Just in Time for Black History Month...

...we find out, according to Vanity Fair, that the up-and-coming female actors of "Young Hollywood" all have a certain thing in common:



See Prof Susurro's analysis.

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Randomosity

Maybe it's because I just had to re-read U.B. Phillips's "The Plantation as a Civilizing Factor" in which he encouraged a return to and reliance on the plantation system to keep black people from "sliding into barbarism"--on the plantation, they'd come into contact with the good white folk. He couched it in the terms popular during the Progressive Era in which he wrote--the plantation was like a "social settlement" in which the white planter and his family acted as guidance and examples.

Or maybe it's because Mark Krikorian's assessment that Haiti wasn't colonized long enough is still ringing in my ears eyes...

But, having seen Avatar and Blindside nominated for best picture Oscars...*

And, having read about the folk who were trying to smuggle children out of Haiti and set up an orphanage with said children, some of whom were not orphans...

My first thought was, "Goodness! How do white people, with that heavy burden and all, have time to do anything else?!"
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*My co-worker/friend talked me into seeing Avatar this weekend. She's a sci-fi fan and wanted to see the images and such. I think our jaws remained on the floor 97.3% of the time until she finally said, "Really, elle, don't listen to the words, don't think about the plot. Let's just wait for the fight." I have not seen Blindside. I have, however, seen multitudes of "Captain Save-A-Negro" movies which, I would argue, qualifies me to speak :-)

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M-elle-odramatic

A seemingly impenetrable wall of papers and meetings stands between me and my beloved Friday evenings. I have a headache :-(

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One More Note on Chris Matthews and the Myth of Colorblindness

Via Maegan:

The scrubbing away of color is not what sets the US free from racism. Ending inequality based on race is.

You should read the whole thing.

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I Fully Recognize that Women Are Neither Men's Nor Our Children's Property...

But this still makes me laugh because recent discussions have revealed that my son is against the thought-of-mama-dating:




Though, I think Doritos might owe Ronnie Jordan a little change or credit or something:



"I ain't got no candies for you... no cookies for you..."

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You Probably Should Discard Some of Your Previously Held Notions about Black People

Dear Friends,

Please don't ever "forget" I'm black, even for an hour. That is not a compliment. Colorblindness =/= progressive; Colorblindness = "You a damn lie"

Love,

elle

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Howard Zinn dies at 87

I hope to be able to write something coherent tomorrow :-(

More

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Please Know Something about That of Which You Speak

Thinking of getting that inked on my forehead so people stop saying stupid sh*t--to me, at least.

Of course, that won't stop me from reading stupidity, things like, oh, say, this article by Paul Shirley. Shirley feels the need to tell us why he won't donate to Haiti relief efforts, and infuses his story with meaningful personal insights like:

I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.

And historically clueless rhetoric flavored with a touch of social darwinism and a smidge of eugenics* such as:

Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World

Oh, Mr. Shirley, might I, in my boldness, point you to two brief observations? First from Kai:

It’s not just a natural disaster, it’s a disaster of the modern neo-colonial social order. Earthquakes need to happen, but this doesn’t need to happen. It’s a devastating unfolding of institutionalized racism. Not only rhetorical or interpersonal or representational aspects, but perhaps more importantly the vital economic, infrastructural, and human consequences of several centuries of the very gunships-n-slaves imperialism which generated the modern concept of race.

Then, from Summer:

Haiti was born of a slave rebellion. They didn't seek or wait for permission. No one wrote a speech declaring their freedom. They claimed it for themselves. They were their own saviors. Their own, I suppose, personal Jesus. (All those white men they killed, must have been a deal with the devil.) And so, Haiti couldn't survive or be successful. Haiti concerned Thomas Jefferson--and rightfully so. Can't have those kinds of examples floating around the Caribbean circa early 19th century. What kind of message would that send to other enslaved people on this side of the Middle Passage? Haiti fought the law and won. That couldn't have been good for business. So the powers meddled with the land until the seeds sprouted nothing but "flimsy" stalks, ushering in the refrain "Haiti is the most impoverished..." Straight dissonance to my ears. They treat it like a bastard child. Father France, Mother Africa, or something like that.

A flourishing Haiti is white supremacy's greatest fear. Haiti cannot survive. If Haiti endures, if it succeeds, then the slaves win, right? Haiti's continued endurance would prove that everything they've ever taught us is false. If we only understand Haiti as a perpetually impoverished nation, and have no comprehension of Haiti as symbol of black resistance and survival then what have we learned? We will have learned that Haiti is poor because its citizens are lazy, culturally backwards, wary of outsiders, lawless, lascivious. What we should know is that even in these dark days of desperation, Haiti has survived, despite even the most powerful acts of a most angry God and world powers that imagine themselves in His likeness.

They don't like the message, so they don't want Haiti to survive--but it will.

Haiti will survive, Paul Shirley, without your donation and in spite of your condescension and ignorance.
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*Is that (the oh-so-new blend of social darwinism and eugenics) the flavor of the month or something???

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Ready for the Restaurant...

