Ah, hipster racist humor

Got hip to the following bit of conservative snideness from the blog folks over at electronic village and All About Race

Isabel Garcia works for legal representation of hispanic workers. Hey, I'm all for humor and I know the illegal alien issue is a thorny one... but some of the stuff uttered in this video kinda crosses the line into anti-hispanic



Angry Black Woman recently did a post on racist humor done by liberals. So...not picking on conservatives alone.

Black in America program on CNN

"Did you know that companies in the US have said they would hire a white man with a felony record and no high school education BEFORE they would hire a black man with NO criminal record and a 4-year degree?"

On July 23 and July 24 at 9pm, CNN will premier a series, 'Black in America with Soledad O'Brien'

The aforementioned statistic and many others will be revealed during the series. Racism is alive and well in America.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/black.in.america/

Angelia over at Angelia's Ramblings has a great post on her personal reaction to it.

Reading while Black also did a post on Black in America.

And White men who prefer black women also gave a post on it and talks about the controversy of black images

Black Women Blow The Trumpet also has a controversy with the program.

There's also a post on it over at Blogging in black

Okay, I didn't watch the program. Too stressing. Okay, I'm a coward.

Black And Beautiful But Invisible

Interview with Kadiatu Kamara the face of the Mahogany campaign , “Black And Beautiful But Invisible:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=F0Fi4smDKIo




http://www.hd-productions.biz

The Constant Novel: Agenda versus Vehicle

There is a difference between the agenda and the vehicle. But a white feminist friend of mine just doesn't seem to get it.

My new WIP, The Constant Tower, carries my agenda: poor folks (usually of color) living in a world in which other folks (usually white) take resources that don't belong to them. But the agenda is carried in this story by using a vehicle created by the white folks in power. Using Massa's tools to dismantle Massa's house.

Those who haven't had the opportunity to speak must learn how to tell the truth and tell it slant... to tell our story through the media created by those who are powerful. We have to be slick if we want to be understood and yet be published.

In Wind Follower I created a Christian story which honors the best in paganism. That was published by a secular publisher but it is essentially a Christian story. Constant Tower will be published by an American Christian publisher. In my mind, American Christians don't want to read fantasies about white male oppressors that take stuff from poorer cultures. So I have to put my agenda in the proper craft. In this case, I am using a white male protagonist and the story takes place from the viewpoint and from the cultural setting of the white characters. Because honestly, politics aside, white Christian males who read fantasy are more likely to read about males, especially white males. One has to be aware of that. The story already has two black females and one interracial love affair. That kind of stuff is not generally in Christian fiction. I really can't push my luck too far by having a female black protagonist.

My main characters is a white boy from an oppressive rich culture who learns that his people are preying on poor black cultures. There's a war going on but we see the war through the eyes of the white culture. All the rumors and stories we hear are told through the white characters. (I'm kinda talking about the American media and how American culture views the resources of the world as its right. But I am more concerned with the path this white warrior takes as he realizes he and his culture are wrong.)

My friend -- as I said she is majorly into white feminism-- said I should have a female main character. She wasn't interested in hearing about the boys. When I told her all the above she got angry with me and said I was not listening to her because I was too committed to what I had on the page. Duh!!! (Not true btw. She told me to rework my synopsis and I did. She told me to rework several chapters and I did. So I DO listen to her. Except in this.)

Okay, the fact that I have two sons and I want to talk about the brainwashing being given to American boys of all colors...and I'm also talking about war and resources and the food crisis, I think I'm being pretty liberal and enlightened. She thought not. Simply because I had a male protag. Come on now! I hope I'm not wimping out on this nobel..but I DO think my story set up is valid. Especially since the Christian publisher still hasn't told me if he is really going to accept it with all the "different" stuff I've already put in the novel.

This white feminist and I had a good relationship but she just doesn't think racism compares to sexism and even went so far as to say no feminist is racist...because feminism is a system that tries to help all the oppressed. Yeah, right. I've told her over and over that white feminists are used to setting the agenda on what feminism is and they should stop telling black women what is or is not feminist. (Heck, most white feminists remind me of horrible tyrannical white lady bosses I've had.)

Whites have had their time talking about our culture in their paternalistic superior ways. Why can't a black author talk about their paternalistic superior ways in a novel? The country is so fr*ggin racist and I want to do my share of speaking to racist so-called Christians. There is nothing - not even art-- that we can do about changing folks but I can at least say that a black woman wrote a Christian fantasy about racism that was published by a Christian company. Even if I can't change the hearts of white racist Christians, I can heal our people's hearts and cure us of this racial stockholm syndrome/self-loathing that living in our culture creates.

