). Vogue Italia's attempts to ingratiate itself with Blackness just became another cog in the machine that it was seeking to subvert in the first place. Does it seem the least bit Jim Crowish that Vogue titled the May issue "The Black Issue?" This is like saying: Yes, we know you Black women are beautiful, but you still don't belong in the mainstream. We still don't want to feature you in American Vogue (unless you're tangential), so we're just going to exoticize and marginalize you even further and throw you all into one big "Black Issue." There! We've done our political posturing, made a bit of noise, and given ourselves tons of publicity in the meantime. When the smoke clears and the camera's stop flashing, we're still going to continue to keep the beauty industry white and discriminate against Black models (at least, that is, until there is another political agenda we can hijack).

Vogue Italia

I was deeply disturbed by The Colour of Beauty , a documentary I recently saw, which illustrated this phenomenon of "Whites Only" in the modeling industry. Yes, you read that correctly -- "Whites Only." Apparently, this is the only industry in America left that can proclaim (out loud anyway) that Blacks need not apply. And the reason provided (by the well-meaning white modeling agents in the film) -- "Black doesn't sell." I guess the industry didn't get the memo. Black has always "sold." After all, the "Black Issue" of Vogue Italia sold out with break-neck speed.

In a stupefied, incredulous state, I linked the video on Facebook, and not many folks had anything to say. In fact, only one person had something to say. My husband commented:

Interesting how "Black doesn't sell", but sun tan lotion, lip and butt implant surgeons, hip hop dance studios and tanning salons have been and, I dare say, will always be extremely successful business ventures. Hmmmm. Black does sell as long as they don't admit it, huh?

To which, I responded:

"Appropriating" blackness does sell. Just manufacture the black traits you desire and repackage them as desirable white traits to a white market. Don't you just love it when capitalism and racism collide?

Vogue Italia

The modeling agents featured in the documentary admitted that if the industry decides it wants to feature a Black model (the token model) in a show or in a photo shoot, she must be "a black girl who looks like a white girl dipped in chocolate." The industry co-opts and appropriates Black beauty all of the time. In the 90s, white women like Kim Bessinger and Angelina Jolie became beauty icons because of their big lips. The same lips on a Black woman would be "too black" for the beauty industry. The Stair Master and Step Aerobics and Shape Ups were all popularized to "lift" the gluteus maximums (the butt muscles) -- in essence, increasing the size and firmness of white women's butts, because we all know that Black women already have firm shapely butts. The goal of the beauty industry is to appropriate Black beauty and repackage it for white consumers while Black women get deleted from the equation all together.

Vogue Italia

This is all very disgusting on many levels. I am a Black feminist. Therefore, on principle, I think that industries like modeling are grotesque and absurd. They seek to objectify humans (primarily women until fairly recently), eroticize and exoticize their various pieces and parts, commodify them, and then sell them as product. Having cleared the air, I must admit (of course) that I am a part of the machine. We all are. Once we buy a tube of lipstick, a pair of stilettos, a bottle of perfume, or a designer garment, we are a part of the capitalist agenda of trafficking beauty.

But, have we bought into the blatant racism that comes along with it too?

Racism or Science: The Sins of the Father are Visited Upon the Son

2011-05-23T22:26:00.004-04:00

I am teaching my "Composition and Rhetoric" students the art of argument. For the past few weeks, they have been writing Rhetorical Responses and applying the critical reading and critical writing process to real issues. From a pedagogical perspective, the primary intent of the Rhetorical Response is to hone the students' critical reading skills as well as help them to understand and dissect the structure of rhetorical writing so that they will be prepared to write a well reasoned, researched argument at the end of the term.

1953 Doctor injecting patient with placebo

I am very proud of the work my students are doing. However, this week, I am challenging their intellectual fitness a bit further. Quite serendipitously, several rhetorical situations have emerged in popular culture that are very closely linked with the essay my students are studying. My freshman are reading Allan M. Brandt's Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1978). In the article, Brandt asserts that the Tuskegee Syphilis Study demonstrates the pathology of racism rather than the pathology of syphilis. Brandt supports his argument by examining the historical context of the study, in which the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) initiated an experiment using 400 syphilitic, Black men. The USPHS purposely deceived the subjects of the study, pretending to offer them treatment for their disease, while secretly withholding such treatment, and voyeuristically watching and documenting their slow deaths. Brandt provides data from 1932 through 1974 of physicians' anecdotal reports, records from the National Archives, reports from the Journal of the American Medical Association, and records from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). The data reveals how the medical community, sanctioned by the various agencies mentioned above, used their racist ideology of the genetic inferiority of Africans as a justification to purposely deny treatment to 400 Black men, all while convincing them that they were being treated. Brandt's purpose is to expose how racism shapes scientific inquiry in order to reveal that science is not an unbiased, value-free discipline.

