The Brown Intelligentsia

Sunday Best / Sunday's Worst

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Sunday Best

I boycott all BET programming as a matter of general principle. It's my personal opinion that the network offers little of substance or value anymore and these days we can't even get a decent video out of them. I suppose we have ourselves to blame after all the complaining the public did about their misogynistic exploitation of black women. Seemingly a decision was made to do away with all music video programs except 106 & Park, a show that shamelessly plays the same 10 vapid videos day after day after day. Then came Sunday Best.

Listen, it may just be me, but every Sunday night when I hear the theme song for Sunday Best begin, I wretch a little bit inside.

Something about this show absolutely turns my stomach. If I had to pinpoint the chief reason, it would probably be the capitalistic mainstreaming / industrializing of spirituality lurking beneath the surface of the show's premise. There's something sacrilegious (in my opinion) about making a competition of spirituality.

The contestants have a little over a minute to conjure some kind of impressive divine spiritual encounter, that is thereafter "critiqued" by a panel of "judges" who determine whether or not they've "got it." Wait ... what? What part of the game is this?

I thought spirituality in itself was a sacrosanct experience existent in a realm that excludes itself from human judgments. If you just want to have a singing competition, then do that. But to structure a show around how profoundly individuals are able to move crowds "in the spirit" (or not) just seems ... perverted.

Then there's the panel of judges. Previously, I was always enraged when Tina "The Terrible" Campbell opened her mouth to judge the contestants with her irrepressible brand of sanctified stankness. Donnie McLurkin's lofty self-righteousness

never fails to nauseate. The only saving grace for the show during previous seasons was Erica Campbell who maintained a respectable kindness that rescued the show from toilet territory.

Spirituality

Then came this season. Okay, first of all ... the auditions were too much for me. Listening to Kim Burrell and Yolanda Adams tell contestants, "Stop riffing and sing the song straight" was confusing. Madams, have you heard yourselves sing lately? Everything the contestants are doing, they do because they are mimicking what they've heard from you. To hear the QUEENS of vocal acrobatics reprimand singers for "doing to much" is laughable. Kim Burrell has never sung a straight note a day in her gastric bypassed life. And Yolanda ... well ... she doesn't really matter outside the fact that mainstream secular America seems to think that she, Kirk Franklin, and Donnie McClurkin are the only living gospel singers in existence. How that happened, I'll never know, but frankly I'm a bit sick of it. But to watch Kim Burrell clown the contestants who were giving their absolute all to performing was truly a sad commentary on the Christian church. And then to see her actually crawl under the table as one contestant sang was jaw-dropping. I guess as much as weight loss does to shrink the body, it does to inflate the ego. What she lost in body mass she gained in nastiness.

Note to Kim: We STILL haven't forgiven you for performing, bad-body gut-bulged & whatnot, in those horrible liquid leather pants last season. Let she who is without sin cast the first cheddar bay biscuit. This shouldn't be offensive; if you can dish it ...

I get it, it's television and it's about entertainment. But at what point does the show cease to be about Christianity and begin to be wholly about the competitive aspects of showcasing how well one can rouse goosebumps in order to win a Ford Focus and a year's supply of Jack Daniels (or whatever they're giving away)? That is what they gave Leandria right? Jack Daniels, Trojans, whatever.

So this season they've replaced Tina with Yolanda "The Drag Queen" Adam's

~~Apple's~~ vitriol. She doesn't fail to disappoint us in the department of resident queen of mean. And it's not so much what is said often, but the way it is said that really makes one pause and wonder, "So this is Christianity, huh?" And these are the "best gospel singers," huh? Clearly Yolanda's formula of start-every-song-soft-and-end-by-screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-while-showing-all-64-teeth qualifies her. Clearly.

What I hate is that the show reinforces the already prevalent perception of the public that church is really just a hyped up theatrical performance anyway. Apparently Sunday Best is the theater training ground. This is the place where aspiring gospel thespians learn how to read cues in order to manipulate audiences into pseudo-spritual hysterics. It's sad.

Donnie McClurkin

Donnie. Donnie. Donnie. *long exasperated sigh* Please stop crying every time a

young guy performs whom you perceive to be a burgeoning homosexual in the making. We get it, you are the unofficial gospel gay god-daddy—the rubric by which we measure all struggling, hiding, in-house homosexuals and whether or not they've truly been "delivered" ... because you tell us that you are delivered. So we HAVE to take your word for it, right? Right. Whatever. (Bobbie Jones would probably take issue with this, but I'll leave that for you two to fight out).

But seriously, you don't have to melt every time these young gay guys hit the stage. Stop it, lady; it's not that serious. If you want to mentor someone, work with Kirk on his little costumes. Help him understand that he's too old to wear that crap, no matter how "petite" the little fella is.

And to tell a contestant she should wear less make up when she comes to Sunday Best ... is this the 1950s? Is the church still struggling with these rudimentary issues? Are we still legislating and policing (women's) bodies and appearances? Have we not figured out yet that diversity in the church is a GOOD thing? And what's your real issue with makeup? Like, really? ... You jelly, Donnie? Why're you mad, son? Moreover ... you can actually say this sitting next to Yolanda the Supreme Dragon herself? Really?

And Donnie ... one final note ... YOU'RE NOT COMPETING!!! You DON'T have to sing after EVERY contestant finishes their song! Stop it, ma. STOP IT!!!

Anyway, bottom line is that overall, there are many problematics with the show's representations of spirituality and it's approach to finding gospel talent. We didn't really need this show at all. It does nothing to advance the fundamental mission of the Christian church as an institution. It doesn't follow any model set by Christ himself. It is purely predicated on the American Idol model of talent search television, complete with judges who attempt to emulate Simon Cowell without regard for the fact that Cowell makes no claim to Christianity—so we understand, expect, and excuse his behavior. Yours, however (Donnie, Yolanda, Tina, Kim) is reprehensible. The pathologies of this show as a whole are emblematic of all that the secular world finds troubling about the church. Quit while you're behind and stop subjecting us to Sunday's Worst.

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Social Networking: The Power of Association

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Social Networking: The Power of Association

Today I’ve been contemplating the power and importance of strategic association. I'm a firm believer in the old “Birds of a feather…” adage and I know that it's important to congregate with "rare" birds if you want to attract the most attention. I am also acutely aware of the fact that, like it or not, in life people judge us based on the company we keep. Judgment, however, is not my greatest concern.

Of far greater importance than being judged is the matter of maximizing one’s potential and living life as an optimized being.

Far too often I see people who have tons of potential striving for greatness while connected to persons who don’t necessarily share those same aspirations. At a point it becomes quite obvious that within the dynamics of the relationship there is a gravitational pull at work that seems to work against the possibility of any member of the social network rising above the network. To expect that one will surpass the achievements of an elected circle to which he is intimately attached is tantamount to our commonly accepted definition of insanity. It is not that it is impossible to do, but it is a matter of fact that the feat is much easier with forward, cognitively progressive people.

Pick Your Network

It is of the utmost importance that, if you want to be successful, you must be strategic about choosing the members of your social network. I like to refer to them as the "Success Team." The question I pose today is, who's on your Success Team?

Too often we are guilty of associating ourselves with people who are the most like us. We choose them because of our common likes and dislikes, our appreciation of the same things, and the fact that people like us don't intimidate us. The problem with this logic is that if we associate with people who are on equal footing with us our lives will lack the most essential ingredient to growth—challenge.

Partly, we choose to associate with persons who do not challenge us because of a mistaken belief that it provides us with the leverage to be shining stars contrasted against the backdrop of an acceptably dim cosmos. But if you are the most accomplished of those around you, there is little to no educational opportunity and in the end you lose.

The bottom line is that we should always strive to connect with people who are already doing what we desire to do, setting ourselves up for unofficial apprenticeships. Every encounter we have with one another should be a master’s class in forward movement. Those are the most fruitful relationships we will ever have the opportunity to enjoy because, in the long run, they will yield the greatest return.

Relationships are investments. Either they will yield a high return or produce an internal deficit. In a sense, the moment we enter into relationships with others, we enter into contractual agreements and obligations to either improve or depreciate one another. Like any contract, the true nuances of the terms are often determined by the fine print rather than the bold and obvious line items. Upon consenting to the terms of the relationship, we accept the right of others to make withdrawals and deposits into our lives. The tricky part of this is that whether or not the individual makes more withdrawals than deposits is dependent upon the other relationships he/she may have signed on to outside of YOU. Those relationships will dictate the needs of our newfound social partner. For that very reason, it is important not just to vet the individual, but the individual’s extended network beyond us. Your partnership is not just with an individual, but with their entire network of friends and family. It's very similar to the way Facebook asks who you want to allow access to your cache of information—"Friends," "Friends of Friends," or "Everyone"? Unfortunately the default answer is "Friends of Friends"and you don't have the option to change it. Like it or not, they will affect you.

Upward Mobility

The obvious question that probably arises from this line of logic is, if you’re connecting with persons who are farther along in life than you are, why should they be willing to connect with you? How do you benefit them? Makes sense.

As a general rule, we must balance each other out by being more stable or accomplished than one another in different aspects of our lives. In other words, you bring something to the table that they need or don’t have, though not the same thing that they bring to it. Metaphorically, it is like setting a banquet table pot-luck style—everybody brings some thing though not the same thing. Does this require a lot of thought and contemplation? Absolutely. Is it worth it or necessary? Absolutely.
Too often we sign on for relationships without even the slightest amount of forward thought or investigation. We are soon thereafter surprised to find that the relationship will ultimately not take us very far and there is little to no chance for upward mobility. At that point, it all feels like a lot of wasted energy and effort, disappointment sets in, and we are brought back to square one. Wouldn’t it be worth it to vet the chances for upward mobility at the outset and avoid the inevitable letdown?
I cringe when I think about the amount of times I’ve wasted in relationships that had no possibility of yielding a return. This is not meant to sound elitist in any way, but it’s a matter of self-preservation. At some point in life, we all have to realize and accept that our greatest investment is ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to be concerned about our own chances for future success because, quite frankly, it’s not anyone else’s priority but our own.

Love yourself enough to unapologetically become your greatest priority.

Look Like Money...

Some time ago, I was in Atlanta at Cafe Intermezzo enjoying lunch. The server who was assigned to my table was an older gentleman who looked like he had done quite a bit of living in his day. He was very friendly and helpful, and he did his best to make sure I was well accommodated while there at the restaurant.

At first I was a bit annoyed by his chattiness; I simply wanted to get some work done and enjoy a piece of cheesecake. But the gentleman got my attention when he made the following statement:

"I'm gonna take care of you Bossman because I know money when I see it, and you look like a millionaire."

I smiled. "He wants a big tip", I thought.

Then he said, "But let me ask you a question? How many millionaires are you connected to in your inner circle?"

"None," I told him.

"Then there's a problem," he said. "If you're going to be a millionaire, you need to be connected to at least two other millionaires. Why, you ask? Because if you're connected to millionaires, they won't be happy with you being broke. They will make it their mission to see that you get wealth too. Money creates money. You've got to change your circle, man. You've got to find your millionaires."

I didn't know who that gentleman was. Still don't know. But I left him a twenty dollar tip that day because what he said was divine. It was just what I needed to hear ... at the time I needed to hear it.

I'd like to pass that on to you today by asking you, WHO'S IN YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK?

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Think Like a Man: Notes on Stevie J. & Lil' Scrappy

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

LOVE AND HIP HOP ATLANTA

Let's take a brief moment to step over onto the dark side and devote a little bit of time and attention to VH1's Somehow—I'm not sure how—I got sucked into this rot and haven't been able to stop watching. I'm pretty sure that most of the show is scripted and is anything but reality TV. Still, it keeps garnering insane ratings week after week since audiences can't seem to turn away from the shenanigans of Joseline "Joe" Hernandez, Mimi Foust, and Stevie J.

I thought last season was pretty bad, and they couldn't possibly have done worse than the annoying Chrissy Lampkin ~~and her mole~~ attempting to bully ~~has-bee~~n Jim Jones into marrying her, ~~pathetically desperate~~ Emily B. constantly crying over the illiterate Fabolous (check the spelling, sir), and the insufferable ~~cracked out~~ Mama Jones. But lo and behold, VH1 topped themselves and came up with a show I could only describe as pathological ghetto black dysfunction on steroids this season.

At the outset, let's just state that real or staged, the cast of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta have taken us all to new lows. Honestly, I wasn't even aware this level of "low" actually existed—unless, of course it was being produced by Shaunie O'Neal. These are poor representations of African Americans and even poorer representations of men and women (and I use the terms loosely).

Of course, the jury is still out on whether Joseline is actually male or female, but we won't address that here, and we'll just leave a nice little blank line for whatever one might categorize her as. Male, female, or _______________________. There, that's better.

Joe loves him some "Steebie" and that's that. That's some awesome black love in the age of same sex marriage and what not. Gotta love a dude who's down for his man and will even strip off his stilettos to get down and dirty on the asphalt duking it out with another couple to protect his guy. I mean, honestly, how can anyone NOT be #TeamJoe???

MASCULINITY?

Scrappy's refusal to pay child support, constant whining over his "needs for affection," galavanting about with "Bucket," "Buckeye," "Shay," or whatever that other amazonian concubine's name is, is pretty darn disgusting. Hearing him whine to Mama Dee—the consummate hoe-checking pimp madame for whom English is a second language—about how he had such a severe asthma attack that he "couldn't bweathe mommy" ... is just ... weird. Dude, you had an asthma attack, not a heart attack. Millions of us have them every day. And this is what happens when you roll around on the ground with another dude a little too frantically while he aggressively bites your shoulder...

Wait, ... that sounded a bit homoerotic did it not? Was it just me? I mean, it is

Atlanta after all. Just tell each other you love one another and would like to ditch the balls and chains for some man-lovin' and get it over with. Point being, carry your stinkin' albuterol in your pocket. There are clearly no condoms in there to take up space so what's the problem, "You feel me?"

Tonight the show re-aired and as I sat at my computer working I listened to the screaming, fighting, and posturing as these guys tussled over one calling the other's "baby mama" a b***h. On some level, I'll admit it's all entertaining. But in my higher consciousness, I'm fully aware that it's sad and disgusting.

More pitiful than the fact that women are actually drawn to these kinds of men is the fact that these men actually "exist." While we can conjecture that their behavior is largely inflated for the cameras and media attention, the truth of the matter is that there are men in society who actually live these kinds of lives and proudly so.

I just can't get over the fact that everyone on the show seems to think that the way they behave is "normal." I'm all for hood-boogery in the hood in the name of "that's how we do," but this crap is getting way out of hand.

I'm wondering whether Steebie J. is actually going to watch the show as it airs and think to himself, "I'm a pretty horrible human being. The chances of that are slim I'm sure, but we can all dream can't we?

