nykinora

I've only recently started posting again, but is it just me bring happily unobservant as hell for the longest time or were there *always* ads for Asian wives and such on LJ?

My interest has also been somewhat stoked when I've read posts that are resistant to or critical of Slutwalk and the kind of rage, defensive ire and insults that the authors of dissenting posts have been been subject to which I'm going to address in my next post.To conclude, I just want to look at a few of the most common rebuttals to criticism of Slutwalk and mull these over. Most of these complaints don't come from the organisers, and originate from posters who claim to be part of the movement:

* "Slutwalk isn't a primarily young, white, middle class, hetero movement. It's racially and ethnically diverse! Many of the partcipants and organisers are, in fact, POC"

Perhaps this is true. I've read accounts of people being surprised at the diversity that they encountered on these walks. But for those of us who aren't actually *there* thing is, you'd never know it thanks to the way it is presented and usually discussed. The problem is that when you court or capture the lens of a 'mainstream' (read = white dominated) media then that select demograph, if present, always 'becomes' the representative face of the movement ... Most of the photos I've seen, whether in news media or on blogs are blindingly white, and most of the people that are photographed, intereviewed and spoken to are ... guess what? Yes, I've seen minorities milling around, usually in the background. Occasionally, some are even at the centre of photos, but this seldom happens. So why then, would you be surprised if you aren't perceived as diverse? Which brings up the question: do you actually want to be perceived as diverse, or to actually BE diverse? And no, it doesn't matter for example if you preface a blog entry by "proclaiming" how mixed and diverse it all was when your accompanying pictures look like this. And as we all know images have a greater immediacy and direct impact than  WORDS.

* "Why would it matter *if* 'Slutwalk" was primarily comprised of white middle class women? White middle class women are victims of rape too and deserve to have a voice! You're just being racist against white women!1111!"

True to the first two statements. The last just gets a dismissive laugh. No time for 101, sorry.

Yes, white middle class women can be victims of sexual violence and have a right to speak up. Yet when it comes to police negligence, disrespect and violence, like it or not, white middle class het women are  as a group *comparatively* sheltered compared to most other groups of women. And while white middle class women are also victims of sexual violence, they don't bear the primary or heaviest costs and consequences of society's sexual violence as a GROUP. They don't actually shoulder the burden of being perpetualy on the receiving end of most of that violence, and the worst of that violence. Yet, for *some* reason as a GROUP they always get the lion's share of representation and are always positioned as the representative faces, poster girls and voices that 'speak' for everyone, to the point where it is downright predictable and tiresome. Yet it's not a privilege that as a group that they appear to be working too hard to dismantle anytime soon. In these siutation, we already know that white women will receive the invitation to occupy centre stage - and we know that they never pass up these opportunities. And we know who tends to remain obscured in the shadows.

No one is contesting the right of white middle class women to organise against sexual violence, which is simply a strawman's argument. But when the the faces and voices that are predominantly seen and heard over and over again look eerily similar, then it stops looking like a 'right' and starts looking an awful lot like flat out privilege ....

* "Slutwalk is on behalf of all women! We are doing this for women EVERYWHERE!"

* Groans *

Uh no. No you're not even if you'd like to imaginatively co-opt "all" women, push them into helpless object status then nobly perch yourself upon a white horse...

It's amazing that anyone would even think that a group of protests which actually evolved as a reaction to a highly local (Toronto) and specific(cop on campus) set of circumstances, is for the benefit of *ALL* women everywhere, across the globe, even as the idea spreads, morphs and adapts as I type. Nevermind that a number of women have openly stated that they they don't feel included amongst its ranks, aren't comfortable with the idea of reclaiming the term slut or find the specific term irrelevant to their own situation, or find the methods, approach and motivation behind the protests highly problematic. But clearly, none of these women can actually speak for themselves and decide where they are positioned in relation to Slutwalk. It is for the good of ALL women damn it, like it or not because ... you say it is?

* "Sexual violence is a universal problem. We need to universally unite and face the problem which is what this movement is doing."

Yes and no to the first statement, since the variables of the violence and the form often differ across cultural group. Yes, sexual violence against women occurs across cultures, sub-groups and so forth, but that doesn't mean that you can conflate Slutwalk's highly specific approach to combatting said violence with the 'universality' of sexual violence. And I don't understand the implicit aversion to the idea of women working wherever they happen to be situated and dealing with specific situations. After all, despite all the grand rhetoric around Slutwalk universality, that's actually what happened in Toronto, isn't it? They didn't 'universally unite' to fight the good fight or rise up against heteropartriarchy any such thing. A group of women got together and dealt with a specific siutation (and insult) as they saw fit. Stop with the grand and obfuscating narratives already ...

* "Stop hating on white women for getting off their asses, organising and actually doing something to combat sexual violence. What are other women doing about it anyway? (And in case you didn't hear it before: We're working for the benefit of ALL women."

Yes. Because until the heroic advent of Slutwalk, 'other' women were idly twiddling their thumbs and no one anywhere was doing a damn thing to combat sexual violence and patriarchal attitudes towards rape victims? This also ties into the two previous claims. What I find interesting is that when various POC women around the world band together and start community initiatives, be it saving seeds in the face of  genetically engineered 'self-terminating' seeds invading the biodiversity of their food stocks; attending to unsafe working, housing or environmental conditions or, I dunno ... halting a rape culture in its tracks by getting two rebel armies to sit at the same table and talk, overthrow a dictator and get a female president elected in backward, oppressive Liberia,  "Africa"; or by playing critical roles in spearheading democratic movements in Egypt and Syria, notice how none of these groups of women grandiosely waft on about how they did it for ALL women 'everywhere', or that ALL women everywhere are benefitting from their actions (however, heroic, hard working or far-reaching their actions are)?

Nor are they big-headed enough to suggest that ALL women everywhere should be (ugh) "grateful" for their activism, or that their specific methods and strategies would apeal to or be suitable for all women. Instead, they give an account of what they did, outline their methods, tell their stories and above all presume to speak for themselves. Often, they will say that they did it for their communities, their children (or future generations), their families, or friends and neighbours. Some might even mention 'the nation' or connect their work to the work of women elsewhere. But rarely, if ever, have I seen them adopt some condescending 'savior' mantle in regards to their own activism. They don't resort to this self-glamourising, self-validating, universalising bullshit (the heroic 'everywoman' who valiantly champions ALL beknighted women everywhere) that too much of mainstream white feminism, can't seem to do without. They don't indulge in the kind of overweening hubris and CCS (centre stage syndrome) it would take to even make such a grandiose claim in the first place.

"Stop dragging race into this! This is about gender not about race!"

x sighs x POC women leave your 'race' at the door I guess which you can separate from your gender the way you separate a yolk from the rest of the egg?

"I could understand if you suggested that there was degree of white privilege in Slutwalk. But to suggest that it's underpinned by (zomg!) white supremacy? Do you know how that makes the movement look? That's irresponsible and damaging!"

This, by far, was perhaps my favorite complaint against Aura Blogando's "Slutwalk: A Stroll through White Supremacy" which I thought had a number of salient points to make. I particularly like the fact that she was so quick to identify the ideological and cognitive disjuncture that lies across different groups regarding how they perceive the police, and what the police signifies to them. A number of commentators viscerally objected to the use of the term 'white supremacy' and did not want the movement to be tarred with that undesirable brush.

Take this quote from Slutwalk Toronto in response to title of Blogando's article, for example:
Once again, there seems to be much anxiety over a perceived 'image' problem since for some at least, the term 'white supremacy' connotes pointy white hoods, active violence against POCs, silencing and erasure and what have you.  I think that just as there is so much ideological and congnitive disonance over what the police represent and signify to different groups of women on the basis of race, class, sexual orientation and overall life experience, I think that we also have divergent viewpoints in relation to what the words "white supremacy" mean.

