The Cruel Secretary

I Didn't Know My--or Michelle's--Ass Was That Interesting

2009-01-14T09:00:00.003-05:00

Cross-posted at Racialicious

Did United Statesians electing its first president of color become an implicit invitation for white liberal/progressive media outlets to talk about Black and brown behinds?

According to two of them, yep.

Salon started off the conversation with Erin Aubry Kaplan's essay, "First Lady Got Back," where she waxes ecstatic about First Lady Michelle Obama's behind:

"...while it isn't humongous, per se, it is a solid, round, black, class-A boo-tay. Try as Michelle might to cover it with those Mamie Eisenhower skirts and sheath dresses meant to reassure mainstream voters, the butt would not be denied.

As America fretted about Obama's exoticism and he sought to calm the waters with speeches about unity and common experience, Michelle's body was sending a different message: To hell with biracialism! Compromise, bipartisanship? Don't think so. Here was one clear signifier of blackness that couldn't be tamed, muted or otherwise made
invisible. It emerged right before our eyes, in the midst of our growing
uncertainty about everything, and we were too bogged down in the daily campaign
madness to notice. The one clear predictor of success that the pundits, despite
all their fancy maps, charts and holograms, missed completely? Michelle's butt."

As my friend Tom would say, “Stop, Miss Gurl.”

There's more--infinitely more--to what makes our new First Lady beautiful and a challenge to the white-beauty standard than her boo-tay. If Aubry Kaplan would have delved into the beauty-brains combo she started to discuss ("She has coruscating intelligence, beauty, style..."), the piece would have been sort of all right. Nope, just Michelle's ass.

Then here comes Alternet with Myra Mendible's "Big Booty Beauty and the New Sexual Aesthetic." Her take on the ass thang:

"We should not underestimate the symbolic value of buttocks. Butt metaphors helped European cultures categorize and describe their others, ascribing bodily differences certain moral and intellectual attributes. Gilman argues that, “Beginning with the expansion of European colonial exploration, describing the forms and size of the buttocks became a means of describing and classifying the races. The more prominent the more primitive…” (Making the Body Beautiful). British culture, in particular,
identified the buttocks with primitive or debased sexuality (Havelock Ellis,
Studies in the Psychology of Sex). Non-Western women were associated with the
“lower regions” of the body and characterized in terms of their abundant
backside. Similarly, in American culture, the U.S.-Mexico border marked a
figurative divide between Northern mind and Southern body, rationality and
sensuality, domestic and foreign. This bodily trope culled associations between
the lower body and the inferior, more primitive “under” developed “torrid zones”
south of the border; it often served to rationalize U.S. military interventions
or corporate exploitation of Latin American labor and resources."

Analytically speaking, what Mendible wrote is what Aubry Kaplan should have written: a more nuanced reflection on the history and meaning of the colored butt in the erotic imaginations and racial and gender definitions of white people and Black men and Latinos and how that loaded image became a policy of exploitation for both groups. In other words, a little intersectionality would have helped Aubry Kaplan's essay. (Though I find it interesting neither talk about what all this "ass aesthetics" means to some straight Asian American, Native American, and Arab American, and mixed-race folks. And for same-gender-loving folks of color. But that's me.)

Like Aubry Kaplan, Mendible has her own We Women Should Be Taken More Seriously Moment:

"Either way, I’ll still be dreaming of a time when (to loosely paraphrase Martin Luther King), women will be judged by the content of their character and not the size of their butts. Now that would be truly bootyful."

Huhn? If Mendible felt that way, then why did she write a 3-page essay on rumps?

Is The "Ethnic" Boo-tay going to be the new feature-story trend, starting in the white "progressive" press and eventually working its way into the MSM? Or “booty” becomes the mass-media meme for evasively talking about Black and Brown beauty? To be fair, perhaps these outlets feel these articles and authors serve a two-fold purpose: 1) to give opportunities to marginalized voices and 2) to educate the mostly white readers about the concerns of women of color. But these articles reduce the complex conversations Black women and Latinas have about beauty and sex to a single body part--as if that's all we talk about, that's all we are. And these articles--when accompanied with a dearth of other writings and images in the mass media about the complexities of our lives--really do little more than stereotype us again as nothing more than big ol' behinds. And a subtler message of these pieces appearing in these high white readership forums is that if a Black female or Latina writer wants to get heard, then writing about black and brown derrieres is the way to go. Or we become the default “experts” when a news outlet wants to talk about this topic. (I’m just waiting for Dr. Melissa Harris Lacewell or Maegan La Mala to blog about her being on some left-leaning radio show and the white interviewer starts talking about the “Booty Question.” “I could’ve sworn I was asked to come on to talk about Israel’s bombing of Gaza as it related to Hurricane Katrina,” they’ll write.) The white progressive media hiding behind these female writers of color under the guise of "giving voice" doesn't excuse this perpetuation.

And isn't it interesting, on the eve of Michelle Obama becoming First Lady--a woman whose own complexity can launch a thousand conversations about race, power, gender, class, and the collective erotic imagination in the US--that asses of color are the emerging topic for progressives....even her own?

On This Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T13:38:00.020-05:00

On this Inaugration Day, I went to work. I hoped that the IT people would be able to hook me up with some Wi-Fi connection so I can watch a live stream of the event.

On this Inauguration Day, I was late(r) for the train because I forgot my work heels.

On this Inauguration Day, I took out my garbage, but I had to take off my gloves and stick my foot into the bag to smush down the refuse. Then I had to tie the damn thing. Barely.

On this Inauguration Day, I complimented a subway passenger, another Black woman, looking sharp with her straightened hair gathered in a bun and all-the-way-down black outfit. "It's Inauguration Day. It's a day to dress up." I agreed, though I didn't myself.

On this Inauguration Day, I talked to a young Black man, working to keep me and my co-workers secure. "Happy Inauguration Day!" I said. "Yeah, I'm walking on tip-toes. I can't believe it's happening today." "I just hope that some fool doesn't assassinate the man. We'd be embarrassed on the world stage, having nothing to say to anyone," I responded. "Right," he said, "I hope he knows to duck, not stand there looking around like he's Superman."

On this Inauguration Day, I dealt with a slow-ass computer at work, dealing with a jumpy feed. But what I did see: a sea of white faces, the paragons--the heuristics--of white advantage giving way to the newest leader, a man who is genetically half of them and half of folks who brought me forth, whose immediate and extended family looks like the rest of the world. And I watched this man of color pull together all of our histories and asks all shades and sides of the US to come together.

On this Inauguration Day, I saw the towering Queen of Soul sound like an American Idol reject. She, who could step in for the late Luciano Pavarotti and out-sing him in his genre, for heaven's sake.

On this Inauguration Day, I heard the IT manager, a loud-mouth white man who self-describes as the company's "Howard Stern," complain that he couldn't find a live feed, and the feed he got was jumpy. "Now, there's some chick on." That "chick" was the Inaugural Poet Elizabeth Alexander.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

On this Inauguration Day, I saw one of the best benedictions for this country, for those who want to cling to the fever dream of this country being "post-racial":

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

On this Inauguration Day, I dealt with the exterminators, who told me my floor had a "mice problem." I sent emails about said problem to my supervisor and diarrhetic accidents as well as phone calls about blown-out lightbulbs and broken microwaves.

On this Inauguration Day, I bought a bouquet of flowers for my desk.

On this Inauguration Day, I left work and picked up my new eyeglasses On my way to the terminal, three Black women, of various styles and textures and verities of hair, asked me about the chronology of and reactions to my bald head. At the end of our conversation I wished them a Happy Obama Day.

On this Inauguration Day, after I post this, I'm going to an Inauguration party at a salsera's home, a white woman I could have sworn hated me but found out that she liked me.

On this Inauguration Day--this most extraordinary day--I live my ordinary life, bobbing along the current of history.

And You Can Quote Me: Lurve from ATR and Tami

2009-02-02T18:43:00.008-05:00

My goodness! I take a total slacker break (whenever and with no explanation) from my bit o' the blogosphere and folks are arriving. It's like staying in your bedroom and reading some trashy novel and folks are downstairs in your living room at the open house you and your buddy planned--and the buddy is welcoming the guests! So, let me put on my pearls and welcome...

...everyone swinging by from Racialicious. For those not in the know 'cause I was too slacker-y to post this when it came out last week: Carmen and I did an "Addicted to Race" podcast, in which we discuss Aretha's Inauguration hat and the re-lensing of Black American church culture, why the media is attempting to make Obama's inauguration seem as if it's only an African American victory, and the strange cropping-up of feature stories and op-ed pieces about Black and Brown behinds in liberal/progressive media outlets. Listen to the two of us acting up here.

...everyone coming over from my sistahblogger, Tami, and her way fabulous blog, What Tami Said. For those not in the know: Ms. Tami gave me much lurve on a post that ran last week on the line between entertainment and offensiveness.

The cinema isn't the only place I sometimes put my values aside for the sake of enjoyment. In a recent post about my varied musical tastes, I wrote:

Maybe the most surprising thing, for those who read my liberal rantings here, is that I own some songs that don't quite pass the gender and racial equality smell test. But, hey, sometimes you just want to groove. I can nod my head to "In Da Club" by 50 Cent and ignore the
insipid and predatory lyrics. And I can crank "Sweet Home Alabama" and tune out that line about Birmingham loving the Governor (George Wallace).

In the comments to that post, reader AJ Plaid a.k.a. The Cruel Secretary laid down some wisdom from Racialicious' Latoya Peterson:

"Sometimes you gotta say, 'Fuck it, I love it.'"

Indeed, you do.

AJ goes on to say:

And the older I get I realize that having one thing--one song, one outfit, one book, one sexual fantasy--that flies against your political philosophy but just love for the joy that it brings to you personally keeps you interesting--and human. IMO, all-the-way-down idealogues become insufferably self-righteous and self-congratulatory, horribly irritating, and quite tedious to be around.

Wise words. That's why you should be reading The Cruel Secretary blog on the regular.

Aww shucks, Tami. ::blushes::

But I have more news: I, along with the rest of my Racialicious crew, just did a roundtable about The Atlantic's "The End of White America?" Suffice to say, we had some very strong opinions about it. Check it when the post goes live this week!

Wait...I forgot how good the pearls look on me. So, let me get to being the hostess with the mostest 'round here!

