“…I think about it constantly. I think about it in my work as a producer and a director. It’s a theme I’ve been interested and wanted to be involved – I’ve wanted to make a movie; I’ve been looking for a story that was a biracial love affair or a love story for a long time.

I find racial politics are fascinating in our country, and admiring women like Shonda and Kerry, who are real trailblazers, I feel very fortunate to now be a part of a show that – it’s shocking to me that it’s been, what, 30 years since there’s been an African American as the protagonist in a network hour drama…So yes, I’ve just done a show that I created. We’ll see if it goes to series, but a pilot for the AMC network with an African American lead actor. The themes of that show get into racial politics, it’s about social justice and about the criminal justice system, but it sort of centers on an African American protagonist and the power structure of white America and Black America…”

After Tavis and Tony discuss the Goldwyn legacy, he asks Tony if he wants to keep directing.

Tony: “Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did – it’s a little tough right now with “Scandal,” because it’s such a big commitment. As I mentioned before, I co-created and directed a pilot for AMC this year, and if that show ends up going forward I’ll be involved in directing when I can.

A movie takes about a year and a half to do, so I think as long as “Scandal” is running I won’t be able to direct another movie. The last movie I did was called “Conviction,” which was in 2010, with Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell. So I’m sad that I won’t be able to – but meanwhile, I’m working on scripts and looking, so whenever “Scandal” finishes its run, I’ll get more into the directing. So right now I’m just grateful to be doing as much acting as I’m doing.”

Finally, Tavis asks about projects on the horizon, besides the AMC pilot.

Tony: “Yeah, I’ve got a few television projects that I’m developing that we’re pitching to networks to hopefully set up another pilot, because that works out scheduling-wise for me when I can do that, but those are all in the development phase.”

So what do we take away from Tony Goldwyn’s interview? A white man from an uber-powerful Hollywood family admires trailblazing black women + wants to see more diversity/inclusiveness in film/on TV + has already demonstrated a commitment to telling diverse stories + continues to look for new material. In short, Tony represents what could be considered an ALLY, for one of BWE’s key goals: raising the collective image of Black women. Obviously not directly, but one of his personal commitments happens to intersect with something several Black women are concerned about – our collective media image.

While it’s great to recognize this, let’s not just talk about it, let’s be about it!

1) Those of us who have talents that can benefit BWE, let 2013 be the year we use them! Barriers are falling left and right (see this post) and people are noticing us in a positive way. Let’s take advantage of this.

2) Along the same lines, let’s work to identify other allies who could be aligned with BWE goals (perhaps indirectly). Lots of people in power are aging and looking to pass the torch to the next generation. Many value competence and character over race. Everyone should examine their networks closely for potential opportunities. Do you have a Tony Goldwyn (in your network)?

Entire interview and transcript here.

Misrecognition and Stereotypes

Harris-Perry thoroughly discusses the term misrecognition when she articulates the use of stereotypes to truncate opportunities, esteem, and worth initiatives for black women. What is misrecognition? It is the misjudgement or mis-characterization of an entire person’s self based on perceived or assumed traits (positive or negative). Misrecognition is inherent in race-based stereotyping because it a) assumes that a perfect stranger can accurately gauge another individual’s race, ethnicity, or heritage from perception alone, b) seeks to identify certain behaviors as attributable to their own understanding of said race, and c) relies on very limited information or exposure to make those judgements.

Misrecognition is extremely powerful. And, it plays directly into the notion of the crooked room. The crooked room says that an individual is only one of several predesignated characters. And, it assigns folks into categories based on those imagined and pre-fitted roles. Once those roles are assigned, individuals are measured by their congruence with these crooked images. And, when they fall in line with negative images like Sapphire or Jezebel, they are shamed for their behavior.

So what is shame exactly?

‘Re-integrative’ Shame versus Stigmatizing Shame

Were you ever that kid who got a whoopin’ in the church bathroom? Maybe you got pulled out of a room by your ear? Or, better yet, maybe you and your cousins had to go outside and pick a switch to get your punishment after having a pillow fight? I was all of those kids. And, if you experienced these things, then you, like me, have experienced re-integrative shaming. This type of shaming usually comes from authority figures or parents who use punishment in a more public setting to teach you acceptable behaviors.

For example, a child with a cursing problem might be forced to wash his or her mouth out with soap. And, that action, though disgusting, teaches the child to remove the dirty words from his or her vocabulary. But, as long as it isn’t followed up by repeated extremes and the child is welcomed back into the loving family with no strings attached, the act is neither exclusionary nor permanent.

But, there is a different, much more diabolical form of this punishment called stigmatizing shame. Stigmatizing shame does not seek to teach the individual much except that his or her whole person (not the behavior) is bad. Stigmatizing shame was a foundational aspect of slavery and Jim Crow. It said, in a sense, that black people were inherently bad, dirty, unclean, wanton, and barbaric. Instead of attributing certain features to certain individuals, it inspired the adoption of collective stigmas associated with the entire group in order to subjugate and reduce all of the individuals within the group.

Stigmatizing shame teaches LGBTQ folks to stay “in the closet.” It teaches those who have been victims of sexual assault to keep quiet so they don’t seem like they somehow welcomed the abuse. Stigmatizing shame teaches young women and men climbing the social ladder to hide their poor beginnings. And, for black women, stigmas about natural hair textures, eating habits, voice tempo and volume, career choices, child rearing, and a host of other things have taught us to hide behind a variety of more “acceptable” social norms.

Any of this stuff sound familiar?

How Shame Works

One key characteristic in the collective shaming of black women is a term Harris-Perry calls fictive kinship.