As a POC, I find the idea that you *have* to have exposure or privileged access to education in order to be able to 'understand' what the term white supremacy actually means to be rather amusing. Please. White and POC children alike get a daily education in white supremacy along with their breakfast and they don't need to be sent to an ivory tower at age 18 in order to be able to get a grasp on it. Nor do you need to get a rarefied education in order to be able to recognise it for what it is.

This is my understanding of the term from a relatively young age:

White people often secretly and not-so-secretly think that they are simply bettter than 'other' people, thanks to having the most 'advanced' civilisation the world has ever known and having generously contributed more to 'mankind' than anyone else. Their systems, methods, institutions reflect the best and only way to do anything.  Their institutions are superior and smarter which everyone should automatically mimic and adopt.  And despite being a minority population on the planet they somehow speak in a 'universal' voice and are the spokespeople of all 'humanity'  - as the average Hollywood can attest to. They are born leaders, invested with innate agency and are the only ones who can act successfully or do anything right. Everything they say, think or do is World-shatteringly Important. They tend to regard themselves as in a position to speak on 'behalf' of others no matter what the situation or despite their own lack of knowledge or actual experience, and are then encouraged/enabled to do so. It's completely fitting and right that their views and voices are always privileged above all others, constantly aired and placed centre-stage all day, every day. This almost isn't even worth noticing let alone commenting on. It is simply the natural order of things and just the way that it just *happens* to go ... It's the norm, since they are the norm.

You can define 'white supremacy' as a belief without nary a melodramatic mention of whips, hoods, guns, or gas ovens? x eye roll x It's just the simple idea that white people are taught from an early age to think they are better and are thus 'naturally' the ones to lead the way or run the conversation on just about anything - which, I am pretty sure is what Blogando was referring to in regards to Slutwalk. Newsflash: 'White supremacy' as a concept is about as remarkable, extreme, and 'out there' as misogyny or sexism. (i.e. it's actually a pretty commonplace ideology that just about everyone gets indoctrinated to or comes into contact with at some point and is an integral part of society thanks to the last 600 years. The term doesn't even qualify  certainly even qualify for an arched eyebrow.)

If you don't get panic attacks when ever you hear terms like sexism or misogyny (which has historically had some pretty dire consequences) then why start chewing your finger nails whenever terms like racism or white supremacy appear?

Slutwalk may be indeed be 'white supremacist' insofar as it centres a white way or method of doing things (riot grrrl posture, emphasis on Western liberal individualism, romantic idealisation of the police) yet some of its more arrogant members claim that they are speaking and acting 'universally'. Despite who may or may not be participating in the walks, it also privileges the faces and voices of white middle class women with the clear implication that they are somehow more worthy of being seen, heard or listened to all of which falls into line, rather than resists the economy of 'exposure' as determined by a white, Western media.

ETA: tags and as usual, spelling and grammar!

Okay, this is going to take an unexpected turn, but I think this kind of demonstrates that activism *is* culturally informed and that there is a white way of doing things and apporaching problems that doesn't necessarily appeal to or work for everyone ...

When I was first told of the "Slutwalk" protests I shrugged, and said: "cool" and .. that was it. I didn't bother to give it much further thought. And like many other people across the internet have already written of their own reactions to their event, it seemed vaguely interesting, yet remote and distant from me and not simply because of a lack of geographical proximity. I think much of my initial ambivalence was due to the way in which the protests were presented, and my general disinterest and distrust of most mainstream media and its tendency towards sensationalism, obsessive fixation on whiteness and its love of the banal.

My initial ambivalence wasn't at all helped by the rrriot girrrrl image of the 'movement' that is pushed and promoted as the face of Slutwalk, irrespective as to how accurate this media portrayal might actually be. I thought 'gimmick'. 'Spectacle'. Edgy, daring and subversive theater with all the seductive glamour of the media lens and the male gaze. All very Lady Gaga (All that underwear'!) with just as much substance. Or perhaps it's a "Girls Run the World!" moment, a real lark. Hey, even looks like it could potentially be fun.... Yet none of this resembles anything that looks like a serious, well thought out, sustained, organised and above all mature adult movement.

I was particularly bemused by the furore of both the media and the girls/women who initiated the protests in reaction to a police officer who was deeply sexist and engaged in a loud-mouthed bout of victim blaming for rape, which apparently is ... shocking ... Because we don't live in a rape culture and the male-dominated police aren't an integral part of that culture, but somehow magically transcend it all, or at least ought to? Because apparently the police as an institution aren't a colonial settler institution designed to protect the (state) interests of the white, the wealthy and the predominantly male while perpetually criminalising, policing and terrorising all the 'non-normatives' (i.e. the "non-white", the indigneous, the non heterosexual, the non propertied and the poor  - the majority of whom also *happen* to be women) because that's their freakin' job, and they do so with the blessing of the state? No. Because they are actually there to serve and protect us all (as we were informed in primary school) save for this dreadful loud-mouthed anomaly who was let loose on campus.

This isn't to say that I condone cops cavalierly making sexist, misogynistic comments or that anyone else should. Denounciation and objection is a fitting response and I think that's what they have attempted to do. But when the police utter such statements, whether its on the side of the road to one of *those* women when no one is looking or in full view on a 'respectable' university campus, either way I can't see it as an outrageous breach of how I perceive them and the world to be in general. If anything, it is a confirmation of my understanding of who and what they are, how they work, who and what they represent. Who doesn't know that there is a culture of victim blaming amongst the police? While there are individual exceptions, as an INSTITUTION they don't have a great deal of respect for women? (Hence the notion of uh, institutional sexism.)

What's next? Being oh-so-shocked that the police are in fact deeply, deeply racist both instituionally and attitudinally? Considering there are so many instances of police disrespect and violence towards women on a daily basis why was this particular instance of disrespect deemed shocking enough to elicit and mobilise actual protests and street marches? Why does this stand as the proverbial 'last straw'? And considering some of the things that the police actually do (hello recent Oscar Grant verdict ...) is the outrage then based not so much on what was actually said but on where it was said it and to whom? (i.e. in public and on a university campus no less while directing it at a group of women (white, young, middle class and educated) who by and large ordinarily wouldn't be the "standard" audience for receiving this?)

These are just my own impressions, but as an onlooker I felt that the early, reactionary inception of Slutwalk seemed to be a rhetorical wrestling over the image of the police and an attempt to restore that image with some quick-fix ideological mending taking place. The police had the temerity to temporarily slip outside of their rhetorical identity of 'serving and protecting' and casually revealed how some of them actually think of and perceive rape victims and women in general, mindlessly repeating the prevalent fallacy that one's state of dress actually dictates sexual harrassment and violence. Enter Slutwalk in which a diverse group of women AND girls across a range of ages, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, socio-economic backgrounds, and body types hit the streets dressed as they ordinarily do in their everyday lives (be it a nun's habit, business suit, hijab, mini skirt, hot pants, or burlesque underwear) denouncing the ridiculous notion that rape has anything whatsoever to do with clothing and demanding that not only the police but that men AND women alike rethink this attitude and stop perpetrating the myth that rape and clothing have some kind of causal link ... Furthermore, by dressing in a variety of ways, as opposed to donning a saucy "slut" uniform, these girls and women challenged rather than conformed to the conventionallly heterosexist and masculine notion of what a slut looks or dresses like (i.e. in a state of undress) thus suggesting the idea that any woman can no matter HOW she is dressed/undressed, can be arbitrarily sexualised and assigned slut status

(As an aside, let me just say that in light of recent scientific 'studies', I'm surprised that no one has currently tried to conduct a study to "prove" this causal link. Or maybe they have already.)