I told her all this but she doesn't agree with me.
So...I'm thinking that either she A) a feminist who simply wants me to write about women ALL the time or B) a racist who simply doesn't want to be challenged by a black author daring to depict her culture or C) an academic snob who thinks that my plan won't work because I simply am not creatively capable of doing it. You know how they do...thinking we have great ideas but somehow we don't have the skills to do it well. They always think we are not capable.

And frankly, she pissed me off. -C

-C

And they say we black folks are paranoid

http://www.allaboutrace.com/2008/04/15/your-conspiracy-theory-is-my-blood-and-flesh/

Please pass this on.

kneejerk disdain

Back in the day when I was an Episcopalian-bor-and-bred I had a gay priest who hated Bible-believing Christians. His hatred was visceral and his unequal treatment of his parishioners based on their beliefs was all too obvious. He was like night and day. He'd get bright red and he'd get very distant whenever a Bible-believing Christian approached him whether in or outside the churchyard. It was as if he was always ready to be hurt by them.

Well, I understood exactly how he felt. I've had my share of Christian cruelty. I remember the Assembly of God minister, Pastor Glickert, the white minister in a 99.9999% white congregation who decided to drag me up to the front of the conversation to talk about me living with my soon-to-be husband. (Other young folks had boyfriends too and were into extramarital sex but they were white young folks and their parents were in the congregation. I suspected he did this in order to make himself appear to the white congregation as hard on sin....and I, being alone, was a great tool for that purpose.)

I remember the white minister's wife who stood beside me at coffee hour telling me she didn't like seeing my white husband and me together because she didn't like seeing her race muddied.

I remember the Christian reviewers who toured Wind Follower who wildly emailed each other offlist about the sex and violence in my book. And I remember the Christian fiction group, Xianscribblers, which all ganged up on me and once again were emailing each other offlist about me. (That trouble started because I didn't like the idea of invading Iraq and because I said people should not judge homosexuals because some --by no means all-- of my homosexual friends had had sexual abuse as children.) Of course something always happens with all that gossiping and I always end up being told...Christians are good at herd-mind cruelty but never good at hiding their gosiping.

So as I think back upon that former minister of mine -- who is quite the Christian gay theologian revolutionary-- I tell myself, "I don't want to develop a kneejerk disdain toward Christians. I don't want to write stories where Christians are harpies who pride themselves on how kind and good and mature they are...when they are really nothing more than cruel beings. Those are the stories non-Christians and Christian-haters write."

Yet, the depiction of Christians is often true. At least American Christians. And let's face it: much of the most blatant racism comes from Christians in the Bible Belt. The Bible tells us: a true witness delivers souls. But can I write the passionate accurate story without being mean-spirited and kneejerk about it?

God alone knows.

purgings unaccomplished, hurts still unhealed

Well, now that I finished Wind Follower and it's out there in the world, I still feel I haven't quite gotten all my heart's hurt out into a good story.

I know you've seen a lot of movies where people portray Christians as cruel uneducated know-it-alls. As a Christian, I've seen them. I always cringe and say, "Why do they portray us like that? We aren't all like that." Stephen King, for instance, has a lotta creepy Christians in his book. Even so, I always suspect that Stephen probably is a Christian underneath it all. Let's face it. There are many cruel racist Christians out there. I have a white friend from Georgia who says the same people who invited him to Church were the same people who invited him to KKK rallies. Heck, Christianity in America actually contains denominations based on hatred of black folks. And then there is Sunday morning, the most segregated day of the week, where blacks are in their black churches and whites are in their white churches.

I WANT to write a book showing the kinds of horrible Christians that exist in the world. But do I want to contribute to the pool of anti-Christian literature out there? The same thing goes for racism. Christian white racism. (Yeah, there is such a thing as black racist christians but honestly, not nearly on a scale as the other kind. I can't think of any black theologian who has ever built a racist church.)

I often feel Christian folks need to write about that...but how to do it? For the most part, the Christian books that deal with white Christian racism are books written by black Christian women. But even so.....those books are usually published by white Christian publishers...so how angry and truthful can those books be? And while black Christian folks read books by white Christian folks, the reverse is not as common. (IF I see one more little black Christian girl reading Janet Oke, I will scream!)