All About My Mother: The Blankie

2009-02-02T19:44:00.009-05:00

When my mom moved into her new digs, she left her books at her old one. All of them: her novels and non-fiction and, most importantly, her Webster's Dictionary. She didn't cease reading; she borrowed books from the library. But, whenever we chatted on the phone, she sounded so disgusted with herself for leaving her books behind.

So, I bought her a belated Christmas present: a gift card for Barnes & Noble (B&N). In the card I wrote: "...It's the least I could do for the person who taught me how to read." When she received it, she gushed in her up-South, country-girl way: "I'm happier than a pig in shit."

Moms told me she went over to B&N that week but didn't buy anything. "I just looked. Just ooo'ing and aahh'ing and looking. Then I left."

Last week, she finally bought something: Bliss Broyard's One Drop and a hardback version of the Oxford Dictionary.

"The Oxford Dictionary is considered the best dictionary by librarians," I told her.

"Yeah, I figured," Moms said. "I love and miss my Webster's Dictionary. But I figured Oxford would be better. I mean, hell, Oxford University, right?"

As always, at these logic-based bon mots, I'm on the floor.

"Gawd, I didn't realize how much I missed my books. There's nothing like reading a book. I'd write down words I wanted to look up in my dictionary on those blank pages in the back of the books I read. Then I moved out. And, yeah, I borrowed the books from the library, but there's nothing like having books around you. There's nothing like having a book in your hand. I feel civilized now.

"Andrea," she said," did you ever have a favorite toy you carried around?"

A couple, I said.

"See, that's what the Oxford Dictionary is for me."

Again, I'm on the ground.

"I swear by the time you see me, it'll be dog-earred and torn up. But I carry it around, from room to room, because I'm so happy and comforted by it. It's my blankie."

As much as I laugh, as much as I swear to confab with the deities to see if I have to be with her for another lifetime...yeah, she's my mom.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Random Life Moment: Video Dedication

2009-02-03T22:45:00.004-05:00

I play enough of 'em on this blog, so it would be fitting that someone would dedicate one to me. From my gurl Fiqah at Possomstew, who introduced me to Pundit Kitchen and to fab shoe spots for 5-inch platforms. She knows me too well!

Open Letter: President Obama, Make Dr. Joycelyn Elders a Member of Your Health Cabinet

2009-02-04T16:46:00.009-05:00

Dear President Obama—

I'm really sorry about Sen. Tom Daschle dropping out of the nomination process. It must be wounding to have to deal with such setbacks when you're doing your best to set your administration--and this country--on a forward motion after eight years of quagmires. I think I got a minute before any more nominations are offered, and this time I won’t out words in your mouth. But I’ll hopefully put a bug in your ear.

I know some bloggers and pundits feel Dr. Howard Dean would make a great Secretary of Health and Human Services. Beliefnet says:

The argument for Howard Dean as Secretary of Health and Human Services is quite straightforward. He's a medical doctor, and has more executive experience than anyone else in Congress or the White House. In his six terms as Governor of Vermont he paid off the state's public debt, expanded health insurance for children, lowered taxes, signed civil unions into law, and delivered a balanced budget every year. And of course as Chairman of the DNC he implemented the 50-state strategy that gave Obama the foundation for victory.

Fellow Vermonter (and deep Dean supporter) Ryan Davis said this yesterday on Huffington Post:

Personally, Dean inspired me enough in 2003 that I moved to Vermont to work for him. He was one of the early voices of reason (followed by Gore and Obama) in the Democratic Party, opposing the war in Iraq. His 2004 campaign's use of the Internet changed the face of American politics forever.

I can see how he'd fit in; I think he'd make a fine Secretary. Unfortunately, he seems to get on your Chief of Staff's, Rahm Emmanuel, nerves--which, according to reports, is why Dean's not part of your administration now.

And, of course, Dr. Sanjay Gupta accepted your offer to become the next US Surgeon General, though we've yet to hear about the confirmation process. I can see why: a neurosurgeon and an award-winning journalist, which shows a skill set that, according to your aides, you feel is vital to the position. He’s well-traveled and well-spoken, which reflects your own biography and your own outlook. And yes, he’s easy on the eyes. (My blogging cohort Sylvia P tweeted, “I think Obama's trying to sexify his appointments, so that if he messes up somewhere, he can put out an Executive Branch Swimsuit Calendar.”)

However, Gupta stands on the opposite side of universal healthcare (Dean, thankfully, is for it.) Gupta also seems to be disturbingly vague about his views on sexual health and reproductive rights. And some his views about mothers and obesity are downright hostile: he blames overweight children on working mothers. Then there are those questions about his conflict-of-interest associations with pharmaceutical companies.

President-elect Obama, for all of this....you can just bring on Dr. Joycelyn Elders as a member of your health cabinet.

Her age? Considering that men older than she is have campaigned and actually ran this country, her age is a non-issue, at best; even better, her long years on this earth and in her field gives her a longer view on how to shape a healthy policy.

The other positives: she’s already done the job as US Surgeon General; she needs no introduction to inner government workings. She's pro-choice. (She is pro-contraception yet is personally against abortion. At the same time, she said anti-choice advocates "to get over this love affair with the fetus.") She's for same-sex marriage. She favors looking into decriminalizing drugs and universal healthcare; she supports a comprehensive sex-ed program and gun control. (Dean has received endorsements from the National Rifle Association, though he is not a member.) Public health studies have shown the links between these issues. Their findings: each of these policies saves lives. (Sexologist Bianca Laureano will talk further about how these policies saves lives in an upcoming post on her blog.) I think Elders will link all of them to provide a more comprehensive US health policy than what we've seen so far.

And, like your Chief of Staff, she's quite forthright. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports [article available only through archive]:

Universal health care is a basic human right that needs to be adopted in the United States, former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders said in Louisville last night.

Elders called on President-elect Barack Obama and Congress to overhaul the health-care system to provide coverage for all, despite the potential cost to taxpayers.

"They say we can't afford it," she said, when "in one month we got $700 billion for Wall Street." Furthermore, she stated:

"We're spending a whole lot of money and we're not getting good results," she said, arguing the U.S. had failed to educate its citizens about health and was too focused on treating sickness rather than preventing it.

"Many of our insurance policies don't pay for prevention" procedures such as Pap smears, she said.

Also

"It makes no sense that the richest country in the world can't take better care of its women," she said [to CNN]. "And we all know that the health and wealth of a nation is directly related to the health and education of its women."

Dr. Elders backed up backed up her ideals during her tenure in public health. While working as a pediatric endocrinologist, she linked juvenile diabetes and the risks of women getting pregnant too early in their reproductive lives, which led her to become an advocate of both sex education and for distributing birth control methods to young people. In her own practice, Elders distributed the contraceptives to her patients, which resulted in only one patient getting pregnant out of 210 she served. As Director of Arkansas Department of Health, she opened 18 school clinics with 4 giving out condoms, mostly due to the local schools districts putting the kibbosh on the effort. In 1989, the Arkansas State Legislature “mandated a kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade course curriculum encompassing not only sex education, but instruction in hygiene, substance-abuse prevention, self-esteem, and the proposition, often overlooked, that sexual responsibility does not belong exclusively to the female”—all thanks to Elder’s efforts. Her efforts also led to expanding HIV testing and counseling in the state. She's also testified before state legislatures about legalizing medical marijuana.

Honestly, President-elect Obama, Dr. Elders was a woman ahead of the times, if not the national conversation around sexuality. Her “controversial” consideration of teaching masturbation to young people as part of sex education back in the 90s is seen as “common sense” nowadays (it was common sense then, too!), with the proliferation of online information such as Scarleteen , Shameless Magazine, and Dr. Carla Stokes' HotGirls .

Considering all, Dr. Elders is a choice candidate for your new administration. In which post? Take your pick: Global AIDS Coordinator, Secretary of Health and Human Services, or US Surgeon General. I think she qualifies for all three positions or, better yet, a synthesis of them. Don't you?

Sincerely,

AJ Plaid,

The Cruel Secretary

Photo credit: windycitymediagroup.com

Quickie: Presentation at John Jay

2009-02-08T21:00:00.007-05:00

Yes, TCS peeps, I'm going to talk about my post and podcast on race and sex advice tomorrow morning with Bianca Laureano's Human Sexuality classes at John Jay College. Wish me luck....

Spread The Word: Join the Women's History Month Blog Carnival

2009-02-11T08:38:00.003-05:00

Tami from What Tami Said asked me to spread the word about this upcoming blogosphere event. Of course I will, and with pleasure.

--###--

Fab Tami is co-hosting the second annual Women's History Month blog carnival with Heart of Women's Space.

This year's topic: how the 2008 Presidential Election created shifts among women, impacting our alliances, identifications and politics.

What they're looking for: essays, poetry, photographic essays, art, You Tube presentations, short fiction and other creative expressions on the shifts in alliances, new connections made and new identifications assumed, as well as former alliances blown to smithereens and relationships tanked.

How it's going to work: Beginning March 2, submissions will be posted alternately at What Tami Said and Women's Space. We are planning to once again close the month with a live open discussion on Blog Talk Radio.

Check out the rest of the deets...and more importantly, spread the word!

Overheard

2009-02-11T10:19:00.004-05:00

...from another convo with Moms, in which we talked about learning public speaking skills at church, how a formal education simply gives a person some polish and not an identity, President Obama not having a poker face, my ability to "lure" (long story):

Mom: Why do people underestimate us?

Me: Because they overestimate themselves.

Overheard

2009-02-11T10:28:00.009-05:00

Here's the background: I recently made a new bro (my term for a male friend). We usually get together for weekly lunch confabs; we're new to each other, so we still figuring out each others' contours and parameters. One tidbit he passed on: he doesn't like skinny women. Though I intellectually know that women-loving men have varying tastes in us, his statement still caught me off-guard because...damn, perhaps because I stereotyped him as someone who would like skinny women. (The shameful stereotype at play: white guys, especially thin white guys like my new bro, like skinny women. Like I said, shameful on my part. Sorry, New Bro!) Perhaps because, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm still scarred from my ex trying to get me to fit that "skinny=sexually desirable" paradigm by "encouraging" me, for example, to eat with a smaller plate (in front of his mom, no less!) and getting a gym membership. Perhaps it's seeing one too many images of thin women--regardless of their color--positioned as the paradigm of everything right about womanhood, so to hear a guy--regardless of his color--say otherwise sounds refreshing. So....

Me: I just have to ask you. You said that you don't find skinny women attractive? Why?