“The term ‘fictive kinship’ refers to connections between members of a group who are unrelated by blood or marriage but who nonetheless share reciprocal social or economic relationships.”

This notion of innate connection to others in a social group helps to draw pride from images like President Obama. But, conversely, the same kinship draws shame from folks like Shawty Lo or Kanye West. It is this kinship that leaves the black community reeling when a prominent black figure cheats on his wife or goes into a fit of rage on national television. And, it is this same kinship that helps to reiterate societal pressures to avoid unsavory images at all costs.

According to Harris-Perry, feelings of shame occur when we feel exposed to and in disappointment of a “real or imagined audience.” Shame happens when we become worried about what other people might think. Eerily though, Harris-Perry notes that, “when we feel ashamed, we assume the room is straight and that the self is off-kilter.” So, if the self is indeed “off-kilter,” we are then normalizing the crooked behavior and marginalizing our true identities.

When this happens, individuals become desensitized to obscure images of themselves and one another and snuggle into the comfortable slot carved out for them in the crooked room. And, in many cases, the shame works to keep people, who would otherwise be socially mobile, in a repetitive cycle of immobility, thereby validating the crooked images. This is called self-fulfilling prophecy.

But, what happens when someone who actually isn’t one of those crooked images is treated like they are? I am glad you asked. I’ve got a scenario for that.

What Happened at the End of the Sapphire Post?

Well, in the last installment of this series, I left off with a riveting story of my arrest for school truancy. And, after reading this book, that situation became so much clearer to me. I realized that that cop was attempting to shame me. And he was succeeding.

Gather ’round folks…I’m going to finish the story…

“It is instances like these that produce those angry little black girls. It is instances like these that harden feminine hearts. It is instances like these that prove that neither academia nor athleticism nor altruism can work to defray the weight of the burdensome angry black woman load. And, in fighting this white cop, I was fighting against a larger societal vision for me. I was attempting to stand against something much bigger than myself to no avail.”

The cop took me to a middle school about 15 miles away from my high school. He never said a word to me for the entire ride.

“Is this a real cop car? Like where criminals ride?”

Silence.

“Why am I in the backseat?”

Silence.

So, I sat there with my thoughts. Crying. And, crying. Then, I stopped. I literally just stopped. I was pissed off. I was angry. I was REALLY angry. As we pulled up, I saw a line of black kids going into the truancy center. They were girls, boys, some of them looked grown. And, there were cops everywhere. Laughing and chatting. Drinking coffee. But they weren’t talking to the kids.

The cop took me out of the car cradling my head on the way out of the vehicle like he actually gave a crap.

“Okay, go stand in that line. Give them your name and what school you came from. Go upstairs and they will have reading material for you. You can do homework also.”

“I don’t have my homework. You picked me up at second period and wouldn’t let me get my backpack. When can I go home?”

“That is up to you parents.”

I laughed to myself, “parents.” Whatever. I got in line behind a girl with super long finger nails and braids and waited to tell some chick who I was so I could ruin my otherwise perfect school record. Once I handled that deed, I went upstairs and sat at the smallest table known to man in a room full of other high school students sitting at similar tables. There were no adults in the room. It was like baby detention or something.

On the tables they had little pamphlets with phrases like “why am I here?” and “what is a truant?” I was over it. Done. A lady came over to me and asked me if I wanted to call my mom or dad. Once I did, I realized that no one really gave a crap that I was in baby prison for the day. My mother and my brother (because dad was the no-show type) were not going to exit their quaint little daily plans for me to get back to my academic studies and perfect grades.

My teachers weren’t going to put out an APB. And, life would go on. I looked around at everyone else, and they all looked as if they felt the exact same way. We were corralled in this room away from our friends, not talked to, not addressed, and basically shunned to make a point. We were bad. Being a truant was bad. And therefore, we were bad. The reasons didn’t matter. The intentions didn’t matter. All that mattered was the color of our skin and the location of our feet on a curb during school hours.

And, it worked. I felt ashamed. I prayed that I would never see these people again. I prayed that no one from my church had seen me in the cop car. I prayed that my purse and backpack would be safe for the remainder of the school day. And, I prayed that someone would at least acknowledge me. And, when my brother came to get me a few hours later, his nonchalance and ineffectual attitude showed me that he thought I was bad too. And, his feelings made me feel even more ashamed.

The shame was almost inescapable. And, that was the point. That white cop did his job that day…

To be continued…When Shame is an Action Word and Reactions to Shame

Buy the book here.

Before writing my last post on Quentin Tarantino’s film “Django Unchained,” I intentionally collected perspectives from many of my friends, relatives, and confidants on what their early impressions were of the movie. Needless to say, I surround myself with some truly intelligent people. And, in doing this, I was attempting to get to the underlying causes of people’s frustration with the film. I found three central, repetitive themes in that psuedo-research that I think are worth further analysis. Those in the black community (since no one outside the black community would touch this with a ten foot pole) that I spoke with echoed issues with a) the black “damsel in distress,” b) the ‘Django Moment’ , and c) phrenology’s seemingly unchallenged presence in the film. And, although I too felt these things to some degree, I am wondering how much validity these issues truly hold.

The Black Damsel in Distress

Previously, I made the assertion that Spike Lee should have had less criticism of the gratuitous use of the n-word in the film and more qualms with the way the character Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington, was written.

“One major critique I have of the film is the understated and generally lackluster role of Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Though Washington has spoken candidly of her desire to play the damsel in the film, it was difficult to watch such a prominent female figure in the black community spend 3 hours waiting to be saved by her pompous hero. She has noted that the “fairy tale” like imagery of her story was what contributed to her desire to do the film. But, my core issue with her character was less about how her relationship appeared on screen but how little she contributed to the film at all. For ‘Hildy’ to be the primary focus of Django’s affections, she did little to show why she was able to do so except for the fact that she was a pretty ‘house slave.’ So, I would lodge this critique with much more justification than Lee’s flaccid argument that the movie doesn’t respect our ancestors.”