Although many of my students understand the 21st century relevance of the Tuskegee Syphilis study, some of them still believe that this kind of racism in medicine is a phenomenon of the-not-so-recent past. They believe that there are safeguards and checks and balances in place like "informed consent" to protect them against the occasional rogue physician. A recent article in Psychology Today may make them think again.

Satoshi Kanazawa, an "Evolutionary Psychologist," wrote a now infamously controversial article in the May 16, 2011 edition of Psychology Today. I am not linking it here because the publishers of Psychology Today have since removed the article from their site. In the article, Kanazawa claims that Black women are objectively less physically attractive than women of all other races. He explains,

Vogue Italia

There  are many biological and genetic differences between the races.... For example, because they have existed much longer in human evolutionary history, Africans have more mutations in their  genomes than other races. And the mutation loads significantly decrease  physical attractiveness (because physical attractiveness is a measure of genetic and developmental health).  But since both black women and black men have higher mutation loads, it  cannot explain why only black women are less physically attractive,  while black men are, if anything, more attractive.  The only thing  I can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level  of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone.  Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other  races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the  physical attractiveness of men and women differently. Men with higher  levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore  more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of  testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less  physically attractive. The race differences in the level of  testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less  physically attractive than women of other races, while (net of  intelligence) black men are more physically attractive than men of other  races."

Kanazawa's claims are absurd on many levels. First, he predicates his assertions on a series of interviews he conducts over a seven year period with a group of Asian, Black, White, and Native American (number not disclosed) men and women. This group is neither racially diverse nor numerically vast. Kanazawa proceeds to survey their responses about attractiveness of so-called random photos of men and women of different races. This factor analysis is the basis of his claim. Next, Kanazawa never considers that most races are attracted to people who physically resemble them. A discerning reader is left with more questions than answers. How attractive were the people depicted in the photos? And isn't attractiveness subjective anyway? Did Kanazawa purposely choose photos of Black women that were slightly or considerably less attractive than the photos of non-Black women? How many test subjects were there? Were the test subjects all chosen from the same geographical location, discourse community, age group (in order to determine objectivity)? Were the test subjects all Kanazawa's fellow "evolutionary psychologist" friends? Did Kanazawa invent the whole thing in order to create more controversy and in turn more notoriety for himself? Or did his personal racism shape his scientific inquiry? We may never know. But what we do know is that the subjects of the study could not have been looking at the photos of the beautiful Black women above.

Kanazawa's brand of "evolutionary psychology" conspicuously resembles its 19th century predecessor - Eugenics - reshaped and repackaged for a 21st century audience of new racial egocentrics. Eugenics, popularized in the 19th century, is the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding in order to achieve genetically desirable outcomes. Just as the doctors in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study assumed that black men were genetically criminal, insane, sexually depraved, and moronic, so now do evolutionary psychologists contend that Black women are genetically ugly and Black men are aesthetically pleasing but still genetically stupid.

In a May 20, 2011 article in the The Root entitled "Black Quarterbacks' Intelligence Still Scrutinized", we see the old tropes of Eugenics and racist ethnology rearing their ugly heads again. In short, the article examines the racist theory that since the quarterback is considered "the brain" of a football team, Black men are not genetically intelligent enough to hold the job. Nearly two centuries after Eugenics first gained notoriety and 80 years after the Tuskegee Syphilis study, men like Brian McNabb and Cam Newton are still trying to prove that they are intelligent enough to memorize and execute football plays.

I challenge my students to examine the contemporary world around them, and how that world is shaped by old ideologies so deeply interwoven in the fabric of America that they are almost invisible.

In Honor of Mother's Day...

2011-05-08T05:00:00.039-04:00

Because it's Mother's Day, I thought I would post a short story of mine that the Tidal Basin Review published last year. I think the story says so much more than my prose could say today:

"Life and Death and a Penis"

Another of the angry pains rose up through her hips and into her abdomen as she squatted in the bed gripping the bar in front of her. She heard – felt a bursting release of pressure, like the sensation of biting a cherry tomato. Then she looked down between her trembling thighs and saw the liquid trickling at first then pouring like a small waterfall onto the white sheets. This was "the water" that her friends had described in such revolting and lengthy detail, the water that strange women in the line at the post office mentioned casually as their birth stories poured from them like so many confessions and tales of war, the water that all of the books with baby in the title referenced as the impetus for the birth experience, the water that all of the women on the cable T.V. birth stories talked about with mythic anticipation. And it was not mythic.