BLACK EXPLOITATION

I wonder if Scrappy will see himself onscreen and think, "My kids actually deserve to eat. And you know what, I think mom and dad may be the same person." (Don't act like that. It's totally logical to think that Mama Dee is capable of parthenogenesis. She's got more testosterone than I do. When he started screaming, "YOU LEFF MAH SON FUH DEAD! YOU LEFFUM FUH DED! YOU LEFFUM! FUH DED!" ... I literally trembled at his timbre. It was like James Earl Jones had jumped in his throat for a moment (a la Lion King's Mufassa) and roared at Erica for a moment. In that moment, I thought for sure Mama Dee was about to eat Erica on the spot. I couldn't have been the only one.

But Scrappy will probably not think about his actions in the way I imagine. He will most likely think, "I'm bossin' these b****es!!! I'm a MF PIMP like mama!"

Where's Steve Harvey when you need him? Since they're apparently giving him a new TV show soon and he is now the go-to person for all things black / advice / inspirational / family matters, he and his perfectly straight hairline woud be perfect to host the reunion show and put these guys in check. He could possibly be the only person in the world to teach them how to Think Like a Man. The only other person I could think of would be Tyrese, but Tyrese would have to host the show in character as Jodi from Baby Boy. Jodi could tell these guys how he relinquished his trifling ways and started respecting Yvette and treating b****es like ladies instead of dirty skanks. He could tell them about how he fought Snoop Dogg when he disrespected Yvette and opened up a can of whoop-ass with no reservations.

Wait, now that I think about it ... doesn't that make the whole Steebie J. / Scrappy fight seem like a cheap reenactment of sorts? We've seen this before. Wow.

Anyway, Steebie and Scrappy clearly didn't watch the end of the film, else they would have seen how Jodi grew up and transformed from a Baby Boy into a "man" at the end of the movie, then went on to save the world from the Decepticons in Transformers. (We should all aspire to be so great).

Bottom line, the images and portrayals of black men on this show are the absolute worst. I tried at first to respect Rasheeda's husband Kirk Frost, but they even found a way to screw that up. He has now gone from doting, loving husband, to wimpy, emasculated, crybaby.

Then there's Benzino's adventures in gerontophilia (sex with old people ... look it up) with Karlie Redd. We all know he's wining and dining this poor elderly lady because her AARP just kicked in, he hasn't had a hit in a while, and this magazine scam he's running may not get legs.

It's sad really. Television execs love to repeatedly castrate black manhood before television audiences to get ratings. And apparently it works.

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The Power of Passion

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Today I took a trip to Home Depot™to buy a push broom for my driveway. As I was headed to the check-out counter, a gentleman approached me, calling to me from behind.

"Young man, can I ask you something?" he said.

He was an older gentleman in either his 60s or 70s with a congenial face, dressed in shorts and a button down polo. At first I thought he was going to ask me how to find something in the store. That seems to happen to me all the time; people think I work in whatever store I happen to be in. But what he asked me surprised me.

"What does this say?"

He was holding up a rickety framed plaque that read, "Young black men are dying every day, and nobody cares." I read the sign to him. He asked me, "Is this true?" I said, "I don't think that last part is true ’cause I care." "But a lot of people don't," he shot in return.

"That's true," I conceded.

He proceeded to talk to me about the number of black men who are in jail and the fact that we as citizens pay for their incarceration. He closed that part of the pitch with, "I don't know about you, but I can't afford it."

At this point I knew I was being reeled in for a sales pitch.

He went on to tell me that for years he's been trying to start a youth drill team in our city to keep black boys off the street and provide them with alternatives to gangs and crime—subsequently, to keep them out of jail. He needed help. I was ready to say no and explain to him that I do my part daily with other organizations and as a college educator and active member of a church. But as he finished speaking and reached in his pocket to hand me a business card, I realized this man had just taught me a valuable lesson ... PASSION is a very powerful thing.

I got in my car and went straight to Twitter to recount the encounter to my followers and share the lessons.

The lessons I learned from the gentleman were the following:

PASSION Means...

Passion for "it" (any "it") means I DON'T MIND BEING THE ONLY ONE. The gentleman shared with me that he needed help starting his organization. I asked him if he had a website. He said his organization has nothing. I was put off. Who wouldn't have a website in 2012, I thought. He said, "If you agree to help me, do you know how many of us there will be in the city, young man?—two." And he had been trying to do this for years. But at his late age, as a septuagenarian, he was still at it. It resonated with me that being passionate for something doesn't require the agreement of others to be relevant or worth sweat and tears. If you are truly passionate about any "thing," you will do it whether anybody else helps you or not, and for as long as it takes to get it done.

Passion for "it" (any "it") means I DON'T CARE IF IT MAKES ME LOOK CRAZY. For a moment, I thought the old guy was looney. I mean, walking around the hardware store with this plaque tucked under his arm when clearly he had come to the store to pick up something, not necessarily to do outreach. But it occurred to me that he could care less whether I thought he was crazy; he was dedicated to his cause and that is the true meaning of passion. Crazy, criticized, or otherwise deemed insane, passion drives you to do the uncommon ... even in the face of judgment.

Passion goes with you everywhere you are. Too many times I think we have a conception of passion that is predicated upon convenience. We are passionate about things "when the time calls for it." But watching this man in the hardware store, I realized that being passionate about something is a 24/7 job and it is as omnipresent as the Divine power in us that gives us passion for things in the first place. It does not lose momentum or shy away from public displays of affection. In fact, it lives for PDAs.

What PASSION Means...

That which I'm passionate about becomes a part of my identity. If I'm truly passionate about any thing, it should become an associate part of my who I am. When people see me, they should immediately think of "it" because I'm so inextricably linked to it. It becomes the focus of my conversations and the preoccupation of my every thought. So much so that, instead of my name, people begin to reference me according to my cause. They should know me by what I love.

Passion and "Dedication" aren't the same thing. I discovered that there is a distinct dividing line between these two things. One can be dedicated to a thing he or she isn't necessarily passionate about. That is because "dedication" is merely rote duty, while passion is a matter of identity and essence. It is the very thing that we are. We do it because we HAVE to and because we want to; we are driven to it. It exhausts us. It consumes all that we are and somehow infiltrates everything we do. It is central. Everything will always come back to it in some way and nothing will interest us except our passions. With dedication that is not necessarily the case. Dedication can often be preempted by weather or inclement circumstances that dictate, "Not today."

Passion knows no excuses. It is easy to think of reasons not to do a thing. Excuses come a dime a dozen. But when you are truly passionate about something, you refuse to excuse yourself for any reason. There is no excuse good enough for not doing what you intuit you are assigned—placed on this earth—to do. It will not allow you to rest, and an overwhelming sense of guilt accompanies any refusal to conform to the demands of the inner force that drives you to get out of bed every day.

Passion goes with you to the grave. As I thought about the old man's age, it occurred to me that he had been at this thing for a very long time. The commitment he showed to his cause led me to believe that he would likely go to his grave still trying to make it happen. How many things have I started and put down, dreamed of but stalled because of fear, or relinquished because of lack of support? Those were things that I couldn't possibly have been passionate about because they aren't still with me. Passion is eternal and perpetual. It knows no time or space limitations and it resists age and weariness.

Passion empowers other people. I sat in my car and tweeted all my lessons hoping that maybe what he had imparted to me would empower somebody else. All I knew was that I had met a stranger who in a matter of minutes held up a mirror before me and showed me that I needed to get my act together because I've got a lot to do and a lot of time to make up for. In my display of passion, I will empower people to live their dreams and accomplish their goals. They will rise up and believe that they can do the impossible simply because they will witness that same drive in me.

... PASSION'S Impact

I wish I could thank the gentleman for all that he showed me today. I may never see him again or talk with him, but he changed my life in under five minutes. I've been working all day on some personal projects that I believe will sprout legs and maximize today's inspired moment. Maybe you have something you feel equally as passionate about and find this helpful. If so ... get to it, we've got a lot to do!

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"Thinking About You": Frank Ocean's Abstract Video Avoidance Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Okay soooo ... creative, yes. But the video and the song are incongruent (in my opinion). I would have much preferred a less abstract video to accompany this song (which has quickly become a personal favorite).

Descendants of settlers who interacted with Indians and blind medicine men to save dying loved ones—it's nice for a short film or something, but for a music lover who just wants a visual to pair with a great song, it's overkill.

I really appreciate Frank Ocean's artistry, but my fear is that he's going to be one of those artists (a la Madame Badu) who puts so much effort into being complicatedly poetic that he's going to burn us out on his queerness (pun intended). As much as I pride myself on being a critical thinker, I really don't want to think this hard when watching a music video.

My guess, however, is that now that Frank has placed the revelation about his sexuality on America's plate for consumption, he doesn't want that (his sexuality) to become the main course, but a side-dish instead. This is very similar to D'Angelo's decision to bare his body in the "How Does it Feel" video, but then complaining about the fact that afterwards his stage appearances became less about his music and more about hoards of screaming women clamoring for him to "take it off." He talks about how this pained him in an interview printed in last month's GQ Magazine. Frank may as well accept that his listening audience will always press for him to "take it off" simply because he's shed so much already.

Frank Ocean more than likely doesn't want to acquiesce to the public's expectation that everything he does from now on be an unvarnished expression of his sexuality. To do so would stereotype him. It is apparent that he prefers to remain label-free—just Frank. The video certainly supports a theory that Ocean has given us all that he cares to of himself for the time being; we hardly even see him in the video. This, of course, is by design. The video aims to not be about Frank, but rather about the concept of "romantic continuity"—its perpetuity and forward/prophetic movement through time and space. In short, the timelessness of love itself.

That's great and all, but audiences and consumers don't support concepts, they support artists. And unfortunately for Ocean, the American public is known to desire unfettered access to its icons, else they don't remain relevant for long. People simply don't support the inaccessible. Michael Jackson earned his inaccessibility in the latter portion of his career because he had already exposed so much of life to his fans early in his career. As such, there was already a sense of familiarity for the fans who grew with him through his odd metamorphoses.

Maybe Frank put it all on the table for the feast without expecting the possibility of indigestion. The meal of his sexuality happens to be a morsel that won't stay down; it will always interfere with the audiences reception of his artistic enterprises. They will either be reading sexuality into his performances, expecting it, disappointed by the lack of overtures, or thinking it without articulating it. Either way, it will always haunt and overshadow the act of consumption.

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Worth 1,000 Words: Images of Trayvon

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:39:00 +0000

Shortly after the death of Trayvon Martin, images like the one seen above were circulated throughout the internet in attempts to sway public opinion of the teen and justify his death at the hands of George Michael Zimmerman. It was an obvious tactic of media bias, but it raised issues that inevitably the prosecutors in the case will have to deal with.

Right or wrong, how the public views Trayvon Martin will undoubtedly affect juror's ability to be impartial. The motivation behind circulating "negative" images of the teen was to taint his image, portraying him as a miscreant thug, criminalizing him as a means of somehow explaining that Zimmerman had a right to feel threatened by the presence of a seventeen year old.

The images are intended to convey labels such as "defiant," "rebell," "disrespectful," and—let's be honest about it, calling a spade a spade—"n***er." They aim to diminish our sensitivities and sympathy for Martin's death and construct a new schema of thought around any possible behaviors that might have led to Zimmerman shooting him. The question is, are they effective?

It goes without saying that no matter what we think of Trayvon, NO child deserves to be murdered simply for walking through a neighborhood where he is not wanted. It does not matter whether he is society's worst citizen, if he was not committing a crime, shooting him was unwarranted (as was profiling, stalking, and policing his right to be/exist in gated white domestic spaces).

I'd like to imagine myself as a member of the prosecution team and address how I view the impact of these images. In my estimation, they do little to damage the image of Trayvon Martin, and much more to aid in the conviction of George Zimmerman. In order to understand this, however, we must reimagine the messages of the images. They carry, in fact, multiple meanings.

The easy assumptions about the photos have already been discussed, but one with a background in visual studies might parse them completely differently. A visual studies approach imagines not only what is in the photo, but what is not in the photo. We must position ourselves as the object of the subject's gaze, consider his subjectivity, imagine the audience, and grapple with the technology's ability to have its own agency, capturing details the photographer may have or may not have intended to feature. As well, we must consider what is missing from the image—sound—as a paramount aspect of its signification.

The symbolic gesture of Trayvon holding up his middle finger to an audience is less damning than it is inspiring of sympathy. The middle finger—symbolizing a dismissive "F**k you!— does indeed speak volumes about his psyche. But it does not relegate him to being criminal. It is an act of resistance, yes. But what we must ask ourselves is what is it resistant to, for where there is resistance, there is sure to be power. The question is whether or not the power that exists is just.

We must dislocate Trayvon Martin's
identity from the photo and see this image as one of any (and many) persons of color in America who have been marginalized, criminalized, disempowered, emasculated, and—most importantly—devoiced.

Absent a voice, he can only signify his resistance and utter disdain for his condition by displaying his middle finger to the camera. "F**k you America! .... F**k you for devaluing my humanity, and my civil right to equal treatment and general respect as a citizen."

The middle finger is only an attempt to regain the voice that has been stripped from countless persons of color, dominated by privileged white hegemony. It is a knee-jerk resistant response to power structures that have long gone unaddressed and unchallenged in America—and it is justified.

So yes, from the photo we can gain insight into Trayvon's psyche, but we can derive nothing that justifies his senseless slaying.

That this psychology would have already permeated the mind of a seventeen year old is telling not of a problem endemic to the Martin household or pathologized African American communities, but to America at-large. It is a problem that America does not want to deal with or own responsibility for—it's own tendency to create the very pathologies that it damns, attempts to police, legislate, convict, and incarcerate. Moreover, America's racist underbelly that catapults persons of color into resistance and self-defense upon exiting the womb.

This is not the image of a criminal, it is the image of a victim. He is not looking blankly at some Facebook community; he is looking at all of America in accusation. His subjectivity has relegated him to the position of one attempting to regain agency by defiantly gesturing his refusal to submit to marginalization any longer.

NOT Trayvon

Were I a member of the prosecution team, I would deflate the image by inflating it. I would gather hundreds of other images of black men in the same pose. Such middle finger images are abundant throughout internet search engines. In fact, shortly after the slaying, an image of a young man in the same pose was circulated and said to be Martin, but in fact it was not. That such a mistake of identity could be made, certainly speaks to America's tendency to lump all brown faces together. It is the same old "All you n***ers look alike" mentality we have been wrestling with for centuries.

I would disempower the image by pointing to the fact that this is not a "Trayvon" problem/issue, but an American issue of victimization that has roots deeply embedded in the subsoil of America's history. Criminal? No. Voiceless subject in pursuit of freedom? Yes.