But, the wise Miss Usher (DUsher) asked the following of me in the comments:

“Why does she have to do anything to ‘earn’ being the primary focus of Django affections and worthy of rescue? Why do we need to know her character resume’? Should it not be enough that he loves his wife and in his eyes she is worth saving.? She could be a lousy cook, a horrible lover etc. she could be as useless as a pink tutu on a bull but the fact that he was willing to kill, steal and destroy to save her.. [Isn't]  it wonderful in a world where black  women were/are not  highly valued we see a black woman who we know little about who was the object of  such a dramatic rescue? Can we only breathe a little easier if we know some redeeming quality about  the character Broomhilda that says to us ‘okay NOW I see why he wanted to rescue her’. Maybe he simply loved his wife and wanted to save her.”

So, here is my question: what is the black woman’s problem with being saved by her man (no matter his race)? Have we been so jaded by stereotypes of strength and masculinity that we are incapable of being treated like dainty flowers? I definitely struggle with this. And, while watching the film, there was a part of me wanting ‘Hildy’ to do something cool or prove her worth to Django. But, after this conversation, I am realizing that this is a socialized need rather than a true one. No woman should have to “prove” anything to anyone. But, many black women are raised to believe that they must assign some value to their characteristics to add up their innate worth.

A fallible ideal this may be, it is an ideal nonetheless. Do you have this issue?

The ‘Django Moment’

Another key issue many black folks raised with the film was something called the “Django Moment.” Per Cord Jefferson, it is “the moment when, while watching Quentin Tarantino’s campy new slave-revenge movie, a person of color begins to feel uncomfortable with the way white people around them are laughing at the horrors onscreen.” He explains how it felt to have non-blacks around him laugh hysterically at particularly sensitive scenes. And, I will admit, I had a similar experience. But, I never had ‘the moment.’ I never thought to myself, “why is SHE laughing?” or “why does HE think that’s funny.” Why? Well, because I found the entire thing darn funny myself. And, I could totally see the humor in the script and delivery.

Judging from the reactions to the content of Django from a varied audience, it is obvious that the way we view race relations, specifically black/white race relations, is changing. And, though this seems like a good thing on the surface, these types of changes sometimes lead to desensitization. Sometimes folks forget the true lived experiences of racial groups because the way society chooses to view said group shifts to something a bit more palatable for the general public.

Did you have a “Django Moment?” Whether black, white, or something in between, did you feel awkward while watching any of the sensitive scenes (like the Klan scene or the Mandingo scene)?

Phrenology (just because it has ‘ology’ at the end doesn’t make it scientific)

So, this might be the biggest issue I have with the film. And, when discussing it with my peers, I found the widest spectrum of responses to it. Phrenology, a non-science that works inductively assuming that a small group of individuals can be used to attribute characteristics to a population or whole, is mostly hackish. It was exploited in the 19th and 20th centuries to justify forced enslavement, sterilization, and other horrors for people of color. And, in attempting to be true to this era, Tarantino included a healthy dose of it in the film.

In one particular scene, the white slaver, Calvin Candie (Leo DiCaprio), explains how the black race has specific brain and skull characteristics that make them suitable, almost made for, enslavement. And, instead of disproving this soliloquy in the film, Tarantino let it linger for the entirety of the piece. In the end, Django (Jamie Foxx) almost seems to validate the claim by calling himself a “one in ten thousand n#%$@.” This, to me, is the point of contention for many.

A good friend of mine mentioned a very valid criticism of this issue on my Facebook feed.

“the ‘one in ten thousand [n*%$#]‘ reference seemed to dangerously play into that phrenology pseudoscience.  if you recall the scene where this term is introduced in reference to django, candie is fascinated because he’s never ‘met a [n*&%$*] quite like’ django.  that is to say, he’s never met a black man who was his equal.  as far as candie was concerned one such black man did not exist (phrenology).  he’s suggesting that it takes a special kind of black man to rise to the level of a white man.  and the phrase seemed to play into this faulty reasoning.  as i said i’m still processing my thoughts on this.  but it’s a loose end that i don’t feel tarantino ties up nicely.”

Another friend replied that it didn’t bother him at all.

“I’m not at all desensitized to overt or covert racism, but by Calvin making the statement about the one in 10k I think it was a part if his character, and a part of a racist ideology that there are ‘exceptional Blacks’…. it’s a fictional movie, not a documentary. To speculate that QT shares these thoughts as a part of his own belief s seems a little hypersensitive. As I said before, we are our own worst enemy. Once I see people protesting against stereotypical images such as Trinidad James, then we can tackle the Django Conspiracy.”

And, honestly, I don’t know exactly where I land here. In one sense, I agree that movie watching is an extremely passive act that could result in folks digesting some of the messaging on phrenology that QT likely intended as farce. But, in another sense, how do we rage against that machine without raging against real characters in the media or otherwise who make black folk look foolish daily? It suffices to say that some folks could still believe in phrenology. But, does QT’s take on it contribute to or neutralize that belief? It is hard to know.

Overall, I still found the film intensely enjoyable but these three issues remain relatively un-analyzed by many. With the likely increase of interest in movies like this, how will these messages form the race dialogue going forward? It is a lot to consider. One thing is for certain though, good or bad, the film brought slavery to the fore. Now we just have to figure out what we are going to do with it.