"I need to check you, Mercedes," Doctor Anna said after looking down at the water. Anna was her midwife. She chose her because it felt right and because she had good hands and her voice was warm and smooth like cognac.

"Did you hear me, Mercedes, I need to check you."

"Please, not now," she panted, gripping the bar.

"I'll wait until it passes."

Doctor Anna was merciful. The pains came one after the other now that her water had broken. All of her studying had taught her that labor would accelerate now, but nothing could have prepared Mercedes for this agony.

As she breathed and panted through the next mountainous wave of hurt, she thought about running, just making a break for the door. But she could not run. The baby was wedged into her pelvis now, forcing her legs open, and making walking difficult and running impossible. She could not even squat and hold on to the birthing bar anymore.

"It's ok, mija. You don't have to hold the bar anymore," said Graciela, her friend, who was more like a sister than a friend. "We can try whatever position is comfortable right now."

"Nothing is comfortable!"

"Ay, Mercedes," Graciela rubbed the sweat from her friend's brow with her fingertips.

Mercedes remembered all of her classes and books and tantric meditation. It was all so silly to her now – pointless – craziness that was betraying her.

"But this is not how it was supposed to be, Graci," Mercedes said through tears. "My body is not doing what it is supposed to do. My legs…they're shaking now. I just can't do it!" She plopped back onto the bed sobbing, exhausted.

Doctor Anna and Graciela looked at each other.

"I know. You just rest. It won't be long now." Doctor Anna patted Mercedes' knee and began to massage her legs until her breathing slowed. No sooner than she had closed her eyes did the raging wave begin to build and rise from the lowest part of her abdomen, up through her pelvis, and back down into her knees.

"I have to walk now," Mercedes rolled to her side and used the bed and the pillows to push up to a sitting position. This had been her method for months. The others helped her stand, and she hobbled and breathed and leaned on them through the wave.

She had wanted this baby so badly, but now, the want was waning. The pain was forcing her to ask herself questions she dared not ask a year ago, questions that she had pushed in the far reaches of her mind, filed somewhere between "immortality" and "Armageddon" – Questions like, Why the hell was she doing this without drugs? Who did she think she was, deciding to have a baby alone? Why did she really want a baby, anyway? After all, a baby was just one big ball of human need. What did she even know about babies? Was raising dogs like raising kids? What was she doing! That's it, she thought, she had made a terrible mistake. She was going to stop this whole thing right now.

Just then, another wave of pain brought her to her knees. But, calling them "pains" or even "labor" was insufficient. These were assaults – bone splitting, flesh cracking, exquisite reminders of the infinitesimal line between life and death.

She could no longer just breathe through the contractions. The breathing turned into long groans that rose up from her pain.

Please God, she thought. If this is death, let me die soon, or just let me pass out. In the movies, when people were in pain, they just lost consciousness. Oh, how wonderful that would be, she thought. Slipping…drifting…fields of lavender and poppy…They had been her childhood playground. She would play until she collapsed in them and fell asleep... Her Abuela would find her curled up like a much smaller child than she was. Her Abuela and her elegant hands, how long and poetic they used to look as she would stuff her thumbs into the toes of small anklet socks with lace trim, preparing them for her and her sister's pudgy little feet on Sunday mornings. Or how they danced like a violinist's bow when she performed the music of the over lock stitch that mended holes in work shirts or school uniforms. Or how romantic her Abuela's hands could make a cigarillo seem. How she had longed for hands like those. They nurtured and soothed and made music all at once.

Mercedes could not remember how Doctor Anna and Graciela got her to the bed, but somehow she was there. She was painfully aware of Doctor Anna's counting and twisting fingers around her cervix. Her good hands had betrayed Mercedes.

"You're at 10, Mercedes. This is it." The cognac in her voice was gone too.

Doctor Anna grabbed one of Mercedes' legs and Graciela grabbed the other. There was a moment when the baby's head was crowning that Mercedes thought sure that she had crossed the line and left the land of the living, that she was sacrificing her life for another, a baby she had decided, just a few moments earlier, was a mistake. Yet, if she was dying, she thought, she had to tell the others to save the baby.

"Mercedes, look at me," Doctor Anna said.

"I'm going to die!" Mercedes writhed.

"You are not going to die."

"Yes I am! You must save the baby!"

Doctor Anna was inches from her face now, locking eyes with her. "Mercedes, I want you to take a deep diaphragm breath, and when you let it out, push from deep down in your pelvic floor."