My imaginings aside, my initial impression of what actually took place was that we had the usual suspects gracing our TV screens, whether or not they were actually the main bulk of the protestors: primarily young, mostly white, middle class and educated almost uniformly dressed in their underwear or sexy 'costumes' (thus tamely conforming to rather than complicating or critiquing the masculinist and heterosexist notion of what a 'slut' supposedly looks like) marching down to the police station for an apology of all things, rather than ... I dunno ...engaging in the hard work of actually examining and critiquing the police as a sexist institution and then mounting a challenge to the way the police work at a social, insitutional and practical level ... which might even include actually questioning if we in fact want or need them at all? Questions of whether it is even remotely logical or practical to have a predominantly male police force when most of the victims are female and most of the perpetrators are male... could also arise? But no.

Instead, there was an outraged demand that the police "not say those things" in public; that they don a respectable mask of civility and resume the 'correct' and cuddly rhetorical position of being friendly protectors and servers of the community or whatever, irrespective of whether this actually has any bearing on reality. In effect, it seems as if the initial Slutwalkers wanted the police to lie to them about the CRITICAL role that they, as police, play in upholding heteropatriarchy and the role they play in perpetuating those values. Why? So that the protestors didn't *have* to feel discomforted by the unpleasant glimpse behind the mask and could retain their illusions about the 'true' role of the police and feel safer and 'better? They wanted the police to uphold the IMAGE (as opposed to reality) of serving and protecting. Seriously, why else would you march down to the den of the beast to demand, of all things not institutional justice and fairness but request a retraction of the offending words ... Because image is everything? Who cares if the police ARE deeply, viciously sexist in practice, but heaven forbid, if they *sound* like sexists ...

Most of us, however, who fall outside the 'normative' boundaries of white middle class, het femininity don't have the sheer luxury of such an incredibly naive notion about the role of the police and hence have no shattered illusions to recoup or restore. Apparently part of the aim of the protests is for " ...Toronto Police Services to take serious steps to regain [their] trust” which is pretty telling really. They don't want to change the police at any fundamental, mind. They just want their faith in the institution comfortably restored and they can continue their starry eyed romance about the police. x blinks x

Cognitive dissonance ensues ...

The other thing that all of this indicates is the privilege one must have to be comfortable enough to rock on up towards (as opposed away from ) your local police in any guise, far less in your damn underwear. (Again, I have no aesthteic or moral objection to it. It's just not something that I think I could ever safely do or get away with, without very real consequence because I know that the police aren't even 'meant' to rhetorically pretend that they have any vested interest in protecting women like me.) Funnily enough, not only did this strike me as a college gimmick but one that neatly caters to rather than disrupts the existing male het gaze anyway ...There is very little about the imagery from these protests that I've seen that strikes me as remotely daring or genuinely transgressive. Thin, 'acceptable' white bodies in underwear and on public display? As if we're not innundated with that all day, every day. If anything, the early image of Slutwalk seemed to be working to an established rather than a subversive script.

Furthermore, I find it interesting that some people will try to deny that the form that the protest initially took  *is* in fact, culturally and racially informed. Whereas for me, even before I saw the protestors I assumed that they were white Western college girls who were probably American. (As it so happens, they're  Canadian, but still North American nevertheless. I certainly didn't expect to hear that they were a group of say, Syrian women for example.) The point is, that the way they went about protesting (including their specific use of theatre) seemed to be distinctly white and very much from that part of the world. They did it the white way which is all fine and well, but nothing about it screamed 'universal' to me and yet some will try and are trying to to claim that Slutwalk is or should be a universal approach to tackling sexual violence.

Personally, for the record, I don't approve OR disapprove of Slutwalk and for the time being at least am ambivalent, leaning towards mild interest. Despite my scepticism about the early beginnings of the protests and some of its initial ains (which I've outlined here)  it sounds as if it is gathering momentum and diversifying its ranks across class and race which could be promising ... It also sounds as if countries outside of North America are borrowing and adapting the idea to suit their specific needs. Despite the seeming narrowness and shallowness of the roots, perhaps the tree will bear fruit? I think it will be interesting to see how women with children, children, the elderly and the disabled movement re-shape and adapt the movement to suit their own purposes because let's face it: not everyone can comfortably partake in the specific visual theatre of slutwalk as it currently stands. I guess people are going to have to find their own way to protest should they choose to join in or support it.

Or perhaps not.
Failing that, they will probably continue to go about the business of doing things their way and continue to work in the movements that support and enable this. Either way, Slutwalk or no the world will turn and activism will continue.

(Part III pending)

ETA: errors and tags

Might as well write while I'm in the mood, though I will admit to being tired. (Late night last night.)

But since I've been on the issue of movements, I've thought of another post that I should definitely be citing. Afro_Dyte (also of "Tulpa or Anne&Me" fame) wrote a post that I read not too long ago about how movements are informed and instructed by culture. I really hope she doesn't mind when I quote a line from that post:

"This is people who know what's up understanding that if we want freedom, justice, and equality for all, we have to do it the right way, not the White way."

I think the reason why that line and the entire post resonated with me is that even at a (relatively) young age, I've always felt that culture wasn't something that was decorative, surface and incidental but that it indicated the way a people moved through and existed in the world and interacted with it; it also informed how they saw it, how they saw themselves, and how they saw others and then proceeded to interact with said others. Culture informed how you saw and understood. These days I might refer to it as an 'interlocking set of epistemes' or some such nonsense, but the point is that whenever problems arose solutions and models are shaped and generated by the culture in question.

In New Zealand for example, Maori insistence that they have the right, the space and the sovereignty to come up with Maori solutions to Maori problems (be it health, education, housing, retention of te reo, land, justice or child abuse) is often met with scorn and derision by mainstream (read: Pakeha and Pakeha-identified) NZ, and branded as 'wrong' or 'separatist' and creating illusory differences that challenge the tired and disingenous rhetoric of 'one' nation. Pakeha in turn adamantly insist that one size fits all and that what works for them can, will and indeed *should* work for everyone else - especially Maori -  never mind the consistent and stunning failure of paternalisitc Pakeha initiatives for Maori is long documented.

But Pakeha, like all other white settler people are, by and large, convinced in the 'rightness of to the point where they honestly believe that rather than other people taking charge of their own lives and destinies and finding their need to change themselves and then adapt/submit to the white (i.e. 'right') way which of doing things, no matter how awful, damaging or plain ineffective it acutally proves to be. Rather than finding methods that suit you and work for you, your job as a POC is to twist and re-align yourself to someone else's methods. In effect, the only purpose that 'other' people exist for is to reify the correctness and efficacy of white governance and inevitably, supremacy. White ways rule supreme

All of which brings me to something that I probably wouldn't have wasted anytime writing on, given my initial reaction. But here goes ... (See next post)

This might seem like an odd re-entry into posting, but I was just perusing around live journal and came across an entry on witchsistah's lj, that chronicled her own experiences dealing with colorism in her own community.

So I just wanted to get a couple of thoughts down about colorism; namely that it is REAL and that it's the elephant in the room that we all know exists but that we are repeatedly told not to "waste" too time devoting too much attention to, because it's a 'distraction'. I guess I also want to write about it at a time where (tiresome) 'artists' like Beyonce are celebrated on the one hand, yet also analysed and dissected for possible skin bleaching or at "best" for colluding with strategic editorial lighting and lightening in order to advance her career, around a variety of blogs that I like to read.

Yet, I get so weary of dismissive and disingenuous mantras ("let's put our differences aside and fight the good fight" and the even more twee and fatuous "we're all in this together") being used to silence and elide the very real issues of pigmentocracy/colorism which run rampant across a range of POC communities, including (or perhaps, especially) in black communities.