I'm working on two works-in-progress now. One is based in a totally strange world and is full of great world-biulding. Some sexual issues, though. A Christian publisher probably would not accept it.

The other story is based in this contemporary world. All the hurt and grief I have ever received from Christians just threatens to overflow in that novel. Should it? Is picking on racist Christians an attack on the faith? Or is it a prophetic wake-up call that is truly needed in this racist world we live in? Gotta see. But what is the use of writing if the folks you want to change just ain't gonna read it?

Embattled

Well, am in the first part of my WIP Inheritance. (Which I might be calling "Til all these things be done") and once again my characters are embattled.

I have to speak a word about embattledness and the dangers of melodrama. I am a total believer that there are a few folks in life who are embattled on many sides, that there is always human darkness, demonic darkness, world issues that get in the way of folks living some kind of a good, happy, or sane life.

The depiction of these kind of characters can either lead to wonderful heroes (in fantasy) or melodrama (in mainstream novels). There's also the question of believability. One wants to push the envelope by holding a mirror up to life -- as some great writer once said-- but at the same time holding up that mirror may not work because some folks simply are not going to believe that all that crap can happen to one person.

Let's say one has had -- or one knows a person who has had-- a really tough life. Then one really has to choose what aspects of that life one will describe and what aspects one will leave out of the story. Or else it won't work for some folks who think you're just engaging in character torture.

I had a Wyoming pen-pal who said to me once, "I don't see why black folks talk about racism. It's as if they think no one has suffered. I've suffered too. I had a child out of wedlock. I was married to a drunk." I realized to my extreme surprise that she thought that the ONLY problem black folks had was racism. She didn't realize that some Black folks have had her problems as well but then race gets added into the mix. Racism is just hard for some folks to understand. I'll just say, "Imagine dealing with having to take one's mother off life support and then add racist doctors and racist social workers in the mix." OR add "Anti-Christian racist doctors." Trust me, folks, it's a trip!

Black writers have to write a story that gives a character the sorrows of regular life ...and at the same time has to slip into the story the sorrows that racism brings. I've read stories that seem to be about either one or the other but not both. And I've read stories that have both of these challenges. Add being a Christian to the mix, or being sickly...and well...folks don't realize you're telling all your heart and sharing your experiences of life. They think you're piling it on.

I suppose one could compartmentalize one's sorrows into different books but what's the use of that? Not that a writer writes to be known by all her readers, but she writes to explain something. And I want to write about being embattled. (With of course some religion and kinky sex thrown in. We're talking succubus, after all.)

nonfiction book recommendation

American Furies: Crime, Punishment and vengeance in the age of mass imprisonment by Sasha Abramsky.

Let's just say it certainly terrifies those of us who ponders the prison industrial complex and how it works with a vengeance seeking, racist, and a capitalist society.

nooses

I got an email this morning from a black woman Christian writer.

The upshot of the email is that we black women must be very careful how we use our blogs and cyber talk because the powers-that-be in the (white) world will use our own words to make nooses and hang us.

She suggested I be very very very careful about what I say and how honest I am because white people have a great deal of power. A black person, therefore, must know when to be quiet. You know: the old "be very careful about being too honest with white folks because they'll just think you're bitter or angry or uppity" warning.

Ah gee. I hear what she's saying. And she's probably right. My problem is this: I have battled fibromyalgia for 23 years. For instance all this week I slept maybe two or three hours each night. And last night I went to bed at 9 and woke up two hours later at 11:30 and was up all night. Typical. Fibromyalgia has a lot to do with stuffed down anger. Plus my son has had to battle non-verbal autism. And try being sleepy and handling that kind of thing during the day. I'm 48 and I truly believe that because I personally tend to stuff down what I think I have destroyed my health. I really can't afford to stuff things down anymore.

But even so... I'll be careful in the future. I'll try to put my thoughts about my personal issues only in my books. As my friend warned.

Black women are always telling each other what to do for our own good. It's stifling and I'm sure this "protecting you from yourself" kind of warning has perversely been the cause of major illnesses in our bodies. We make each other ill by forcing each other to be silent in order to preserve each other's health and livelihood. And honestly, I felt this horrendous wave of tiredness and rebuke flow through my body as I read through her email. Reminded me of all the silencing stuff that got pushed down my throat when I was being raised by my Methodist minister grandfather. I tell you...black folks rebuking other black folks (however gently) are responsible for ruining moods, health, and projects.

