SISTRENISTA

(Cross posted at event-hopping womanist site, http://sistrenista.com/?p=243)

It’s no secret that this current generation of college graduates has a decades’ long, uphill battle ahead of us in terms of achieving economic security. We’re saddled with thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. And with the lack of available jobs, we take any/everything that can pay the bills. All of this stress of course takes an emotional toll. For the 7 months I was recently unemployed, I was fighting feelings of sadness, failure and worthlessness. No amount of consideration of the economic recession could really convince me that I hadn’t done something wrong…wrong major, wrong passion, wrong city. As a means of support, everyone says ‘stay positive’ but here are some of the more concrete ways I tried (unsuccessfully at times) to deal with emotional crisis caused by prolonged unemployment.

1. Develop a flexible/strict schedule. Get involved with a group, volunteer, tutor, take a random part-time job. Having a set place to be twice a week helps keep you regimented, forces you to interact with people and is a reminder that the world is more than craigslist ads, idealist searches or networking events. On the other hand, knowing that you can switch your schedule at the VA clinic if you get a last minute interview is very crucial because, for the time being anyway, your world does in fact revolve around craigslist ads, idealist searches and networking events.
2. Adhere to pre-approved wallowing time. I spent a week living on my couch watching Seinfeld and eating only when it was absolutely necessary. And I recommend it (not necessarily Seinfeld…choose your own drug of choice). I had been intensely job-searching for a couple of months at that point and decided I’d had enough. I gave myself one glorious week to wallow in self pity and laugh at ridiculous re-runs. The week came and went and I eventually had to get off the couch. And so will you.
3. Spice up the job search with ‘coffee-shopping’ or ‘library- hopping’. The drudgery of monotonous job searching can be soul crushing. If you have to do it, why not at least do it in interesting settings? I became an expert on my neighborhood and got to experience new parts of Brooklyn by choosing new locations each week/month in which to set up my mobile office: old and new coffee shops, laundromats, libraries, public parks…wherever there was a free Wi-Fi signal, I was there.
4. Go to the random events… Just Go! I’m fortunate enough to live in a city with a lot of (free) events happening all of the time. The last thing I wanted to do initially was take time away from the job search and watch a film or attend a discussion. My thought was ‘was it a film about jobs? would we be discussing jobs??’ Eventually, I dragged myself to a one-day film festival and was reminded that I was still a social being with interests outside of my (lack of) income. If it will be fun (remember fun?!) and distracting for a few hours, just go do it.
5. Laugh at the absurdity with your friends. Friends are amazing and laughter is the best medicine so utilize both as much as possible. I had a couple of friends who were unemployed around the same time as I was and we had quite a few ‘laugh until your abs hurt’ sessions talking about the most foolish parts of the application/interview process. Remember that time you called the employer back 5 minutes after she called you and the number was disconnected? Or what about that time you applied for a very specific position and the organization interviewed you for another unidentified, random position? These things are absurd and should be laughed at accordingly.

(cross posted at Sistrenista:Adventures of an event-hopping womanist)

When Todd Akin reinvented reproductive science to claim that women had “ways” of preventing pregnancy during “legitimate” rape, he made visible crucial components of conservative/Republican ideology (abortion opposition even in cases of rape or incest) and rape culture (distinguishing between ‘real’ or ‘legitimate’ rape and all of those fake rape accusations). Rightfully so, there was general outrage at the audacity of this man, the epitome of white, heterosexual, wealthy privilege who himself will never live under the constant threat of rape or sexual assault, to spout pseudo science and add fuel to cultural narratives that challenge a woman’s accusation of rape before believing her.

At the Republican National Convention last week, all was quiet on the abortion front. In the aftermath, as marketing and PR teams scramble to prove that there is no Republican “war on women” and that the consistent gender gap in national polls is only a coincidence, a new defense emerges, that of deflection. The new answer to the question of whether or not the Republican Party’s harsh stance on reproductive issues has created a hostile environment for women is “women are more than the sum of their reproductive parts!” (Presumably said with a “sisters, unite!” tossed in for good measure). Pseudo science, meet pseudo feminism.

Seemingly this tactic is meant to say that what is really insulting is not that Republican law-makers want to force women to have unwanted babies; no, what is really insulting is that the liberal left, the Planned Parenthood types have essentialized the female experience and reduced us to the whims of our uteri. What they fail to realize is that in addition to chipping away at patriarchal institutions, we feminist women can concern ourselves with abortion and other reproductive issues AND worry about big, important (manly) issues like jobs or urban renewal. We can multi task. We can also, like male voters, decide to prioritize some issues over others. The widespread availability of safe and affordable birth control, including abortion, has arguably had the greatest economic effect on women’s lives here in the US. Being able to choose if and when we have children is inextricably linked to our ability to effectively participate in the workforce. So the dichotomy between “women’s” issues and “real” issues is a false one, unless of course you happen to be a part of the exclusive good old boys club that masquerades as the Republican Party.