New Bro: Okay, let me preface it by saying that I do like smaller women. But I think of [the attraction] in terms of surfing: It's like surfing on a lake [versus surfing on] an ocean."

Spread the Word: New York Post Needs to Can the Racism

2009-02-19T22:17:00.006-05:00

From Color of Change:

Dear Friend,

Yesterday, the day after President Obama signed his stimulus bill into law, the NY Post ran a cartoon depicting the bill's "author" as a dead monkey, covered in blood after being shot by police. You can see the image by clicking on the link below.

In the face of intense criticism, the Post's editor is standing by the cartoon, claiming that it's not about Obama, has no racial undertones, and that it was simply referencing a recent incident when police shot a pet chimpanzee. But it's impossible to believe that any newspaper editor could be ignorant enough to not understand how this
cartoon evokes a history of racist symbolism, or how frightening this image feels at a time when death threats against President Obama have been on the rise.

Please join me and other ColorOfChange.org members in demanding that the Post apologize publicly and fire the editor who allowed this cartoon to go to print:

http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=1920-543358

The Post would have us believe that the cartoon is not about Obama. But on the page just before the cartoon appears, there's a big picture of Obama signing the stimulus bill. A reader paging through the Post would see Obama putting pen to paper, then turn the page to see this violent cartoon. The imagery is chilling.

There is a clear history in our country of racist symbolism that depicts Black people as apes or monkeys, and it came up multiple times during the presidential campaign.

We're also in a time of increased race-based violence. In the months following President Obama's election there has been a nationwide surge in hate crimes ranging from vandalism to assaults to arson on Black churches. There has been an unprecedented number of threats against President Obama since he was elected, with hate-based groups
fantasizing about the killing of the president. Just a week ago, a man drove from Louisiana to the Capitol with a rifle, telling the police who stopped him that he had a "delivery" for the president.

There is no excuse for the Post to have allowed this cartoon to be printed, and even less for Editor Col Allan's outright dismissal of legitimate concerns.

But let's be clear who's behind the Post: Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, the Post's owner, is the man behind FOX News Channel. FOX has continually attacked and denigrated Black people, politicians, institutions at every opportunity, and ColorOfChange has run several campaigns to make clear how FOX poisons public debate.

I don't expect much from Murdoch. However, with enough public pressure, we can set the stage for advertisers and subscribers to think long and hard before patronizing outlets like the Post that refuse to be held
accountable.

You can help, by making clear that the Post's behavior is unacceptable, and by asking your friends and family to do the same. Please join me:

http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=1920-543358

Thanks.

I already signed the petition. Please circulate this letter and petition. If you're going to send this letter via email, the organizers ask that that you personalize it to friends you know, so it doesn't become spam. Thanks!

UPDATE: New York Post apologizes for cartoon. Apology FAIL.

Spread the Word: Illustrator Needed for Octavia Butler's "Kindred"

2009-03-03T20:52:00.007-05:00

From Latoya Peterson at Racialicious--

Yes, you read that right. According to friend of the blog Allison:

For many years, Beacon Press–a nonprofit book publisher since 1854–has had the privilege of publishing Octavia Butler’s “Kindred,” the story of a modern black woman transported through time to the antebellum South. Octavia Butler died tragically in 2006; those familiar with her life and work know how singular and important her legacy remains. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the novel, and Beacon is deeply honored to announce a collaboration with the Butler estate to produce a graphic adaptation of “Kindred.” The press is currently inviting proposals from cartoonists who appreciate Octavia Butler’s legacy, and reflect hercommitment to social justice in their own work.
Those interested in discussing a proposal should email the editor of the Graphic Books list, Allison Trzop, at atrzop AT beacon DOT org. The deadline is March 16.

Please spread this far and wide, anyone who knows anyone who is an illustrator, graphic artist, whatever.

Orally, Of Course: Interview with Mollena

2009-04-06T07:11:00.007-04:00

Cross-posted at The Perverted Negress

My Racialicious editor, Latoya Peterson, and I offered a two-fer about the Ciara/Justin Timberlake video, "Love Sex Magic." The image of Timberlake pulling Ciara's dog leash brought up the idea of "race play" and racism. Bianca Laureano suggested that I talk to Mollena, a expert on the topic, about said topic. And this, done via an IM (and thanks to Twitter), is the result.

This is Mollena's take on our meeting and the interview itself. Oh--and to reiterate what Mollena says--I expect no less from my TCS crew than a respectful dialogue. But y'all know that.;)

The delightful Andrea Plaid, aka @CruelSecretary Twittered me last week, asking about Race Play. There was a bit of a heated debate on this Justin Timberlake / Ciara video, see, and she thoughtfully wanted to find a POC into kink to get their POV. Of course, my immediate reaction was “Well, sure, I’ll talk about it.” Then my secondary reaction was “OMG you blithering idiot! You’re risking being thrown to the fucking dogs if you move outside of the kink community to talk about this shit! They can’t even accept BDSM, and you’re gonna give them AP level shit that even some hardcore pervs find distasteful!Dumbass. Really.”

It made me nervous. Vulnerable, scared. I don’ t enjoy the idea of people talking shit about me.

SO, of course, I said yes.

I’m posting our chat, edited only for clarity, over the next few days. There is a lot of it.

She’ll be writing an article with her take on it, and I’ll be posting / linking it here as well.

I welcome respectful dialogue, or questions.

And I mean respectful.

Mo: On a sidebar: would you be OK with me putting the raw interview up on my site, as a post? I think it would be interesting to have both available I will, of course, be spellchecking the FUCK out of it

Andrea Plaid: LOL

Andrea Plaid: Mollena, you’re KILLING me ovah here! Of course you can use this with the spellcheck

Mo: Yeah see, there I go. I cannot touch type and I am dyslexic. SO it makes for an interesting stab at many jacked up words if I am trying to keep up with my brain.

Mo: which is like a hummingbird on fucking crank on a GOOD day

Andrea Plaid: Would you mind if I posted this on my site, The Cruel Secretary, and if my editor Latoya doesn’t mind, post this at Racialicious?

Mo: Certainly. Just hit me with some linkage. And I’ll hide in a corner while people threaten to beat me up in a non-con way.

Andrea Plaid: I’ve already told Latoya that you’ve been checking out the threads. She’s serious about protecting folks in the space, so she’s extend the same courtesy to you. And my readers know my expectations on my site, so they don’t get stoopid.

Mo: Would that the owners of mailing lists shared the idea that respect in the public forum is critical.
Andrea Plaid: Send ‘em to Latoya. she’ll school ‘em.

Mo: OK so lob me the 1st question, Madame!

Andrea Plaid: OK…what is race play?

Mo: That one I got down! Been working on it for a while….!

Mo: I define “Race Play,” In broad terms, as any type of play that openly embraces and explores the (either “real” or assumed) racial identity of the players within the context of a BDSM scene. The prime motive in a “Race Play” scene is to underscore and investigate the challenges of racial or cultural differences.

Andrea Plaid: Would you mind giving an example of race play?

Mo: oH THERE ARE THE OBVIOUS

Mo: whoops

Mo: caps lock\there are the obvious ones

Andrea Plaid: gurl, no judgments on the typing/spelling/grammar.

Mo: we in the US like to think we have cornered the market on racial politics. So OBVIOUSLY people go for Antebellum south slavery stuff.

Mo: but even there, there are MANY variations.

Andrea Plaid: Yep. Esp. on the US thinking we got a lock on racial politics thang.

Mo: You can have the white Master black slave thing. You can have a tables turned scenario, with a slave seducing the master, blackmailing them. The “Mandingo” black stud thing. And let us not forget we owned one another. And let us not forget the skin color caste system! High yellow versus dark skinned

Andrea Plaid: So we can get into the black slavemaster/black slave thing, too.

Mo: yes, of course. The ONLY LIMIT is your imagination.

Mo: This expands to a LOT of sins in this country

Andrea Plaid: How so?

Mo: Whites vs native Americans.

Andrea Plaid: Yes! The white settler/native American “squaw” or “chief” fantasy.

Mo: the internment camps where we packed up Japanese Americans. But it isn’t just us….how about a captured Iraqi prisoner tortured by Marines? Or a Sinn Féin extremist being interrogated by a rogue SIS agent? Or a dark skinned Indian person avenging themselves on a lighter-skinned higher-caste individual?

Mo: it goes on and on.

Mo: North vs South Koreans.

Mo: Hutu vs Tutsi

Mo: it is a Human Thing.
Mo: this is part of the reason I boggle at the knee jerk reaction people have. The fact that something is scary, dangerous, real: why does this mean you should NOT explore it?

Mo: For fuck’s sake, driving a car is dangerous. Falling in love is dangerous.

Mo: Understanding that part of the draw, to me, of BDSM is that it tests my fortitude in this body and in this mind and with this heat is what keeps me doing it. How the fuck am I going to let something stop me because it is scary.

Andrea Plaid: But we both know folks aren’t going to see it that way. They want to use that very real painful history to not think of it as fantasy fodder.

Mo: Sure. And more power to them.

Mo: Not everyone volunteers to be hit with a whip traveling at the speed of sound either.

Mo: But I do it because it fascinates me.

Andrea Plaid: But, I suspect, is some folks give it *too* much power. They use it as a way to police the desires of others. As you saw on the threads for my and Latoya’s posts.

Mo: And I understand that. But the root of ALL of that is fear. Straight up.

Mo: Fear that you will be judged by the acts of others. Fear that there is something out there you cannot understand.

Andrea Plaid: Dig that.

Mo: Also, fear that it fascinates you, and that perhaps you are “one of those perverts.” That is often a deep rooted factor, too.

Mo: I have a VERY high capacity for empathy.

Mo: Which is great!

Mo: HOWEVER. It doesn’t discriminate.

Mo: I can empathize with MANY types of people, even those some would consider evil.

Mo: Like sadists.

Mo: SO I can explore that in the relatively safe corral of BDSM, and see how it is to be aroused by the pain of others.

Andrea Plaid: But I think folks want good and evil easily and quickly drawn.

Mo: Yes. And that is a bummer, because evil is delicious. we all know this. that is why movies and stories HAVE TO HAVE “Bad guys” and “evil villianesses”

Mo: and they have to be sexy somehow.

Mo: because we are living entropic systems and we crave destruction on some level.

Mo: Circle of life, baby.

Mo: *lol*

Mo: The idea that someone might hate you PURELY because of your identity is horrific.