There is no need to convict Trayvon Martin. He was tried and convicted the moment he emerged adorned in brown skin inscribed with a narrative of criminality and worthlessness. The person on trial ... is his oppressor. Let us not misconstrue or mistake defensive resistance for pathology. And let us not assume the justice of power that is resisted.

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(Frank) Ocean's Waves: Why I'm Not That Moved

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Recently I've caught a lot of flack from many people I know for just not being that moved by Frank Ocean's tumblr "revelation" about his sexuality. Over and over I've been asked, "Have you heard about Frank Ocean? Did you check his album out? What are your thoughts?" I would guess the fact that I study this gender & sexuality stuff means I should care, right?

Generally I've been met with disapproving frowns when I replied, "I really don't care." I downloaded the album and I'll admit I like it ... a lot. But I cease to understand why I should excited about the fact that he decided to "disclose" to the world via Tumblr that he was once in love with a man. Big deal.

I would probably have been more moved by his decision were it not strategically planned around an album release. Call me a skeptic, but something about that doesn't jive. I don't doubt that the confession is genuine, but I do believe it was all a marketing strategy to boost the sales of the album and catapult Ocean out of mixtape obscurity and into mainstream popularity. With that said, let me state that there's NOTHING wrong with that. We've all got to eat and we've all got bills to pay. Kudos to you, Frank, for a genius marketing plan.

Still, I just. Don't. Care.

There is something horribly twisted at work in America's culture that causes us to constantly be obsessed with who's sleeping with whom, and our irrepressible need to taxonomize one another in the interest of social comfort. We are most at ease when we are able to snuggly place each other in tidy little categories with recognizable labels and brackets—particularly when it comes to sexuality ... and even more so as it relates to black male sexuality. I, personally, am resistant to it all.

I could care less if Frank announces that he's a sociopathic "plushie" and he's got the hots for Mark Wahlberg's teddybear, "Ted." It's just none of my business. The only thing I'm interested in is the quality of his music ... WHICH I will acknowledge is superior.

What I do find interesting, however, is that everyone has been so quick to tweet, retweet, and blog that Ocean acknowledged that he is homosexual (or bisexual), when in actuality he did nothing of the sort. What he acknowledged was that once upon a time he had a deeply intimate and emotional relationship with another man. He said nothing of their sexual history together. He said nothing of his sexuality or sexual preferences since the encounter. He said nothing about "preference" at all. Yet somehow we have slapped a rainbow flag jumpsuit on him and given him a baton to lead the gay pride parade. Pump the brakes.

Even on the acclaimed Channel Orange he sings about the affair and its complexities. He speaks candidly about the loneliness and sense of alienation, abandonment, and loss he experienced on "Bad Religion" and "Forrest Gump," but he never labels himself. But does he need to in order to satisfy our lust for social safety?

I get it ... that Ocean is touted as a musical prodigy in the homophobic & testosterone-driven world of hip-hop makes his "coming out" (if you can call it that) a big deal. We all know that hip-hop is full of gay and bisexual black males who won't come out. That Ocean is a black male—a mandingo avatar for all that defines masculinity proper—makes his openness a big deal. That Ocean is not perceptibly feminine or stereotypically queer makes his revelation a big deal. That Ocean is connected to many of the members of the hip-hop community who are respected men's men makes his transparency a big deal. But honestly, who cares? There have been tons of openly gay and bisexual black men in the world of R&B, which—quiet as it's kept—is just as homophobic as the world of hip-hop, that no one cared about. No one cares about Rahsaan Patterson, B. Slade, Terrence Trent D'arby, DeepDickCollective, or any of the other artists who preceded Ocean. He is NOT a first. Everyone is simply excited because Ocean is connected to "macho" men in hip-hop. That makes him "brave" in the public's eye.

At the end of the day, what we need to be more concerned about is why we're concerned at all. What's inside of us that makes us obsess over the goings on of other people's bedrooms? What perversion makes us the international penis police who must know who's sticking whom? What twisted proclivity won't allow us to simply be concerned about who's crawling into our own beds at night? (And please let's not take this discussion left to the "DL" phenomenon and America's HIV statistics. Let's not until we have data that isn't skewed by racial politics and the subversive conservative agenda that aims to demonize black American men—and always has).

Bottom line, Frank loved a dude. I don't care. But I suppose some people need a hero ... even if it's only half a hero. But don't ask what's wrong with me that I don't care; ask what's wrong with the fact that you do. Frankly, Ocean's waves just don't rock my boat.

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Journey Notes ...

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

For the past week I've been on a quest to "re-calibrate" myself. Today marks day 8 of a personal fast I embarked upon in order to get my head and heart right. No food, just water and tea.

I passed the "hungry" phase on day 4, really haven't been very fatigued, and somehow didn't suffer from a lot of hunger headaches. Not sure how long I'll go; the most I've ever done was 14 days. I'm happy about the clarity I've gained, but I'll be honest, I'll be real glad when this is over so I can eat again. lol.

Fasting detoxifies the body and spirit while forcing one into a period of discipline that might otherwise be unattained. Some need it, some don't. I personally determined a week ago that I definitely needed it.

Every now and then we all develop unhealthy habits and tendencies that don't at all contribute to our personal success. Without getting too personal here, I will divulge that one of the odd habits I recently developed was "eating my feelings." When I would get stressed or down, I noticed recently that I started eating loads of junk food and things I knew were unhealthy for me simply because there was nothing else to do in the moment and eating brought me pleasure where otherwise I found none. As a consequence, I started picking up weight—nothing noticeable to others, but it was noticeable to me.

The weight gain certainly wasn't the reason for the fast; it was the fact that I had begun an unhealthy physical pattern that stemmed from an internal lack of alignment. My body, spirit, and mind, were all out of sync with one another.

Self-destructive behavior often gets the best of all of us. We sabotage ourselves daily. It is not until we have a personal moment of clarity and really see ourselves, that we realize something different has to be done. Often we must see ourselves through someone else's eyes. A few days ago I saw myself through someone else's keen eyes.

I had a meeting with a mentor who spoke some pretty straightforward words to me. I'm not even sure he knew the import of what he was saying, but it resonated with me in a very heavy way:

"There is something inside of you that is great, but you haven't tapped into it. In order for what's in you to come out of you, you're going to have to give in to it and surrender yourself to the greatness that you have the ability to manifest. It's a lonely life. It's an isolated life. And you're going to have to let it consume you; let it absolutely exhaust you. If you don't, you will achieve your goals ... but you will be mediocre."

I was already in the middle of my fast at the time, but I came home and sat with those words. I've been sitting with them every since. And I know that the end result of my journey has to be a personal surrender. Not a surrender to anything mystical, spooky, or other worldly ... but a surrender of myself to myself ... the real me.

Saturday, I went to a funeral. The title of the eulogy was "What Are You Doing With Your Dash?" The eulogist spoke about the dash that intermediates our birth and death dates on the front of funeral programs. The provocative point he made is that God decides the date you come into existence and the date you die, but what you do with the time in between is solely yours to decide. The bottom line— make it matter.

I've been asking myself over and over again, have I really been "making it matter?" I sat through that funeral wondering, "What will people say about me when I am laid on the bier?" What will they remember me for? Will I have made a difference? Or will I have wasted the "dash period" of my life?

So, nearing the end of my period of personal reflection, surrender, and re-calibration, I'm taking this moment to share with you that every minute matters. And every minute is worth 100% of your ability. But in order to maximize your moments, you have to be willing to surrender to the greatness you already possess (and have since the day you came into this world).

Self-destructive and non-productive habits are often our own way of communicating that we are not afraid of failure; we are most afraid of the demands of our own success—the demands of it, the isolation, and the fragmentation that it requires ... the dismantling of ourselves in order to sift out the parts that aren't so useful so that they don't impede the parts that are.

As I continue the rest of my spiritual journey, my meditation, prayer, and decision ... is to make peace with solitude and the isolated road to excellence ... in order to maximize the the resources I was strategically designed to house.

-Shalom

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K. Michelle: All the way UNfiltered

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:16:00 +0000

Friday night a friend of mine sent me a text about K. Michelle's mixtape download for 0 F***s Given. I've watched her on Love and Hip Hop Atlanta and heretofore found her to be entertaining and perhaps one of the more tolerable personalities on the show. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the show is scripted; particularly the Joseline/Stevie J/Mimi "storyline" (if you can call it that), and I find it to be the lowest of low-brow television, BUT ... something about K. Michelle saves the day.

It might be the down-home, (Memphis, TN) DEEP-country accent. Maybe it's the straightforward bluntness she serves up whenever she's brought on camera. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but, I knew I liked her for some reason.

...and then I heard the mixtape.

Can we say "Raw"??? From start to finish, K. Michelle goes HARD at any and everyone who has ever done her wrong, spoken negatively about her, misunderstood her, or just heard the gossip. There are numerous references to her alleged fake "teeth & titties," digs at Karlie Redd and, (perhaps my favorite) a backhanded affirmation of Joseline's status as a biological woman on the track "Shut Up":

"Stop calling Joseline 'Joe' / She ain't a man, but she surely. is. a. hoe."

Collectively let's all say, "Ouch!"

Deflating speculations about her sexuality, she repeatedly makes references to having slept with women as well as men, but makes it clear that her actions don't define her nor do they render her "confused." On "Girlfriend" she sings,

"I like your girlfriend and I think she’s into me, too.
I like your girlfriend, even though you think I’m talking about you.
I like your girlfriend, I know why we caught each other’s eye.

I like your girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend."

Is there anything else to say on the issue? I think not.

Interestingly, America's not quite as obsessed with this kind of blunt openness from hip-hop's female community as it is in the closet-crashing revelations of men like Frank Ocean. I would suppose that is because we have long imagined hip-hop's women as malleable figures, capable of being pressed into the innumerable perverse fantasies of its male moguls. Lesbianism or female bisexuality have long gone hand-in-hand with the "Tip-Drill," "Little Freak," machismo-driven, sexist underbelly that has consistently stripped women of agency and demanded they remain face down, ass up.

I could go on and on from track to track about 0 F***s Given, but it would literally take all night. Needless to say, the mixtape is well worth the listen. But I would like to say that as I went from track to track, the thought occurred to me that this album rests in a long line of raw, "feminist liberation" music spanning from Lucille Bogan to Millie Jackson, Adina Howard to Lil' Kim & on to Nicki Minaj. But clearly Jive Records wasn't comfortable marketing the genre or this artist. Given the number of animate special interest & conservative watchdog groups policing the arts these days, the decision may have been a shrewd one. Yet inarguably there is an audience for this kind of music.

Though the lyrical content is objectionable and far form child-safe (NSFW all day), the artistic insistence and urgency that resonates from the album—one that demands an unfiltered safe space for feminist expression—is an order of the day. Unquestionably, in 2012 female artists like K. Michelle and others, have grown tired of a male dominated industry that misuses them, then discards them like disposable Kleenex after having blown their collectively male privileged nose on them. In short, woman wants out of the box, and she's not so keen on being under the thumb. Let her free or K. Michelle just may break it.

Abrasiveness aside, I applaud the openness, transparency, and progressive approach of O F***s Given. But this is the free work of an artist without the harnessing yoke of a record deal. I'm curious to see how the music and artist will be reshaped/reinvented once contract stipulations are introduced into the mix.

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Urban Outfitters: "Playing Chicken"

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Urban Outfitters has stirred quite a bit of controversy this week with the release and marketing of a new t-shirt that some deem racist. The t-shirt (pictured above) displays a nutrition facts label for "Pure Hip Hop."

At first glance, it appears harmless, right? Black's my favorite color, I'd wear it. The nutrient content—Total Phat, Lyrics, Flow, Bars, Finger Snaping, Half Snapping, Vocals—look harmless enough, kind of witty, creative. But then we arrive at the bottom of the shirt and see that where Protein is listed, the shirt is emblazoned with the directive, "Get some chicken."

Wait a minute ... give me a just second to digest that one.

The question that arises here is whether or not this is yet another black people/chicken & watermelon joke, shrewd marketing, or innocent oversight?

I'll jump out on a limb and venture to say that it's definitely not an innocent oversight. The association of hip-hop—an overwhelmingly black musical genre—with chicken, is as underhanded as it gets. It's definitely racist marketing with the intention of generating controversy, even if its passive racism. And it will generate dollars and renew interest in the brand. Well played Urban Outfitters.

Urban Outfitters will not lose any sales or customers behind this. In fact, misguided teenagers (black and white) will probably flock to the store to purchase the shirt just because of its shock value. Sadly, that's the world we live in. Free speech and self-expression have taken the place of appropriateness and respect. (God, I sound old saying that). Even if the shirts never hit the streets, stores all across the country will be full of customers looking for the shirt who will settle for tepid alternatives. Score!

No one will convince me that the marketing execs didn't know what they were doing when they allowed this shirt to be screen-printed. This comes on the heels of Mary J. Blige's "Crispy Chicken Wrapped in a Flour Tortilla" Burger King commercial which recently generated a firestorm of controversy itself. We are all aware of the anger that emerges whenever a joke surfaces that pairs anything black with chicken. Mary—bless her heart—probably didn't think of it; she saw an endorsement opportunity and a check. Can't say I blame her.

The question I'd like to ask, however, is exactly how long is the shelf-life on the blacks & chicken stereotype? Are we perpetually tethered to chicken and watermelon jokes? And if so, why? History aside, do we have to continue to own and associate ourselves with denigrating stereotypes that take us backwards while constantly claiming we have moved beyond that benign historical mishap known as slavery and the civil rights movement?

The problem does not really belong to/with the racists who throw the stereotype out there; the problem is the fact that we keep owning it. As long as African Americans get up at arms every time a chicken joke is lobbed, it remains a power-packed stick in the craw that won't ever go away.

The minute African Americans realize that chicken is just chicken and everybody eats it, regardless of the racist history behind this stereotype, it loses its power. It's the same old "sticks and stones may break my bones..." adage we learned as kids. I learned early in life that it's not what they call you that matters, it's what you choose to answer to.

What we need to examine is our immediate impulse to sit at attention every time someone "plays chicken" with us. The only means of defanging this atavistic leviathan is to stop dragging it around on blinged out leashes.

In no way am I suggesting that we forget the past—we can't. What I am suggesting is that we recognize that the ability to mitigate the malicious offenses of hurtful moments is our own; it can only do to you what you allow it.

Mary J. sang the praises of that chicken like her whole career depended on it; like she hasn't had a hit since What's the 411; like K-C was pimp-slapping her while shouting, "Put some stank on it!" ... and she was paid MILLIONS for it despite the fact the commercial will never see the light of day. Sing on Mary! For a cool million (maybe less), I myself might even put on a chicken SUIT and sing it. After all, everybody eats chicken; it's a versatile meat that can be served an infinite number of ways and its full of protein (see, there's some truth to the shirt afterall).