Look: if we were indeed "all in this together" then that would go without saying and it would hardly need to be (wistfully or stridently) repeated, ad infinitum. Simply repeating a thing over and over again doesn't magically materialise it into an existing truth.

Despite attempts to trivialise it, pigmentocracy/colorism reflects a set of deeply ingrained social attitudes as it operates through every level of society. Not only does colorism actually exist in the real world (as opposed to "la la la I can't heeearrr yooouuu" land) but it actually helps to determine the very fabric of said world, thus making a nonsense of cries for unity (however heartfelt), unless colorism is truly acknowledged and combated. If anything, colorism is routinely used as a tool to divide and regiment entire societies. It effectively separates people, thus actually preventing us/them from ever being all in *this* "together". Thanks to colorism, the claim that we are 'all in this together' proves to be an imprecise and unanalytical illusion. Consequently, I fail to see how simply ignoring it or downplaying its incredibly dvisive and harmful effects is going to magically affect a shift AWAY from such a destructive paradigm.

What I find really interesting in all of this, however, is that the people who are most hurt and victimised by colorism and/or have the temerity to identify it for what it is and call it out, are the ones most likely to be blamed for "creating" a problem or instilling disunity and so forth through the mere act of identifying colorism and its negative effects. If anything, they are seen as the creators of colorism and unnecessary divisiveness. This operates in much the same way that people who identify acts of racism or racist patterns or tendencies ARE the true 'racists' and are the actual source of or perpetrators of racism, seeking to fabricate the very thing that they are opposing ... x eye roll x

I hear, for instance, perpetual claims about darker skinned, 'less attractive' women 'hating on' or being "jellus" of the success of their lighter skinned counterparts and 'dividing' up people on the basis on skin tone, because it's not as if the world at large came up with the idea in the first place and ruthlessly continues to operate along this cherished principle. Oh no. It's the darker skinned hoards who are creating the problem, or at least upholding and supporting colorism by ... mentioning it, or unduly dwelling on it ? Thus, irrational and petty personal jealousy (rather than say, long-standing systemic colorism which consistently privileges and rewards lighter skin) is the true culprit here. 'Jealousy' is creating trifling divisions in the more pressing and over arching fight against Racism (capital 'r') -  or so the 'argument' goes ...

As a result, we are all supposed to simply pretend that racism is an equal opportunity predator that both operates and impacts upon us all in an identical, universal and undifferentiated fashion. It is as if we are supposed to pretend that there is no such thing as light(er) skinned privilege, which includes tangible social, economic and employment benefits, irrespective of where we might be specifically situated in the racial 'economy' or hierarchy or whatever you want to call it. I think the one thing that I like about Hollywhite, is that it's so damn in-your-face and shamelessly blatant about it all. In all its white supremacist glory, Hollywhite acts as a concentrated microcosm that demonstrates EXACTLY how pigmentocracy plays out, time and time again. Hollywhite is so deeply colorist that even though it is steeped in "white" supremacy, even there not all white are created equal  as some are deemed just that little bit 'whiter', more representative and are thus more valued than others. (Hence, the unending and dull predilection for blondness, to the point where it qualifies as a mandatory insistence. So much so, that not even a competent white actress with *gasp* dark hair and the hint of an olive skin tone could be cast for the lead role in "The Hunger Games" - nevermind that the central protagonist Katniss, is specifically described in the novels that the film is adapted from as olive skinned and dark haired "unlike" her blonde and blue eyed mother and sister ... So deeply entrenched is Hollywood's pigmentocratic mindset, however, that  rather hire a 'swarthy' white actress with said features, they chose instead to hire a blonde actress and will proceed to spray tan, dye her hair and outfit her in contacts. This, of course, doesn't even consider the far more 'shocking' idea of casting an olive skinned, dark haired actress who might *gasp* also be a POC ...)

Needless to say if this is how the economy of 'race' works in Hollywood and in the white-dominated, western media at large then black, dark skinned women with so-called "African/black" features, who subsequently occupy the lowest rung of the ladder, aren't going to fare particularly well and are going to be discriminated against disproportionately. Having anti-racists tell these women to shut up and get on with the business of celebrating the success of a meager handful of array of lighter skinned actresses who have "made it" while instructing them to overlook (or to 'get over') the fact that these women all just coincidentally *happen* to have lighter skin and/or features and body types that white supremacy deems acceptable... achieves what exactly and for whom? (And no, feebly pointing to Oprah or a Williams sister doesn't cut it either.)

Yet colorism is to be blithely swept aside as we all hold hands to unite against the more substantial evil of Racism (capital 'r'), apparently. Naturally, I'm quite unconvinced. I don't view colorism as a peripheral side issue, or a "special interest" hobby-horse of "teh dark and bitter" which detracts attention from the "real" problem of combating racism. If anything, I think pigmentocracy lies at the heart of racism, and that it is merely racism concentrated and honed to it's logical conclusion as it takes the sheer illogic of broad-based racial categorisation and proceeds to diffuse these groups even smaller sub groups/classes and divisions that are then stratified all on the spurious basis of phenotype; and all for no other reason than to create a hierarchy that determines which beings are societally privileged  and economically rewarded, which are not and where we are all arranged along the ladder. Pigmentocracy and economic imperative go hand in hand. If race is the macro level, then colorism is the micro  ... Shockingly enough, one can lose at the macro level (race) yet still be relatively privileged at the micro level (colour/pigment) as the two systems collude in a complementary tandem.

Even worse, I would contend that the (comparative) subtlety of colorism, is far more insidious. It is far easier for colonised POCs to ingest and internalise than the more crude, rudimentary and thus identifiable structure of racism. PoCs are far more likely be complicit in colorism

The way I see it? No fruitful anti-racist stance or movement is worth a second glance if it cannot bring itself to grapple with colorism in a serious and urgent manner. And it is almost impossible to honestly examine PoC celebrities in institutions like Hollywood through the lens of race, without colorism being a critical keystone to the discussion. Attempts to shut up (or shut down) darker skinned people about the specific wages and costs of colorism which they primarily bear all in the name of effecting a racial faux-unity, are eerily akin to the types of silencing tactics that white mainstream feminism reflexively attempts to exert over its POC, LGBQTI, members, alongside those who aren't middle class, educated or 'able' bodied. Whenever any of these non-normative adjuncts try to raise issues that are directly hurting and damaging them, these 'non' issues get relegated to the proverbial back burner or dismissed as irrelevant, tangential or 'beside the point' as if it were somehow antithetical to "true" feminism to even deign to seriously consider them. It is also highly reminiscent of a range nationalist movements that have traditionally told women to agitate for national freedom first and foremost, rather than their own ...

We all know that freedom never came by being docile and meekly waiting "your turn" ... And striking partnerships with people who boldly claim kinship with you yet cannot even recognise that the issues that directly and immediately impact upon your life as 'real',  let alone as important and worthy of attention and address? Never led to anywhere good, fruitful or worthwhile. Too often, "let's set aside our differences" translates into: "let's set aside YOUR differences... and privilege mine!" The question of who is constantly expected to defer and compromise and who gets their 'issues' constantly attended to is never posed or examined. Anti-racisits who deny the existence of light-skinned privilege, who downplay its effects or claim to be 'equally' as abused by pigmentocracy are akin to white women who deny the existence of white privilege or that they benefit from it in anyway shape or form then inform their darker skinned sisters that as white women they have it just as bad. What both groups have in common is an alarming tendency to expect darker people to "put aside" (read: sublimate) their differences and concerns and mutely get on with the business of working for whatever they deem to be the 'greater cause', be it fighting the Patriarchy (capital 'p') or Racism ('capital 'r').