Mo: it dehumanizes you, and it makes you “less than”. so, in the context of BDSM, it is fair game for that type of play.

Andrea Plaid: And words like “normal”–as in “normal” sex, which some folks wouldn’t consider BDSM and race play–get employed to convey “good.”

Mo: Right.

Mo: If you do that “kinky shit” you CANNOT, by definition, be mentally sound.

Mo: Or you have some agenda.

Andrea Plaid: Like not uplifting The Race! (Insert PoC group here)

Mo: Yeah.

Mo: My vagina isn’t really interested in uplifting the race.

Andrea Plaid: LOL!

Mo: What pussy wants is fucked up stuff, really dark scenarios that test the boundaries and cut with an exhilarating level of danger. Stepping razor dangerous, like the song goes.

Andrea Plaid: Next question: how is race play similar and different from BDSM? if it is any different?

Mo: It isn’t different from BDSM, it is an aspect of BDSM. It CAN encompass many different aspects. Obviously, role-playing comes to mind.

Andrea Plaid: right.

Mo: In the same way that a pair of 6″ stilettos and a pair of flip flops are both shoes, race play and a spanking, for example, can all be aspects of BDSM

Mo: But different types of people are going to find either one sexier

Andrea Plaid: (i had a commenter say a person who’s into BDSM may not do race play and vice versa.)

Mo: Oh the VAST majority of kinky people would never admit to dong racially based play or fantasizing about it.

Mo: because of the PC thing.

Andrea Plaid: Yeah, kinda figured that.

Mo: My thinking is this: in the same way pendulums have to swing to reach equilibrium, the BDSM community has to breathe around this aspect of Kink.

Mo: and as to those who are non-kink identified….it is even more challenging. They have a double hurdle.

Mo: groking” kink at ALL, then groking one of the MOST controversial types of play.

Andrea Plaid: and that gets read on the outside of the communities that white folks want to re-enact slavery again and BDSM may be that vehicle. Ergo, “keep BDSM away!” ::horror-film scream::

Mo: yeah because kink is a gateway drug for racism.

Mo: Please.

Andrea Plaid: LOL

Andrea Plaid: As my gurl F******** and I say, “Roll credits!”

Mo: You know what the problem is…people DO NOT want to THINK.

Andrea Plaid: Bingo!

Mo: …people DO NOT want to FEEL.

Mo: it is risky.

Mo: and because I feel a LOT and think “Too much.” as my kid sister is fond of observing, they assume a lot about me.

Mo: but no one wants to just ask me.

Mo: they’d rather run around online talkin’ ’bout they gonna “beat the ass of anyone that they see doing some race play bullshit.”

Mo: and not in a good way.

Andrea Plaid: What I’m running into is people want to do those things and use 1)white folks, 2) the ancestors, and 3) the chirren as their reasoning to not even think about the issue.

Mo: Most “white folks” (meaningless term, blah blah) are MORE uncomfortable around this than you know.

Mo: And I have spoken with the ancestors. They are delighted that I can FUCKING CHOOSE to do this for a few bloody hours.

Andrea Plaid: really….please tell me more.

Mo: I can go into the Big Ass Ice Cream Parlor of Racism and have a sample spoon, and leave.

Andrea Plaid: LOL!

Mo: I’m not trapped there being force fed the Rocky Road Ice Cream of Oppression until I am sick.

Mo: Yanno?

Mo: It is ALL about CHOICE.

Andrea Plaid: And consent.

Mo: I hope people fucking get that. Understand this one thing and then you’ll be well on the pathway.

*Grok(king) means “to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed-to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science-and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man.”

Quote Me: My First "What Tami Said" Podcast!

2009-04-20T14:52:00.008-04:00

Y'all know in these here parts how I feel about my blogsister, Tami, and her brilliant blog, What Tami Said. Well, Tami asked me--along Monica from TransGriot and Renee from Womanist Musings--to join her for a discussion about black femininity on her podcast. And, let me tell you--it was a dis-cuss-ion: a bit testy, a lot of spirit, and plenty of same-time talking. As the best discussions go.

I thank Monica and Renee for yesterday's wonderful conversation. And, as always, I thank Tami for being such a great facilitator and being her graciously brilliant self. I'm glad that you loved the ep!;)

Click and check it. And click and check for the posts Tami alludes to in the podcast.

Quote Me: Q&A at John Jay College

2009-02-24T20:45:00.007-05:00

After much struggling with uploading this from my camcorder into my 'puter and from my 'puter to YouTube, I finally got this clip up and out into the virtual world.

The backstory: my homegurl Bianca Laureano asked me to talk to her two Human Sexuality classes about my post and podcast on Racialicious about race and sex advice. Of course, I happily did it, though I didn't quite know what to expect. (Was I supposed to give a lecture-lecture? Just go with the question flow? Orate from my piece and throw some Zane in there?) Thankfully, the sessions were Q&A, and the students animated and engaged. The most common question asked was about race, sex, and the dance floor, namely the stereotypes of white people and Black women functioning in the clubs.

But that was not the question posed at the beginning of this clip. The student asked me about the racialized images in porn play themselves out in straight and same-gender-loving sexual/romantic relationships. Here's my response, along with my responding to the Rihanna/Chris Brown intimate-partner violence situation, which was just emerging as a news story when I filmed the clip.

I'd like to thank Bianca for the incredible opportunity to talk to her classes and for letting me tape it. (That's Bianca you see in the clip.) I also give a bouquet of gratitude to Carmen Van Kerckhove for encouraging me to record this and to Latoya Peterson for telling me to breathe.

New Blog: AJ's Recipe Swap

2009-02-25T11:02:00.006-05:00

Yes, y'all. I started a new blog, AJ's Recipe Swap. From the first post:

Alex Alvarez, the utterly ab-fab associate editor at Guanabee and a guest contributor at Racialicious, sent me an email a looooooong time ago. She wanted me to send along a recipe for a recipe swap, in which--if I remember correctly--I had to send my favorite homemade dish to her and several of my friends, too. Lo, I didn't, though I thought the idea was pretty intriguing--a social network based on recipes. (I'd
use the word "community," but that word is becoming overused by one too many
left-leaning types with visions of running cults of personality under the guise
of working towards an egalitarian utopia.)So, last night, in the midst of
Oscar-night madness and snark, Alex brought it up again. On Twitter, no
less.

And I think @CruelSecretary [my other blog as well as Twitter name] should start a Twitter Recipe Exchange. Starting with her collard-greens salad.

I had to laugh. Damn Alex, I thought. I lurves her. And then I starting lurving the idea. Since this was her idea, I had to ask how to get this done.

@CruelSecretary Not sure! Maybe it could be a weekly thing - a link to a blog post, perhaps.

I'm (hopefully) doing one better. This one's for you, Ms. Alex. So, of course, you have to give a recipe.
--###--
If you are interested in submitting a recipe, please send it along to ajsrecipeswap@ hotmail.com. Of course, please read the sidebar for the submission and comment moderation. I look forward to breaking bread with you soon!

Your Sex Acts--and Partners--Aren't Uplifting the Race

2009-04-02T05:19:00.014-04:00

Originally posted at Racialicious

My gurl S., who followed the Justin Timberlake/Ciara post and thread very closely, just about fell out while we talked on the phone.

She was apoplectic over Timberlake pulling Ciara's chain in the video, of that salient image of BDSM (and possible race play) as well as the article about race play I linked to in the comment thread. Too through, she told me she "had to get up from the computer when I read about race play." "I mean, I knew about it, but I never read about it in detail. I just can't believe it!!"

"I know," I told S. "I know." 'Cause I've heard this reaction to race play before. Talking to another blogger, she flipped out pretty bad about it. I had to calm her down by saying, 'I feel you. Personally, I think of race play and, yeah, I feel the body memories of slavery, too. And, yeah, I even felt a negative undercurrent in Hernandez's piece, one of 'This isn't uplifting The Race!' But, S., I'll tell you what I told the blogger: the reality is--whether we like it or not--people are into it."

"And, I added, "you can't flip out about race play [with the Racial Uplift] argument because some folks can use the same argument about your liking anal beads: 'The slavemasters--and white men--have stuck all kinds of objects into us to violate us. Why would you want to do something like that? That's not uplifting the race!'"

S. got quiet. "Yeah, you're right."

Unfortunately, this argument gets whipped out among people of color when a PoC steps out of sexual line of "acceptable" sex practices and partners, especially in a public space, like Ciara did in her "Love Sex Magic" video. On the thread from the other day, she gets “read” as a slut corrupting the youth or a victim of the patriarchy or both. Some of the comments:

"Ciara is clearly desperate…her albums aren’t selling like the execs thought they would…in sense she is a slave…so the video is perfect fit."

"The video is way sexualized to a point that’s unnecessary...My issue is with the fact that Ciara chose to go so far that she came off as tacky."

"I don’t know that I’ve witnessed this much (grand plié in 2nd position) crotch, thigh waving and close-up butt rumbling by non-brown bodies in a music videos of late...She is dancing around and below him, she is an armrest for him, she is performing for him (and us – not an essentially bad thing, but a thing I’m keeping in mind) . . ."

"Ciara tends to be very sexualized in general. Did anyone see her performance with Chris Brown at the BET awards? This is how she markets herself...But I feel Ciara’s video is too sexual, and I blame that all on her. We need to start making women accountable in these situations."

"I think the portrayal of Black women in general, rather a Black rapper or rip-off artist like Justin Timberlake, is discraceful no matter who does it. We have girls and boys, Black, white, latino, asian, in middle school watching this crap, and thinking this is how men and women act, and women should have to get half naked to get status while boys have to be immature, crass, and disrespectful, its alienating to the self and destroys creativity. What ever happened to convincing and natural sexuality?"

"I find it hard to believe that a lot of people can read Ciara’s performance in this video as one of powerful female sexiness. She goes out of her way to get his attention, performs for him, and is used as an object by him. Given the music industry as a whole and the way it has a double standard for the sexualization of men and women (cool vs. sluts) I think this plays into that mentality. The girl is suppose to do whatever to get the cool, calm, collected man. If that was what she was going for Epic Fail, she only reinforced the sexist mentality of the music industry."

"I’m more interested on why so many sisters are willing to go along with this stuff. Our ancestors had no choice in the during slavery and Jim Crow. These wom[e]n can’t say the same. Why are so many women of all color willing to be treated like this by men of all colors? Men who do it are disgusting, but it’s the women I don’t get."