Of course, there are certain kinds of people in the world who get really uncomfortable when they see someone who doesn't quite conform to standardized behavior. I had a friend once whose clothes always matched. Always. Once she visited me wearing yellow socks, yellow, shirt, and a yellow headband. Honestly, except for her jeans, she looked like a gigantic banana. She wanted me to go somewhere with her. But first...she wanted me to change. I had on a purplish shirt and greenish jeans. "You don't match," she said. As if the fashion laws were as unchallenged as the cosmic spiritual laws. I didn't answer her back. (I told you: I allow folks to tell me what's wrong with me but I rarely tell them what's wrong with them.) But I did think she was seriously rigid.

So yeah, it might be that this advice-giver is someone who is closed off and simply freaks out whenever she deals with folks who she considers odd. And black women are notorious for reining in folks they think are "not behaving right." Personally, I think the world is too full of black folks hiding their hearts from white folks. But maybe, like Anne Frank, I still trust in the kindness of human nature.

Even so I'll be careful about how I speak about my own issues in the future. And I'll be very very very careful about what I reveal to white folks.

I've never been an advice-giver because I understand how wounding it is to a person's soul to be "lectured" but I tend to kow-tow when someone gives me "advice" for my own good. And to prove my point, while i read her email I deleted all the personal rants on any blogs I'm connected to. It might make my blog a bit safe and bland...but it'll make me safe too. At least that's what my friend says. And we who are in a fibromyalgia battle value our emotional safety.

Thanks. -C

Afros

Okay, about Isaiah Washington's slur against his co-worker. The "f" word. It's pretty rude to say anything that will hurt a colleague or an entire group of people. He shouldn't have said it. That said, folks in hollywood DO seem to get upset over certain kinds of prejudice while they indulge in others. And they DO seem to pick on certain folks more than others. For instance, if a black person does something socially unacceptable, the media treats it as if it's the crime of the century. Their attitude reminds me that racism in the supposedly liberal media is alive and well. We must not forget that most of these media folks probably had childhoods where they didn't really know any black people. They may have microphones in their hands and they might be pontificators but at heart they are not socially-educated about racism and its subtleties. They DO believe that black women and men are touchy and overly-sensitive and apt to go overboard emotionally. That's their deep-seated idea but they don't realize they have it.

They also are unaware of their prejudices against non-normal physical attributes. Of course they are all into beauty and cosmetic surgery and looking good for the cameras. But it goes even further. For instance, on idol chat, Rosanna and Kimberly were mocking Justin Guarini's afro, comparing his hair to Bozo the clown. On E's commentary on the golden globe fashions, the hosts -- and Miss Jay a black person with transgender issues should know better-- got a lot of laughs mocking Vanessa Williams and Will Farrell's hair. Why? Because of the afros and curly hair. Why should curly hair and afros bring knee-jerk laughter? Yet, all over television there is a continued mockery about afros which shows that subtle racism is still alive.

On American Idol, Simon Cowell (or the producers) always set up fat or disabled people or oddballs as a butt for laughter and Hollywood poo-poohs their cruelty but don't really fire any one. Nor do Hollywood execs fire people who mock are disdainful of Christians and Catholics or fat people.

Ah yes! They are pretty sneering about Christians. I can tell you all the types of Christians who pop up in TV shows: the innocent indoctrinated not too bright young girl with simple faith. The intellectual who leads those with simple faith but who tolerates their beliefs because they're obviously not as deep as he is. The innocent searcher who grows to realize his religion is too old-fashioned and intolerant. The crazed abortion-clinic bomber. The deluded believer who believes God actually guides him and talks to him. The cruel judgemental evangelical with no sensitivity to other people who thumps his Bible. Ah I could go on. So, yes, there is a bit of imbalance there about how "offended" Hollywood gets when certain groups are picked on.

Ah brothers and sisters! We can do nothing about the world, but we can do something about ourselves. As Christians we mustn't pick and choose what offends us. The world can do that. Not us. Some of us don't get mad when another denomination is picked on, but we get mad when our denominati0n is mocked. Some of us get mad when Christians are slammed but we don't mind when Blacks or Jews are picked on. Let us search our hearts. Remember what the apostle John said, "if you don't love your brother, you are a murderer. And no murderer has eternal life" That's pretty clear. We Christians are often ready to put Christian homosexuals in hell, why aren't we just as willing to put Christian racists in hell?