Uncle Toms, Aunt Jemimas, and Other Distant Relatives

Uncle Ruckus, no relation. Or IS he?!

Harriet Beecher Stowe has likely rolled 500 miles in her grave by now. She wrote the second best-selling novel in the 19th century, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, only for it to be boiled down to the grime of an epithet over 200 years later: Uncle Tom. The title character she illustrated in 1852 laid down his life for escaping slave women and was meant to be a bright opposition to blackface minstrel shows. But this is not an apologia.

Black Americans’ current use of the slur “Uncle Tom” derives from literary criticism of stereotypes in Stowe’s novel during the Harlem Renaissance and thereafter. Aunt Jemima, of course, is on the syrup bottle, but the derogatory usage of that name is borne out of disdain for the Mammy archetype. Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemima are a pair of toadies romantically entangled in the sheets of white supremacy.

Today, a colleague sent me a video of Pastor James David Manning ranting about Trayvon Martin’s culpability in his own death. (Trigger warning!) He reluctantly said that Pastor Manning, if anyone ever did, likely merited the title of Uncle Tom.

The label also sticks to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas whenever he casts a vote contrary to the Black voting demographic. Don Lemon has gotten the Uncle Tom treatment several times in 2013. Republican Crystal Wright draws ire and invective on Twitter criticizing what she sees as Black America’s pathological evil.

But who gets to throw these terms? Use of intra-racial slurs, or any slur, implies the user possesses moral superiority. Slurs create spatial distance between the speaker and target; you are not like me. Rarely do mud-slingers consider themselves kin to pigs.

I’ll be honest; I hate insults. A lover of language, I live for the creativity that forms neologisms and fresh connotations for words stiff with age. Some of the most artful strings of words I have ever seen or heard are curse words. But slurs droop from my mouth, ungainly and uninspired. I understand them but I don’t use them.

I often fail to understand when people argue in favor of calling others out of their names (see: b*tch), even when he/she meets the textbook definition.

Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemima annoy me as epithets because they are too easily hurled. No committee vets potential nominees. The slurs oversimplify reasons why the target’s viewpoints oppose popular reasoning; they shrink discourse into a one-word blunt instrument wielded blindly.

Funny how Uncle Toms and Aunt Jemimas still count as family, however distant. We lob barbs to shame them into rejoining the rest of Us. We claim them anyway by judging their thoughts in connection with ours. Maybe because they voice the ugly things we fight not to believe as we lay in the dark, things better left whispered by goblins.

Or maybe we claim them because they are still Black in America, and no one else will.

Turning in My Selfie Resignation

Um…Hi?

The Internet is overrun with selfies. Some alluring, some precocious, some nerdy, some pretending they don’t know that a picture is being taken when the mirror shows the camera in their hand. Look away, act surprised selfies. Duck-lipped, pouty princess, queen of all bees selfies.

Other selfies are more artful, playing with light against the backdrop of a toilet seat; a headrest mountainous behind a cotton candy fro, a black photo attempting to highlight a silhouette.

Let’s face it; if it wasn’t so much fun to see how many times you can make the same face and look exactly-the-same-but-different, we wouldn’t take self-portraits. There are some incredibly talented selfie models out in Instagram land. I sit and thumb-scroll wondering how in the name of pixelated glory do their pics come out so perfect?!

I fully admit that I am not one of the glamorous IG girls. I feel most inspired to take a selfie when I feel cute. This does not happen often, people. Working from home means that only my Miniature Schnauzer sees my jeans and cami uniform. Dressing up requires documentation to remind myself that I do look better than bummy some days.

Previously, I would blame my photos on my dinosaur iPhone 3GS. Or the lighting was too poor in my hallway. Or bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and living room. But no, I have to admit…I’m just a bad photographer.

I’ve always had rocky relationships with cameras. My smiles are uncertain, holdovers from the era when my teeth bucked and hee-hawed before braces bridled them. I lightly envy women who know just how to stand in front of a camera to look confident.  My social awkwardness transcends film. The end result is more of a sheepish “Cheese?” than “Cheese!”

Therefore, I have decided to turn in my selfie resignation. I give up. From here on out, photos of me will only be taken by conscripted third parties. I will no longer subject the Internets to sub-par bathroom self-portraits. No more cropping out shower curtains. No more 100-photo selfie sessions to get just. one. Instagram post. Finito.

That is, until I get a better iPhone. 🙂

Stage Fright: Rape and Slam Poetry

Enough said.

This will be ugly. But there is nothing pretty about rape, and I will not sugarcoat a turd if something smells rotten in Denmark.

I have written a few times (here and here) about my involvement with the Southern Fried Poetry Slam and my poetry troupe, Black on Black Rhyme (BOBR). I’ve been involved with spoken word since 2004.  Even from the periphery, I care deeply about this community. I have made real friends in poetry groups, men and women who have held my child, stood with me at my wedding, wiped my tears, fed me, blessed me, loved me. They are my village.