“It is the idea and practice that women have to be overtly sexual, in a way that is geared towards the male gaze, in order to sell records...As someone mentioned up thread, Ciara’s not been shifting the units, hence the increasingly sexualised videos...It’s not like we even get a nuanced version of sexuality, it’s always “I am sexy, don’t you want me? I want you to want me?”...Finally, what message does it send out, when even someone as successful as Beyonce feels the need to behave like a Video Girl whenever Jay Z is in her videos?"

"As for Ciara and Janet-both “grown women”-give me a break. You want to know all the women who-as “grown women”-refused to be sexualized in their own video and still made it?"

And not only is Ciara a "slut" and/or "victim," she's a racial amnesiac. Or folks were done with the BDSM and/or race play imagery in general:

"A WM with a chain around a BWs neck, our ancestors are crying inside."

"From the piece the Cruel Secretary linked:
“White master seeking black slave, however, seems the more popular of the combinations. ”
::: re-reads sentence:::
“White master seeking black slave, however, seems the more popular of the combinations.”
::: rubs eyes and reads sentence again, aloud this time:::
“White master seeking black slave, however, seems the more popular of the combinations.
::: folds top lip into mouth:::
::: quietly exits internets:::"

I need to work this in reverse. First of all, let me grapple with BDSM, race play, and racism.

And I’m going to work it like this:

1) All slavery isn’t wrong. There, I said it. And I mean it like this: nonconsensual slavery—the taking and owning of people and forcing them work or do whatever else the slaver wants, i.e. American slavery—is wrong because the slaver is making the enslaved person/people do this against their will. However, in a BDSM (bondage/domination/submission/sadism/masochism and their various combinations) usage, “slavery” isn’t wrong because the arrangement is agreed upon and that consent is continuously talked about and negotiated. As stated at Center of Human Sexuality’s (CHS) sexuality.org:

Modern BDSM is premised on consent -- informed and freely given. The word "consent" is so fundamental to BDSM as it is practiced today that there are a large number of tools, vocabulary, and customs available to ensure that activities that are nonconsensual do not occur.

What happened in, say, American slavery of Africans isn’t the same thing happening when Justin Timberlake, an individual white man, is pulling on Ciara’s, an individual Black woman’s, dog chain. The Black folks who got hauled over during that slave trade didn’t give white folks permission to put us in chains and drag us to the “New World." Ciara and Timberlake negotiated—again, the core BDSM idea of consent--that particular part of the video. He’s also not standing as a proxy for all white men and their enslaving fantasies no more than she is a stand-in for all Black women wanting to be on a leash. Nor is either one giving people permission to assume that all men can and will go out and do this to all Black women. Every thought need not be acted upon. And, of course, not every word means the same thing in every situation.

2) Just because the white guy’s doing the yanking doesn’t mean he’s in control. In BDSM—and in race play--the “top” (“the person leading or initiating the BDSM activities” says CHS) can do no more than what the “bottom” (“the person following the top's lead or being done to,” according to CHS) tells or allows zie to do. Even in some memoirs about stripping, the women have stated they felt in control of the situation, of the arousal. Even though we’re so used to seeing the image (and, in some cases, reality) of White Men at the socio-economic Top and Black Women at the socio-economic Bottom, in this particular instance, Ciara originated the idea of the video and chose her musical collaborator, Timberlake, to play the role that he did in the video. And, actually, they do throughout the video what’s called in BDSM “switching”:

Although some people are 100% top and some are 100% bottom, the majority of folks switch, at least occasionally. That is, many folks sometimes bottom and sometimes top. This can be arranged in many different ways. Sometimes partners take turns with each other. Other times, someone will only top one partner and only bottom to some other partner.

In many cases, we can talk about continuous white and male privilege and power differentials and sexual aggression and violence and, yes, we can relate various situations where all these things take place with other ones—just not in every case. Sexual practices, like BDSM and race play, may be one of those situations…because what zie sees may not be what’s actually happening, especially with practices that are considered as non-traditional being viewed through the intersecting lens of oppression.

3) Just because it’s Justin doesn’t mean things are going to jump off. I’m not denying that Timberlake betrayed Janet Jackson, a woman he said he’d admired (if not crushed on), by letting him take the heat for Nipplegate while he went to win Grammys.And, as several commenters and regular contributors have said, Timberlake has gained his cred with audiences through displaying some effed-up race and gender politics in his videos as well, especially concerning women of color.

When we talked this video amongst the special correspondent staff, Wendi Muse commented:

OK, yeah, this is sexist because he is fully clothed and Ciara's role is more that of a stripper...and I have to say that Justin's objectification of women, period, and then on top of that, PoC ladies (does anyone remember "Senorita"!?) helped him gain acceptance as an R & B singer...sounds bad, but it's kinda the truth. If he only paraded around Britney look-a-likes, it wouldn't help him gain that industry cred. Having said all that, I watched the video and my first thought was something along the lines of...wow, who knew Ciara was that hot? Is she the new Grace Jones?!?!

My co-contributor Arturo says about this video, “Call me crazy but that looked rather mild, on the sexy/BDSM meter. Overall, though, I saw Justin as more prop than possessor here. The song was too bland to carry more sinister overtones.” In this particular instance, Justin may be neutralized.

Which brings me to Ciara herself.

This is what one of my other co-contributors, Thea, says about her:

In the context of Ciara's oeuvre (yes I did say Ciara's oeuvre) I think this is just kicking it up a notch. She has always come across to me as the opposite of a submissive pop princess (like, say, Jessica Simpson). She is seriously fierce and athletic and I appreciate that there never seems to be any attempt to downplay her physicality and ferociousness. I have to say one of my fave R & B videos of all time is Like A Boy, where Ciara and her dancers basically do a Drag King routine at the end of the video. (And if you ask me, I love Beyonce, but both the song and video for Like A Boy are far superior to If I Were A Boy, B's diluted '08 take on the same subject.)
Like A Boy, like Love Sex Magic, is interesting in that it really doesn't feel like a display for the enjoyment of men. (Contrast this with portrayals of women dressing up as men that simply play into male fantasies. Think a Pussycat Doll wearing a fedora.) It feels like an expression of Ciara's understanding of what it means to be a woman, rather than an attempt to be sexually titillating to men. Even in the Love Sex Magic video, I don't feel like it's for men, because it falls just outside of what is considered a sexual ideal in our culture. I think Ciara joins the ranks of artists like Mariah Carey and Kylie Minogue, where a quick glance at their vixen/sexpot/high femme/diva images might miss the depth, joyfulness and sense of fun that underscores the way they play their sexual identities. Sure from a distance Love Sex Magic looks like any other vid - some lady clad in sexy clothes humping furniture - but if you look closer, Ciara is definitely the powerhouse in this video, and she's also far more aggressive, demanding and powerful in her poses than say, the whole Britney Spears virgin/whore dance routine. "Powerhouse" doesn't really play into the socially sanctioned male fantasy if you ask me.

What if Ciara, in the midst of her trying to promote this single, is also offering some fantasy fodder--not a mandate or command--for some Black women to sexually express themselves? Not just dom and/or top (the slicked-back hair, sunglasses, the sky-high stilettos; the stripper who feel feels zie is controlling the arousal), not just sub and/or bottom (the chained Ciara, the armrest Ciara), but the switch (where she stands over Timberlake and then leans back and he catches her; after that they slide their hands over her body). And what if she wanted to play out this fantasy with a white man?

As Seattle Slim crystallizes in her comment:

And to add further to the mix, I wonder how many WOC in IR relationships with white men take issue with this video? I certainly don’t. Quite frankly, it reminds me of a couple weekends at my house. Yes, we go there.

An alternative idea of sexuality meeting with status-quo becomes a battle for some Black folks and other PoCs because it's the:

1) "wrong" kind of seduction—stripper and BDSM forwardness instead of petal-and-pearls, rain-on-the-pane smoove-jazz romance.

2) "wrong" white guy--Timberlake instead of, say, Robin Thicke (who did a GQ photo shoot with Rihanna not to long ago with an S/M-esque picture of his spank-ready hand above Rihanna’s butt or his D/S-interpreted snap of his biting off her bathing suit strap)

3) "wrong" sex act--BDSM and/or race play instead of tumbling into said petal-and-pearls bed. In other words, she's not behaving like a proper, uplifting Black woman.

What folks may not see in the enraged haze is Ciara and Justin are also behaving like the sexual beings that they are, including acting out a possible fantasy. In an upcoming Bitch roundtable on music and misogyny, hosted by our own Latoya, Nuyorican queer activist and academic Marisol LeBron says this about how young women may use hip-hop to explore their own ideas around sexual practices and our thundering about it:

I think they're not really allowed to ...thats the big issue...They're demonized for wanting to be "sexually scandalous." I think the question of public and private sexuality is crucial here. [What I mean is] You can be a freak in the sheets but not in the streets. That's what I mean when I refer to this politics of respectability. We're concerned with these images of women of color's sexuality, desires, and practices being seen in a public domain. I think a lot of it has to do with hip-hop's white consumership. Its like you need to censor yourself because white dudes are watching."

The white dudes and the ancestors.

Using them as the justification to chastise Ciara’s—and yeah, even Justin’s—publicly played-out fantasy may keep us all intra- and interracially correct for a minute…but it also may flatten our sexual horizons. LeBron continues:

I've been doing a lot with psychoanalytic theory recently, and one of the main things is that people don't know why they desire what they desire and that they often desire things that they're not supposed to or that are not good for them. In many ways current discussions about hip hop sexuality denies basic tendencies that people as sexual beings are working through.

How do we critique the sexism without critiquing the sexual practices, though? Perhaps with the working understanding that we can't police Ciara’s—or Justin’s or anyone else's—sexual desires, sexual activities, and sexual fantasies because we all may have a sexual peccadillo that's not "correct" but gives us utter pleasure, wherever we wish to display it. Because, I’m sure, the ancestors could wag their fingers at our own versions of anal beads or, at least, our fantasies about having them used in us.

Many thanks to S., Latoya, Thea, Arturo, Wendi, Mollena, and Bianca Laureano.

Photo Credits: Ciara/Justin Timberlake--from lovebscott.com; Rihanna and Robin Thicke--from buzzworthy.MTV.com; Ciara--aceshowbiz.com; Grace Jones--kalamu.com

Spread the Word: Benefit Screening for "Dancing with the Spirits"

2009-03-03T21:09:00.007-05:00

From my salsa mentor and good friend, Cathy Calderon, who is spreading the word about the Yoruba faith.