The only other alternative to disempowering the Negro/chicken myth is if every black person in America stops eating it; if we never allow ourselves to be seen eating chicken in public AGAIN. But let's be realistic, we know that ain't about to happen. WE LOVE CHICKEN.

Urban Outfitters attempted to capitalize on an insult and the only thing all the "controversy" has done is ensure that the shirts will indeed sell (or some variation thereof).

So here it is world ... you can revoke my black card if you like, but ... I like chicken ... and I LOVE watermelon. Got it? Now get over it. It doesn't in any way demean me, make me ignorant, or tether me to the history of slavery and American racism; it's food, not an insult. Try harder. And if you want to be offensive, try not being passive about it. I'd prefer a shirt that flat out boasts the words, "This Shirt is All About N*****s," because that's the kind of racism I can respect—the overt kind. Everything else is just punkish and cowardly. Take your hood off when you call me a n***** or bury that burning cross in your heart and enjoy the misery of your covert bigotry. (R)est (I)n crispy (P)ieces.

Sidenote: I will be selling my own t-shirt line soon. Slogan will read: "Racism: That's So 60s"

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10 Things You Should Know Before Going to Grad School

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:35:00 +0000

With the economy in the crapper and jobs a figment of the collective imagination, many are contemplating returning to school. The prevailing thought is that since it's almost impossible to make a decent living these days, one might as well lose his/her self in the wonderland of academia and live off FAFSA and fellowships, right?

Honestly, I kinda thought it was a good idea too. I was encouraged to pursue a doctorate degree because it seemed like destiny. One fateful day, glitter and smoke filled the halls of a nearby university, an enlightened spirit descended upon me and revealed to me that I had "The Stuff." "The Stuff, you see, is that ethereal existential ingredient that makes one perfectly suited to brainwash young, impressionable minds with all of the ~~philosophical and theoretical bull (masked as~~ knowledge) they will need to survive in the world.

I was inspired, motivated, tearfully moved, and ready to take on the pursuit of enlightenment while pleasantly avoiding the grim, emasculating realities of the unemployment line and life in America. Then came the reality of grad school, doctoral delusion, and the fragmentation that accompanies it.

In retrospect, I wish someone had clued me in to the realities of what it would be like. I can't say I would have changed my mind, but I definitely would have been better prepared. So, I'm going to play Big Brother today and tell all you hopeful aspirants what no one told me, just so you won't be caught off guard. Here goes...

1. You Will Feel Stupid ... REAL Stupid: No matter how smart you were in your previous programs of study, grad school is a whole different ball game (doctoral programs in particular). There are no periodic exams and evaluations to validate your intelligence; it's just a lot of reading, eventually some writing, and a lot of question and answer sessions in between to see how good you are at dancing a jig on the spot. In those moments, you will inevitably figure out that many professors intentionally talk over your heads to make sure YOU know that they know more than you. And they will ask you questions that you have no clue how to answer. Your classmates will do the same. You will feel like the biggest dummy God ever created and your greatest fear will be exposure. You may in fact hear the voice of Fred Sanford in your ear, right behind you, shouting, "YOU BIG DUMMY!!!" And no one will hear him or see him perched on your shoulder except you. If you are a person who requires validation and affirmation, grad school may not be for you; it's HORRIBLE for your self-esteem. Accept your stupid status, wear your dunce cap, helmet and chin-strap, knickers and knee socks, and get comfortable with it. As long as you don't drool, you have nothing to worry about; you're just one hopeful dummy among many.

2. You're Not as Stupid as You Feel: Inevitably you will discover that none of the people around you are actually measurably more intelligent you. BUT they have all mastered pretense and drama. Your life will be amazingly better when you realize that you are not pursuing a degree in English/Law, Public Health/Sociology/Philosophy, etc., ... you are pursuing a degree in theater. Your scripted role is "The Struggling Dunce." You will figure out that the best favor you can do yourself is to find one thing you know inside and out—that no one else knows—and mention it as OFTEN as possible. Inject it into class discussions like your LIFE depends on it. BE. THAT. GUY/GIRL! OWN IT! COMMIT TO IT! Make them KNOW that you KNOW your "thing" and they can't do any thing about it. Do this until your classmates get hip, do a little research, and learn "your thing" as well as you. At that point, you need to find a new "thing," start in on it like there's no tomorrow, and show them you have reinvented yourself̛—kind of. Rest assured though, you're not dumb, you just have to master acting.

3. You Will Be Tragically, Unforgivably BROKE: This is probably the most distressing part of the whole process, because you will soon be surviving on bologna, generic breakfast cereal, apple sauce, and whatever gets served at department social mixers. Your creditors WILL call you ... often. You will not have a smart answer for the dreaded "Is there any reason you've been unable to make your payment?" question except maybe, "’Cause I'm a broke Grad student you trout-mouthed heiffer!" You will shop at Goodwill, not by choice, but by force, and you will LIVE for free wine and cheese at holiday parties. Take plenty of zip lock bags & aluminum foil in your pocketbook/murse/wallet/back pocket, and carry a flask so you can fill up before you go home.

4. You Will Need a Therapist: The name of the game in academia is political correctness. There will be many times you will want to call your colleagues racists, sexists, ageists, fatists, elitists, snobs, jerks, idiots, and a bevy of other names you can't say in the company of others. In light of this, you will need a neutral party with whom you can share all of your middle fingers and WTFs. That person ... is called a therapist. Get one. And get one soon. On top of all this, grad school will break you down. There will be many days you will not feel like getting out of bed to do it again. There will be days when you leave the classroom after the world's worst presentation and you will go home, sit in the corner with a pillow tucked between your knees, and cry like baby while sucking your thumb, begging your significant other not to make you do it again. Don't be ashamed, just make an appointment with the couch. When people piss you off and things don't go well in class, simply give them a blank look and telepathically tell them, "I'm gonna tell my therapist on you, and s/he's gonna kick your a**!"

5. None of Your Friends Will Care About Your Newfound Knowledge: Just go ahead and prepare yourself for the fact that using the world "hegemony" at dinner won't go over well. No one will care how smart you are now. Most of your friends will resent you for it even though they pat you on the back and encourage you to continue on. You will become the brainiac outsider and there's nothing you can do about it. Just save the discussions of phenomenology, epistemologies, Foucault, Derrida, and Fanon for the wine and cheese moments with people who actually dig insanity masked as normalcy. You're not normal anymore ... get into it. Suck your teeth, sneer, flair your nostrils, and dismiss them as the plebeians they are. You, sir/ma'am, are a BOSS!!! You is smaaaart! You is kiiiind! And you is important!

6. You Can't Possibly Do All the Reading You Will Be Assigned: Do your best to read the beginning ... REAL GOOD, the end ... REAL GOOD, and find the topic sentence of all the B.S. paragraphs in-between. As an additional tip, make sure you bring up whatever you know best as soon as possible once the discussion gets rolling. If you participate early, you will be perceived as eager and prepared, and the professor will leave you alone. They will reserve their antagonism for the students who appear most reserved, assuming they haven't done the reading. I tried really hard to do it all, until I heard colleagues discussing episodes of Mad Men. (I still have no idea what that is BTW). I was baffled trying to figure out how they had time to watch television while I had all but thrown my flat-screen in the trash. WHAT??? YOU MEAN YOU PEOPLE WATCH TELEVISION??? ... Do yourself a favor, watch some TV and balance your life.

7. You Will Worry Constantly About The Availability of Jobs: And realistically, you just might end up working at Wal-Mart. You will have to fill out job applications and omit the fact that you already have a Master's degree because the hiring managers at Macy's will perceive you as a threat. They won't even call you back because you are over-qualified. Basically, fill those applications out indicating only that you have a GED (or High School diploma at best), get that security guard job by any means necessary, and have faith that somehow, one day, maybe you'll get a job that honors your degree. In the meanwhile, comfort yourself with the knowledge that you're smarter than the friends who are thumbing their noses at you and are able to pay their bills ... and one day soon they will be unemployed and forced to return to school. It is then that, like the Phoenix rising from the flames, you will emerge as the superior beast of a human being you are and make them all kiss it. For right now, mutter to yourself under your breath these words: "One day you're gonna kiss it, you trashy gump." :)

8. None of What You're Going Through is Actually Necessary: One day you will need help with an assignment. You will go to a professor asking for help understanding Edward Said. That professor will not be able to help you. In that moment you will realize that even though they don't have a clue what you are talking about, they still have a doctorate degree. It is then that you will discover that you are being academically hazed. Yes, you're pledging an elite academic fraternity/sorority. Your homework assignments approximate Diddy sending the Making the Band kids traipsing across that bridge in New York to get Junior's Cheesecake. But don't let this knowledge cause you to take it lightly. Walk that bridge, get that cheesecake, and bow at Dr. Diddy's feet. Wear your sweats, don't shower, don't comb your hair, put your self-esteem in a Crown Royal bag wayyyyy in the back of your closet, and take comfort in the knowledge that one day you will know the joy of being some other unsuspecting yokel's higher ed. hemorrhoid. Until then ... ALL PRAISE TO DEAN BIG BROTHER ALMIGH-TEEEEEEE DR. DIDDY! SMOOTHEST PHILOMATH IN THE COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS! BANGINEST BRAIN IN PUBLICATION! COLDER THAN THE COLDEST WAR WE STUDY! ... *bow on one knee*

9. There are Key Catch-Phrases That Make You Sound Intelligent In Any Situation: Pepper your classroom commentary with "sort of, " "kind of," "elide," "tension," and "ontology" A LOT. Everyone will think you're the smartest person alive and no one will be the wiser. Also, master sing-talking. Say EVERYTHING in a melodic way, ending all your statements with an upward vocal inflection as if you are impressed with your own insightfulness. This will save you in any tight squeeze.

10. Self-Medication is NOT as Bad as "They" Make it Sound: Alcohol just may become your best friend. Get comfortable with the impulse to self-medicate and talk about it with your therapist ... AFTER you've completed your program. Meanwhile, just get through the program and try not to go to class smelling like Hennessy. Keep Listerine in your car, don't stand close to people when you talk, and try not to drink while you write ... unless you plan to be up and sober enough to proof-read the next morning. Honestly, it's only a bad thing if you become a slave to cheap liquor. Aim high. This means no Hypnotiq or Alizé. And if anyone accuses you of being an alcoholic, tell them it's not so because alcoholics go to meetings. YOU are just a very intelligent, high-functioning drunk and Jesus loves you ... so back up and go away.

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"Under My Hoodie": Trayvon Tribute (SWIPE)

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:56:00 +0000

I dig everything about this. It's heartfelt, creative, political, and the song is well produced. It's great to see people moved to social action, even through the medium of music. :)
"Was it my Skittles? Was it the tea? Was it my hoodie? Or was it just me?Was I in the wrong place at the wrong time?Was just being black too much of a crime?"

Bill Cosby's Cross-Over Confusion About Race in America

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:44:00 +0000

Actor and comedian Bill Cosby has been quoted in recent days as having stated that race is not the real issue in the killing of Trayvon Martin; he believes gun control is a greater concern. Said Cosby:

“What is solved by saying he’s a racist? That’s why he shot the boy. What solves that? This [the gun], and what is he doing with it, and who taught him and told him how to behave with this, it doesn’t make any difference whether he’s racist or not racist. If he’s scared to death, and not a racist, it’s still a confrontational provoking of something.”

While others complete Cosby's credentials with political activist, I draw the line at affirming him as such, though he tries desperately to insinuate himself into political matters. At this point, we really need Cosby to stick to ... well, nothing ... just have a seat somewhere and be very very retired and quiet.

What Cosby doesn't seem to understand is that for millions of Americans, who are not privileged with celebrity status, iconic cross-over appeal, and tons of money, race is still very much an issue. For that reason much is to be gained by pointing out the fact that George Zimmerman is indeed a racist who took his zeal for neighborhood vigilance a step too far.

"Race" is the big pink elephant in the living room of America. It is the conversation that looms about us, but we are always unwilling to engage. Not talking about race doesn't make it go away, nor does it reduce those who broach the subject to being polemical antagonists or media opportunist. What it does is force the hand of America, causing us to entertain necessary dialogue so that we can hopefully reach a point where it is less of an issue.

To elide the issue of race and place the emphasis on gun control is asinine. Absent handguns, racists have still lynched and burned minorities throughout our country's history. One would think a man of Cosby's age would be aware of this. But maybe money, prestige, and celebrity status alter perception. Maybe one can become so accustomed to being essentially "race-less" that the true complexities of the lives of average citizens escape them. The affluent, upper-class, educated, OB/GYN image with whom Cosby will always be associated—fictive or not—couldn't possibly conceive of such an existence. And whether we admit it or not, many conflate the television persona of Bill Cosby with the real Bill Cosby since truthfully, there isn't a whole lot of difference between the two. That is all we have known of him. That is where we will forever place him.

What Cosby fails to acknowledge is that one doesn't need a handgun when racist behavior is legislated and undergirded by laws that protect individuals who perpetuate hate crimes, both violent and non-violent in nature.

I will grant Cosby this one concession, he is right about one thing and one thing only, the real issue is with our legal system. The legal system does indeed allow for ordinary, unmonitored, un-vetted, insane citizens to own and carry weapons. That same legal system, however, makes it legal for police officers to profile minorities on the basis of race alone. It also justifies the penal system's unfair issuance of longer sentences for African Americans for minor crimes than it does for individuals of other ethnicities. It also defends its decision to disproportionately end the lives of countless African Americans through capital punishment; many of whom have been proven to be innocent post-mortem. It also protects the institutionalized right of companies and corporations to enact unfair labor and hiring practices on the basis of race.

The fact that our nation needs to revisit its commitment to covert racism couched in legalities and doublespeak. Such a revisitation should also include an effort to revise gun control laws, but a denial that race is the real issue in the killing of an unarmed teenager carrying skittles and iced tea is not the answer. If Cosby thinks Trayvon's murder was not as motivated by the fact that he was a minority strolling through a "majority" neighborhood at the wrong time, he may be as unstable as we suspect Zimmerman is.

What is most disheartening is that at a time like this, non-racist Americans throughout this nation—black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and all others—need to evince a level of political solidarity. Cosby's comments are divisive, damaging, and overrun with elitism and privilege that has forgotten the Civil Rights Era of which he is a product. In a sneaky way, it is an attempt to claim that America is "post-racial." Though it is a hard pill to swallow, most of us know that this is not the case. Greater financial standing, opportunities, and education do not erase the legacy of racism on which this country was founded and yet stands.

Cosby desperately needs to creep back to la-la land and get a grip on the reality that is black American life. Yet this just goes to show that "race" is a social construct,distinct from ethnicity, and that no matter the color of an individual's skin, one can be brown-hued and yet afforded the privilege of a white life experience that blinds him to the realities of who he really is. I call it "Cross-Over Blindness"; it happens when an individual has unknowingly switched racial affiliation.