If you ever get the opportunity to dance on water…take it! Especially if it comes with unbelievable views and amazing company. The event invitation read “This August 10, 2012 we leave the shores of the Hudson River and head for the delta where the waters kiss the Atlantic Ocean, and reclaim ourselves.” And that’s just what we did.

I have the distinct honor being an advisory board member of the boat ride’s host, Black Women’s Blueprint, a social justice organization working to empower and end violence against women of African descent. Our meetings are usually strategy or program-related, but Friday night we came to get down and celebrate the birthday of our amazing executive director (and raise money for our work, of course).

The party started even before The Star of Palm Beach left the dock at Pier 40. Upstairs, the DJ alternated between reggae for di yardie people dem and salsa for la gente. Downstairs, the DJ took us back to that glorious musical era known as the 90s (‘bug-a-boo’, anyone?!) People went back and forth between the two floors depending on their personal tastes or depending on which DJ had gathered the larger crowd. Although the bachata mix upstairs featured some of the best contemporary artists in the genre (Prince Royce! *swoon*), the dance floor downstairs won the unofficial battle, no contest. As things began to wind down and we returned to the deck after midnight, the crowd began to disperse. Then what was, seemingly, supposed to be the ‘clean up’ music came on the speakers. And it was Whitney. And it was ‘I wanna dance with somebody’. My sister-friends and I rushed back to the dance floor ‘the clock strikes upon the hour’, formed a mass circle ‘still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away’ and began belting out the lyrics ‘and when the night falls, loneliness calls’ maybe thinking if we shouted loud enough ‘yeeeeeeaaaaaa, I wanna dance with somebody’ Whitney could hear us from the land of our ancestors ‘with somebody who loves me’. Halfway through, the DJ turned off the song but nobody told us because we kept right on singing, now with an audience of onlookers from upstairs and onshore probably wondering how they could be a part of it all.

Even if the DJs had played a mix between Gregorian chant music and tuvan throat singing, the experience of being on the Hudson River on a clear summer night could not have been ruined. One of the downfalls of having grown up here is that in some ways, I’m desensitized to the impressiveness and audacity that is NYC; there is simply no place on the planet like this. I felt like an awestruck tourist gazing first at the light show that is midtown Manhattan and later at the Statue of Liberty. But I didn’t mind; Black Women’s Blueprint had created the perfect environment for reclamation and just like Whitney wanted, I got to dance with somebody who loves me.

I want to write

the Next Great American

novel

rife with

international.abandonment.undiagnosed.mental.illness.poverty.repression.estrangement

s   i   l   e   n   c   e

the silence that confuses living

with surviving

the silence that envelopes

obligatory interactions

and when I direct the film version of

the Next Great American

novel

Hollywood can

round out my edges

mediate my reconciliations

in 2 hours and 18 minutes of

sanitized.problem.solving.heartfelt.dialogue.tears.of.joy.apologies

until then

I have dreams of

dipping quill pens into

inkwells of pain to

stylistically tarnish white pages…

so I can write

                                   —22July2012svm

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark legislation that makes it possible for young women in the US to fully participate in all that higher education has to offer. It has had far reaching academic and social effects but is most widely known for its impact on women’s participation in college sports. I can’t imagine a world where girls and women don’t get to compete in sports and for that I’m grateful. I ran track in college (that’s yours truly in the above picture) and can attest to the fact that girls learn a myriad of life lessons through participation in athletics: ‘teamwork is as crucial as it is difficult’; ‘ sometimes hard work is its own reward’; ‘funky girl clothes smell just as bad as funky boy clothes’.

Sociologically speaking, sports and the narratives we develop around athletes are meant to reflect a society’s values. Ours is a culture that glorifies the defeat-to-victory or rags-to-riches stories of many athletes because they are in harmony with the US’s (faulty and ahistorical) story of itself as a nation.  Ours is also a culture that degrades and devalues women and these narratives play themselves out in the sports arena as well.

When it comes to a woman’s ability to make a living as an athlete, ‘attractiveness’ trumps talent/hard work because ‘marketability’ and endorsements are the name of the game. Straight, white heterosexual men (universally referred to as ‘the sports fan’) like their women attractive and will apparently only sit through the godawfulness that is women’s sports if there are some eye-candy to be consumed. I know when I was waking up at 5am for the first of two practices or sinking my body into a bucket full of ice, my main aspiration was to one day (please pretty please) make it onto one of the thousands and thousands of ‘notes from a dudez boner’ lists of sexiest female athletes. 