FILM SCREENING - SATURDAY, MARCH 14 -- 7pm

We will be holding another screening of the film "Dancing with the Spirits", which explores my journey of healing through dance, yoga and initiation into the Afro-Cuban spiritual traditions. It is also an homage to my spiritual mentor, my godfather in the Yoruba religion, Felix "Pupy" Insua, and presents some of the story of his fascinating, outrageous and joyous life. Lots of dancing, rumba music and scenes of the vibrant life of Cuba.

This screening will be followed by a seminar focusing on the c

reative process that was involved in this projct. I will be joined by three women with whom I worked closely over the three years of making the film: my two associate producers, Martha Hillhouse and Neycha Herford, who worked with me with card divination and deep intutive process; and Darmone Holland, a Yoruba priest of Obatalla, and bodyworker, who guided me into deeper and deeper realms of contact with Spirit in order to hear the messages of how the film was meant to evolve and serve. I think this will be an interesting and stimulating forum for all who seek to gain deeper access to their own creative process.

Tickets are available at the center, or through our website http://shambhalayogadance.com/screening.html.

Orally, Of Course: Interview with Mollena, Part 2

2009-04-07T06:20:00.006-04:00

Cross-posted at The Perverted Negress

...Mollena and me, still going at it.

Andrea Plaid: That’s what folks got tripped up about with the Ciara/JT vid.

Mo: Look, I have never lived in the South on a plantation and felt the terror of my life every moment at the hands and whims of an owner or of another slave with an agenda

Mo: HOWEVER! I can pretend.

Mo: and in a very real emotional sense, I have tasted what that is like.

Mo: and it is a screaming band of pain that still resonates in this country, on this fucking planet, you know.

Mo: But it is just under the radar.

Mo: I can hear it when I play there. I experience it. It is a terror that I can’t completely understand.

Mo: But one thing I learned in this play: resistance is harder than it looks.

Andrea Plaid: Then the question comes back: “But *why* would you want to do that? Can’t you just look at lynching pix and get the damn point?”

Andrea Plaid: (I’m being facetious…and to some folks, quite blasphemous. But I’m going there….)

Mo: Why is because I live viscerally.

Mo: I obtain a profound benefit to living the reality as deeply as I can emotionally.

Mo: In the race play scenes I have done that involved black / white dynamics, do you know what the scariest thing was? That I ultimately gave up.

Mo: I am NOT of the resistant blood.

Mo: I’m a quitter. I was afraid, I gave in.

Mo: That is a lot to have about your nature revealed.

Andrea Plaid: what did it reveal?

Mo: That I am, at heart, obedient.

Andrea Plaid: Hmmm…I think I’m getting to what you’re saying.

Mo: even in a scene where I had disassociated and genuinely feared for my life, I gave up.

Mo: I’m genuinely, at the core, submissive in a way I am CERTAIN does not translate to my present-day self!

Mo: I hoped it would be quick and over fast.

Andrea Plaid: Obedient…to whom?

Mo: Obedient to authority.

Plaid: I think I’m getting it…groking it.

Mo: *lol* win!

Mo: We all like to think we’d be Kunta fucking Kinte

Andrea Plaid: ‘Cause that’s the narrative we’re fed from yea-high.

Andrea Plaid: “We gotta be strong in the face of whitey, y’all”

Mo: Sure, go ahead and be strong in the face of whitey. But if you get hot because whitey has beaten your ass and taken you down…BUT YOU ENDURED….then you have a whole new lease on life, man.

Mo: In honesty, there were millions of us enslaved by a few hundred thousand people.

Mo: Jews were systematically destroyed by Nazis in camps where there were many, many more prisoners than guards.

Andrea Plaid: I remember someone saying the biggest damage the Nazis did to Jews was psychological.

Mo: It is true they had people walk to their own deaths.

Mo: Fucking horrific.

Mo: And yet if someone of Jewish descent wants to have a Nazi interrogation scene, to sip a bit of that bitter, bitter cup, who the fuck are you to say that is wrong?

Mo: Doing race play is HARD.

Mo: it isn’t some walk in the fucking park.

Mo: and finding people I trust enough to do it with is almost impossible.

Mo: because it is hard.

Mo: and THEY are at risk.

Andrea Plaid: it’s like we hold the painful history and a sacred mythology that is not to be blasphemized.

Andrea Plaid: *as a sacred mythology*

Mo: But it is not blasphemy to want to touch that wound.

Mo: you can’t heal something in your soul by letting it remain in its original state of pain.

Mo: it HAS to be touched. Otherwise it will never heal.

Andrea Plaid: and being as puritanical as we are about sex, we wield that history when it comes to our sex lives.

Andrea Plaid: the double bind.

Mo: I am not recommending that people run out and play aunt Jemima Uncle Tom games with any random cracka ass cracka, for the love of Ganesha. I’m saying that, if this intrigues you, think about why. And I am saying it if repulses you, think about why.

Mo: REALLY think

Mo: don’t do some knee-jerk bullshit.

Mo: And Black folks in the US are not known for being sexually liberated. Which is why the hypersexualization of our imagery over the years is a double helix of irony

Andrea Plaid: But that wound also gives us an identity. And, like I’ve said to folks before, we love self-mythologies, sacred stories we tell about ourselves.

Andrea Plaid: “and Black folks in the US are not known for being sexually liberated. Which is why the hypersexualization of our imagery over the years is a double helix of irony.” Can I get a witness.

Andrea Plaid: You said it right there.

Andrea Plaid: Next question: How did you get into the race play scene? Was has been the reaction you’ve received?

Mo: Huh. Well…the first conscious stirrings I had about being submissive were around some fantasies I shared with a former lover.

Mo: a very explosive short affair

Mo: Years later we were on the phone one day and having some nasty talk and he made some comment about how I’d be an awful slave

Mo: and I was totally insulted!!!

Mo: LOL!

Andrea Plaid: so what happened?

Mo: so I decided to write a politically incorrect bedtime story.

Mo: because when something trips me out, I gotta get elbow deep in it.

Mo: SO, I wrote this little story set back in the day

Mo: white master, black slave, blah blah

Mo: and I kept adding to it.

Mo: and it was, I thought, possibly the Worst Thing Anyone had Ever Written.

Mo: so, of course I started showing it to people, so that someone would have me committed.

Mo: no one did. People loved it.

Andrea Plaid: knew it!

Mo: Black people, white people, they thought it was intriguing and sexy.

Mo: and challenging.

Mo: I had a friend…VERY RADICAL black feminist.

Mo: I showed it to her because I was feeling like, OK, she would shred me apart.

Mo: and then I would be sufficiently punished.

Andrea Plaid: …and she *loved* it, didn’t she?

Mo: My girl read the shit and called me in the middle of the NIGHT talking about how I needed to get out of HER head!!!

Mo: I was like “Oh shit.”

Andrea Plaid: Whoa! Right the hell on!

Mo: SO the idea just lived there in my guts, waiting.

Mo: My 1st “Official Dominant” had no interest in race play: never wanted to go there. So, we didn’t.
Mo: And that was my 1st 2 years in the BDSM community right there.

Mo: he couldn’t bring himself to say “THE N WORD” even in conversation. Let alone in scene.

Andrea Plaid: Did you eventually find someone who’d race-play with you?

Mo: Oh yeah. Someone of Jewish descent, of course.

Mo: LULZ

Andrea Plaid: Oooooo…gurl, you’re gonna send me to hell.

Mo: I know.

Mo: I rule.

Mo: He was the 1st person who had no problem with it.

Mo: Subsequently, I’ve done racially boundaried scenes with one British person, 2 white Americans, and one Mexican.

Andrea Plaid: Indeed!

Andrea Plaid: and you’ve been the sub or have you switched.

Mo: I haven’t switched.

Mo: That is a rarity for me in play in general.

Mo: Though I do have a certain delightful revenge fantasy about fucking the shit outta some guy with a ginormous strap-on. But we don’t talk about that….I don’t have the time to answer all of the offers I’d get if I put THAT out there.

Mo: Seriously

Andrea Plaid: ’cause you know they’ll come…no pun intended.

Mo: You know?!?

Mo: I could make it a full time job.

Andrea Plaid: in this economy? I think folks may be a bit empathetic.

Orally, Of Course: Interview with Mollena, Part 4

2009-04-09T06:16:00.008-04:00

Cross-posted at The Perverted Negress

...in which this great conversation comes to an end. A big ol' bouquet of gratitude to the incredible Mollena for the opportunity to discuss The Race and race play with her. And for her amazing editing skills. And her graciousness in letting me cross-post. And for just being herself, through and through.

Andrea Plaid: Last of my questions (again, we touched on it, but for the record): How can we move the conversation within our communities so we can talk about BDSM and race play as sexual/erotic possibilities?

Mo: Yeah. there is the rub

Mo: First off: people who do play this way have to come out of the closet.

Mo: Until players stand up, there will be a continued marginalization.

Mo: and that there is the easy part.

Mo: the harder part is having people within the community put down the “Us vs.Them” thing.

Mo: it can’t be all about being apart from our desires because they are scary.

Mo: there has to be room in the dungeon for everyone’s emotional play.

Mo: every person who is ashamed of their desires is anther person we damage indirectly with our scathing commentary and harsh judgments

Andrea Plaid: or the desires may make “those folks” think you’re fulfilling stereotypes.

Mo: Whether or not you are fulfilling stereotypes, this is beside the question. I know this is nuanced, but it is critical. All stereotypes are based on facts and observations that have been bred and fed to damage and wound and kill.

Mo: If you take that snarling dog, that offensive beast, and tame it to your own ends, you win.

Andrea Plaid: dig it.

Mo: the hardest part is taking yourself out of your comfort zone.

Mo: thinking differently.

Andrea Plaid: to talk about kink and BDSM and race play if not do it.

Mo: Yes. and to listen to those who are dumb enough to expose themselves to threats and ostracization and loss of friends and ridicule and psychological dissection.

Mo: who is more racially sound? the person who melts down and freaks out and blows up because someone calls them a nigger?

Mo: or the person who, on hearing that epithet, knows that they have been given the gift of information?

Mo: Knowing that an ugliness has been revealed, and now you can act accordingly?

Mo: Those words don’t control me anymore.

Mo: I am not immune to racism. But I’ve been inoculated, ad my soul can fight off that spiritual infection

Mo: dig it?

Mo: I think THAT is overcoming.