"What? I can't. I don't remember. ¿Quáles pelvic floor?"

"Mercedes – ¡Mira! You do remember, and you can do this. Millions of women all over the world have been doing this since the beginning of time, and you're going to do it too."

Months ago, this would have brought a tear to her eye, but it now made her angry. She did not want to hear this sentimental bullshit. She was dying a painful death. But somehow she pulled the calisthenics of this maneuver together and managed one push. While she gasped for air before the next contraction, Mercedes began to think of all of the "well-meaning" women she had met during her pregnancy. Whenever she had asked them the question: Just how bad is it? Every one of them had lied. Oh it's the most beautiful thing in the world. You really don't remember the pain. She could picture their faces now. The lady at the deli in the farmer's market had noticed her growing belly on one of her many visits to pick up copious quantities of tomatoes and feta cheese. The lady had volunteered unsolicited advice on childbirth as everyone seemed to do when she walked into a room. Unprovoked and with a smile, she had assured Mercedes that the whole thing would be a breeze. Another friend had looked her squarely in the eyes and told the same lies. Even Doctor Anna had been a part of this deception. Had they all conspired to delude her? She hated the liars – each one.

"You lied to me!" Mercedes screamed.

"What? What are you talking about?" Little beads of sweat had pooled above Doctor Anna's brow.

"This is not beautiful! You said it would be, and I hate you for that cruel lie."

"You will forget the pain and only remember the beauty, Mercedes. But we have to get the baby here first."

"No," Mercedes pleaded, "I changed my mind! ¡No puedo hacerlo! I can't do it!"

"Yes, you can! You are going to push this baby into the world."

"No!"

"Yes! You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because it's the only way to stop the pain. Now PUSH!"

And with that, Mercedes resigned herself to push with all of her might and newfound rage. And, when it was over, if she had survived, she had planned to slap all of the liars in the face. Three pushes later and there were four people in the room instead of three. Mercedes fell back on the bed exhausted and relieved and no longer angry. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she sobbed and cursed and laughed and sobbed some more. She did want this baby. She wanted this baby more than anything, and memories of her earlier misgivings had all but faded.

Doctor Anna and Graciela went to work clearing the baby's airways. Mercedes leaned forward just as they were cutting the chord, and that's when she saw it.

"She has a penis," said Mercedes.

The three women looked down at the tiny penis for what seemed like an eternity.

"Loca, you have a son," said Graciela, still staring at the baby's penis.

"My baby has a penis. What am I supposed to do with a penis!" said Mercedes.

Doctor Anna finished sponging off the chubby baby. Then she swaddled him and placed him on the naked breast of his mother.

Mercedes looked down into her son's face, seeing him for the first time. She did not create him alone, but she had nurtured and cultivated him alone. All of his little parts, his little fingers and toes, his heart and his penis had all grown inside of her. And as he stared back at her as if he had been reacquainted with an old friend, she marveled with great clarity that just a few moments earlier she had been more than willing to die so that he might live. And in some way, maybe the old her had died so that he might live. She smiled and rocked the new life in her arms.

By Sonya McCoy Wilson

Tidal Basin Review (fall/winter 2010)

Some Things I Know Are True

2011-04-08T18:53:00.002-04:00

1. God does exist.
God is not Christian or Muslim or Hindu, but she/he does exist. God exists and helps us to discover manifold truths about humanity and the universe whether we believe it or can conceive it or not. Arguing about God's existence or God's "religion" is infantile and irrelevant, yet the underlying cause of most societal and world conflicts is which religion God prefers. Sounds really silly doesn't it.

2. Treat everyone the same, regardless of status, rank, or lack thereof.

3. Your children are yours for a lifetime, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part. They will be your gift, your joy, your sorrow, your inextricable link as long as you both shall live.

4. We always reap what we sow.
It is the law of the universe. If we direct positive energy into the universe, we will receive it in return. If we direct negative energy into the universe, so too will we receive it. Of course, bad things happen to good people, but those bad things are also necessary. The challenges that we encounter are placed before us in order to get our attention. We learn the most during the storm.

5. Women attract the kind of men to them that reflect who they are at the time.
If, deep down in your core, you don't really think that you are smart, good, beautiful, or worthy, then you will unconsciously draw to you people who feel exactly the same way about you as you do. If you keep running into "Mr. Wrong," it is because you are "Mrs. Wrong."