Meet Sapphire, Not the Precious Stone

Well, we’ve already walked through the slavery origins of the Jezebel and the emancipated negro ‘Jim Crow’ underpinnings of the Mammy. But, the Sapphire seems to have little foundational basis. Not only that, she is the least talked about character in the crooked room we have all come to know and love. But, Harris-Perry notes the redounding wavelengths television images have cascaded on real-life black women.

“The academic literature on stereotyping traces the popular representation of black women as uniquely and irrationally angry, obnoxious, and controlling to the 1930s Amos ‘n’ Andy radio show. The nagging, assertive Sapphire character on Amos ‘n’ Andy gave rise to an oft-repeated trope in popular culture representations of black women, from Aunt Esther on Sanford and Son to Pam on Martin. The brash, independent, hostile black woman rarely shows vulnerability or empathy…the angry black woman has many different shadings and representations: the bad black woman, the black ‘bitch,’ and the emasculating matriarch.”

Never heard of Amos ‘n’ Andy?

http://youtu.be/2cPbjKCJUGI?t=15s

But you know exactly what she means about Martin right?

While I am inclined to agree, I find that the stereotype has a much more expansive and gargantuan base. Black women are seen as combative, violent, and aggressive in the eyes of the law as well. Black women, like black men, are more likely than their white counterparts to be imprisoned. And, in most cases, their offenses are repetitive and less egregious. So, though it is convenient to look solely to television images and those in movies, real-life truly mimics this trope. And, not only does the angry black woman creation trickle down to normal human beings like me, you, and a host of others, the image is reinforced in every school bus video on YouTube that depicts a violent altercation between a black woman and a black man, or woman, or whomever. Why? Because we have been taught that the image is true.

The angry black woman trope exists in the workplace too. Harris-Perry finds that this stereotype results in employers fearing that black women will be “unreliable” or irascible. And since this is a generally accepted stereotype, the misnomer has also made its way into modern medicine.

“Therapists are less likely to perceive a black woman as sad; instead, they see her as angry or anxious.”

And, to sum up Harris-Perry’s spot-on analysis of the angry black woman, she makes it extremely clear that society’s prevalence toward this unfounded stereotype has had real influence on black women’s lived phenotypes.

“[Black women's] anger is not experienced as a psychological reality but is seen through an ideology that distorts black women’s lived experiences. The angry black woman stereotype hamstrings sisters who find that they cannot forcefully and convincingly advocate their own interests in the public sphere…because their passion and commitment are misread as irrational.”

It is society’s pre-conceived (and ill-conceived) impression that drives many black women to extremes. They may retract in order to disprove the stereotype. Or, they may simply espouse it since the crooked room tells them to. The former might get them further in a social sense, but it will do little to insulate them from the perceptions of others. The latter will likely garner the response expected: exclusion, hatred, loathing, and revilement. But, they may deem that safer in a crooked room with little oxygen for their true persona. Thus emerges the two-ness that W.E.B. Du Bois so remarkably articulated The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

Sapphire’s Pathology

When I was in eleventh grade, I was asked by the Vice Principal of my public high school to grab him a jelly doughnut. Well, I had done this a number of times. And, being that I had an extremely high GPA, held several positions on the school council, and was pretty well-known amongst the faculty for being one of the “good kids,” I thought it okay. So, once the bell rung signalling the start of second period, I skipped right on over to the beloved patisserie across the street and grabbed a half dozen doughnut holes for myself too. Once I had crossed the street and was just about twenty feet from the school’s main entrance, I heard the very familiar whiz of a police vehicle. My first thought was to simply ignore it because there was no way in hell they could possibly be coming for me. As I continued my glide-like stroll, I heard a billowing voice over a speaker-phone call me out personally.

“You, in the blue jeans and red shirt. Please stop and turn around.”

As I stopped to look around and see if anyone else donned my attire, I realized that I was the only person within speaking distance of the cop. But, eerily enough, I wasn’t the only student outdoors. Actually, there were a few Asian males at the bus stop about a block away and a few Hispanic boys watching the conversation from across the street. But, I turned around nonetheless and flippantly addressed the young white male.

“I am taking a doughnut to the Vice Principal. His name is Marty. He asked me to go across the street for my second period IWE (internal work experience). I am not a truant. I have a 3.7 GPA. Can I please go back to school?”

“Law says I have to pick you up.”

“Pick me up? And take me where? I have to go to school. I am not a bad kid. I have never been in trouble. Can you just call the Vice Principal?”

“Law says I have to pick you up. Please turn around.”

“Are you for real arresting me right now? I don’t understand. This is crazy. Can I at least go get my backpack? Wouldn’t I have a backpack if I were truant or cutting class?”

“Miss, I am taking you to the truancy center. You can call your parents from there to pick you up. It doesn’t matter what you were doing or who told you to do it. Law says you can’t be off property during school hours.”

“What about them over there? They are leaving right now. Why aren’t you picking them up?”

And as he tightened a plastic hand-cuff around my wrists, I simply started crying. Not because it hurt. I cried because I was embarrassed that my classmates had seen me getting shoved in a cop car like a criminal. I cried because this cop didn’t seem to give a crap that I was a “good kid” no matter how hard I had worked at becoming one. I cried because I really genuinely wanted to go back to school. And, I cried because I was unsure what this meant for everything else. Was I going to be suspended? Was my mom going to kill me? Would this go on some type of permanent record? Would this impact my college admissions process? The questions were endless.

But, in that moment, just as now, I was reminded of my place. You know, that place where I am ‘supposed’ to exist. That place where hoochies, mammies, and bad girls live. My place in the crooked room. And as I called my mom and my brother crying bloody murder begging them to pick me up, their reactions to me only further cemented my angst, humiliation, hurt, and disillusionment with my prescribed role. Neither of them deemed it important to come to my aid. Neither wanted to leave work to rescue me. Neither wanted to free me of this snare my race and gender had gotten me into.