This is not the first time we've heard Cosby, in not so subtle speech, erroneously pontificate on being black in America ... but let's hope it's the last. What we can be certain about, is that when the media needs a right-wing black to deride the attempts of the rest of us to obtain social justice, they know just who to pull out of minstrel retirement.

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Bitter About "Sweet Brown"

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 23:41:00 +0000

THE REMIX:

Since the video featuring "Sweet Brown" went viral, the resounding sentiment among most of my friends is that they were at first amused, then incredibly embarrassed.

We've been having these discussions for years about reporters going into black neighborhoods in the aftermath of tragedies and sensational events, seeking out seemingly uneducated African Americans to interview, then sneakily essentializing a whole culture via soundbites and video clips. "Miss Wanda" in her housecoat, pink rollers and bedroom slippers, "Cousin Antoine" in all of his flamboyance, and "Mr. LeRoy" will always make the news. They will be the purveyors of details even when Thurgood, Kimberly, and Kelly are nearby and equally informed.

Without a doubt, news programs have political agendas like everyone/everything else in our society. Racism is certainly not missing from their list of spin strategies, though it mostly goes unowned. Ask Fox News about this.

In the case of "Sweet Brown, " however, I'm not altogether sure covert cultural defamation is at work. And I'm not certain African Americans should feel any element of shame about her animated interview either.

Hearing "Sweet Brown" exclaim, "... I got bronchitis! Ain't nobody got time for that!" brought tears to my eyes, but it didn't make me feel ashamed. Honestly, I have members in my family just like her and I am definitely not ashamed of them. Maybe that's a perk of living in the South and being educated; one gains a greater appreciation of all the colors of the cultural pallet.

The overwhelming sentiment of shame that works its way into the secondary reactions to this news interview are indicative of a deeper problem. It is not so much a matter that we are ashamed of "Sweet Brown," it is that we are ashamed of ourselves.

It is no secret that education and articulation levels vary throughout every culture and ethnicity. But rarely do I hear people of other ethnicities express the kind of shame and self-hatred about members of their own race as I do African Americans.

At some point we must come to the comfortable conclusion that the African American community is a tapestry intricately woven of many different fabrics, textures, shades, and designs. We are not all the same, but that is the beauty of being black. We are not all articulate, but we are no less human for our inarticulateness. We are not all cosmopolitan, but we are no less significant because of our rurality. It takes every manifested form, in our multitudinous variations, to make everything that we are, have been, and will always be. That is not anything we should bear in shame. That is the very thing we should wear as badges of honor and emblems of pride.

In the minds of many"Sweet Brown" represents a form of blackness that we want to move away from. That mindset, dare I say, is elitist and self-loathing.

Further, I wonder if there will ever come a day in which we are not as much concerned with how we are perceived by others (read: white America). Why does/should it even matter anymore? And is this vein of thought not indicative of a timeless and problematic pursuit to gain acceptance by "others" and also a half-hearted attempt at ascending to a place of ill-perceived "equality" with "others"? If it is, I'll be honest ... AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT! I am your equal whether you say I am or not. What gives any individual the right to assess my humanity or to establish themselves as the rubric? What gives an individual the right to set someone "free"? Are we not born free? Is/was slavery not a state one has to consent to in order for it to exist? By that same rule, why should any of us aspire to be like someone else in society, deeming them the epitome of culture and decorum?

We are who we are and we don't owe any apologies to anybody for it. For every black "Sweet Brown," if we search soundbites and newsreels, we can absolutely locate a white, Asian, or Hispanic variation of the same community persona. But shame will not resonate in that moment because we are then observing it and not connected to it.

I'm sure those who are embarrassed will say that this is precisely the problem—that we have to search for those images. But quite honestly, I'm not invested enough in the racial curation project to care. Why, you ask? Because regardless of what gets shown on the 6:00 news, I know the truth. And that truth liberates me from embarrassment while providing me with the ammunition I need to respond to people of other ethnicities who misspeak at the water cooler and declare, "That woman was so "ghetto"!"

Admittedly these image archives work their way into political discourse and attempts are often made to use them to relegate ethnic groups to sub-personhood. But disowning the weaker links of the chain doesn't exactly make for a stronger chain, it simply makes for a chain with gaps. We are stronger with "Sweet Brown," who is black, proud, country, and self-loving, than we are without her. We are weaker if over-run with people who cannot behold the endless lineage of faces and histories who look back from the mirror. In times of testing, those individuals are more prone to manifest as turncoats than team players since secretly they play for the other team anyway.

In sum, if you can't take the reality that "Sweet Brown" lives, breathes, speaks, and thinks, then the next time a news crew comes through the neighborhood, "Hide your kids, Hide your wives" ... ’cause they're filming everybody out here.

THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW:

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New Age Narcissism & Documented Misdeeds

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:45:00 +0000

Apparently a new video surfaced of Bobbi Kristina Houston, daughter of the late Whitney Houston, smoking weed from a bong on April 13th.

*insert long exasperated sigh*

First and foremost, this comes as no surprise. Bobbi Kris has been known to shamelessly post pictures of herself smoking weed on Twitter while celebrating her birthday, only to follow-up with an ill-conceived campaign against substance abuse (the very next day) in the wake of her mother's death.

Let's face it, at this point, we are all waiting for the train wreck to crash and burn where poor B.K. is concerned. Since Whitney passed, there have been rumors that she also was engaged to her adopted brother, and documentation of a lot other erratic behavior.

To an extent it is to be expected (1) given that she only recently lost her mother and is still grieving (even if she herself is not aware of it), and (2) given that her mother's behavior was often wild and outlandish. Although I am a Whitney Houston fan, (don't get me wrong), I still believe in facing the truth, even when the truth hurts.

Most are expecting that, barring a major intervention, Bobbi Kristina will probably inevitably travel the same route her mother did—hopefully sans tragic end. I would like to keep hope alive by praying that someone gets to her before its too late.

Caption This Pic. Interpretation is Subjective.

We won't waste time trying to figure out where her father is in all of this. He's earning his next meal. We won't debate over whether these are mere allegations, rumor-mill fallacies, and tabloid fodder. The video confirms itself, although absent a date/timestamp, we don't really know when it happened ... but that doesn't really matter. We won't banter about how unfair the media is in exploiting public personas. That's simply the culture we live in. We won't speculate about the tabloid claims that Bobbi Kristina actually used drugs with her mother. That's not verifiable. We won't ponder whether or not her drug use is learned, inherent, or the product of genetic predisposition. We are not scientists.

What I am more interested in is the impetus behind the production and distribution of the video in the first place.

There is something strangely awry in the American consciousness that (1) moves us to document ourselves in our worst moments and (2) drives us to want to be seen in that state.

The age of the iPhone, webcam, Skype, OoVoo, Facebook, Twitter, etc., has given birth to a horrible beast who simply won't go away.

It's one thing to have a wild time with friends where one lights it up in honor of the green herb god, but what makes us want to capture it on video? I find myself wondering if the thought process in the moment is that later I'm going to watch this video and bring myself lots of laughs? ...Until I am judged for it, that is.

We'll assume that Bobbi Kristina didn't video herself smoking the bong.

Wait, that may not be a safe assumption.

Well anyway, here are the questions that arise for me:

If she did video herself getting high ... why?
If she consented to someone else videoing her getting high ... why?
Does it not occur to her (and people like her) that video can be distributed?
Are people not aware that video and photographed moments create a character archive that can be parsed an infinite number of ways according to the will, discretion, or motive of the viewer?
Does the willingness to be photographed/videoed in a scandalous moment bespeak an individuals desire to be seen (or inscribed in the public consciousness) in that way?
Does this whole phenomena of digitally documented misdeeds say that our society has transmuted into one that celebrates, celebrit-izes, rewards, and wholly invests in scandals as the approximation of relevance?

In short, what is to be gained from all of this image documentation and what are we afraid of losing if we don't participate? Why are we more afraid of not being documented than we are of being documented? Photos, apparently, say I was here. They provide irrefutable evidence of existence, even if that existence is obfuscated by the absence of sonic or textual accompaniment that fully explicates its momentary nuances. But why are we all clamoring to be objects?

I think we have mostly accepted that privacy is a thing of the past. Whether you're aware of it or not, someone is always watching/filming/videoing/photographing/observing/surveilling YOU—yes, even you. Technology encourages the erasure of privacy and sells it to us in shiny packages with improved megapixels and speedy Facebook upload capability.

"I Always Feel Like ... Somebody's Watching Me."

Each week we are inundated with a new product arrival that changes the game of surveillance. But where does all of this lead to? And is it possible to hammer into the heads of younger generations that documented misdeeds have longstanding consequences? Not all of our kids will be heiresses, debutants, and trust fund babies. Some of them will actually have to earn their living. But when they sit down to interview, or face a confirmation, background check, or character investigation, everything that has been documented—regardless of the real and unarticulated truth of that moment—will come back to haunt them.

Facebook: Where Everybody's SOMEBODY

This is one of the many reasons I have a love/hate relationship with social media. There is something clandestinely nefarious about mediums that encourage us to establish discretion-absent digital footprints in the name of socialization. While it is social it is not secure, and I find that most of us are losing our sense of appropriateness in our efforts to become global celebrities via the photo and 140 characters.

140 characters can never been enough to explain the agony, internal pain, self-loathing, confusion, momentary dementia, bad judgment, or erraticism we may have been experiencing when we entered into contract with the camera and the audience behind it. All they will see is an image. That image will then no longer belong to us, it will belong to the viewing audience. It will be theirs to interpret, exploit, photoshop, or distribute as they please. And each new iteration of the image will speak a different message to a new audience who will then regenerate this same pattern. Admittedly, even in producing this blog post, I am participating in the proliferation of distortable images and information. But in an information driven society, we are all culpable, whether we pass the image on or simply talk about it as we saw it.

The question is not did Bobbi Kristina smoke? It is not why was she smoking and what does this mean? It is not was she justified in self-medicating the resonances of her painful and confused childhood. The question is not whether or not the image of her in her lowest moment will establish for her the same drug addict legacy of that is tethered to her mother post-mortem; outshining her music, her talents, and her philanthropy.

The question is what's wrong with all of us that we must reinforce our lower selves by capturing and archiving it? Are we afraid of erasure? Are we afraid of forgetting the moment? Or are we simply ignorant of the greater resonances of our actions?

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Damage Control: Misinterpreting Trayvon's Mom

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:06:00 +0000

In an April 12, 2012 interview on the Today Show, Trayvon Martin's mother Sybrina Fulton harmlessly stated that she just wants an apology. She went on to state that she "believes it was an accident," referring to George Zimmerman's alleged murder of her son.

"I believe that it just got out of control, and he couldn't turn the clock back. I would ask him, did he know that that was a minor, that that was a teenager and that he did not have a weapon? I would ask him that I understand that his family is hurting, but think about our family that lost our teenage son. I mean, it's just very difficult to live with day in and day out. I'm sure his parents can pick up the phone and call him, but we can't pick up the phone and call Trayvon anymore."

True to form, the media has jumped on this statement seeking to substantiate claims by some members of the public who all along have insisted that Zimmerman's slaying of the teenager was a reasonable and justified accident for which he should not be criminally prosecuted.
What remains to be determined now is whether or not Fulton's statement provided Zimmerman's defense with just the backing it needs to lodge the claim that Zimmerman should not serve time for the charge of second degree murder.

At this point it is clear that someone should advise Trayvon's parents to step away from the cameras. Their presence has galvanized a considerable amount of national support and lead to Zimmerman being arrested and charged as they desired. From this point forward, everything said around this volatile case will be scrutinized to the highest degree in an effort to absolve Zimmerman from culpability for his actions. What a tragedy it will be if Trayvon's own parents end up being the voices of absolution for his death.

Just a few days ago Zimmerman's own attorneys dropped him as a client stating that they could no longer represent him because they had not been in contact with him.

At first I was unsure if this was a ploy on behalf of the defense team to set up some sort of distress defense. They repeatedly insisted that they firmly believed Zimmerman is suffering a form of PTSD. That would seem to be the ultimate defense—turning the defendant into a sympathetic figure in the public eye. The case itself has created a firestorm of public opinion. Today, however, Zimmerman is represented by new counsel and it would seem that his prior attorneys were in fact serious about recusing themselves.

The difficulty now, as I see it, lies in maintaing public interest in the demand for justice in the case, but not oversaturating media outlets to the extent that sympathies run cold. As it stands, since we have now finally come to the conclusion that Zimmerman is a Hispanic and the case is therefore not a black/white issue, a significant portion of society has already tuned out on the specifics of the matter. It is now just a minority-on-minority killing that is of little interest to a large segment of the public, no matter how heinous the crime. I still maintain that what matters is not how we define Zimmerman's race, but how he himself define's it. A man of white and Peruvian descent certainly is afforded the opportunity in this country to "pass." Zimmerman's comments and his anxieties about the space of "his neighborhood" convey a clear-cut identification with whiteness and white privilege, not Hispanic heritage. We have not heard of cases in this country where Hispanic citizens have become up at arms over the sight of a black man strolling through their neighborhoods. At some point we must all come to the realization that race is social and not biologic.

Further pushing public interest in the direction of non-existence is the overbearing presence of African American community leader Al Sharpton. Sharpton is a long-standing face of black America, but is also not a favorite of those whose interest he does not directly represent. His efforts to continually stoke the fire may backfire where justice is concerned. It certainly didn't do much for Troy Davis.

As I see it, in order for justice to be served, the family of Trayvon Martin must begin voicing themselves to powers who can actually ensure a respectable outcome and save the interviews until afterwards. The iconicity of Trayvon's image is firmly established now. He will forever represent hate crimes and racial profiling, whether the court system supports it or not.

Trayvon's killing has been compared to that of Emmett Till (and rightly so) , but I do not see an image parallelism emerging between Sybrina Fulton and Mamie Till in the general public. The memory of that crime is only most disturbing to African Americans.

Emmett Till

Mamie Till is largely remembered because of her controversial decision to display her son's mutilated body in an open casket at his 1955 funeral. It is no longer 1955, however, and American sympathies for the grieving black mother are not the same. This is largely because in 1955, the legal system and progresses of African Americans were significantly behind the place we now occupy in 2012—on the surface anyway.

In the American consciousness, African Americans have little to complain or protest about in this era of supposed progress. As such, the grieving black mother does not evoke the same sympathy she once did, even for alleged hate crimes.

In this particular case, Sybrina will not likely be seen as the point of focus. It is Trayvon who has captured American attentions. Some have even gone so far as to absurdly suggest that his parents are capitalizing on the attention they are receiving, calling it their 15 minutes of fame. I have heard such outlandish statements made as "She should be somewhere grieving instead of doing all of these interviews." Many feel Sybrina, her husband, Sharpton, and African Americans alike are "playing the race card." Be that as it may, we are only playing the hand that we have been dealt. Yet while Sybrina has managed to stir the heart of President Obama, clearly she has not managed to fully acquire national pity. This is no failure on her part, it is simply indicative of the degree to which we have become cold and callous, and the extent to which we still do not want to acknowledge the big pink elephant in the American living room that is race.