If colorism is seen as some peripheral and unimportant adjunct to racism by some POCs, then I'd be mighty interested to know what type of 'anti' racism they're practicing ...

These days, I tend to question Grand 'umbrella' causes and 'big tent' approaches with their narrow and often privileged focus and their totalising narratives. If any cause is 'greater' than the concerns of the various subsets of people who allegedly compose 'teh Cause', then one has to stand back and question the underlying aims and purposes of 'Teh (grand) Cause' and exactly who/m is being served here ... I am no longer interested in being a subservient foot soldier, a good little auxiliary, useful foonote or adjunct to someone else's cause. Not interested in having people tell me that their cause (in all of its narrow specificity) is "really" my cause, or worse that it is 'teh one and only Cause' (only that I don't yet know it). Disinterested in hearing that the *only* way for me to inch towards freedom is to throw my fate and my lot in with people who are oblivious to where I'm situated and then diligently proceed to work for them while they behave as if reciprocity towards any of my problems that they just don't happen to share, is a foreign concept ... Not interested in being somebody's resource to harness and utilise at will and then set down and ignored when expedient. Just not interested in any of it whether its coming from white feminism being astoundingly ignorant in oh-so- many ways, black nationalism being chauvanist, heterosexist and reeking of male privilege, or any brand of anti-racism that downplays the effect of colorism and that demands a uniform silence and solidarity from its darker members ...

Just as my feminism *must* include an intersectionality with anti-racism and LBGQTI rights and modes of analysis, an anti-racism that hastily glosses over colorism and pigmentocracy is less than useless to me.

As time goes on, I don't believe that allegiances to sizeable and 'notable' organisations or to self-proclaimed 'grand' causes is obligatory in the least, anymore than it's necessary to live right in the city centre to be at the heart of where it is "truly" happening. I think it is too easy to get blind-sided by the size or publicity of a movement, neither of which is a measure of true effectiveness. I am more convinced that more often than not people do best to toil in smaller, 'obscure', grass roots and organisations. They are better off working wherever they are situated and whereever they feel that those things that are most pressing to them are being directly dealt with while simultaneously reaching out and uniting with other groups when it is useful and necessary to do so. There are lots of different ways to do anti-racism, pro-LBGTQI rights, feminism and do them in a way that is satisfying. There is no 'one size fits all', despite what the biggest, loudest and most mainstream part of a movement might claim. Find a way or ways that suit/s you and work from there.

Above all allies are partners and equals who do for each other. Unequal servitude without so much as an answering reciprocity has no place in any real alliance, yet this is something that happens all too often within the structure of grand causes - and even anti-racism as a larger, over-arching movement is not immune from this. True movements, however, cannot afford to work along the logic of Hollywhite with its shining stars at the center and its supporting cast, dutifully relegated to the background. 

ETA: Added a link to Witchsistah's (friend-protected) post which inspired my spiel :)  Also to fix the inevitable errors ...

Hello all. (lol)

I haven't been around for a while because I have been on holiday with by sister. And what a holiday it was! I'd happily tell you a little bit more about her but she's private and adverse to revealing details about herself on the internet, unlike her older sibling ;)

I have also been indulging a little bit of on-line gaming (hence the contrived chat speak) and I want to share my experiences with you all in the next post. Ugh, and there's been the Australian Tennis Open going on, so a few words about that. While I procrastinate, delay and get myself together play more games (:D) I will leave you with a a couple of videos that I quite like.

Enjoy :)

Oh, before I go was anyone else pretty much forced to join their google account to their Youtube account, and now cannot access their Youtube account? I am so livid with bloody Youtube right now, I could just spit. Ugh. At any rate, I used to be Takver on youtube so look me up if you like.

In response to a question by x3plane regarding what it is like to be 'black in NZ'. So I am just going to set down a few of my own thoughts about what it is like to be a black woman in New Zealand  according to my own personal experience and nothing less or more.

I'll just cut through the usual pleasant mythology about NZ being God-zone and "good on race" and so forth and just say that:

We've had women as Prime Ministers over here - two, in fact. We've had Indian mayors, and many Sikh indian local-level politicians.Anand Satyanand is our governor general. We've had Georgina Beyer as both a mayor and an MP. We've had Nandor Tanczos representing in parliament with his overtly Rastafarian ways. We have Maori television which provides the best multi-cultural and genuinely international programming in the country, bar none. We have local stations like Triangle TV and a myriad of morning programs that specifically highlight what's going on in specific communities (Hindu, Pacific Island, Korean etc.) We have places like South Auckland (which is where I live) with its downtown markets and where you expect to see everybody - Maori, Pacific Island, Asian, Middle Eastern, Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, and African just going about their business and getting on with their lives, though of course no place is arsehole free. (As long as their are humans - arseholes aplenty there will...) We have a treaty between Maori and Pakeha (white settlers) that the latter haven't managed to completely throw into the wastebasket of convenient amnesia. Heck - we've even had one or two iwi receive financial compensation or have stolen land returned so that other indigenous/first nations groups around the world look towards NZ in order to see what will happen next.

So in many respects, it could be a lot worse.

And yet....none of this describes what the country is like socially or how deeply backward, ignorant and parochial it can be when it comes to black people - particularly dark-skinned black people.

To actually answer your original question about social prejudice - sure - there's plenty of that but in an employment situation you'd be less likely to get hired by a racist supervisor than fired by one... Exclusion is the way racism tends to proceed over here. As for the social lay of the land?

In my honest opinion if you are a single black woman, or in a relationship you could risk coming over here to live and lead a relatively comfortable (if somewhat dull) existence. But if you have children? Forget about it, because you owe them the chance to live in society and in a community where they won't grow up having their bodies and physicality ostracised and stigmatised (which are the usual white tools of social discipline) to the point where they are made to feel that their hair, eyes, skin and features are alien and 'non-normative'. If you want them to grow up being truly confident and at ease in their skin, rather than walking around in a constant state of dis-ease, then you might want to think twice about raising them here. If you don't want your children - particularly your daughters - to grow up thinking that if they walk into a salon, approach a make-up counter, or start browsing for clothes then they should do it meekly, apologetically, with provisos and with the expectation that they will either be treated as if they have no right to be there at all and that they should expect NOT to get what they came for (as in the goods, the service and the expertise simply won't be available because they're not in the majority) and to be grateful for polite dismissal. If you don't want them to experience growing up as a minority even amongst other minorities, then don't come here and don't exacerbate the situation by raising them in a small 'kiwi' town. And most critically, if you don't want your kids thinking that the only way to access social privilege is to assimilate into whiteness as quickly and desperately as possible and then dutifully set themselves in opposition against indigenous Maori, then don't come here.

Interestingly enough, I read a post that was cross-posted at Ankhesen Mie's that was originally posted on a blog called "An Apparent  Intensity" called "The White Chamber" where the author, Victoria, candidly describes the process in which people construct a protective circle if you will in which they unveil their whiteness and extend an invitation for a fellow white person to step into the magic circle and corroborate with whatever unpleasantness it is that they choose to reveal. ("I'll show you mine, if you show yours.") It's the protected, private and intimate site where racist jokes, slurs, put-downs, racial stereotyping can freely and abundantly unfold as white people seek to shore themselves up and reassure themselves and each other that they are all socially, ideologically and politically in lock-step with one another and that all is well with the word. That chamber here as it does everywhere else. But in addition to 'The White Chamber', we also have what could be termed as a specifically Anti-Maori Chamber whereby whiteness is not a prerequisite for receiving an invitation...