It is instances like these that produce those angry little black girls. It is instances like these that harden feminine hearts. It is instances like these that prove that neither academia nor athleticism nor altruism can work to defray the weight of the burdensome angry black woman load. And, in fighting this white cop, I was fighting against a larger societal vision for me. I was attempting to stand against something much bigger than myself to no avail.

This is the brilliance of the Sapphire. Not only does it cause black women to understate their accomplishments in an effort not to emasculate the men around them, it also leaves many feeling as though any uttering in their own defense will be seen as being angry just for the sake of being angry. It desensitizes others to the various plights of black women including rape and misogyny culture, single-parenthood, and statistically unequal wealth outcomes. It pre-marks every reaction as an irrational one. It gets folks like Rhonda Lee fired when others display more aggressive demeanors for similar issues. It makes a bus driver physically beating a young black woman a minor celebrity on YouTube. And it shames black women who strive to carve out their true space in the American social sphere…

So, what happens next? What does shame bring us all? Well, plainly, more shame. And so goes the vicious cycle of the crooked room.

To be continued…Shame

Buy the book here.

There is an excellent piece up on BB&W by the talented Jamila Akil that talks about the new “Black Nerd Movement.” In it, Akil notes how difficult it can be for developing ‘blerds.’ But, another facet of this very fascinating new trend is the flip side. Young black women who are smart, mathematically inclined, and comfortable with numbers often find great success and support for their academic and career endeavors.

In my case, I grew up in a relatively poor inner-city environment. My single-mother was not a college graduate and had little know-how when it came to navigating the college admissions process. But, from junior high school on, it was several teachers who saw promise in me that shooshed me along to the math and engineering honors courses that neither I nor my mother had any clue existed. When I graduated with my 3.8 GPA and attended a well-known school majoring in engineering, it truly seemed a bit unreal. Because of my minority status, economic background, and academic achievement, several top tier schools were clamoring to pay for my undergraduate education. And that makes sense right? Private institutions benefit from diverse student bodies and accomplished students who have proven they can triumph over personal adversity.

White Math > Black Woman

But, no one ever really tells you how much of a commodity you become once you’ve attained ‘blerd’ status. All of a sudden, interviews become yours to lose, job opportunities seem a lot more attainable, and employers find you an extremely attractive candidate. Upon attaining a degree, it seems that the world becomes your proverbial oyster. But, this is not just a success story. Melissa Harris-Perry, a well known ‘blerd’, political scientist, and host of the Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC, has spoken about how quantitative work is “disproportionately” rewarded in academia.

When discussing black women’s contributions to political science methods and research, she notes that “little black girls” who do math are often seen more similarly to well-trained dogs than to real scholars.

“We are unusual and unlikely and no one expects us to be able to do it. And, [math] can at some times be as much a trick as a real tool.”

Akil touches on this in her piece as well. We have all been teased that being smart is equivalent with being “white.” Math and science were, at some point, aligned with “whiteness” and exodus from the black community. So, as Harris-Perry elucidates, black women who like math and science are not necessarily treated as academic equals with their white male counterparts. They, instead, are seen as impressionists and impersonators who can only go through the mathematical motions without full knowledge of its scholarly underpinnings. This gives way to a host of obtuse expectations which are in direct discord with this new movement.

White Math + Black Woman < Social Expectations

So, what does this mean for black women who master and enjoy white math? Well, they often see career gold. Not so much in a monetary sense because black women – and women in general – are still paid less than men in similar fields. But, they tend to garner unequal recognition for their work. This is because, in some ways, these women are seen as transcendent figures who have “overcome” their race and underrepresented status to move beyond normal black accomplishments. For example, remember when Biden said this of the candidate Obama?

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy…I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Biden was a bit off in this statement, but his words reflect the impression many in the mainstream got from Obama in those early campaign days. What makes these nerdy, articulate people so “storybook” is their contradiction with the stereotypical imagery used to describe their social or class group. And ‘blerds’ are a key category experiencing this social change as we speak. While President Obama is likely the most renown ‘blerd,’ he represents a bloc of individuals who have teetered between perceived whiteness and prescribed blackness for some time now. In this vein, black nerds are often seen as the exception to the rule, not an indication that the fundamental rules have changed. Existing stereotypes make it difficult for the ‘blerd’ to be palatable in the grand scheme of things. So, black women who take on this moniker are touted as transcendent rather than as well-adjusted products of ever diversifying social environments.

Socially, black women are still expected to fit into a handful of basic stereotypes. But, nerd is not one of them. And, as more and more black women seek to define themselves, ‘blerds’ will continue to make waves.

White Math + Black Woman = Career Gold?

So, where does the career gold come in? Well, imagine that you are the only person in the room who happens to be from some foreign place. And everyone else around you is pretty homogenous. And because they are generally the same, they have very high expectations for everyone. Everyone but you. Well, they pretty much expect you to fail. But, instead of failing, you totally exceed their expectations. You disprove what they thought they knew about you. And, with no warning, you leave them awestruck at your mental and scholarly capacity. Well, what then? Do the expectations change? Probably not for your group. But they will definitely change for you. You will be seen as some sort of anomaly or “special” member of your group. And that’s when your specialness is rewarded.

This is not to say that black women don’t struggle in employment like others do. Nor is it to say that knowing how to manipulate the graphing functions on your TI-89 calculator will jettison you straight to the top of your field. But, what it does say is that black women occupy an extremely unique space in the academic and corporate arena. It is a social space where isolated expectations exist in a sort of vacuum sealed away from the illusory ones for ‘regular’ black folks. And, though one must still be cognizant of the larger spectrum of social expectations and stereotypes, truly talented black women may supersede these notions with little to no effort. So?