But we are not a perfect community, for all we preach onstage. In 2011, I helped BOBR organize Southern Fried in Atlanta; the event was our baby. I was horrified to learn that a sexual assault of a female poet by a male poet allegedly occurred at the host hotel. I was dismayed that nothing (to my knowledge) came of the Facebook post detailing her assault. I did nothing. I carry that.

This past weekend, the National Poetry Slam held its annual festival in Boston. My joy over Southern Fried team Slam New Orleans’ win is overshadowed by the ensuing controversy.

Apparently, a reputed rapist and the slam team he coaches advanced to NPS Finals and were met with boos and hisses when they took the stage on Sunday night. The slam community is angry and divided over this, for different reasons. I see one underlying major issue:

Either slam provides a fail safe to protect its members, or we do not accept everyone.

Poetry communities can be the most inclusive groups of people on the planet, but broad acceptance is inherently precarious. The Codes of Conduct only do so much. Without blacklisting predators, or vetting suspected ones, slam organizers risk endangering innocent people.

I wonder why the poet in question was allowed to compete with reports of multiple women assaulted and others fearful to be in his mere presence. It should never have gotten to “Boo, hiss,” from an audience with emotional wounds that severe.

In pondering preemptive bans, I think of NFL prospect Brian Banks, who was wrongfully convicted of rape and served time in prison based on a lie. I will not parse the statistics of rape; you can see that here:

It is not ‘crying wolf’ if there ARE wolves.

However, I also wonder what open mics would look like if we tossed out all the former criminals. What redemption is there?

I want my biological family to not fear for my safety when I am among my poetry family. I have seen organizations tolerate serial verbal abusers, liars and thieves, and drunk violent poets for the sake of…what? Business arrangements? Registration fees?

 

Regardless of its inclusivity, organizers of slam poetry must protect their poets and stand against rapists, period.  Upon report, research, rebuke, refuse entry. 

We need to maintain safe spaces both onstage and offstage, and walk the activism we spit about. Fear should have no home at a poetry slam.

Finally, I say this with love: If women’s voices are only heard when we are splayed open and shouting from a platform, then spoken word as a community has failed to say anything of value.

Tilapia Worse Than Bacon?! The Horror!

I’m worse than bacon? No wonder ___________ people like me so much!

In my post about food snobbery, I mentioned that my husband refuses to eat tilapia because, he says, it has no nutritional value. According to this article by Draxe.com, tilapia ranks lower than bacon on the you’re-killing-yourself scale. I wonder if my husband will have anything to say to me about the health benefits of eating crow.

May I Whoop Your Child, Please?

The only question here is: How long can you legally hold him upside down?
The only question here is: How long can you legally hold him upside down?

To question a famous proverb written by Hilary Clinton, if it takes a village to raise a child, does that include jacking them up?  Raising children is a very hands-on endeavor, and I would like to extrapolate that phrase to mean the village should lay hands on children when necessary. You pray over them and you pop them upside whatever bony little appendage is nearest when they buck.

Last week I was at my dentist’s office very irritated at their lack of timely customer service. Granted, the wait ground my patience into powder and I had one last nerve just waiting for someone to bounce all over it.  A little girl obliged me. Her five year-old body pinged from one corner to the next. She sprang off the couch pretending to be Gabby Douglas. Her landings did not stick and she rolled across the carpet.

The budding gymnast was annoying but her mother incensed me. I felt sorry for the kid; she clearly wanted her mother’s attention. The woman took advantage of the free Wi-Fi and hauled her laptop onto the coffee table, jammed ear buds into each ear, and proceeded to have a loud conversation with someone. She paused every few lines to screech orders to her daughter, “Sit down!” “Stop jumping everywhere!” “If you don’t…!” But unaccompanied by a sharp ear-pinch or firm tug on a forearm, her attempts at parenting went unheeded. I glared.

I wish a kidlet WOULD!

On Sunday, my family went to a Chinese buffet. The evening had matured into night and there were few other quiet patrons in the restaurant. Except this one fireball of energy wrapped in the skin of a little boy. He. Literally. Ran. Around the entire place of business. Waiters jerked their hips to the side to avoid hitting him. His mother and father slouched in their seats with their mouths pursed, eyes following the blur of brown speeding around the food stations. He zipped past me on my way back to my seat. I frowned deeply in his direction. My foot so itched to dart into the aisle. I rationalized that I was not in a position to get my tail beaten for deliberately tripping another’s child.

I do not feel personally responsible for everyone’s offspring. I am sure the parents of the world are relieved. Mothers and fathers cuss strangers out for unsolicited discipline of an unruly kid. However, ignoring the badness doesn’t make it better. I wonder if those children will become adults who never learned to sit their @#$ down and be quiet.

In a perfect world, a polite one, I could mosey over to the respective parents and ask:

“May I whoop your child, please? You seem overly exhausted to do so. I totally understand; it happens to the best of us. As an immediate member of your social village, it is incumbent upon me to at least tell your child to calm down when you cannot. Because if we don’t do it now, they will grow too big for either of us to whoop them or tell them anything at all.” 

Sigh…in a perfect world, I wouldn’t need to ask that anyway.