Outbursts

It's been a week of outbursts: from Joe Wilson, to Kanye West, to Serena Williams to Donald Winton, the heckler who shouted racist remarks at Williams from the stands. The discussions of these outbursts in the media raise questions about appropriate vs. inappropriate displays of emotion; free speech vs. speech that is deemed threatening; and displays of rage and whether these such outbursts are male prerogatives.

While most civil minded folks agree that it's inappropriate and egregious to denounce the President as a liar on the House floor, the throngs of "conservative activists" who gathered in lynch mob fashion at the Capital have embraced Wilson as a hero who told the truth (actually, he didn't). Was Wilson just emotionally overwhelmed by what he sees as the gaps in Obama's health care plan or does his rage (and the extended ire of the tea party brigade) have more to do with the audacity of a black man to run this country?

This same "audacity" to disrupt the old order and disband the old boys club in part explains the reactions the tennis world has had to the Williams sisters since they entered and continued to dominate the game. To be sure Serena's "outburst" should be penalized. But her behavior, unlike Wilson's, is not an anomaly: Connors, Agassi, and McEnroe, to name a few are notorious for acting up on the court. What distinguishes Williams from her other outrageous counterparts is her gender and race. It is not "proper" for women to cuss out a line judge during a tennis match. For black women, these performances are expected and further proof that we are "crazy," but we are not expected to be on the tennis court, much less to have the audacity to "act up" on it.

Acting up is different from "acting out" but sometimes the two blur. For Williams, cussing out the judge was acting up; making security remove Winton: acting out. Kanye West acted up (and acted a fool) at the VMAs but acted out when he spoke about George Bush's failure to respond during Hurricane Katrina.

Acting out is not always deemed appropriate but is often an act of resistance. It can be oral, aural, physical and any combination of the three. Williams has acted out before by refusing to participate in matches or on courts that she found offensive. It is likely that, in part, her acting up stems from having to act out in order to play, and play hard, in a sport that is raced, classed, and gendered in hegemonic ways. I'm not trying to defend Williams' actions but rather to frame them as well as the media's (over)reaction.

Gender Agenda

When I read the headline "Saving the World's Women," I was put off by The Times's special issue on gender. I thought "Shouldn't we be helping the world's women save themselves?" Far too often westerners construct women in the global South as if they are hapless victims that need to be saved from premodern cultural practices and patriarchy. Having traveled in various parts of Africa where I was able to interact with groups of women, I think that coalition building and capital are the ways to facilitate advancements in gender equality throughout the world. It turns out that a great deal of the special issue looked at how schemes like microfinancing can save women's lives and empower them in the process. I'm still pouring through the last few pieces and am heartened by the personal stories they include. I just wish the tone of the issue did not reinforce the idea that white/western men/women must rescue brown women from brown men (to borrow from Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?").

told ya

As Mara Brock Akil's The Game--the last black show on the CW (unless you include ANTM)--prepares for its exodus (which I'm not sad about since I find the show insipid), I want to repost this prediction via my old 4coloredgirls blog:

Friday, June 09, 2006

network integration

What happens when a black network merges with a white one? The CW. UPN has been the designated black network after the death of The Cosby Show and A Different World and after FOX made a name for its network and then drop-kicked all its black shows and the WB followed suit; it had a line-up of black comedies including the Steve Harvey Show and the Jamie Foxx Show until the network drew an audience, then gradually Dawson's Creek, Seventh Heaven and One Tree Hill recolored and reaudienced that station. It's like network gentrification.
Besides The Gilmore Girls (which the CW is keeping), I find most of the shows on the WB trite and boring and aside from Everybody Hates Chris and Girlfriends (also slated for slots on the new network), the UPN doesn't offer up much for TIVO either. I wonder what will happen after the CW is on the air for a season or two. Will "black" and "white" shows exist side by side in a network racial utopia? Will there be gradual white flight from the screen? Or will a bunch of black actors be out of jobs until an"Other" network wants to put itself on the map (ding ding ding)?

"Say it plain, that many have died for this day"

A dream, a speech, a praisesong, a rhyme. The day after the commemoration of Martin Luther King's birth, and almost 45 years since he dreamed, we marched. Black, white, yellow, brown, red, old, young, straight, gay, trans, on feet, some aided by canes or wheelchairs, we who had had the audacity to hope let out a collective exhale.

He who had inspired us to chose "hope over fear," spoke to us who had gathered in his honor, his mouth--not filled with false promises but with a clear articulation of the challenges ahead. He who asked us to hope and to demand change charged us to remember that we are that hope and we are that change.

She praised the words/people/workers of the everyday. She conjured the dead who had toiled and prayed so that we might dream, hope, and live. She announced bravely that love is a/the political act.

He prayed for healing and union--to "turn to each other, not on each other." He reminded us that though "we have come over a way that with tears has been watered," we are not finished. We have only just begun.

A Woman's Work

Is there still a distinction between women's work and men's? Today's NY times op-ed by Linda Hirshman suggests that there is. Hirschman claims that President-elect Obama's plan to create new jobs will only benefit men if he focuses solely on infrastructure and engineering. Hirschman's observation that women continue to pursue human oriented professions, such as teaching and social work, doesn't seem to be shifting very much if my students are any indication, though I do encounter a number of female students who are pre-med and pre-law as well. Are women socialized into professions that require human engagement or are these students simply persuing what they are interested in? Probably a bit of both. I do hope, along with Hirschman, that some of the new administration's job creation money is put into libraries and schools, not necessarily because women work there, but because these institutions are as crucial to our survival as roads and bridges.

A Mercy

I ushered in this week by going to hear Toni Morrison read from her long-awaited new novel A Mercy. Described as a novel about slavery before slavery became racialized, the story captures readers from the first line: "Don't be afraid." Hearing Morrison read her own words of course is an added treat. I even managed to ask the author a question about the traveling women in her novels, a subject I'm fascinated with and writing about myself. Morrison says she finds it interesting to craft a story around a woman not only traveling alone but propelled by passion. I can't wait to find out where that passionate journey takes her.

wooo!!!

Yes We Did!!!