My assertion is simply that Sybrina and Al Sharpton alike must let Trayvon's image do the work—even through media attempts to sully that image. At this stage of the process, talking has become dangerous, but discourse can still be generated even when nothing is said. Further, while I hate to say it, if they want justice, they may need to distance themselves from family lawyer, Benjamin Crump, and allow white counsel to speak for them.

Without a doubt Zimmerman did not leave home that evening with it in mind that he would kill an African American teenager at some point. But that is not the point. The point of the matter is that he did. Accidental death or intentional death, it was still a slaying of an unarmed black teenager who did little more than appear in the wrong place, in the wrong body, at the wrong time. For that, justice must be served.

Mamie Till

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Rihanna Reduxed: "Birthday Cake" Batter(Y)

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:37:00 +0000

Puppy Love?

This is somewhat a late pass, but I'll take a swipe at it anyway. Recently I heard Chris & Rihanna's controversial "Birthday Cake Remix." After getting past the derivative chorus and track, which present a spin on Big Sean's "Dance (Ass)," I was ~~not really~~ shocked by the lyrics of the song. Clearly it was produced for the sole purpose of generating shock and controversy, and breathing life and relevance into two careers, each desperate in their own way. Let's be honest, Robin "Rihanna" Fenty needs this since she can't actually sing. As for Chris, I'm sure it's all just intended to be an in-your-face embrace of the legacy he will never be able to escape. Since he will always be America's penultimate domestic abuser, (second only to Ike Turner), he might as well capitalize on it, right?

Middle Finger to You & Your Sympathies

What stood out to me more than anything is Rihanna's own subtextual assertion that she does not want or need our pity. The fact that she is comfortable singing these disturbing lyrics is pretty much a middle finger to America, its sympathies for battered/abused women, and its desire to relegate her to position of eternal victim. She doesn't want it. So why should we give it to her?

Where we see Brown inheriting Ike Turner, we certainly do not see Rihanna inheriting the legacy of Tina Turner. Tina managed to turn her tragedy into universal female empowerment and an irrefutable stand against domestic violence. Love cast aside, she is yet asking us the poignant question, "What's Love Got to Do With It?" She does not embrace it (the violence). She does not seek to own it. She does not rejoin her abuser in watered down publicity stunts aimed at generating dollars. She is inarguably against it. Perhaps because her abuse was more than a single episode? Maybe that's the reason it is so easy for Rihanna to flip this into a light-hearted S&M money maker. We may never know since we cannot truly know whether the abuse that made headlines was actually the culmination of a silent pattern of behavior she may have been suffering all along. Maybe Rihanna should have the pleasure of meeting Tina, or others like her, who don't scoff at empathy.

While I get that both Brown and Fenty (Rihanna) are trying to acquire some type of agency that will allow them to re-identify themselves—Brown as "Bad Boy," Rihanna as "Bad Chic Who Can Handle Her Own." The damage we worry about are the messages the collaboration and the lyrics send to youth about domestic violence and the ways in which it seeks to normalize it, making it "sexy." It's all fun and games until our daughters come home raped with bruised necks, busted lips, black eyes, and bite marks. One need only examine the lyrics to get a sense of the depravity at work here:

"I know you wanna bite this
It’s so enticing
Nothing else like this
I’mma make you my b****"

Wait ... did she forget that during the attack Chris actually bit her?

No, she hasn't forgotten. But she's going to make him her "b****" right? So I guess it doesn't matter. What a take charge chic.

"Girl I wanna f*** you right now (right now)
Been a long time, I’ve been missing your body"

Gone is the puppy-dog love society once adored and fawned over. His intentions are clear. We can hardly ignore the rape trope at work in the lyrics. There is no love expressed here. There is no articulation of a request for access or permission. We are listening to an outright rape, bolstering the common assertion that "rap" music is "rape" music. I suppose since we have obsessed over the relationship to such great extents in the media, they've now decided to commodify the tragedy and turn it into fetish fodder. (Cue Cash Register sounds)

"Remember how you did it?
Remember how you fit it?
If you still wanna kiss it
Come, come, come and get it
Sweeter than a rice cake, cake worth sipping
Kill it, tip it
Cake, fill it"

The Look of Love?

This verse may have disturbed me more than any of the others. Clearly the relationship is not/has not ever been as "over" as we all thought/wished it was. But I'm curious as to how Brown justifies collaborating with Rihanna while she takes swipes at his current girlfriend (read: rice cake)? Furthermore, how might we now look at Kareuche as a current victim of domestic/psychological violence? She too is suffering abuse at the hands of Chris Brown in the interest of making money. As much as Brown would like us to believe that his abusive tendencies are a thing of the past, here he deftly brings them into his present relationship. Also, could we have just lived forever without her begging for him to "Kill it"? We get the implied "it," but in light of their history, it certainly takes on a different tone here. She is aware that she could have died ... and maybe she did.

We could go on about these two all day, but the bottom line is, I think the best way to send them away is perhaps if we all just deny them both what they desire most—attention and sympathy. That Rihanna can't comprehend her own resonances of Battered Woman Syndrome is sad, but it is certainly not deserving of any further focus. The best thing you can do to protect your children from becoming victims of the lyrical pop-culture violence is to educate them about what sad examples of humanity both of them really are.

Girl Gone Rogue

In previous blogs I've tried to intervene for Chris, wanting to rescue him from the media lambasting that would not allow him to move beyond his transgression, casting him as the eternally pathological black man. Sadly, I don't think I can do that beyond this point. He has failed time and time again to constructively evidence a personal effort to do more than cry, throw temper-tantrums, and insist that we should all give him a break. What would have been more productive from this tragedy would have been a duet that addressed the violence of their relationship in redemptive and didactic ways for the sake of their young audience base. Sure, Chris did his share of "I'm sorry" songs, but we never quite got a sense of how Rihanna dealt with the tragedy beyond her decisions to tattoo guns on her body, and sing about murdering rapists in her "Man Down single." How exactly does one go from wanting to kill an abuser, to singing with him?

Celebrities repeatedly shun the inherent role-model status of their fame. It's high time, however, that they all accept that whether they want it or not, they are role models who affect and infect impressionable minds of youth. While our greatest role models should be parents, we don't really live in that kind of society. We are dealing with a generation of youth who are more in tune with their pop idols than they are their parents. This rupture is one that may not be fixable. Then again, even in the context of healthy parent-child relationships, children look to other "children" for behavioral models. None of us wanted to be like our parents when we were children. Though we idolized them and thought that someday we would like to be just like them, in the now, we all just wanted to be cool. And being "cool" meant being talked about in ways that kept us in peer consciousness, even if for bad behavior. What we are faced with is the death of innocence through assisted suicide, juxtaposed with our coming of age. Happy Birthday. Modernity sucks.

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Roman's Revenge: Hip Hop, Religious Hypocrisy, & The Death of the High Horse

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:18:00 +0000

First and foremost, I've tried really hard to be a fan of Nikki's and I take nothing from her as a talented artist. Her wit and creativity are unmatched in the hip-hop game—period. I lose it for her only because of the stupid costumes that make her more of a caricature than an actual artist focused on the craft of RAPPING. Well, that and the insidious insistence on reinforcing "Barbie" as an iconic (and unrealistic) body/image template for young girls. Most times I find myself wishing she'd cut out the clowning and just let the lyrics lash her musical opponents sans distracting antics. That aside, she's doing what she wants—being unique. Doesn't work for me, but hey, if she likes it, I love it. I WILL say that her performance of "Roman Holiday" was far more entertaining than ANY of her performances of that god-awful "SuperBass" song, hands-down, and it was refreshing to not see a costume with exaggerated booty-pads for once.

Anyway, last night's performance on the Grammy's was sure to spark controversy by sheer virtue of the fact that it was religious themed and laced with allusions to possession. And I knew the moment I saw it that the religious zealots among us would immediately begin dousing the internet with holy water and screaming "The power of Christ compels you!!!" But honestly, to that I can only say, "whatever." We are amazingly devout when it conveniently gives us something to discuss or erects a social media soapbox, but many of those expressing religious outrage ... aren't even religious. Can we kill the hypocrisy? You don't go to church, read a bible, pray, or profess any semblance of a faith ... www.sitdown.com.

I get what she was going for; apparently "Roman" is her (unexplainably) male alter-ego, and the whole PERFORMANCE was an artistic allusion to the idea of being possessed by a creative alter-ego whom she cannot break free of or "exorcise," (not unlike Beyonce's Sasha Fierce). I have assumed "Roman" is male because she is attempting to access the male power dynamic that runs the music industry and turn it into female empowerment somehow. Whatever to that.

There WERE Catholic liturgy allusions, to which they (the Catholic church) have responded today and are apparently infuriated. But let's be honest, the Catholic church needs to be less concerned about Nikki Minaj's performance and more concerned about "Priests" sexually violating little boys here, there, and everywhere. Maybe more concerned about the endemic corruption in church leadership that also allows cover-ups of said REAL criminal events. Can we deal with that, and not with this red herring that is Nikki Minaj? Can we address the fact that the institution is anti-birth control AND anti-abortion, and run by MALE patriarchs, most of whom don't even LIKE women, and have vowed not to ever TOUCH a woman, yet issue dictates about what should be done with WOMEN'S bodies? (Yes, I said it). Don't misread that statement, I'm only pointing to the connection between oppression and power-dynamics that inhere gender inequality, latent misogyny, and implied fundamental dislike and sexual anxiety over woman's very BEING and existence; there's no phobia in the statement at all. But that whole set of institutional flaws need to be addressed, yet instead people blindly follow and continue to allow this group to be an oligarchical thorn in America's backside, influencing politics at-will, with impunity. I have a problem with the idea that Catholic priests can touch our sons, but we can't touch their "sacred" liturgies.

Anyway, bottom line, it wasn't that serious. I'm not defending the performance, but I'm not castigating it in the name of religion either. Truth be told, that's EXACTLY what she (Nikki) wanted—to generate controversy and to thereby stimulate conversations/relevance. If you check the record, hypocritical America had the same knee-jerk reaction when Madonna's "Like A Prayer" video hit the tube and when Kanye's "Jesus Walk's" video aired. To date not one person has ever been possessed by a demon behind watching a music artist perform ... but as far as I know, not many have "caught a demon" watching Bobby Jones Gospel either. #POW

Lastly, the so-called, unconfirmed, "Illuminati" does not want the likes of Nikki, Kanye, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Will, Jada, or Oprah in their ranks. That is, IF there even is such an organization. You people have more superstitions than the law allows, and not enough belief in truly potent realities.

Bottom line, stop the stupidity already, liberate yourselves from hypocritically oppressive phobias about things that truly don't have profound affects on any aspects of our lives and invest that wasted energy in something that actually matters. Your daughter is not going to try to levitate or climb a wall because she watched the Grammys. Trust me on that one. She's more likely to emulate YOUR secretly horrendous habits than dramatize a possession. :-)

REVIEW: The Devil Inside

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 02:28:00 +0000

So, yeah ... about this "movie." I want to sum this up in four words: DON'T GO SEE IT.

I'm the world's biggest horror movie fan and I have been looking forward to seeing The Devil Inside for quite some time now. The previews looked freakishly entertaining and I was all geared up to be scared witless.

It didn't happen quite that way.

Instead, I left the theater ANGRY enough to exorcise a random republican on general principle, JUST so I could say I got to actually see the exorcism the film built up to, but didn't deliver.

I will say this much, the film had great potential. In fact, it was well on its way to rivaling the ne plus ultra of exorcism films, William Friedkin's 1973 The Exorcist. The special effects went way past Linda Blair's pea soup spewing and revolving head. William Brent Bell gives us some pretty gruesome and bloody scenes that successfully cause viewers to claw their armrests then look around to see if anyone noticed their "punk" moment. I'll admit it, he got me a few times. But there are several problems with this film that make it thoroughly wasteful and enraging.

For starters, the meta-theatrical found footage cinematography (a lá Blair Witch Project / Paranormal Activity, etc. etc. blah blah blah ) gets annoying really quickly. All that shaky cameraman movement as we watch a film about making a film/documentary nearly gave me motion sickness. But I understood what he was going for ... drawing us into the story and delivering exposition by presenting the derivative story of a young woman on a quest to understand her mother's alleged possession. The possession (of course) has been dismissed and denied by the Vatican even though mommy dearest murdered three people in a satanic rage and audibly speaks four different languages whenever she lapses into her demonic mania. We've seen this storyline numerous times over the years so I suppose the documentary approach was supposed to be a twist maybe? (I skipped Paranormal Activity all together so I have no idea what the comparison is). But there are way too many gaps in the narrative to name. The demon speaks to the priests and alludes to "ungodly" hidden sins and past secrets during the exorcism. Good. Great opportunity to add some complexity to the narrative and make the film more interesting. Yet, for some insane reason Bell didn't think it was necessary to tell us what dirty little deeds the priests were guilty of AT ALL. All he gives us is a demon saying, "You wanted him to die didn't you? ... You can't do this ... not after what YOU'VE done!" And you sit there wondering WHO? WHAT DID THE FREAKING PRIEST DO, MAN?!?

As could be expected, there is a sexual proposition between demon and priest: "Let me _____________ your _______________ ... pleaaaaaaase?" And the demon calls one of the priests a faggot. But that's all you get. Nope, not giving you anymore. Just gonna toss out a few possibilities and sort of let them swim around in your head as you watch these holy men who chain smoke cigarettes, curse like sailors, and drink brown liquor before going in to tackle Beelzebub. You figure it out. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I hate to be a spoiler, but let me just tell you, you're never going to know what the secret sins are. There is absolutely no resolve to this humongous narrative gap AT ALL. I guess given the bevy of "usual sins" associated with the Catholic church these days we're supposed to fill in the blank in whatever way suits our imaginations best.

Dude ... NO. I don't know where you're from, but where I'm from, when demons level a gossipy accusation with the intent of throwing a priest off balance, they just put it ALL out there.

"REMEMBER LITTLE JOHNNY? ....WELL HE'S IN HERE ... AND HE SAYS TO TELL YOU HELLO! AND HE SAYS HE DIDN'T PARTICULARLY LIKE WHAT YOU DID WITH THE LARD AND THE GERBIL FATHER BECKHAM!!!!"

That's how I like to see my demons dish dirt. Not some wimpy hush-mouthed, don't-ask-don't-tell crap. Get the freak out of here with that.