Y'all know, after I'm tenured and make my way all the way to full professor, I'm catering or becoming a restaurateur :-)

Anyway, I think I'll start sharing some of the constant experimenting I do here. And when I break down and buy another digital camera, I'll have pretty, shiny pics.

What we had last night:

BBQ pork sandwiches
Coleslaw
Corn on the cob

I highly recommend all these. I didn't use poppy seeds in the coleslaw, though. And I just boiled the corn with a little vinegar, sugar, butter, and salt. I rubbed the roast Sunday, then came home between my morning class and evening class yesterday to put it in the oven. We had a way late dinner.

And of course, all my kid ate was corn on the cob. That's why I slacked up on my cooking for a while, but forget him! ;-p

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See What I'm Up Against?

Okay, you probably all know the stories of the Texas Education Board's attempts to change the state's social studies curriculum to "downplay the contributions of civil rights leaders, minimiz[e] an 'emphasis on multiculturalism,' and try to 'exonerate' Joe McCarthy." (Follow the links in that article for more details). The Texas Freedom Network has accused the board--comprised of 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats--of "blatant politicization of social studies curriculum."

Well, here comes a new highlight of their efforts:

What do the authors of the children's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and a 2008 book called Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation have in common?

Both are named Bill Martin and, for now, neither is being added to Texas schoolbooks.

In its haste to sort out the state's social studies curriculum standards this month, the State Board of Education tossed children's author Martin, who died in 2004, from a proposal for the third-grade section. Board member Pat Hardy, R-Weatherford, who made the motion, cited books he had written for adults that contain "very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system."

Trouble is, the Bill Martin Jr. who wrote the Brown Bear series never wrote anything political, unless you count a book that taught kids how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, his friends said. The book on Marxism was written by Bill Martin, a philosophy professor at DePaul University in Chicago.

The Texas students subjected to years of what I call "only-white-men-and-war-battles-are-important" history are the ones I get in my surveys, fresh out of high school. A good portion of them will already question my ability, authority, teaching style, etc, because I am a woman of color. Combine that hostility with the fact that I teach the survey from a social and cultural history perspective and emphasize "shifting the lens"--viewing an event or era or concept from diverse perspectives--and you get a situation that makes me dread-until-I-am-sick walking into a classroom sometimes.

And this does not just affect elle, the historian. It affects elle, the mama, as well. Last week, I wrote on facebook and twitter about experiences my son was having in social studies classes. As one of a few black kids in fifth grade, he notices the other students look at him when black people come up during class (last week it was Harriet Tubman and Cinque of the Amistad). I'd point out that that is partially a result of teaching a history in which black people randomly pop up rather than being understood as an integral part of the story of this country. Of course, that is a reflection of a much larger scale erasure and othering--my son exists not as an individual, but as representative of a group in which one can easily stand in for another.

My son, big admirer of President Barack Obama, was also upset by the fact that his teacher talked negatively about "Obama Healthcare," telling the children that it was going to cost a trillion dollars and that even their grandchildren's children would still be paying for it. I already had an encounter with her when she sent out a short, snippity note about how our school district wouldn't be showing Obama's speech to school children a few months ago (ours was the only district here that didn't--probably speaks volumes).

From my position in the Lone Star State, I have to ask, that fear that conservatives had--that Obama was trying to indoctrinate their children--is that called irony or hypocrisy?

Because I'm really worried about what they're teaching--and not teaching--my son.

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Who Dat?

Geaux Saints!

Now that I've talked to everyone in my immediate family and screamed the roof off, I'm ready to focus on the Super Bowl. ;-p

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Turns Out, My Shrill, Humorless Feminist Voice IS Needed

Just saw this on the teevee:

Flirty Girl Fitness

And look, now you, too, can learn to pole and chair dance while keeping the booty beat, from the comfort of your own home! What? You don't have the pole installed in your garage like I???

My sorta raison d'etre (feminist critique of popular culture) has just been affirmed.

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This Week in "Stuff elle can't f*cking believe!"

Item 1: Mark Krikorian posits that Haiti's suffering is the result of not having been colonized long enough. Haitians didn't have long enough to absorb civ-uhl-eye-zayshen from the French.

My guess is that Haiti's so screwed up because it wasn't colonized long enough. The ancestors of today's Haitians, like elsewhere in the Caribbean, experienced the dislocation of de-tribalization, which disrupted the natural ties of family and clan and ethnicity. They also suffered the brutality of sugar-plantation slavery, which was so deadly that the majority of slaves at the time of independence were African-born, because their predecessors hadn't lived long enough to reproduce.

But, unlike Jamaicans and Bajans and Guadeloupeans, et al., after experiencing the worst of tropical colonial slavery, the Haitians didn't stick around long enough to benefit from it. (Haiti became independent in 1804.). And by benefit I mean develop a local culture significantly shaped by the more-advanced civilization of the colonizers.

You notice this line: "the majority of slaves at the time of independence were African-born"--yep, no civilization at all.

Item 2: "South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer(R)Compares His State's Poor Children to 'Stray Animals'" and advises against feeding them, lest they reproduce:

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.

And y'all thought negative eugenics was a thing of the past!

h/t Nezua

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