Regarding the confusion and drama surrounding the dead heat between US sprinters Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh at the US Olympic trials in June, fellow sprinter Justin Gatlin said the women should ‘mud wrestle’ to break the tie. My initial response of ‘shouldn’t you be off somewhere doping (again)?’ was replaced by a sadness that in this year of celebrating the wonderful impacts of Title IX, those of us who are womanist and concerned with the plight and representations of women have to simultaneously acknowledge that the sports field has not been as liberatory of a space as it could have been/can be for women. Women athletes are not exempt from the beauty work that distracts the rest of the female population (see: women who compete with makeup on) nor are we shielded from racist misogyny (see: any conversation about Caster Semenya, Venus/Serena Williams or Brittany Griner).  The foundation of our sexist culture of course didn’t change with the passage of Title IX. We continue to be viewed as women (objects) first, athletes second, if at all, and when that notion has been transformed, sports will reflect back to us values that are more firmly rooted in equality.

**Note: This is Part 2 of a (never ending) series about the fact that sistahs can’t walk down the goddamn street without being hollered at, called out our names, cussed out and just generally objectified and dehumanized. Read Part 1 here

I very rarely engage with (talk to, argue with etc) men who harass me on the street; I’ve been threatened with physical violence and sexual assault enough times to know better. Even rarer is me engaging with a man harassing another woman. For all my talk of *fist in the air* WOMYN UNITE!  it’s scary for me to take up this cause for other women because 1)it’s patronizing on my part to think I can ‘rescue’ other women 2)not all women view street harassment as a problem; some enjoy the attention and 3) who’s to say the guy won’t just attack us both??

For whatever reason, two weeks ago I decided to stop just giving lip service to the sisterhood and actually do something…anything. On my way home I saw a man take a picture of a woman as she walked by him. She didn’t see this happen (his camera phone was focused on her ass) but I did. I swallowed all kinds of womanist rage and said simply ‘You know that’s sexual harassment, right?’ Pretending not to hear me, he responded ‘What?’ I repeated ‘That’s harassment. She could sue you for that.’ ‘Not if you don’t tell her, she won’t.’ She had turned the corner by then and the tone of his last statement felt more like a threat than anything else so I walked away.

It’s in moments like these that I feel little to no allegiance to men in general, Black men in particular. However, all of the work that needs to get done to ensure that women are treated as people and not just walking entertainment or punching bags for men cannot be done by women alone. Street harassment and other forms of violence against women will end when men stop doing it. Not a moment sooner. And so we find ourselves in a conundrum because men have no tangible rationale for joining the fight against the gender harassment/assault of women since their privileged experiences shield them from the day to day harm. What about the men who claim to love their mothers, daughters, sisters, partners? Do you know that the women in your lives live in fear? Do you care?

I’m still waiting for (Black) men to check each other when it comes to harassment/assault and other issues relating to violence against women. Will the friend who will undoubtedly receive that picture via text or email reply back with how disrespectful of an act snapping an unsolicited photo was? Or will he, like the majority of men, remain silently complicit in the denigration of (Black) women? I’m actually glad I didn’t run after that women to tell her what had happened because it’s (past) time that we stop pretending that harassment/violence against women has anything to do with us when it has everything to do with men.

A friend asked me to comment on Anne Marie Slaughter’s article  in The Atlantic entitled ‘Why Women Still Can’t Have it All’. Of course the article has generated the usual mainstream media buzz complete with any lack of critical analysis. I hesitated to even enter the fray because invariably these conversations exclude Black/Brown women, poor white women, disabled women, queer women. When was the last time you read an article entitled ‘Can immigrant women have it all?’. The least Slaughter could have done was to call the piece what it really should be: ‘Can Well Educated, Well Connected, Heterosexual, White, Middle Class’ Women Have it All?’

We in the (feminist/womanist) biz file these articles under ‘rich white lady problemz’ and although I hate to speak for the group, we’re generally pretty tired of the mommy wars’ debate about ‘having it all’. But I will engage.