In this instance, a white New Zealander will invite a non-Maori (or non-Polynesian) immigrant to be an audience to their bitching about 'The Treaty'; the foreshore and seabed and how Maori are going to take away OUR beaches; how Maori milk the 'grievance' industry because they won't forget about a defunct piece of paper signed in 1840;  about 'Maori scholarships' which discriminate against hard-working white kids (because after all, is there any other kind?); Maori welfare dole-bludging; how Maori get stuff for free including employment opportunities just because they're Maori; how Maori culture is elevated to the exclusion of and actually marginalises and discriminates against their Celtic or English roots (yes, I once had a 'friend' who actually had the gall to tell me this); and just about the all around injustice of blatant Maori privilege which just so unfair on all the rest of us non-Maori and we should all be treat *equally*, waaah, waaah. Not only are we invited to be an audience to this unattractive white whine (and it's not necessarily initiated by whites either, since I've met plenty of immigrants who gleefully construct the anti-Maori chamber as if they were on camping trip and are happy to invite fellow immigrants to enter and share their grievances) but we are also invited to demonstrate our loyalty and fealty to whiteness, to strategically position ourselves to our own advantage, and to pick a side as it were.

And I feel that more and more Maori can see that immigration and immigrants are being enlisted by Pakeha to help create the obfuscatory fiction of a 'multicultural' nation which is then a convenient excuse for Pakeha to renege on their commitment to  biculturalism and to Maori culture. ("It's not just Maori and Pakeha anymore - think of the immigrants!" or "Who cares about the Treaty or old agreements between Maori and Pakeha? We're multicultural now and we have to think of everyone." Right.) There is the very real option, as a black person, of choosing sides and actually learning about the history of this country, the indigenous culture and of course, actually learning te reo Maori or throwing your political lot in with Maori.  The minute that you try to do any of this however, you'll discover just how very segregated this country really is and just how deeply marginalised Maori culture and Maori communities are, as they exist in the periphery. White New Zealanders may cry tears over films like "Whale Rider" and wangst on about how quintessentially 'New Zealand it is and how proud it made them feel to watch it; yet many of them have never even set foot in a poor, rural and above all Maori community like that, or have at best passed through it on a trip to the Marae then gone the hell back home -  back to the "real" New Zealand.

Thoughts of alliances are further complicated by the strange relationship that many Maori have with the idea of blackness.

To put it bluntly - they look towards American blacks in particular as a cultural cornerstone in terms of urban music, fashion, and art. They use the slang, are drawn and attracted to the imagery and are more than happy to utilise the political models and language of The States as they draw parallels. (To a certain extent, that is also true of some parts of the West Indies.) The other black cultural reference point is Rastafarianism and reggae. Reggae, whether Jamaican or of the Maori variety, is huge here and some Maori and even entire iwi have taken on board the tenants and principles of Rastafarianism. In many respects there is a genuinely international perspective and a tendency to draw the links between colonised peoples and experiences of colonisation. All fine and good. But again, none of this can dispel issues of colourism in their own community or the fact that they, like just about every other group of people in the planet are aware of and participate in the black/white imaginary where being 'brown' is at least, not being 'black' and intermarrying with whites meant not only ascending the social ladder, but also avoiding the fate of being yet another indigenous group who didn't survive the white onslaught.

(You'll always get some Pakeha person gleefully and ignorantly sneering at the fact that there are no 'pure-blooded' Maori in NZ, which does nothing to change the fact that mixed-race or not, the Maori population is on the ascent while Pakeha numbers continue to fall.)

So...Black people are to be admired and respected and even imitated - after all, we really are a rich resource for everybody and a great idea after all - but we are not necessarily people to marry into... though of course I have seen the odd Maori/Black interracial couple. Additionally, the Treaty is regarded by some Maori as a covenant between Maori and Pakeha. Consequently, their central focus is on repairing the broken relationship between themselves and Pakeha and getting Pakeha to finally honour their damn word... which naturally puts Pakeha at the centre of their focus.

Now - I don't worry too much about most new black immigrants who are adults, partly because they've made their choices and have adult strength to combat what might come their way. Furthermore, some of them are beginning to have the option to create communities and support networks. And if they have money and are sufficiently privileged enough, they don't even need that. Heck, I've even met  blacks who fall into the latter category and who have embraced assimilation into the so-called 'mainstream'. Usually, they're  happily oblivious to the fact that this place, like every other white settler country, functions as race state and operates along principles of segregation or 'self-segregation' whereby groups physically live side by side but often in discreet communities. Naturally, this is all the fault of those immigrants who don't have the appropriate desire to meld into the mainstream and prove what good little New Zealanders they really are and are giving immigrants a bad name and so forth. However, I'm always concerned by how children - particularly if they're not a delightfully squeeable and pleasing mix of coffee and cream - will fare over here, even though I *think* that it's easier for black kids to grow up here now, than it may have been during the eighties. (My sister is having a child, so we'll see how this hypothesis bears out...)

My situation is different from the vast majority of black immigrants (whether they be West Indian, African, South American, or African-American) because unlike most of them, I grew up here and I know of a NZ that existed before the last 10-15 years where they are *just* beginning acknowledge that black people actually exist and are a part of the populace.

What else?
Again, this is just my view but one of the hardest things to combat as a black woman is the national character of the country which involves an enforced conservatism and conformity. There is a desperate desire to be a unified nation of 'one' people on the one hand and the "same" as everyone else, but with a decorative overlay of multicultural diversity draped over the top. Few people pick up the inherent contradiction and impossible fuckery in any of this which annoys me. An exception is made if you're an entertainer of some sort, whereby you are permitted to be different providing it is in service of 'the nation'. You can have lesbian twin commedians who don't type as 'femme' who are family entertainment for average kiwis. Hey, you can have a transgender or drag entertainer on mainstream television who has something of a mainstream following. Yet, this is also a rather sexist, homophobic and masculine nation, where men and women alike  tend to be blokey, out-doorsey, sporty with the obligatory 'laddish' humour and are good, practical types. If you're feminine or femme; if you like fashion, clothing and (god forbid!) glamour then be prepared to be uncomfortable, disdained and dismissed. (A desire for glamour defeats the purpose of conforming and blending in.) If you're sexy and comfortable in your skin then that won't go down well. Sure, there is a 'new' femininity that's swept the country but it is largely an imported one that tries to mimic white femininity as articulated by the States.

So stars are a separate category of people though there is still a preference for them to an accessible, ordinary type of person that makes one comfortable and to whom one can 'relate to' or 'identify with'. But if you're an ordinary person - then your mission as a good 'kiwi' is to stamp out any trace of flamboyance, ensure that you don't stand out too much, that you're not overly confident (read 'arrogant'), that you're 'humble' and salt of the earth as possible, a good bloke/tte and that you do your damndest to conform and be like everyone else, since difference is unsightly and discomforting. There is a deeply depressing insistence on the normative. If you're different in some way (culture, race, phenotype, 'average' temperament', interests, talent etc.)  and you don't desperately want to be like everyone around you;  if, you don't actually want to be a kiwi (which is code for "Just a New Zealander" which is then code for 'white' or 'white-identified) and even worse, don't  identify as such then clearly it's because you feel superior in some way. You're fine, as long as you extol being average. You'll be right, providing you're not too rich, too good-looking, too interesting, too talented, too loud, too visible, too large a persona - or too much of anything.

If you've got any real strength, substance, beauty, or splendour you'd better make like Maori do and keep your wealth well hidden if you don't want to be constantly singled out, targetted, put down or harrassed into knowing your place.
The blander, the better.

