The Obligatory Black TV Respectability Rant

(Insomniac internet browsing session in full effect. It feels odd to revisit this blog after nearly a year of getting my thoughts out in my digital analog journals. I still haven't decided on which method I prefer.)

I just ran across this article on The Root: http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/09/we_do_not_need_to_be_saved_from_empire_or_scandal_or_htgawm_or.html?wpisrc=topstories

Quite timely, don't you think? With the fall TV season starting, all the self-righteous "I hate everything" folks are gearing up. I think I first encountered this attitude in full effect a few years ago when I watched Scandal regularly. A very annoying subset of Black men were convinced that Black women who liked Scandal supported extra-marital affairs. They honestly thought that all Scandal fans lacked the ability to separate reality from a TV drama. "Y'all cheering for Olivia & Fitz, but if some woman was screwing your husband you'd be mad!!" Ummm...duh. So I guess we should assume that since you enjoy violent movies, you support people having massive public gunfights? To this day, I believe that a lot of early Scandal hate was rooted in their belief that Black women are inherently unintelligent; that our moral compasses are so broken that we would blindly mimic the antics of an adulterous TV character. 

Fast forward to autumn 2015. We now have Empire and HTGAWM (most cumbersome show title ever) in addition to Scandal. Couple these with the more family-friendly Black-ish, and we have a recipe for a renewed Black pop culture war. You're a "good" Black person if you tune in to Black-ish instead of Empire on Wednesday nights. If you don't, you're part of the "problem." As a community, we have to stop thinking in binaries. A person isn't lazy or dismissive of social issues because they indulge in trash TV once (or twice) a week. Women aren't going to drop everything & start sleeping with married men because they watch Scandal. The truth is that we could all make better use of our time. However, people who work 24/7 without ever taking a break, people who can't take jokes, people who can't enjoy anything without over-analyzing, aren't full human beings. And frankly, most of them end up with premature wrinkles & hypertension. Not cute. 

On a personal level, I know that I used to be one of those self-righteous blowhards. On some things, I still am, to be honest. But as I age, I've come to appreciate the need for balance and the value of permitting people their little vices. I think we would all be better off if we embraced our inner ratchet more often. It's humbling. Shoot, I'm always lamenting the declining quality of hip-hop, but even I couldn't resist jamming to Fetty Wap's new album today at work. I have also learned not to underestimate the complexity of human nature or overestimate the viability of outward appearances. The people whom you think are passively watching TV might be able to blow your mind with theoretical analyses of every aspect of their favorite shows. The people always carrying a book might not be able to articulate a single original thought.

Much can be said of the deleterious effects of TV, but there is a lot going on in this world. If people need to unplug from work, activism, or screaming toddlers for an hour to chill with a glass of wine and their favorite show, let them.

That article is on to something: Many folks have gone beyond just not liking popular TV, which is totally understandable, to this overzealous obsession with judging everyone who does. I agree that underneath all this is the belief that Black people are so doggone basic that we can't separate TV from reality, that we can't work for the betterment of our communities and root for Cookie Lyon at the same time. Yes, these shows are problematic, as most popular things are, but you don't get bonus Black Revolutionary Points for spending all your time scolding strangers on the internet for watching them.

On Ignorance & Malice

"…When someone is doing something out of ignorance and you ask them to stop, they stop. When they are doing it out of malice, they don’t stop." ~ bankuei (Tumblr)

Ran across this on Tumblr, & I thought it summarizes much of what I've tried to articulate about discrimination/oppression the last few years. I know these topics require nuance. We all are products of particular cultural circumstances, so we are not always intending to be racist/classist/sexist/ableist/homophobic etc. But sometimes you just have to call a thing a thing. At some point, your intentions don't matter: just stop being an ass. We don't have to make grandiose rhetorical treatises to avoid calling racism what it is for the sake of "diversity" or to avoid hurting people's wittle fee-fees. 

This is truly a classic oppressor tactic: Perpetually claim ignorance about why something is an issue so victims have to devote all their energy to educating bigots instead of working for justice. DO NOT FALL FOR IT. Yes, education is key to the work of liberation and equality. However, Google is available to practically everyone, so these folks on social media who continue to claim ignorance about street harassment or police brutality or living wages for months & years are, frankly, full of shit. You know the ones. They constantly whine, "How can I learn if you don't teach me?! I need you to spoon feed me exact sources, statistics, & concrete solutions before I even consider changing my hurtful behavior!!" These ostensible claims of ignorance are indeed malicious. 