 The first awkward elephant in the room is the (white supremacist/patriarchal/colonialist) capitalist system of exploitation. The model of success that the ‘having it all’ types are trying to imitate is dependent on free/cheap labor. The US wouldn’t exist without (free) slave labor from Africans, (cheap) indentured labor from Eastern Europeans and (free) domestic labor from white women. When Slaughter and the other Betty Friedan feminists of the 1950s/60s envisioned (white, middle class) women’s liberation, they saw it taking place in the workplace. So they started doing what they had seen their fathers do in order to ‘succeed’: they got degrees in ‘successful’ areas (law, business, STEM), went into ‘successful’ fields (administration, finance, technology) and started to climb, climb, climb now that there were cracks in the glass ceiling. They married equally ‘successful’ men, had babies and paid Black/Brown women exploitatively low wages to raise them. And so here we are, with this class of middle-to-upper class women realizing they played the game right and have made it to the upper echelons of our economic/political system…but don’t know their children’s names  (*awkward*).

So the short answer is ‘No. Women can’t have it all’ when ‘having it all’ means maintaining the traditional role of nurturer of children while wholeheartedly engaging with the capitalist machine. The system is not designed by or for women (not even you, wealthy white women!) and not any amount of finagling will make us fit. The 11+ hour work day could/can only maintain itself if one spouse (wifey) is at home cooking, cleaning, signing for the Fed Ex packages, taking little Timmy to the doctor and picking him up from school. The alternative, and what currently happens, is that the ‘having it all’ types hire (Black/Brown/immigrant/women) nannies, babysitters, cooks, assistants etc so that both spouses can work.

The second awkward elephant in the room is that men don’t value childcare. Of course individual men go above and beyond the socially proscribed role of disciplinarian/provider and most men, I assume, love their children. But Men™ and especially ‘successful’ Men™ don’t value the work or time it takes to protect, care for and guide these little human beings. Why was Slaughter’s Jewish colleague adamant about not working on Fridays? Because he values his faith. Why has the golf course culture developed among rich men? Because these men value the networking opportunity that it gives them. If men, especially men of  Slaughter’s socio-economic class valued  childcare they would more forcefully advocate for polices that allow them to spend more time with their children (ie company-wide paternity leave, on-site day care, changing stations in men’s restrooms etc etc) but they don’t and/because they don’t have to. They know someone will be there day in-day out to take care of their children. The stay at home dad is an anomaly, a joke or a scrub depending on who you’re talking to. Why? Because it’s not HIS job to take care of the kids. The thinking is ‘What’s wrong with him? Why is he mommying those kids?’ Holler at me when there’s a dudefest about ‘having it all’.

Solutions: I’m of the Audre Lorde school of thought that the ‘master’s tools can’t dismantle the master’s house’ so I don’t honestly believe that our (women, poor people, people of color) salvation lies in the capitalist system but that’s a conversation for another time. In the meantime, here are some polices that have to happen so that we can at least stop having this conversation so often:

• ·        National mandatory AND paid parental leave
• ·        Social security benefits for career SAHPs
• ·        More robust childcare subsidies (especially for TANF beneficiaries)
• ·        More on-site day care EVERYWHERE
•      (more of a cultural than political solution)the 40 hour work week was      enacted for a reason…just saying..

I remember the first time I saw a statue commemorating Confederate soldiers. I was working late with my interns in Greenville, North Carolina and decided to take a much needed caffeine break and go downtown. The statue was nondescript in every way so I’m still not sure what caught my eye but there I stood, for over 5 minutes, amazed and confused all at once. By that point, I had lived in NC for over two years so I had seen enough confederate decals to not have any illusions about where I was but this was my first experience with state-sanctioned support ofslaverysecession. Hundreds of Black people walked unfazed by this symbol of white supremacy every day. How did they do that? What psychological coping mechanisms was I lacking that had me immobilized?

A celebration of the Confederacy through flags, decals, statues etc is a celebration of a social and economic system based on the enslavement of Black people, of people who looked like me. It was an emotionally jarring experience for me that night to stand witness to the city government offering legitimacy to the dehumanization of Black people.

Two years later and I again stand witness to the physical manifestation of our white-supremacist state. I live in a predominantly Black neighborhood that is occupied by the police. For weeks I stared at police officers simply standing on street corners, guns, batons and mace on hand, with the same mixture of amazement, confusion, fear and hurt that compounded my experience in Greenville. In a lot of ways these officers are just like that statue. Their positioning in our streets and in our train stations is meant to be consistent reminder of (white) state power. And just as the language of ‘state’s rights’ was/is used to mask the Civil War’s root cause, the language of ‘public safety’ is currently used to justify racist policies like ‘Stop and Frisk’ that codify police bias against Black and Brown bodies.

Again I find myself immobilized, wondering how I’m to productively deal with the fact that my Blackness continues to be criminalized by a white-supremacist system that deems it appropriate to have my, and other Black/Brown communities, under constant police surveillance.

(Source: google.com)