You can imagine, of course, what a catch-22 this is if you're visibly black and not small enough (either physically and/or personality wise) to be as small as possible, stay low to the ground and modestly creep along, invisible, unthreatening and uninteresting as possible. On the one hand, you'll be informed that you're black so you (naturally) can't ever hope to be truly 'normal' or like everyone else - yet on the other hand, you're supposed to be decent enough to at least go through the motions of struggling and failing at being average, thus re-affirming the worth of all that is good, kiwi, and average. (The usual torturous mechanics of mandatory mimicry.)

My partner and I were discussing this about a week ago and we both concluded that the problem with this place is that it is so deeply parochial that too many people either assume that you are just like them under the skin and are alarmed should they accidentally discover otherwise. They seem feel that if you are different in anyway and, worse, wish to express it in anyway,  then this is tantamount to an insulting rejection. (What's wrong with being an NZer!) It never seems to occur to them that you're different, not because you think you're better than them or more special/precious, but because you're actually content to be YOU and that's who you want to be.

This is not a  country that is secure in its identity, do be prepared for that. Instead, it has a big inferiority complex as it is always seeking some kind attention or world recognition - or at least recognition from the cool kids (otherwise known as other white colonised countries) or burgeoning economic powers like China, who they would have been indulging in xenophobic ridicule ("made in China...*sneer*) 15 to 20 years ago. But China has clout now, so... And since the ironically named 'kiwis' are in the process of unsuccessfully trying to create an actual identity ("Middle Earth in real life)"for themselves that differentiates it from every other group of white colonists settlers then everything gets processed or fed through the funnel of a 'national' identity to the point where it is boring, desperate, insecure and tiresome.

New Zealanders will often describe themselves as peaceful, laidback and easy-going. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course there are exceptions, but in general they can be an extremely uptight people who are too busy fretting over what everyone else thinks of them. They are the type of people who even if they can't succeed, can take a grim satisfaction in someone else's failure. (I think that in the States this is referred to as '"crabs in a barrel"? Over here, it's referred to as 'tall poppy syndrome' where there is a tendency to try and cut people down to size if they have the audacity to 'over-reach'. And it's no accident that just about everyone who achieves on a world scale *had* to leave the country.)

And they are the kings and queens of micro-aggression and downright sulky, passive-aggressive behaviour. If something is wrong, they tend to retreat and sulk rather than just up and confront someone.

Lastly, New Zealand is a safe place to live but I rarely encounter immigrants - whether from Korea, Thailand, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Somalia, to the odd fellow West Indian who won't unanimously lament how deeply BORING this country is. (One person I knew from Senegal tried to live in Auckland, the largest city in this country declared it a 'cemetery' and didn't last much longer than a few weeks before promptly returning home.) To quote my own mother on the matter: "Sure New Zealand is safe in some ways I suppose, but living here is like drinking a tepid cup of tea. You know the type of nasty tea that they like to make here with too much milk and not enough hot water? I don't care what anyone says: there's something missing here - a lack of vitality or life."

ETA: Correction regarding the claim that Maori ave had land returned. Istead some, ior should I say a few, iwi have been compensated by being given land that wad unrelated to whatever area of land they originally owned.

I've just been frequenting stupid-land, otherwise known as Youtube, otherwise know as the place where, as one savvy commentator noted, "common sense goes to die."

Besides listening to some Teena Marie, and appreciating her not only as a vocalist but a musician, writer and producer (yeah Beyonce - there were folks who could actually do what you merely pretend and posture at) I also risked listening to Kanye, which is always a risk on any public forum on the internet and encountered the usual anti-rap, anti-hip hop rockist/indie/hipster whinging, wangsting and micro-aggressive nonsense. And here's what I learnt:

Sampling is theft (and Kanye is the Thief in Chief); auto-tune automatically disqualifies you from being considered a 'real' musician; vocoders also threaten your musical credibility (so there goes anything that Trout and Zapman ever did); rap isn't real music (unless Eminem is screwing it up   doing it, in which case he (but never 'it'') is  pure unadulterated genius). Remember it's just talking not singing (yep, people are *still* ignorantly trotting that one out. Neither is electronica because it isn't organically produced. And I suppose folk music should never have been electrified and should have remained 'pure' and authentic or some irrational, arbitrary purist bs, while every form of black music that's ever encountered been by whites from gospel, to jazz, to rock n' roll, was initially dismissed as incoherent inhumane, primitive and demonic cacophony of noise... or in other words 'non-music' before they couldn't get enough of it. *eyeroll*

Yick. These people have no idea of what 17th century nanas they sound like when they start pouting and whining every time black people innovate music.

Fortunately, music and black people rarely pays these petulant twerps any mind. After all, who is interested in stagnating and being ossified in a boring ass museum culture? So the music mercifully moves on by, passes them by and leaves these loser luddites to sulk in their retrograde, backward-ass irrelevance.

I couldn't think of anything more fitting.

Sorry afro_dyte. Hope you don't mind but I'm going to use one of your question to the previous post, to kick off a (hopefully) brief post about black aesthetic in film, because you routinely ask questions that get people to think and initiate a discussion.

"The idea of a Black aesthetic would be something really interesting to delve into in more detail. Mainstream American films (makers and critics) tend to assume that their pasty bourgie sensibilities are universal. I wonder what a Black liberation Poetics would be like."

Right. This applies to films like "The Kids are Okay" (or is it 'alright'?): every sterile thing that Gus Van Sant ever made: Wes Anderson films: casting some bland kid as the Doctor in "Doctor Who", rather than a wonderful and diverse actor like Chiwetel Ejiofor; every dumb rom-com and all that other fare that actually made me stop watching movies and TV for that matter, actively sent me into hiding. (I used to be a cinema junkie, which most people who know me, can't believe.)

The only film amongst the main Oscar contenders that I wouldn't object to sitting through is "The Winter Bone" because even though it's white as can be, at least it's not bland and sickeningly bourgeois. Still, what are the odds that they won't manage to sneak in some piece of middle-class instruction in the for of some uplifting moral of hope and inspiration or whatever, in the last five minutes...

I, like a lot of other people, hunger for something different from the thin gruel that keeps being served up and that we're expected to like.

A black aesthetic (ba)? Hmmm. It would change the game for sure, in the same way that black aesthetics in music, sport, fashion and culture have left an enduring mark. It would change a stagnating medium like film for the better if it wasn't stifled before it ever got to see the light of day.... But on a less pessimistic note, I do think that it's coming and that once it breaks through there is going to be an explosion of talent. So much so that even the powers that be won't be able to stem the tide. It's coming.

But in the meantime... I do think that films like "City of God" and the superior "City of Men", for example, utilise a visual ba even if the hand at behind the camera is a white one. But a ba still informs these works precisely because of the environment, the setting, and the people. Having dark-skinned black actors in the film changes the way that you use light. Navigating around the narrow streets of a favela (which is structurally different form say, slum in Mumbai) changes the way that you physically work and move the camera. Now, if I could see things like "City of Men" on my TV, why then - I'd actually watch television. *shrug*

I see hints of a black aesthetic in some mecha anime (like Neon Genesis Evangelion where the robots or 'Evas' are drawn and animated in such a way that to my eyes, they really do resemble the movement and physique of black track and field athletes; yet, they are 'piloted' and controlled by Japanese high school kids.

A ba is more overt in a short film like 'World Record' which is part of the Animatrix series. The reason why the film visually stands out from the other shorts is *because* of a distinct ba. The way that Dan, the protagonist, moves - even the simple set of his shoulders as he walks by, the movement of his hair or the way that he throws a key with the casual flick of his wrist. While people have rightly pointed out that drawing visually resembles Peter Chung's work in Aeon Flux we're nevertheless, dealing with a whole other kinetic order in this short, but then again this isn't such a surprise when one considers that rotoscope is based on the movement of Cab Calloway. As we know black 'movement' or how black people move can generate and critically alter an entire industry.