Like I said, the film was actually building pretty well (albeit slowly), and had potential to rival its progenitors, but it misses key moments when Bell could easily have infused a flashback here or there that would have provided some unity to this mess of a mystery of a headache of a monster. There's just not enough follow-through on what was most important to the movie. He puts the important stuff out there, teases the imagination, then completely withholds a pay-off. Foreshadowing and allusion are great, but a film that doesn't follow it up is just a waste of time.

But the biggest problem with The Devil Inside though, is the ending. I hate to ruin it for anyone who might feel like wasting a few dollars in spite of my angst, but I hated it just that much that I want to discourage as many people as possible from wasting money on this travesty. Just when you think you're witness an epic cinematic climax, THE MOVIE. JUST. ENDS.

Finis. The end. Over. Finito. That's it folks, nothing left to see here after the head on mack truck collision that preempts the exorcism. Go home.

True story. It. Just. Ends. No resolution. No exorcism. No gory battle between good and evil.

I think the writers just decided, "Screw it, we've put enough into this film ... let's just call it quits right here." And that's exactly what they did. Or they ran out of money. I would have preferred to have sat through an ENTIRE Tyler Perry film than to see this horrible ending. It was just that bad and incomplete. The finale makes the whole movie wasteful and insulting. In 2012, audiences are far too sophisticated for this kind of dramatic ruse in the name of "art." A blunt ending serves its purpose when there are organic unities present in a film that will allow us to thoughtfully put it all together after the screen goes black. But lets be honest, horror is not the genre for provocative thought. Horror is the vehicle for gratuitous violence and shocking sensory overload. The major problem here is that there were no unities and overall there was no point. The Devil Inside is only briefly high on sensationalism and violence, but its not prolonged enough to make the lack of thoroughness forgivable.

So if you just feel like throwing some money away, have at it. But don't say you weren't warned, The Devil Inside will leave you fuming inside. I wouldn't buy this movie bootleg at the barbershop.

No ... if I went to the Red Box to rent a movie and The Devil Inside came out as a bonus ... I'd put it back. Yep ... that bad.

"N***a Toes": Retro 11s, Foamposites, and Other Things Hood

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:02:00 +0000

My wife, father-in-law, and I were joking last night about what used to be a common reference to hazel nuts: the term "N***a Toes." She had never really heard the reference, but I distinctly remember hearing it as a kid. As a matter of fact, my step-father never taught me the proper name for the nuts, I was first introduced to them as N***a Toes and for a long time actually thought that was their actual name. The reference of course comes from the fact that, when in their shell, the nuts resemble a black man's toes (see picture above). Anyway, having grown and learned better, I no longer refer to them as such. The focus of this post, however, is another kind of N***a Toes that recently made their way into the news.

As I sit here on the day after Christmas watching the news, I am utterly embarrassed by the reports of fights and mayhem that broke out at malls around the country over the re-release of Michael Jordan's Retro 11's. Admittedly, I am a Mezlan/Pliner/Sherman kinda guy. I think I own ONE fair of Air Jordans that I have had for the last 6 or 7 years and to this day they still look like they just came out of the box—not because I take such good care of them, but I rarely wear sneakers. I honestly might not know a pair of Retro-Whatever-the-Hell's if you hit me in the face with them. And I'm glad.

As I watched the crowds of people breaking down shopping mall doors to get to stores and purchase their coveted J's, I was overcome with shame. I did happen to notice a few whites and a few hispanics in the crowd, but overwhelmingly the news stations interviewed and featured black customers, including one who was nobly concerned about her fellow consumers having their babies out in the cold regardless of the fact that they might catch "Ammonia." [pause for marination]. If she's worried about the kid catching "ammonia," wait until he gets "The Pine Sol" and "The Bleach."

Yes, I did ask myself why they weren't interviewing customers of any other ethnicity. I'll admit that I wanted to make it racial ... but it's not. The majority of those crowds acting like unchained yard dogs were African Americans. As much as I would like to make this a spin job by right-wing networks who cater to middle-class white America, I can't. It is what it is. They were black. I even read a report of a young man who had to sit in McDonalds waiting for a ride because someone had been mugged for their shoes at the bus-stop. Insane much? Absolutely.

Just a few weeks ago, students at Dean College were expelled over video that surfaced of the beating of an innocent student for his "Foamposites." (See Below). Again, I don't wear them, so I have no idea what it is about them that actually induces this kind of hysteria. Honestly, I think they're ugly as sin ... but that's just me. Apparently, the young man who committed the assault thought the kid he beat up stole his shoes because they were the same size and color. I guess he assumed they only made one pair. As it turns out, the victim's parents were able to produce a receipt for the purchase of the shoes. The [ASS]ailant is most likely going to jail and other students can no longer finish their education because they thought it was funnier to film the fight than to stop it. May the punishment fit the crime and may a 6'4, big-body bald guy in the pen share his love of shoes and make love to his pretty little feet NIGHTLY.

I'm not really sure what's happening with America's youth—its African-American youth—but I am certain that we have lost our collective mind. Violence? Over shoes? It's really not ever that serious. I really thought that kind of ignorance died out in the 90s.

I hate to generalize or stereotype, but acquiring jail time over sneakers while possibly being unemployed, not having a single stock in the company, or having voter's registration cards is hardly worth it. Certainly some of those patrons are hard-working people, but whether they work or not, there is clearly an epidemic of misplaced priorities and non-existent humanity that caused people to believe that getting their coveted shoes and covering their Nigga Toes is of more valuable than other human lives or their own futures.

I'm always careful about how I apply the term "N***a" because of the hurtful legacy associated with the word. But in this case, if the shoe fits, wear it ... just don't kill anybody or catch a case over it. Ignorance is ignorance no matter what the color, and in this case the color is shamefully black.

What exactly is it about a shoe that signifies social status? What makes us believe that having on an expensive pair of shoes is enough to fool others into believing that we are somehow financially well-off (or even stable)? Most people are aware that, although you're wearing your expensive shoes, you are still financially challenged. What is it about footwear that makes these individuals feel—fear in fact—that if they don't have on the latest and greatest, their social worth is somehow diminished? And what is the real place of the shoe in the "Cool Pose"?

What took place over these shoes has solidified Air Jordan's as the Official N***a Signifier. It will most likely be difficult from this day forward to look at any person wearing those dreaded shoes and not think, you're just another nigga who probably participated in some Nigga s*** to get a Nigga shoe.

Am I a snob for this? Probably so.

Do I care? Not at all.

Jordan is clearly in the business of making money. I'm sure he could care less about the impact events like this have on African American communities. It would be pointless to hope that he would speak out or have something positive to say to say to his own people admonishing them not to lose their minds over a shoe. But he should since clearly he is the god behind the idol and wields a certain amount of control over the bacchanalia. I won't hold my breath, but I hope that the countless individuals who got locked up, were pepper-sprayed, had their children confiscated by child protective services, and were injured, had time to ruminate the stupidity of Hood N***a idolatry. In the end you have a pair of shoes that you now must be fearful of wearing in public. In a few months when they are dirty, the money you spent will seem wasted. When post-holiday bills roll in that you cannot pay, you'll wish you had that money back. Jordan, however, —retired, dated, irrelevant in all things that really matter in this world—will be sitting on a mound of Hood N***a money laughing like a sinister demigod at how gullible African Americans are when it comes to pedal "elegance."

Congratulations Sir Jordan, you helped take a whole race of people backwards 20 years!

Enjoy your shoes ... N****s.

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James Baldwin: "Who Is The N****r?"

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:02:00 +0000

I don't care what anybody says ... I absolutely LOVE this guy. "You're the N****r baby, it isn't me..."

The Return of RHOA: "Bitch?" Please!

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:24:00 +0000

I've been out of the loop lately as it relates to what's on television, but I just got wind that the famed Real Housewives of Atlanta is returning to Bravo in a few weeks.

[Long Exasperated Sigh]

Between Basketball Wives, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, the last season of Celebrity Apprentice, and The Bad Girls Club, it has become pretty evident that the angry, bitchy black woman is America's newest cash cow.

Add to that the fact that Donald Trump is the man behind The Ultimate Merger which first starred America's seminal bitchy black woman, Omarosa Manigualt-Stallworth, and has now moved on to cast former America's Top Model contestant, Tocarra, as its "star." I'm still a bit confused by why TVOne—a BLACK network—is the vehicle for Trump's show. Wasn't he behind the Birther Movement not too long ago that all of black America took as a veiled racist assault against its first black President? Hmmm. ... ponder that for a moment. Its pretty evident that black American women are the new target market (and tool).

But let's not get confused, this is not a "come-up" for black women. It is not a valiant increase in visibility. It is a twisted capitalization on the marketability of her anger and disenchantment with life. In a few weeks Nene Leakes will be doling out tongue lashings and snatching wigs. Millions will sit in their living rooms watching it, deriving sadistic pleasure from the imminent train-wreck style editing. They will watch and love it just the same way they loved Tami Roman mercilessly pimp-slapping Meeka Claxton this summer on Basketball Wives. A few will feel a bit of uneasy shame, but they won't stop watching. These ordinary women who supposedly "married up" will become fodder for America's fixation with reality TV—which is far from real—and no one will really speak on how we have come to reward this kind of bad behavior, what messages it inscripts for young impressionable black girls, or why this is the road to celebrity status. We will simply watch.

The low-brow behavior of reality TV is legitimized by the fact that the producers cast supposedly high-brow women to perform these shenanigans. I mean, the behavior is classed by women sashaying out of rented mansions in Louboutins right? That is to say nothing of the fact that most of them can't even pronounce the name of the shoe they are wearing. But the purported economic class of these women precludes their being relegated to the category of "hood rat" doesn't it?

You've got to wonder what the subliminal message is when these individuals supposedly represent upper-class Black America. This is as good as we get? Really? Meanwhile, women all across the country shimmy and neck-roll in some debased black man's face screaming, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T! FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO ME!" Umm, pardon me, but ... have a talk with your sister first. Get her together and remind her what SELF-respect means, and maybe then we can work on this great revival of respect you so desire.

We devote whole shows to this kind of behavior, (and of course everyone can't WAIT for the reunions). Most are just happy to see beautiful black women made more visible on television, without question of how it reshapes the black identity. As much as I wasn't a fan, I'm starting now to see Oprah Winfrey as yesterday's gatekeeper gone sadly out to a ~~rich~~, verdant pasture. In a way her presence sort of kept it all respectable and gave us the polarized opposite of this madness. Sure she's got her (O)wn network now ... but nobody's really watching. I'd like to think the baton was passed to Michelle Obama, but her blackness is constrained by the politics of just being the first bi-racial (sometimes black, but not really) President's wife. So, who's the gatekeeper now? Nene? Tami? Meeka? Star? Is it possible that these women have taken over the roll of defenders/presenters of black female respectability and identity? If so, then we need to start asking, who in the hell left the gate OPEN? And hide your wives! Hide your daughters! ’Cause they're corrupting everybody out here.

I guess the question I am putting on the table here is where is all of this going? What will be the fallout of the rise in popularity of the Bitchy Black Woman? She is an archetype. She has agency. She apparently has market value. And as we have seen in times past, as the nation's media goes, so goes its culture-at-large—for better or worse. This demonic archetype is meretriciously masquerades herself as the "empowered" woman when in reality she does far more to dis/empower the collective respectability of the sisterhood to which she belongs. So where is this clamorous, fisticuff-riddled, backwards rolling ride going? Seemingly backward is the new forward ... but it's okay? I know everybody's got to make a living, and to a degree reality shows are unscripted soap operas whose cast acts out the role they believe will keep them most relevant and employed. But these ladies should re-evaluate the expense of selling their souls to the pop-culture devil. Take a break, sip some champagne, and eat a little bit of that make-up you're packing on ... so you can be pretty inside too. Contrary to your self-absorbed belief, you are a role model, whether you like it or not, and our daughters are not a "Non-MothaF****ing Factor."

[Thanks for that ending Ev]

What EXACTLY was the message here? Yeah. Claaaaaaaaaaaassy!!!

There's money to be made...

The Bad Girls Club: Amber M. & Kayla Fight by TheDlisted

Embarrassingly, Kayla couldn't even fight.

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"Is Marriage for White People?"—Who Still Believes?

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:25:00 +0000

A Wedding at Detroit's Second Baptist Church

No, Ralph Richard Banks, marriage is not [just] for white people. Your book, however—which seems to reduce it to nothing more than a business contract among high-bidders—is.

Despite what the media reports, we still get married, we still love, we still get through tough times together—we make it. The unacknowledged (but controlling and influential) American narrative has never been written by Black Americans, but rather, by others, to undergird the cultural norms they—white male America—want to sustain. Is Marriage for White People does a great job of contributing to the deletion of significant Black realities in favor of their oppositional counterparts. It's more than economics; it's ’til death do us part, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Perhaps time would have been better spent penning success strategies because they do exist.

I'm torn about even uploading this post because I don't want the book to gain any traction. (That's seriously not a "hater" move, just a belief in supporting the institution rather than tearing it down). But when I came across these two photos this morning, I was reminded why I believe, and why we need to believe; the issue was thrust in my face again and I felt compelled to write.

This whole notion that there is a shortage of available black men of quality seriously needs to be debunked. The general issue for me centers around the fact that we all know that not every woman who is looking for a good man is necessarily a good woman. This line of reasoning has always seemed to support the idea that "she who looks for a good man is by default good herself." It suggests that the black woman is collectively and ubiquitously a perfect species without fault or flaw—FARCE AND FALLACY. EVERYBODY wants "good." I don't know anyone who goes about looking for trash—except maybe the neurotics among us who have endured abusive relationships and thereby normalized dysfunctionalism in their lives. (But even they THINK they are in pursuit of what is classifiably good).

Let's tell the truth for once: MANY of the Black women out there are just as psychologically ~~screwed up~~ turned around as we (Black men) are, but maybe in less conspicuous and different ways. And the trauma that Black women have suffered is not SOLELY the result of mistreatment by Black men. There is a whole history of violation at the hands of white men that people like to conveniently forget about. "Massuh" ain't always been good to yous'ses; just ask your Great Great Granny.

And who says that marriage to a white man is automatically "pie-in-the-sky" anyway? While Banks' argument is conveniently couched in the specific language "date outside their race," let's not play the game, we all know that we live in a society dominated by the black/white binary first. There's something sick, psychotic, self-deprecating, and pathological about this kind of—dare I call it—"logic," which is really just concealed black demonization (coming from a man who is obviously of bi-racial descent himself). Personally, I find flinging around this kind of "White is Right" valorization disgusting. It is the same drivel that has been passed down the collective psychological pipeline ever since slavery that wants us to believe that we are the dregs of American society who should always be looking for a way to "come up." Isn't it interesting that you never hear any other race of people expressing this kind of self-hatred? There are reasons.

I can't express enough how much it bothers me when I hear this kind of rhetoric purporting that black women need to start looking outside of black men if they want to find happiness. I'm not against interracial dating—love who loves you back—but don't write us off and conclude that black men are trash simply because you couldn't find what you were looking for fast enough.