Andrea Plaid: I think I can get to that.

Mo: roll credits.

Mo: heh

Andrea Plaid: I’m just bummed that my analysis on Ciara as a sub was off.

Andrea Plaid: dang it!

Mo: It isn’t off.

Mo: That is the thing

Mo: it can be so many things

Mo: people paint onto it what they want.

Mo: Listen, seriously.

Mo: I had a woman come up to me after one of my race play classes and tell me a scene I was in years ago was one of the first scenes she ever saw

Andrea Plaid: really?

Mo: and of course, being me and one of my Favourite Soulless Sadists, it was very intense

Mo: she said to me she hadn’t been “prepared to see that.”

Mo: and after so many years s an activist, etc, she was shocked and dismayed to see a white man tying up and beating down a black woman.

Mo: that this is a “difficult thing to see,” yadda. Like she felt she should have been warned or something.

Mo: (mind, I DO talk about alerting bystanders, via the dungeon monitors, if you are planning extreme play.)

Mo: the thing is this

Mo: That dominant DOESN’T DO RACE PLAY.

Andrea Plaid: Really?

Mo: It was a straightforward fuckin’ rope scene with whips and shit

Mo: she SAW a race play scene.

Mo: I have NO control over that.

Andrea Plaid: got it!

Mo: I do race play BY DEFAULT in the eyes of most people

Mo: *shrug*

Mo: this was very illustrative of the level of complexity

Mo: David tying and suspending a black woman became a transgressive act in and of itself.

Mo: bring in the whip and boy howdy, it is over

Mo: which is hilarious, frankly.

Andrea Plaid: much in the same way, I read Ciara as a sub just because she was ostensibly in the leash.

Mo: Dommes can wear collars too.

Mo: Again, choice.

Andrea Plaid: even though she had control of the video and she and JT negotiated the whats–including the kinky scenes–beforehand.

Mo: If you want to get really subtle, watch the video and see if she is ever in a subordinate position and NOT looking in the camera.

Mo: the show isn’t for him. it is for the viewer.

Andrea Plaid: he’s just a prop, as my bro Arturo said.

Mo: yes, he is.

Andrea Plaid: you’re right–when Ciara’s in a sub position, she’s looking at the camera.

Mo: My but he is excellent at drawing down controversy on his pointy little head, isn’t he.

Andrea Plaid: LOL

Mo: I ain’t been in the biz 35 years for nothing!!!

Mo: I see that shit!!!!

Andrea Plaid: so, Ciara’s a sub for the camera and a domme for Justin….hmmmm.

Mo: We are the voyeur in their fantasy.

Andrea Plaid: I hear it from several sides: you’re not “Black enough,” you’re not “feminist enough…” blah blah blah.

Mo: yeah.

Andrea Plaid: I mean people assume, by my handle, that i’m soooo domme. but I’m like, no. I’m not. I like getting spanked and tied up, not spanking and tying.

Mo: because doing the toughest fucking thing you can possibly do, which is swim against the tide, isn’t “enough”

Mo: People make assumptions. I try to ask.

Andrea Plaid: exactly.

Mo: I have been skirting posting about race play

Mo: because I was all “Ugh I don’t wanna be the goddamned poster child”

Mo: but hey, look!

Mo: I’m becoming the goddamned poster child!

Mo: It also helps that I have 3 different people I feel comfortable doing these scenes with.

Mo: it had been feeling very much like a vacuum for a few years now

Andrea Plaid: I bet.

Mo: so now a bit better

Andrea Plaid: and I’ve discovered and come to grips with my wee kink for a while now. and I’m slooooowly incorporating it into my life. I had to admit that I was a sub.

Mo: that is a tough one, huh?

Mo: I read “Screw The Roses” and the fact that there was ONE black female sub interviewed in there gave me hope.

Andrea Plaid: I’ll check it out.

Mo: Strangely the most recent addition to my stable went ahead and bent one of my cardinal rules about doing those scenes.

Mo: Slippery fucker.

Andrea Plaid: oh? what happened?

Mo: Oh! *lol* he asked me if I needed a demo top for my class.

Mo: and I was all “Uh. You know this is my race play class, right?”

Mo: and of course he did.

Andrea Plaid: errrrmmm…..

Mo: and inside I was like “OMG hell yeah.” because I wanted to play with this guy.

Mo: and we’d had one of those “Oh, yeah, instant soul family” deep level connections.

Mo: but it took me by surprise because I WASN’T offended upset or shocked.

Mo: It was like “Oh, of course. Thank you.”

Andrea Plaid: and any other time you’d be like, “WTF?”

Mo: EXACTLY

Mo: but he’s tuned in enough to know it was OK for him to ask.

Mo: I hate / love it when they get in your head like that.

Mo: It took balls on his part.

Andrea Plaid: now let me get this right: it’s wrong to ask because….

Andrea Plaid: (I know: totally naive question)

Mo: FOR ME, I feel it is wrong to ask because I now know you want this specific thing, and I have to trust that you don’t have creepy ass motives.

Andrea Plaid: got it.

Mo: and for me, it is important for me to suss the person out without this in their head or my head

Mo: I need to just feel them emotionally.

Mo: straight neutral.

Mo: THEN if the thought occurs to me “Hey…they might be kinda good with that…”

Mo: then I drop the hankie, as it were.

Andrea Plaid: instead of just assuming you’d be down with they’re playing with you.

Mo: I don’t like that assumption.

Mo: ….except when I do.

Mo: *sigh*

Andrea Plaid: so…what happened?

Mo: What happened was it was off the fucking HOOK.

Andrea Plaid: I think I’m getting it…it’s an assumption about you’re not being indiscriminate about how who you’d play with.

Mo: right.

Mo: If you assume that I’ll do THAT with you, I kind of use that as a litmus test

Andrea Plaid: It’s like, “I’d know you’re into it, and I’m into it, so I know you want me (strange person off the streets) to play with you.”

Andrea Plaid: and your reaction is, “Ummmm…do I know you like that?”

Andrea Plaid: “just because I’m into race play doesn’t mean I wanna play with *you*.”

Andrea Plaid: got it.

Mo: EXACTY.

Mo: and I stress that really really hard when I teach.

Andrea Plaid: you need to.

Mo: for the fact is most POC don’t wanna go there.

Andrea Plaid: yep.

Mo: so to my critics I say “Look, this is the alpha and omega when I present.”

Andrea Plaid: you mean the POC that race play?

Mo: No. to POC who do NOT think it is OK. Their position is well diagrammed in my presentations.

Mo: so their position is well represented. Really.

Mo: Now excuse me while this white guy ties me up and slices my clothes off.

Andrea Plaid: no you didn’t!

Mo: Oh yes

Mo: yes, he did.

Mo: rotflmbbao

Andrea Plaid: got it. it’s the same argument [some] folks on the Racialicious threads tried to present: “Ciara and JT have declared open season on interracial kink! Those bastards!”

Mo: good for them.

Mo: sex is sexy.

Mo: is is sometimes fucked up.

Mo: and that is also sexy.

Orally, Of Course--Interview with Mollena, part 3

2009-04-08T06:12:00.012-04:00

Cross-posted at The Perverted Negress

...in which Mollena and I compare Ciara's video to 9 1/2 Weeks. Read on. (Warning: NSFW videos in this post.)

Andrea Plaid: Next question (and we sorta touched on this): Why do you think communities of color, specifically Black communities, feel the need to police their desires…to the point they won’t explore sexual/erotic practices that some folks deem “racially incorrect”? And, more importantly, play police for The Race?

Mo: There is certainly the aspect of our very conservative and deeply religious background.

Mo: We have a strong church based community

Mo: That isn’t something that is easy to shake.

Mo: The fact is that we have put ourselves in a position where we have to “prove ourselves” in order to survive.

Mo: From jump, we’ve been at a disadvantage here.

Mo: and so now that we’ve reached a point where we actually have a fighting chance, people don’t want anything that may jeopardize or mitigate, in THEIR eyes, our position of moral superiority.

Mo: It is the idea we are “above” that.

Andrea Plaid: ::nods head:: and we do that by saying certain sexual practices, like BDSM and race play, are the things that “white folks do” or “what white folks want us to do.”

Mo: exactly.

Mo: and so we deny ourselves the very fucking freedoms that our ancestors, or parents and grandparents struggled to give us.

Mo: Freedom has no business being compartmentalized so that it remains frozen in some idealized space.

Mo: freedom is messy.

Mo: Ask the Iraqi people.

Andrea Plaid: the interracial history, esp. when it comes to fucking, is so fraught that we’d think “folks” would look at the Ciara/JT vid and think, “he's oppressing her, and she likes it. Gahh!” and clutch their pearls.

Mo: Yeah. OK. SO?

Mo: the part here where you have all the info you need is this:

Mo: “And she likes it.”

Mo: the “Why” is none of your fucking business.

Mo: In this case, the “Why” is purely money.

Andrea Plaid: what? Mollena, that’s racial blasphemy.

Mo: I know, I know.

Mo: I feel us slipping back to the 1950s every time I masturbate.

Mo: It is a huge burden, really.

Andrea Plaid: LOL!!

Mo: That video has as much to do with BDSM as the video of the guy padding the kitty cat has to do with animal abuse.

Andrea Plaid: Now, let’s talk about the Ciara/JT vid: you don’t think it had anything to do with BDSM?

Mo: It has to do with kinky imagery and taboos.

Mo: it is an easy hook.

Mo: videos are commercials.

Mo: and commercials HAVE to get at you.

Mo: because BDSM is still edgy, it is an easy cheat

Andrea Plaid: hmmmm…good point.

Mo: But as to really accurately reflecting kink?

Mo: No.

Andrea Plaid: why not?

Andrea Plaid: (I know, totally non-kinkcentric question to ask, but I’m asking.)

Mo: Hm…

Mo: First off.

Mo: it is all about display and visual impact.

Mo: which IS an aspect of BDSM, so, sure.

Mo: there is fetishwear, provocative poses.

Andrea Plaid: I hear a “buuuuut” rearing up…

Mo: yeah here it comes

Mo: it doesn’t do anything else.

Mo: and for some people, that is enough.

Mo: A shoe fetishist would masturbate to any video with feet in it.

Mo: God bless them.

Mo: to say a man having a woman on a collar is automatically BDSM is false

Mo: this video has little to do with BDSM. It has to do with what looks sexy.

Mo: the one thing

Mo: the ONLY THING

Mo: that separates BDSM from abuse is consent.