I'm not saying everyone has to be a well-read scholar. (I'm certainly not one!) But I am saying that it doesn't take a genius to respect someone else's humanity. When a woman says she doesn't want to be grabbed or followed on the street, when a Black person says they don't want to be choked to death by police, when working poor people say they want to be able to pay rent AND eat, there's only so many times you can claim ignorance about misogyny, police brutality, & poverty before entering malicious territory. 

Nuance and subtlety are necessary and beautiful, but people are dying out here. If you don't want to learn or if you're comfortable being racist/sexist/whatever, simply say so. Just don't claim ignorance in an effort to force others to dance around these issues. It's cowardly, passive-aggressive, counter-productive behavior. Own your malice. Or at least fess up to the fact that certain issues aren't important to you. It will save all of us a lot of time. 

I know that on an individual level, this might not be true, but on a societal level all these forms of oppression are intentional and malicious in the 21st century. This nation, this world, was given the template for equality during the various liberation movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS BEFORE! Those in power know that the prison industrial complex is wrong. They know police brutality is wrong. They know that gendered wage gaps are wrong. They know food deserts are wrong. They know education inequality is wrong. The United States can no longer claim ignorance about the way it mistreats certain groups. Until we confront that fact, nothing will ever be fully rectified. 

At some point, we have to be brave enough to call something what it is. Malice cannot forever be concealed by claims of innocence.