6. Spend time with yourself, fall in love with you, and fix you before you go out in search of someone else.
Alone is a good thing. Many of us are horrified to be alone. If we cannot be happy alone, we are running away from ourselves. I challenge all of my single friends to spend a year or more alone (not isolated) but not dating either. Spend a year dating yourself. Confront your subconscious, your traumas, and your fears. Spend a year healing all of the pain that we find ourselves engulfed in once we are heralded into adulthood without a "net." Look at yourself in the mirror, and if you don't like who see, fix her. Once you fix her, fall in love with her. And once you are in love with her, crowds will part when she walks through the room. People will see your glow, and you will begin to attract only those who have good intentions and want to be a part of your glow.

7. Beauty is only skin deep.
If your only asset is your exterior, your asset is shaky, because physical beauty fades. See number 6.

8. Sometimes change is good.
Don't be afraid. Embrace change. If you have been wearing the same hair style for 10 years, you need a makeover. If you have a purple suede coat from 1985, let it go. One of the laws of the universe is the law of circulation. You must first let things go in order to receive things.

9. Education is life long.
It is never too late to seek education, knowledge, and intellectual development. Think, read, write, learn.

10. Only take what you need, share the rest, and put everything back where you found it.
Our world is plagued by greed, waste, and inconsiderateness. We have become a nation of hoarders, polluters, and insidious green-eyed monsters. If this is you, you have work to do.

Black - Stay Back - Brown - Stick Around

2011-03-26T16:12:00.001-04:00

The rhyme which is the title of this post refers to a deep and abiding stigma surrounding skin color that originated, of course, in mainstream society yet continues to plague the African American community. The infamous brown paper bag tests were insidious games of the early twentieth century in which little black children created clubs that only accepted children whose skin was lighter than a brown paper bag. I have written fiction about this phenomenon, and it has been the focus of much social psychology for the better part of the twentieth century. Black folks continue to perpetuate the tropes of slavery in which the light-skinned mulatto slaves were allotted some of the privileges of whiteness by doing the work of domestic servants and living in the plantation house in close proximity to whites. While the dark-skinned slaves were relegated to slave shanties in close proximity to the other chattel and the field in which they toiled from sun up to sun down. Through miscegenation, the whites in power created a slave class system predicated on skin color.

This is our history, our American history; however, it is regrettable that this history is still relevant discourse today. It has been my hope that when we ushered in a new century, some things would become fodder for the history books. However, colorism is still alive and prospering.

Right about now, the naysayers (most likely the colored folk who are reading this) are refuting this assertion. They are most likely under 30 and believe they are the new "enlightened" generation of black folks. Well, think again.

The Current "Hot" Female Celebrities

Yes, Rihanna is beautiful and talented. In Rihanna's native country of Barbados, another country with a legacy of slavery, people like Rihanna who have at least one mixed-race parent are referred to as "people of color." And in the African American community, Rihanna gets a great deal of privilege, I would argue, based on her white features. And for those in deep denial, I will clarify what I mean by white features: light skin, straight hair, and light eye color.

As much as I love Beyonce, she is yet another example of the colorism that runs rampant in the African American community. This particular photo is the center of a recent controversy in which L'Oreal or Beyonce or both have been accused of "whitewashing" her photo. The whiter that Beyonce appears the more appealing she is to the consumer (You).

Alicia Keys

Keri Hilson

Halle Berry

I could go on and on posting photos of light-skinned, "It List", "Hot" entertainers. However, the list of brown or dark-skinned "It Listers" is quite short. Either we are to believe that dark-skinned Black folks don't sing and perform as well as light-skinned ones, or we must accept that black folks prefer that light-skinned black folks entertain them and represent them. Yes, represent them. After all, the female entertainers I have posted above are fast becoming (if not already) beauty icons. And indeed they are beautiful. Lest we forget that while we are drooling and wallowing in our own psychological skin color baggage, there are dark-skinned beautiful, talented performers and actresses who couldn't get a gig if they paid someone to give it them. It is as if there is a quota on dark-skinned performers. One has to die before we let another in. And right now, Jennifer Hudson is "The One." I would argue that Hudson is just as beautiful and far more talented than many of the entertainers above.

Jennifer Hudson

At the risk of sounding like Spike Lee, we really need to wake up. Some would say that Hollywood (as in "white" Hollywood) sets these paradigms for who they will "let in" or not let in. I don't believe that this is completely true anymore. I believe that black people themselves have become the gate keepers. Yes, whites created the white paradigm of beauty but black folks began to create a black paradigm of beauty during the 1970s when afros and natural blackness was the new beautiful, when "the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice" really meant something. Black people have the power to shape their own images and identities, but they would rather remain stuck on the plantation steeped in the racism of the past.