At the moment the notion of a ba works like speculative sci-fi to me, insofar as you're thinking about uncharted territory which makes me wonder...

What would a film set in the West Indies (and not as some stupid tourist jaunt) look like? What would Nalo Hopkinson's "Midnight Robber" with its Caribbean world building look like on film? What would a Tobias Bucknell novel look like as a film? What would a black aesthetic look like in gaming? What would Ntozake Shange's play have looked like had their been a creative and inspired director at the helm?

Of course it goes beyond the mere look of the thing. And for me at least, a ba is political. It's much more than just recycling the same old mouldy, stale narratives but merely substituting/inserting black people into them, which simply won't do. It goes beyond which cultural narratives are told and writ large which are silenced, and sentenced to the shadows. A thriving, healthy ba should critique, interrogate and challenge the way that Western narratives are structured and the manner in which they unfold. My expectations are high. I expect polyphony, heteroglossia, dialogue, intersecting and multiple narratives, non-linearity, I expect protagonist privilege (where stories construct a ridiculous solipsism in which only the protagonist truly matters and everyone else is automatically a bit player, a side-kick or a tool to allow the protagonist to get where he or she wants and needs to get to) to be subverted, undermined, dismantled and challenged.  I expect a ba to question the notion of what qualifies as heroism and so-called agency. I expect a ba to move beyond the yawn-worthy confines of providing an identification-fix for a select audience and instead take its audience into unfamiliar territory that discomforts them. A ba will laugh at the supposed 'necessity' of white mediation. I expect the work to beautiful and thoughtful. I expect it to talk about *us* and to us, rather than abandoning us to constantly see ourselves distorted and filtered through somebody else's eyes - almost as if the lens in question were a ghastly fun-house mirror. I want a ba to explain the world and show it as we see it, experience and know it to be.

Some would argue that some of the things that I've mentioned have already been done outside of black culture. But I want to see what it looks like when *we* do it with all of the insight and directness that I know that we have.

A ba already does so in literature (as any work by Toni Morrison can attest to.) So why not in films and games?

I demand wealth, beauty and abundance. I don't shy away from work being dark or difficult. I'm intimidated by the idea of a work having strength and intelligence. Gorgeous, powerful, and immense and explosion of creativity, intelligence and *actual* talent. I expect it to be amazing. In short, I don't want to be bored or patronised or 'entertained' as if I'm an unimaginative, passive five year old that can't think or construct anything for herself. I want to be invited to engage, not pacified.

Those are some of my requirements. What's yours?

I've just been happily wasting time today and watched not one but two mainstream films.

The first was called "Kick Ass" which normally isn't the type of film that I'd watch, but not only was it recommended but since I sometimes tutor in adolescent fiction I watched it to see how it would work as an adolescent text. The movie... fine for what it was, interweaving three bildungsroman at once (two teenage boys and one pre-adolescent girl) while using and subverting comic book conventions (and visuals) to humorous effect. I also thought that the idea of trying to negotiate and attain agency in an era of surveillance, vicarious spectatorship and of course, the internet was potentially interesting. The acting was - meh (with Nicholas Cage being cartoonish as he often is), but it was good enough to be passable. Some of the scenarios were forced and heavy-handed. (Namely, the ice-cream scene where she asked for a puppy ('a fluffy one'), to tease and distress her father who was training her to be a deadly assasin, just to underscore that she wasn't a typical girl because lord knows it's not as if the audience could pick that up for themselves that she was something out of the ordinary when she had already resigned herself to donning a bullet proof best and being her father's target practise in exchange for ice cream.) But then, I felt that entire relationship was a little overplayed and forced. (It was trying so hard to be quirky and cute.)

As usual ALL of the black 'characters' - or should I say, 'sidenotes' -  were designated to their rightful place (overweight comic bodyguards, criminals and thugs destined to be taken out, and the obligatory best friend/side-kick advisor and nursemaid rolled into one and embodied by a black male cop no less.) Of course, none of them could ever assume centre stage, be the adolescents in question or active heroes because that's not how whiteness on screen operates. *yawn*

But  yeah - it was okay, occasionally clever and sometimes funny though I really felt that the prepubescent girl's journey was kept in the background in favour of the two teenage boys, nevermind that she was the true comicbook hero of the three and had the most troubled journey. But I suppose that the 'ordinariness' of Dave or the titular 'Kick Ass' was there so that viewers could get their identification fix or whatever.

The second film, "Roll Bounce" actually ended up being of greater interest and enjoyment to me. partly because it was advertised on television as 'the worst film ever' with reviews that declared that it was a 'pretty film' devoid of a plot, and the damning pronouncement that it starred Bow Wow... And of course it was so bad it was 'must-watch TV'. I was rubbing my hands together in anticipation of a corny, hot mess that would be in the "so bad, it's good!" category as promised. So you can imagine my surprise when not only did the film prove to be every bit as pretty as pronounced, with the likes of Nick Cannon, Bow Wow, Jurnee Smollett, and Megan Good skating and grooving across my screen but it had a perfectly coherent, decipherable if somewhat conventional plot, genuinely good acting, charm, playful humour (that was actually funny) and a real sense of fun to go along with the *killer* style. The skating was incredible. And the music rocked. So I find it interesting that there was an adamant insistence that the film lacked a plot and that it was simply 'awful'.

Now, while this movie wasn't on the same artistic or creative plane as a film like "Crooklyn", it nevertheless put me in mind of this film because of the specifically black aesthetic and the sense of everyday black social life, neighbourhoods, and communities that it conveyed with warmth and affection. And I think what struck me the most other than how low-key and everyday the size and scale of the drama was I supposed if it had been "Boyz in the Hood" Part III it would have been lauded as gritty and powerful drama etc. with critics genuflecting all over the show. Jurnee Smollet looking fly and cute if somewhat awkward on her roller skates and being ambushed by the neighbourhood kids with water balloons can't measure up to somebody getting shot on the mean streets. Clearly, a film that features a group of good-looking young black teen guys and focuses on their friendships, romances and their love of skating as they hang out and joke around with some actual wit and portrays them as human beings deserves contempt, ridicule and to be labelled as the worst film in existence.

It really wasn't even close to awful and is completely on par with a cute film like "Whip It" except with much more competent, cooler skating. Like "Roll Bounce", it too focuses on roller skates/athleticism, teen social existence and romance, family conflict, working and fighting for a particular goal yet for some reason it receives a markedly different critical reaction. After watching and enjoying "Roll Bounce, I have to wonder? Perhaps the names Bow Wow and/or Nick Cannon, the presence of roller skates, seventies attire and afros, or the fact that it was "just" a light-weight black film (set in the seventies!) without the prerequisite suffering, tragedy,. deprivation or violence that are required for black cinema to command white critical respect meant that C4 felt that it was open season for ridicule. Maybe it was sighting a dashiki that made it okay to pronounce the film as trash. It was if they decided in advance that because it was a roller skating film that had been panned by critics, why then - it had to be rubbish.

But seriously, did they even watch the film?

Anyway - lessons I learnt from "Roll Bounce".

1.) Surprised as I am, geeky Nick Cannon is freakin' hot. He spends most of the film being a smooth disco God with a body born to wear seventies clothing. He's so tall, slim with an amazing physique. And his hair... Yeah!
2.) Bow Wow can actually act and act well. So can Nick Cannon even though he loves to clown.
3.) I dig the seventies. (But I already knew that.)
4.) Bow Wow has real pretty eyes. (But I already knew that one too.)

On a completely separate and unrelated note, I just read that Teena Marie died today at age 54 and I wanted to mention it especially in light of the fact that I was raving last month about soul music. Teena Marie was a soulful songstress. May she RIP.