Sometimes the laws of attraction apply (read: you get what you are). Sometimes you simply need to re-evaluate what's important to you. And sometimes you have to put in the work to traverse the great mountain of "crap" that has been built to divide and conquer. But if money is all that matters to you—and plenty of it—then yes, the long-standing economic imbalance that is an inherent and systemic part of what creates the American class structure supports that you need to "go white" to "get your happy on." If, at the end of the day, you can be happy with a lot of money, and love is a secondary concern ... go for it! But if you have it in you to work with a Clyde who has the will and the skill to make his dreams come true with his Bonnie, then get on-board and bet on black, and stop buying into all this bull that circulates to generate dollars without sense. I mean, if I were Ralph Richard BANKS and I were going to pen a book, I'd certainly want to channel my energy into a book that was sure to make money ... and this topic is guaranteed to put the greenback shakedown on an already hysterical demographic.

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An Open Letter to the Black Church / A Requiem for Troy Davis

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:38:00 +0000

Dear Black "American" Church:

Today Troy Davis was denied clemency. Tomorrow he will be executed. While I’m sure his family appreciates all of the prayers and visceral expressions of remorse and regret, it probably isn’t enough and won’t do much to lessen the intensity of their pain.

This letter is prompted by discussions I have had with numerous persons today via Twitter and Facebook about the role of the black church in the political sphere. Seemingly the only thing that has moved the black church from its timidly privatized corner recently is the debate over the legalization of same sex unions. My concern is that there is far more the black church needs to be vocal about than overtly controversial issues of sexuality and sexual morality.

By no means am I saying that the black church as an institution is responsible for Troy Davis’s execution. We all know that there are far more complicated issues of race and politics at work in that decision. But there is an intersection of the political/secular and the spiritual spheres that warrants attention from black communities and churches.

All around this country churches are NOW having prayer vigils and expressing outrage about Davis’s impending execution—and it is too late. The justice system indeed is corrupt and the balance of power in America is hegemonically tilted in the favor of white Americans; that is no secret. But we can ill-afford to pretend that black people don’t createwhite power structures through their failure to vote, and in their repeated tendency to vote along the lines of their “spirituality,” while often ignoring the complex matrix of non-spiritual realities that face us as a nation. While inside the institution of the church we debate gender issues and jockey for large expansive facilities, the world around us hastens along a trajectory that continues to treat African Americans as "Social Non-Persons"; "things"; inconveniences; leftovers from an era America would prefer to forget.

It’s too late to pray. He will die tomorrow. It is not, however, too late to get involved in something other than our narcissistic focus on being a bigger institution. We cannot deny that this country itself was built and founded through spiritual manipulation. That is because shrewd and duplicitous individuals intuited that controlling a nation could be as easy as manipulating and insisting its faith. Those individuals used scriptures to de-culture our people, brainwash us into humble servitude, emasculate our men, disempower us politically through the proliferation of a belief that where we exist in society—the bottom of the totem pole—is where we belong, and to decimate our collective sense of self. Fast-forward to 2011, the institution is now lead by black faces who have taken the “Master” role over and continued propagating the legacy of subservient, lethargic sheepishness that only animates when there is a tragedy or an internal community injustice.

This. Must. Stop.

It’s too late to pray. He will die tomorrow. It is not too late, however, to educate black people—who attend your “mega” churches every week—on how to be engaged politically as a integral part of their spirituality, in order to ensure that there are no more Troy Davises.

Let’s be real about it—Troy Davis is paying the penalty for America having a bi-racial (but BLACK in the minds of most) President. Just as countless African Americans went to jail in the aftermath of O.J. Simpson's acquittal for petty crimes that hardly warranted the sentences that were handed down. While I can not unequivocally say that Davis is innocent, I CAN say that there is REASONABLE DOUBT, which apparently is a nullified concept if you're black. While Casey Anthony walks free and clear, Troy Davis will die. And he is dying because The Powers That Be™ need to send a message to black America. He is a sacrificial lamb, but tomorrow that lamb will not hang on a cross, he will suffer the pangs of a modern day lynching so that “Niggers” everywhere in America will be reminded who really is at the helm of America’s great white slave ship.

And while we’re being real, let’s be frank about another truth of our society: The idea that getting everyone “saved” will produce a “do-right” nation is a fallacy. Why? Because salvation has never, nor will it ever, trump the politics of race. Salvation does not make us blind. As a matter of fact, the only figure in history to have gone blind in the name of faith, was the Apostle Paul. If faith did make us blind, there would be no black church ... there would only be "the church." But peruse your local congregation of choice. How many melanin-deficient faces do you see? Should it be a blinding conversion? In theory, yes. Does it? In praxis, no. So since we are not living in a post-racial America, can we stop having prayer vigils when it’s too late? Can we stop acquiring land and space in the name of Kingdom expansion, only to teach people to be disengaged—full of faith, but empty of works? Can we stop using public tragedies as opportunities to establish platforms and gain attention when our involvement at the outset could prohibit the tragedy’s inevitability? Can we use the institution for black people in the same way it has been historically used against them? Instead of attacking poverty and joblessness with faith, we might want to consider attacking the institution that sanctions it in the first place—government—through votes.

It’s too late to pray. He will die tomorrow: a martyr and a lamb slain to give black America (and its most powerful and potent institution) a wake-up call. While admittedly the church is not as much the bedrock of the black community as it once was, it is still the only place where diverse strata of African Americans regularly gather to be indoctrinated. Maybe if you expanded the vision of your purpose—your raison d'etre—to include another way of approaching and achieving personal success and navigating the system that is designed to work against us; perhaps if you were open to the idea that there is another way of getting ahead and subverting the oppression of the system aside from "believing" for a better life ... you could fill your precious empty seats on Sunday.

Since you have their attention when they gather … somewhere in between your exuberant expressions of praise and your offertory worship … wedged between your extensive announcements about impotent programs and redundant services … SAY SOMETHING. But say it before the next execution. And say it before the next election. While you gather to pray for his soul, I think I'll spend my time preying on the system. After all, the church that preys together ...

Righteously Indignant,

An Angry Black Man.

R.I.P. Troy Davis, Victim of the Open Season

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." ~ MLK Jr.

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Raw Dog "Straw Dogs"

noreply@blogger.com (E. A. Moore) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:28:00 +0000

Summer 2011 failed to produce enjoyable cinema for me. After Columbiana it’s a wonder that I even ventured back to the theater at all. I was almost duped into seeing Contagion, but was forewarned that it’s not much more than a two-hour infomercial on the importance of hand-washing. Then came Straw Dogs. I have to say, this movie pleasantly surprised me, but I’m sure it’s only because it's a remake of a 1971 film—a time when movies as a whole had more depth and substance.

Straw Dogs proved to be great on many levels because it is part social commentary, part anthropological exploration, and part Cold War containment. As a layered film, it provides a little something for everyone: action for the moviegoer not interested in thinking too hard, a provocative probing of conflicting masculinity ideals for the more astute film buff, and a good old blue-blood American capitalism versus Russian Communism allegory for the erudite viewer.

SIGNS, SIGNFIERS, & MAN-MAKING

The film's symbols are impossible to miss. The cast is strategically structured across a continuum that builds suspense as the audience is asked to conjecture which direction the main characters will develop. Though there are many men in the film, they can really all be reduced to one. Coach Milkens, David Sumner, Charlie and the white trash town hoard, and Jeremy Niles are all really the same character. These men can be said to emanate as psychological projections of David’s character who is curiously in flux before our very eyes. They are pieces of a whole who constitute what lies within David and begs to be brought out, making him “a real man.” This is evident at the films opening as David looks at the guns hanging on the cabin wall—phallic extensions that signify David’s own lack of masculinity and signal to the audience that the journey we are about to embark upon is one that will eventually put these menacing phalluses in David’s hands, rendering him whole. He is feminized from the very beginning—bookish, artistic, rich, educated, riding around in his tiny little (phallic) Jaguar with the inauthentic hood ornament. His own wife doesn’t respect him. She makes this painfully clear as he attempts to seduce her, tracing chess pieces along her body as she, with closed eyes, guesses what each piece is. To his embarrassment she guesses that the tiniest piece, the pawn, is David’s penis.

Not a character from the original film, Coach Milkens is the ne plus ultra of hypermasculinity; he embodies the extreme of what David can possibly become. Beneath Milkens are Charlie Venner and his brood of blue collar laborers who, though absent the rage of Coach Milkens, are still hypermasculinized in a way that puts them a step above David on the social continuum. At the low extreme of that continuum, however, is Jeremy Niles—totally emasculated, mentally handicapped, and oblivious to reality. Niles is pushed around and whipped frequently by Coach Milkens and practically anyone else who wishes to do so. David must negotiate within himself whether he will go the extreme route of Coach Milkens or lose all of his agency and become not only feminized, but obliviously void of agency like Niles. David is eager to declare Niles the “Straw Dog”— a gutted disposable shell of a man—yet he does not realize that he himself is really the straw dog. At the close of the film when David is adamantly trying to protect Niles (whom he really does not "know"), the question moviegoers are inclined to ask is Why? If you consider that Niles is a mere projection, it is clear that David is not protecting another man, he is metaphorically protecting a part of himself. Niles then, is a mere doppelganger, a sacred innocence brought to life whom David must protect.

In the same way these men combine to place projections of David on the screen, there are a few characters who may also be symbolically reduced to one woman: Amy Sumner. The pure white virginal pussycat and the duplicitously emblematic cheerleader (who both suffer the same fate of suffocation/asphyxiation), are mere psychological projections of Sumner. She is the suffocated pussy who only exists to validate David’s masculinity and man-status, (or to take it away from him based upon how he chooses to play the hand dealt to him). She is essentially a gateway (or bridge) to his development, ever challenging him to man up and grow a pair, (which he ultimately does, but with consequence). What is missing from the 2011 remake that would have added substantially to the ending is the original ending in which Niles states to David: “I don’t know who I am” and David replies, “Neither do I.” He loses himself in the process of developing his metaphorical gonads, having been reduced to the level of the men that he has all along thought himself socially better than. At the apex of his ascent to manhood, he reaches the nadir point of his humanity. The clear philosophical question is whether or not men are legibly their least when rendering their legibly debatable "greatest" masculine performance.

The writers put masculine ideals in conflict with one another—a trope also exemplified through the football metaphor—creating tension, and ask the audience to consider whether one performance of masculinity truly trumps the other at the point when the deficiencies of both become completely obvious. Men are animalistic and hedonistic by nature, but perhaps that animal is best kept caged, for when he is released, everything is destroyed. Masculinity rests on a continuum wherein the middle ground is not such an awful place to be though society is constantly pulling on us to declare our subscription to either of its antipodal ends. In the end, all of the symbols of David’s masculine middle(class) ground are destroyed: his tiny little phallic car, his great big rustic mansion, his bookish spectacles are broken, and his barn—a storehouse for his goods and supply— is burned to the ground. He is reduced, broken, and attenuated in the name of protecting his not so pure pussy cat from being asphyxiated to death, and we are asked to consider who did more damage to her— middle-ground, feminized, ball-less David, or raging Charlie & Gang who raped her and took from her a virtue she never really possessed in the first place. While David was out in the woods shooting a prize-winning buck (which NO ONE saw happen)—thinking he was becoming a man—the townsmen were in his home, raping his wife. He left his gateway unguarded and forfeited the true route to his so-called manhood. David went to war to protect an idealized woman who, from the beginning, was sexually and morally ruined. She attempts to change the year of his manuscript from 1943 to 1944—a change meant to reflect her wish to change herself,—but Charlie scathingly reminds her that the year was really 1943, signifying that no matter how she tried to reinvent herself, the town and its men knew the truth of her history and it could not be rewritten; once a whore, always a whore.

KILL THE COMMIE BASTARD

Straw Dogs also explores the 1971 Cold War preoccupation with the concept of "containment." David exemplifies a form of communism that Americans believed could not be allowed to spread. The first obvious sign is the manuscript he is writing about Stalin. Secondary to his intellectual focus point, however, is the communist way he lives his life. He is financially well off, and spreads money around on a whim to people who have not earned it. He pays the laborers who are doing work on his home $5000 for work they had not completed. He does not believe in the Judeo-Christian God of the community, which proves to be a major offense. He offers frequently to pay for drinks at the bar for customers he did not know—yet another offense. Money is no obstacle for him. This points the viewer in the direction of communism’s principle of “to each according to his need.” That principle is in direct opposition to the American capitalism Charlie and his crew exemplify. In capitalism, the celebrated belief is “to each according to his ability”—men must earn what they obtain. When this system is disrupted—as when David pays the men to go away—chaos resonates, and its source must be exterminated. It is the classic bourgeoisie versus proletariat battle brought to the screen.

The communal belief is that communism itself, with all of its liberal ideas, must be contained and confounded, just as David’s barn (storehouse) is burned to the ground at the film’s end. But not only is he a communist, so is Amy. Her liberal/liberated femininity/sexuality was a major Cold War concern as well. This is born out by David’s suggestion that she “put on a bra” and "contain" her symbolic breasts instead of running around flopping all over the place. Though he is a communist/socialist, he attempts to impose a level of containment on Amy because she is the center of his conflict with the townsmen. The film posits that women are the root of all evil and conflict in the world of men. That which men do in the way of war, can ultimately be reduced to acts of protection and containment, emanating from his need to possess and protect women (and children—who, in the minds of men are analogous to one another) and thereby prove his dominant status in the world he lives in. Women must be dominated, contained, and controlled, and the communist woman must not be allowed to spread her liberal rhetorics around the world—an idea brought forth by Amy’s television appearance, which can be viewed as her potential to affect and infect others. Sheer genius.

In the end, the communist is stripped of the accoutrements that make him a threat: the storehouse/barn (a money symbol), a questionably virtuous woman, prosperity (the tiny phallic car), and property. Note that the car is not destroyed until, first, its faux penile hood ornament is knocked off—a symbolic castration. Though he finally has the symbolic penis from the wall in his hand and has effectively attached it to his being, at the film's denouement he has been brought low. The capitalists have been wiped out (an act that could only occur after removing the juridical restraint of law exemplified by murdering the unrespected black Sheriff), but what is left is the suggestion that none of this would have happened if the communist had not asserted himself and stayed out of the capitalist’s milieu. David, the communist, brought chaos, and destroyed the social order of the idealized, blue-blooded, fictive, American town.

Straw Dogs is far more than an action film and much more than entertainment; it is a piece of history. Though the original film was very controversial due to the prolonged rape scene, its underlying messages trump the shock and awe reaction of offended American sensibilities. It would be WONDERFUL if modern day film makers could take up a cause of some sort and return to making movies with depth. Until such time, we'll have to make due with ballsy remakes.

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