Well, personally, I say we just go ahead and take over the world. Care to join me? No one will expect it.

Here’s a brief history of her origins. During the legal enslavement of Black Americans, this character was used to legitimize the rape and physical exploitation of black women. These women’s reproductive systems were a fundamental basis for the continued profitability of slavery. And, forced sexual intercourse between white slave-masters and young black girls was an effective method of control. But, in the late 19th century, slavery was no longer legal, the Jezebel was no longer relevant, and white plantation owners needed a logical premise to perpetually own and operate proxy slave labor. This is how the Mammy was born…

To understand the stereotype of the Mammy, one must first understand her humble beginnings. She came to be after slavery ended. And, her era lasted for almost a century. Many like to refer to the formal compromise between the North and South as the official end of slavery in 1877. In a magical place far removed from history, Black Americans became equal to their white counterparts at this time. But, in actuality, Jim Crow laws, Black Codes, and forced segregation did not legally end until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. This means that the South was still very segregated and blacks were still susceptible to lynching, rape, murder, enslavement, and violent racism. And, the general southern white populace was still looking for an answer to their “Black Problem.”

Entrée Le Mammy

In the early 1900s, after slavery had been formally abolished for almost thirty years, subservience from the black population was still expected and legal through the Jim Crow laws of the South. Black women were “lovingly” referred to as mammies. And, though these women were often sent out to white homes in their teens when they were still of birthing age, the most recognizable figure for this illusory character is shown in the graphic for this post. She is older and rounded with big red lips, un-effeminate features, and a generally unappealing exterior.

The verbiage on the picture says it all.

NOT PARTICULAR

“I know you’re not particular to a fault,

Though I’m not sure you’ll never be sued for assault.

You’re so fond of women that even a wench

Attracts your gross fancy despite her strong stench.”

The white man in the picture, laying a kiss on a mammy, is jokingly called “not particular.” In other words, he would lay up with anything that has a hole. In total contradiction with the earlier stereotype of the Jezebel, the Mammy is cast as a farm animal, an unwanted creature, or a grotesque troglodyte. And, any white man who would be openly attracted to her would be seen as a sad character with poor taste and lowly means.

This was the caricature of the Mammy. Foul smelling, totally unsavory, and the last thing a white man should find even remotely attractive. Perhaps, the most well known mammy was Hattie McDaniel who was the first black woman to win an Academy Award for her role as “Mammy” in the 1939 highly acclaimed film Gone With the Wind. To date, her performance, even the film itself, is seen as a fantastic adaptation of the Old South. And, critics, across the board, praise the movie for its time-tested appeal. The most interesting thing about this role is that McDaniel’s crowning-glory came from a performance where she was generally unattractive, portrayed as unintelligent but caring, and genuinely insignificant to most around her. This, it seems from all the hullabaloo the film received, was the role she was born to play.

Fast forward to 2011 to the critically-acclaimed movie called The Help. In the film, we meet a host of mammies. But, a sassy mammy named “Minny Jackson,” played by Octavia Spencer, and a loyal and devoted mammy named “Aibileen Clark,” played by Viola Davis, were the shining lights in the film. Jackson and Clark are sought out by a young white woman who wants to tell their “story.” And, though the film is filled with tragedy and triumph, it still harkens back to some of those same themes associated with the traditional mammy. They were frumpy, assexual, absent from their own homes and entirely devoted (as it would seem on the surface) to their white families. Harris-Perry discusses this blind devotion to whites in her book.

 ”Enslaved women working as domestic servants in Southern plantations were taken from their families and forced to nurse white babies while their own infants subsisted on sugar water. They were not voluntary members of the enslaver’s family; they were women laboring under coercion and the constant threat of physical and sexual violence. “

Never mind the fact that these women’s lives were predicated on the veiled hatred the white South still held for their race. The Mammy gave way to a host of racially-driven platitudes for the subjugation of black women.

The Modern Mammy

Films like Gone With the Wind and The Help, though loved by a great many, create a deceptive allegory for the modern black woman. So, not only do these women have to contend with the notion of hyper-sexuality through the figure of the Jezebel, they also must deal with the the potential asexuality of the Mammy. But, this stereotype is particularly dubious because Mammy is not seen in a negative light (hence the Oscar winning performance by Spencer in The Help and the best actress nomination for Davis). She is loving and kind. She is cuddly and warm. And, she is almost incapable of caring for anything of her own. Her devotion is to whites and whites alone. Very clever right?

By creating this character, early 19th century whites effectively curtailed accusations that blacks did not want to be slaves or that black women did not actually love their white slave-masters’ families. The Mammy’s presence in the household gave a sense of security and tradition. And, though she was never allowed to fully integrate into the family, she was happy and jolly, right? That is what these films would have you to believe. But, in truth, these depictions are antithetical to the actual existence of these women and the message the Mammy sends to young black women.

Like the Jezebel, black women pegged with the Mammy stereotype are often categorized by some external feature or ability. For example, they are “fat girls” if they cook well, are curvier, or like to eat. Or, they have “soup cooler lips” if their lips are fuller than some others. If they wear natural hair textures, they look “manly” and their hair is “nappy.” And, my personal favorite, they are available to listen to everyone’s problems at any moment because they are caretakers. This is how movies, television shows, and the like often depict the “black friend.” She does everyone’s hair and likes fried chicken of course. This stereotype has been co-opted by the Black community. And, we often use the mischaracterization against ourselves and others. We slip in and out of the Mammy and the Jezebel at a moment’s notice assuming we must be one or the other.