On "Good Christians" & Protest

This was originally a Facebook rant from November 25, 2014. Putting it here so it doesn't get lost on the timeline. It was written in a moment of emotion after the Ferguson grand jury decision, and I have a feeling I'll end up needing to send this out again. 

~~~~~

Since some so-called Christians feel free to text me early this morning with smug "Just Pray" & "Don't be like those devilish violent protestors" remarks, I'm just going to put this here, & you can take it how you want it: I am NOT in the mood to play nice with y'all's ignorant self-righteous asses today. What y'all NOT gon do is sit in your comfortable homes with full shopping lists ready to go fight people at Wal-Mart on Black Friday and judge my brothers and sisters in Ferguson for fighting for their rights. You are NOT going to quote cliches about "Black-on-Black" crime while ignoring that most crimes happen within communities, not outside them. By that logic, I better see an equally passionate call for an end to "White-on-White" crime, too. How dare you tell the families of victims of police brutality that it is "God's Will" that their children are murdered by this racist system, and that they are sinning somehow by expressing anger & fighting against it? If that ain't slave logic, I don't know what is. Perhaps the blue-eyed Jesus you serve compels you to cower & judge, but the brown-eyed Jesus I admire turned over tables in temples and lived boldly according to his convictions. He didn't just sit at home and pray and talk slick about the oppressed. I can't help but think some of your calls for peace and passivity are coming from a spirit of disunity, not solidarity. So, if you think you are better than protestors because you "just pray" & sit at home peacefully, stay off my phone and social media until I'm in a more congenial mood. Thank you.

Thoughts on Hometown History

Last  month, I went home to Texas for my mother's 50th birthday weekend. I had some downtime that Sunday morning while she was at church, and I took the opportunity to enjoy the balmy weather and my cute rental car to drive around and finally check out some of the historical markers around town.  Click here for some photos of the architecture and historical markers around Main Street. The markers themselves are an interesting study in public history. I can't help but to think about the messages they are sending about the key individuals and events in Texas history. I know that markers like these cannot possible give a comprehensive history of any given place, but I am always concerned about the things that are obscured in public memory. Taken as a whole, it's quite clear that there is a particular narrative these plaques intend to convey, and I wonder what that narrative means for future retellings of Texas history, especially given the disturbing trends in our public schools.

I grew up in Nacogdoches, the "Oldest Town in Texas." I've always thought that it was some odd twist of fate that a child as enamored with history as I would land in a town so blatantly obsessed with its origins. I suppose my interest was bolstered when I realized how the narrative reflected in the monuments and museums we visited on school field trips was meant to convey certain messages about Texas history. The stories we learned about Sam Houston, Antonio Gil Y'Barbo, and Thomas J. Rusk taught us that Texans were steadfast, brave, and industrious. We fought against tyranny and established thriving communities amidst great adversity. These characterizations were sort of a microcosm of the sanitized Founding Fathers narrative taught in US History classes. 

Statue of Antonio Gil Y'Barbo in Downtown Nacogdoches

Marker Near the Visitors' Center Commemorating the Battle of Nacogdoches

Just as our nation as a whole still struggles with memories of genocide, slavery, and discrimination in our historical narratives, so does Nacogdoches. Growing up, I noticed how teachers and docents stumbled around the presence of Native Americans in East Texas. I noticed how they awkwardly acknowledged that the Caddo had a significant village in/near Nacogdoches generations before Spain established a mission there in 1716 without really answering why that village ceased to exist. As my hometown has worked to preserve its narrative, it becomes clear how certain monuments, such as the Old Stone Fort, are meticulously cared for while others, such as EJ Campbell School, are barely standing. In little tourist-y towns like this, the past and the present sometimes stand uncomfortably close: My middle school was located on Mound Street, where ancient Native American burial mounds sit right next to beautiful old houses and shops. 

 
At some point in my career, I'm going to return home and do some serious research on East Texas African American history. I want to get involved with the African American Heritage Project of Nacogdoches if it's still in existence after I finish my dissertation. But for now, whenever I'm home, I'm going to try to explore a different part of Nacogdoches, especially now that I'm noticing that many lesser-known landmarks are falling into disrepair.

Some Thoughts on Race & Levels of Power (Or, Virginia's State Capitol Creeped Me Out)

I've been in Richmond since Monday conducting research at the Library of Virginia on Janie Porter Barrett and other Black social reformers in the early 1900s. It's been a productive trip. It's more evident than ever that despite their elitism, Barrett and her peers really did care about the well-being of Black children and families in the state. I'm going to have to wrestle some more with my conflicting feelings about social uplift and the problematic divisions between Black elites and poor Blacks, but it's still inspiring to see what these people accomplished. 

After steeping myself in old ledgers, correspondence, and meeting notes relating to Black reform work in Virginia for a few days, I felt an odd discomfort when I visited the state capitol this afternoon. It was psychologically jarring to suddenly find myself surrounded by monuments to white manhood. This in itself is nothing new - most government buildings and monuments are primarily celebrations of the accomplishments of white men. But of all the capitols I've visited, I've never been as bothered as I was today by these types of spaces. The Black Virginians and white women I spent all week researching were completely absent, even though they worked closely with governors and legislators on many advancements in this state. To top everything off, I found this painting (link here) entitled "First Legislature in the New World" hanging on a wall near the rotunda. (Complete disregard of the Native American legal systems in place thousands of years before the men in this painting were born.) It gave me the creeps. Something about being surrounded by paintings and effigies of slaveholders just didn't sit right with me today.

So now I'm thinking about different levels of power and the racialized and gendered ways that we celebrate power in the US. The people in my research have power on the ground - they work closely with communities, local committees, churches, schools, and such. The men memorialized at the state capitol have power in the political and economic systems above the ground. As a historian, I want to join the ranks of other scholars who call attention to the important ground-level work that is, in my opinion, more representative of American social ideals than what we see in state capitols and other historical monuments. As a nation, we have to idolize politicians less and community activists more. Imagine how revolutionary it would be if we glamorized the people who ran our local Boys & Girls Club or homeless shelter just as much as we do our high-level politicians. After all, those are the types of people who have the most direct effect on our children and needy. But we deem the power dynamics developed in those areas inferior because they tend to favor people of color, the poor, and women.

Sidenote: I need to read theory more closely. I know Gramsci, Foucault, and a whole host of other folks have written countless pages on power and space and memory. Perhaps it's best that I digest theory in spurts: I learn something new each time I dig in.

I wish I was enough of a poet to articulate the eerie feeling I experienced today. Maybe I just shouldn't have gone straight from the archive to the capitol. Maybe the spirits of those men really didn't want my Black female self in their pretty clubhouse. That's alright though. I marched around that building free, literate, proud, everything they didn't want me to be. I hope they rolled over in their graves.

Addendum: In case someone messages me with this asinine question that I'm tired of answering - No, I do not hate white people or men. I hate racism & sexism. Two different things, people.