Mo: now, there is implied consent.

Mo: HOWEVER at no point is she not in control.

Mo: Never.

Andrea Plaid: see, you beat to the question…

Mo: so if you want to pull it apart that way, guess what.

Mo: FAIL.

Mo: I am not going to meta-discuss her lack of control in the white dominated machine of the music industry.

Mo: Sister is doing it for herself. she has a marginal talent a stellar physique, she is making money, end of story.

Andrea Plaid: so, in order to for the vid to show a representation of BDSM, there would have been a 3-sec moment of consent?

Mo: *lol*

Mo: in order for the video to comply with Mollena’s BDSM Bible

Mo: we’d see a moment of emotional connection.

Mo: That is theater.

Mo: Not passion.

Andrea Plaid: right.
Mo: Not that theater isn’t passionate.

Mo: But BDSM for theatrical purposes

Mo: (which I love!)

Mo: is different from a reflection of what BDSM is for me

Andrea Plaid: got it.

Mo: Do you remember 91/2 weeks?

Andrea Plaid: what else?

Andrea Plaid: yep! one of my all-time fave films.

Mo: the scene where she strips for him, and it is kinda awkward but sexy, and she does it because he wants her to?

Andrea Plaid: right.

Mo: THAT, to me, is BDSM represented in the way I see it.

Mo: you really get her awkwardness and her desire to be pleasing to him, and his arousal at her doing so.

Mo: in this video you get over the top dry humping and a leash.

Mo: *shrug*

Andrea Plaid: ROTFLMAO

Mo: *lol*

Andrea Plaid: can another read be that Ciara is coming at it from a dom position, too?

Andrea Plaid: a “top” position?

Mo: of course.

Mo: If the whole video is her fantasy, she is of necessity running the show.

Mo: Dominants can wear what they want and do what they want. The idea of teasing with the body can have a dominant tone.

Mo: what bugs me is that it is “OK of the black person is dominant but “NOT UPLIFTING THE RACE!!” if she’s submissive.

Andrea Plaid: aaaahhhaaaaaa.

Mo: lol

Andrea Plaid: dig.

Mo: Oo now you get to decide which ROLE is OK for me?!

Mo: Fuck you, buddy.

Mo: I have gotten shit from black dominants about race play.

Mo: even as they top white submissives.

Andrea Plaid: really?

Mo: but that is OK, see, because it bucks the paradigm.

Mo: Seriously. Fuck you.

Mo: Yah really.

Mo: not for play play.

Mo: It gets deep, yo.

Mo: I’ve had people who I know for a FACT do race play fuck me over in public for doing it in public.

Mo: But it is OK for them to do it, just not OK for people to know about it.

Andrea Plaid: Jeez…even in race play there the “We gotta be strong–in this case, top white folks?”

Mo: yes.

Mo: payback, you see.

Mo: we aren’t getting reparations, so go beat up some white bitch and get yours.

Andrea Plaid: …and here’s me shaking my head.

Andrea Plaid: and, it’s up to *you* to keep my image up.

Mo: Ya feel me?

Mo: Exactly.
Mo: because, then,of course ALL white people will feel ALL POC are fair game

Mo: but the thing is this: ignorant fuckers have been doing inappropriate shit for YEARS

Mo: is it possible that talking about it makes it bloody fucking clear that it is NEVER OK to make that assumption?

Mo: But when I get a message form a POC who says to me “I thought I was the only one, thank you for talking about that, I felt terrible!” it is worth it. Truly.

Andrea Plaid: guuuuuuuuurl. ::fist pump::

Mo: Really.

Mo: I have, in my 12 years, had one person say to me “I wanna do a race play scene with you.”

Mo: OE.

Mo: (one)

Mo: why is that?

Mo: 1) I am, evidently, hella intimidating

Mo: which kinda sucks but that is another discussion

Mo: 2) I live in CA, where the PC thing is strong

Mo: 3) I make it bloody fucking clear it is NOT ACCEPTABLE for you to EVER ask someone to bottom to you in that type of scene. I feel it really has to come from the person being the “victim”

Mo: this is my approach.

Mo: if they are doing it in their heads anyway, best to know WHO those people are, right?

Andrea Plaid: like seeing Ciara and JT is instant license for white folks to put dog leashes on Black women.

Mo: There ain’t shit new under this sun when it comes to mans inhumanity to man.

Mo: and sure, people get ideas.

Mo: But if you think denial and silence will crush desire

Andrea Plaid: but ideas=/=actions.

Mo: all you have to do is look at a few numbers on the porn industry.

Mo: Ideas CAN move to action.

Mo: But I am not responsible for anything except living an ethical life, being true to my God, and respecting this planet and her inhabitants.

Mo: the rest is outside of my control.

Mo: and those who would be the Race police can take a fucking page from the Serenity prayer

Mo: God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Mo: Grab some wisdom. You are never going to change the way people are wired.

Andrea Plaid: right, but people act as if the ideas will run tsunami-like and overtake them. thus, JT and Ciara are making it open season on white men (and PoC men) to put dog collars on Black women. ::horror scream::

Mo: you CAN change your attitude and judgments around other folk’s desires, and choice.

Andrea Plaid: it’s like, dudes, no. it’s not.

Mo: Send them my way, please, those hot white men looking to stalk and tackle Negresses.

Mo: I got a boot handy for them.

Andrea Plaid: roll credits!

Mo: Has anyone taken the temperature among younger folks on this?

Mo: I am willing to bet most people 25 and under would be like “What is the big deal? They are having fun and it is sexy.”

Mo: and THAT is the real fact.

Andrea Plaid: and the younger adults and teens, who’ve grown up with Dan Savage giving advice, do feel the way you described.

Andrea Plaid: ya know, the single is hot right now. And the folks who want to comment about the children say in “Don’t expose them to these kinds of images. What would a 7-yr-old understand about kink?”

Mo: I first saw a gay leatherman when I was 5 or so

Mo: NYC,West Village, you know the drill.

Mo: I asked my mom (a nice church girl) why they were dressed like that. She said “Different people do different things.” and left it at that.

Mo: And I never tripped about it again.

Andrea Plaid: The wisdom of mums.

Mo: She had to get very creative with me, my Mom did.

Mo: LOL!

Andrea Plaid: My mom gets horrified walking into a sex shop in New Orleans. and that happened when my sis and me were out the house.

Mo: But the thing is this.

Mo: if you are anti-sexuality for young children, fine.

Mo: If you are anti-BDSM, OK.

Mo: These are absolutely your choices.

Mo: in the same way it is MY choice to think differently. And I appreciate the respect I show you and your opinion mirrored back to me and mine.

Mo: and I furthermore appreciate thoughtfulness, not knee jerk reactions.

Mo: Only the most vulnerable mind watches a video and runs out and does what it says.

Mo: and those people are beyond your protecting them but not talking about difficult topics, really.

Andrea Plaid: but, I fear, children is the go-to reason for the knee-jerk reaction.

Mo: So don’t let your kids watch TV

Mo: And keep your kids out of my dungeon, thanks.

Andrea Plaid: what? Mollena, that’s an American blasphemy!

Andrea Plaid: LOL

Mo: I know! TV is, after all, “Friend … Mother … Secret Lover” to quote Homer Simpson.

Andrea Plaid: and folks want to pretend helplessness before the “onslaught” of pop culture instead of being the grown person and buffering what the children are seeing.

Mo: People make me crazy sometimes

Mo: Why can’t we all just admit we have our freaks and move on?

Mo: I am the Rodney King of kink.

Andrea Plaid: ::horror-film scream::

Plaid: “I am the Rodney King of kink.” (*DEAD*)

Mo: rofflez

Andrea Plaid: LOL!

Mo: that was pretty good…..

Mo: And if you don’t want to explain shit to kids, you are kind of fucked. That is your JOB as a PARENT

Moving Out

2009-06-03T22:39:00.002-04:00

Yep, I'm moving to a new blogging home and neighborhood. I'll forward you the address as soon as it's ready to visit.

Roundtable on Domestic Violence at Muslimah Media Watch

2009-02-23T15:11:00.002-05:00

As mentioned yesterday, Fatemeh Fakhraie and her contributing cohorts have a roundtable posted on the death of Aasiya Hassan, Islam, and domestic violence. Please read--and, if you are so moved, respectfully participate in--the discussion at Muslimah Media Watch.

Spread the Word: Women's History Month Blog Carnival and Roundtable on Domestic Violence

2009-02-22T16:21:00.003-05:00

Please don't forget: my blogging big sis, Tami at What Tami Said, is co-hosting the Women's History Month Carnival. The deets--

This year's topic: how the 2008 Presidential Election created shifts among women, impacting our alliances, identifications and politics.

What they're looking for: essays, poetry, photographic essays, art, You Tube presentations, short fiction and other creative expressions on the shifts in alliances, new connections made and new identifications assumed, as well as former alliances blown to smithereens and relationships tanked.

How it's going to work: Beginning March 2, submissions will be posted alternately at What Tami Said and Women's Space. We are planning to once again close the month with a live open discussion on Blog Talk Radio.

Check out the rest of the deets...and more importantly, spread the word!

Also, my Racialicious homegurl Fatemeh Fakhraie, editrix extraordinaire of Muslimah Media Watch, is hosting a upcoming roundtable about the death of Aasiya Hassan and domestic violence. Here is a excerpt from a post Fatemeh wrote at Religion Dispatches about the subject:

Rihanna. Aasiya Zubair Hassan. Laci Peterson.
What do a pop star born in Barbados, a Pakistani TV executive, and a pregnant housewife have in common?
They are all victims of domestic violence.
But while Rihanna’s and Laci Peterson’s stories have not been connected to their ethnicities or their religions, Aasiya’s has. News reports dubbing her gruesome murder an “honor killing” are all over the news, and there are many who are quick to blame Islam or Pakistani culture for what her husband has allegedly done, despite the fact that he has not used Islam to justify his deeds, and no Muslim organization, scholar, or imam has condoned her murder.

Please read the rest here.

Overheard

2009-01-14T07:20:00.004-05:00

Once again, this post comes from a convo I had with my moms. The topics: how "The View" hosts didn't beat Ann Coulter's ass, the possible biological underpinning of soon-to-be former VP Dick Cheney's evil, and good mentors...

Mom: What if Barack Obama showed up to The Inauguration drunk?

Me: (Couldn't say anything for about 10 minutes because I was laughing so hard)