Remnants of this stereotype still exist today. Just recently it was found that the black race, on the whole, is seen as “masculine.” This includes black women. From oversexed to undersexed, black women can’t seem to catch a break. If we are dressed conservatively, we are deemed manly. If we are dressed femininely, we are deemed whorish. If we wear a teenie-weenie-afro, we are deemed masculine. If we don a long flowing weave, we are deemed sexual. The two stereotypes work in tandem to further ostracize black women from the general public. And, these stereotypes force young girls to decide between frumps and humps just to try and fit in.

The only issue for the white community at-large was that the Mammy never had staying-power. When black women realized that they were being put in a “trick bag,” they responded with militance and self-worth endeavors. They became angry and adroit with demands of redress. They found culpability with others who had unfairly put them in a crooked room and subjected them to askew images of themselves. They straightened their backs a bit and got pissed off. Thereby generating the stereotype of the Sapphire…

To be continued…The Sapphire, and Shame

Buy the book here.

As a light-hearted introduction to this theory, I used a slanted image we are all used to: Beyoncé. Her blond tresses, matté veneer, and stylized figure has become a trope of Black female beauty. Though some disagree that she is a victim of the crooked room, it is easy to assess her pictoral changes over time and the embodiment of “re-touching” that has added to this narrative. Her sexed up, some might say digitally-enhanced, image, which draws focus to her backside, “full” figured curves, and aesthetic beauty lend themselves to the first character introduced in Sister Citizen: the Jezebel.

Who is the Jezebel?

According to Harris-Perry, the Jezebel ideal originated when Southern slaveowners needed a reason to legitimize the forced nakedness, physical “commoditization,” and coerced sexual relations between them and their female slaves. In order to justify the rape and dehumanization of these women, they had to be depicted as wanton, over-sexed, whorish, and seductive. How were these poor slaveowners to deny these big breasted, chiseled bodied, and perpetually available Black women whose sole desire was to sleep with them? These women were cast as animalistic in nature. Sexual prowess was just a Black woman’s natural instinct toward physical gratification. Disgusting right?

We have all come to know the Jezebel. And, whether we love or hate her, she is more familiar to us than we’d like to admit. Even married women like myself are faced with the Jezebel stereotype. I have been married for almost seven years. My husband and I are what many would call traditional. We were college sweethearts and married two weeks after graduating from undergrad. I became pregnant within 9 months of marrying and my son was born about six months after our first anniversary. And, although I followed all the “rules” about what a woman should do, expect, and be like when planning a family, I have often been stereotyped as a sexually lascivious, over-sexed vixen. I dated the same man all through college but remember being repeatedly referred to as “sexual” because I promoted safe sex practices for my peers.

Even when I was not sexually active myself, I was clumped into the group of “fast” girls, “hoes,” “runners,” and the like because of a pair of tight jeans or a revealing top. When I became pregnant, I was often questioned about exactly how long I had been married. You know, because everyone needed to check and see if I had had a shotgun wedding. And, when we moved up the date a year, because we wanted to be husband and wife sooner rather than later, we were pummeled with concerns that we were hiding a bun in the oven.

I, even in all my traditionalism, was deemed a Jezebel. A young, easily attained sex object with a focus on my physique and sexual prowess rather than my intellect. Mind you, I had never carried below a 3.5 GPA and attended college at the sixth highest ranked engineering school in the nation at the time. So, my other characteristics were obviusly not in question when these assertions of my true nature were made. This is the fallacy of crooked room stereotyping. Information in direct discord with these stereotypes is oft overlooked in favor of exaggerated attention on facets of a person’s character or physique that might, instead, align with perceived stereotypical notions.

The Jezebel Goes Hoe2K

Nowadays, this stereotype’s insidious nature manifests itself in movies, hip hop culture, rap music, entertainment, and politics. How many movies have you seen where there’s that hoey Black girlfriend? She just can’t help herself right? Everytime she tries to stop laying up with guys, she falls victim to her true nature again. And, as soon as she denies her natural propensity toward whorishness, ratchetness, and trick-itude, she magically finds “Mr. Right.” Cool how that works hunh? When a Black woman does this, it is her nature. But, when White women do the same, what is it called? Hooking up. Interesting right? Hooking up sounds minimal, trivial, and inconsequential. It is a term near and dear to many a college or high school student. But, the stigma associated with Black women “hooking up” is no where near as small or remote.

Take the politics of reproduction for example. The Jezebel is the chick with the multiple kids out of wedlock from several fathers. She has the welfare status, the loser boyfriends, and the general lack of appeal outside of her physical frame. She might be called the “baby mama,” the “round the way girl,” the “pretty young thang,” the “side chick,” the “dime piece,” and just flat out, the “hoe.”

This Black woman is caricatured over and over and over again. So much so, that she has become the face of abortion and reproduction policy. Harris-Perry notes that “the depiction of black women as sexually insatiable breeders suit[ed] a slaveholding society that profit[ed] from black women’s fertility.” Therefore, the natural evolution toward controlling the wayward reproduction of Jezebel women seemed totally legitimate. Today’s “welfare hoe” is yesterday’s slave reproduction machine. Both are/were Jezebels. But they serve/d two wholly different purposes. The old Jezebel made more slaves and made it okay for White slaveowners to force them into sexual intercourse. The new Jezebel sucks money out of the government just to satiate her uncontrollable need for sexual appeasement and subsequent unwanted childbearing. Exclude the fact that Black women do not make up the bulk of welfare recipients. Instead, Whites are the majority in this respect. It is the imaginations of those in the crooked room that propagate the illusory notion of the Jezebel. And they are doing a great job at it.

Who is blamed for out of wedlock babies? Black women. Who is shouldered with the weight of managing single parent homes? Black women. Who is forced to be all things for all people at all times? Black women. And, this is when the Jezebel grows up, puts on her big girl panties, and turns into the Mammy…

To be continued…The Mammy, the Sapphire, and Shaming

Buy the book here.

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes and Black Women in America, released in September 2011,  is a lovely and intelligent book about the images in the media that work to define Black women and their roles in American society. And though the prolific Cornel West has had much to say about Harris-Perry’s work, many contemporary, non-male scholars and commentators have accepted her presence as both necessary and legitimate.

The Crooked Room

Ever heard of the theory of the “crooked room?” If you haven’t, maybe you have heard of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. They are quite similar. I parallel the two because they both hint on the concept that [wo]men exist in a sort of a vaccuum and until enlightened to the pretense of their environments, they mentally assimilate with whatever their surroundings may be. The crooked room is a central point of reference for Harris-Parry’s work and is summarized as follows:

“In one study, subjects were placed in a crooked chair in a crooked room and then asked to align themselves vertically. Some perceived themselves as straight only in relation to their surroundings. To researchers’ surprise, some people could be tilted as much as 35 degrees and report that they were perfectly straight, simply because they were aligned with images that were equally tilted. But not everyone did this: some managed to get themselves more or less upright regardless of how crooked the surrounding images were.

When they confront race and gender stereotypes, black women are standing in a crooked room, and they have to figure out which way is up. Bombarded with warped images of their humanity, some black women tilt and bend themselves to fit the distortion.”

What exactly does Harris-Perry mean when she notes that Black women “tilt and bend themselves to fit the distortion?” Ever heard of a young lady named Beyoncé? Did you think that was her natural hair color? skin texture? eye color?

Yes, in its simplest sense, it looks like colorism at its finest. This beautiful and talented 9 year old girl…

…grew up to be a gorgeous young black woman who hit major stardom in the mid-1990s…

…but, by the early 2000s, her attire, skin tone, and hair texture had already begun to change…

…till we reach now…where she basically resembles a very beautiful, non-descriptly ethnic woman…

On Giving In to the Room We Live In

Some will criticize this post as hating. But, the truth is, no matter what Beyoncé does to her hair, body, or otherwise does not take away from her talent. But, her transformation over the last twenty years is indicative of a larger phenomenon affecting Black women. Her mere presence and bountiful success works in two interesting ways.

1. It shows young Black girls that there is a possibility to come from humble beginnings and make it big one day. Her symbolism reinforces the notion of the “American Dream.” You know, the one where you pull yourself up from your bootstraps and whatnot.
2. On the other hand, Beyoncé’s physical changes garnering such accolades and praise (like being named People Magazine‘s “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” in 2012 after the magazine’s hiatus on Black women from Halle Berry gracing the cover 9 years earlier) sends dual messaging to young women and boys about what Black women are “supposed” to look like. It says that a beautiful young woman with countless talent still has to transfigure herself to be deemed beautiful by the rest of the world. So, what if you deem yourself less talented or less beautiful than she was to begin with? What then?

In that case, many women simply give in to the crooked room they are living in. In other words, they behave in a way that contorts and shifts into lockstep with the world around them. And though it may make them feel more beautiful, it never quite seems to satiate their desire to be loved, appreciated, honored, or respected. This is one of the central issues affecting Black women’s self-imaging. Why can’t we take compliments? Well, because the bestow-er must be disingenuous right? I’m no Beyoncé, right? Even she has to change herself to be pretty. So, I have to do something even more extreme, right?

We all live in this crooked room. And, not only does it make it hard for us to receive compliments, it makes it hard for us to give them too. This is especially so when it comes to other Black women. Innate competition between us about hair length, skin tone, material possessions, and all types of other inconsequential indicators of self-worth impair our abilities to appreciate each other. Ever walk outside thinking you were just doing it, (hair did, nails did, everythang did…) only to have one of your girlfriends rip you a new one? Was your head up too high so they had to ground you real quick? The crooked room tells us that ain’t nobody “all that.” And, even if they think they are, we can find something about them to get them back in their place.

I will end this on a personal note since there is much more to be said in a future post. Growing up as a brown girl in a brown world, my world was always slightly off-kilter. But, my mother put me in diverse schools with students of many different ethnic backgrounds. So, I was fortunate enough to have my world constantly tilting on its axis every time I went to school, church, or family gatherings. I got a multitude of images and social norms from numerous  sources which almost made me crazy at times. But, it was their intersection that elucidated the center of my planetary mass. Somewhere in the center, I realized that some of the boys didn’t like me, they preferred the girls with longer, “whiter” hair. And, in some cases, the boys really liked me because I appeared easier to get than those other girls.

One thing that always stuck out to me was a very subtle thing: courtesy. At school, during flu-season, everyone would constantly sneeze. The teacher would sneeze, and the class would say “God bless you” in unison. A Hispanic boy would sneeze, similar levels of bless yous. An Asian girl would sneeze, more bless yous. Then, I would sneeze, silence…to this very day, I find myself in crooked rooms where this is the norm. And, it wasn’t until reading Harris-Perry’s book that I realized the polymorphic existence I had always inhabited wasn’t my own creation. It was the endless tilting of the endless rooms that I was gliding through on a daily basis. And, there were times when I appeased them. In one room, I would try to seem more “black.” I’d roll some syllables and purposely relax my diction in certain company. And, I’d perform the equal and opposite actions in other tilted rooms.

But, one day, I simply said enough was enough. I stood up straight in all my rooms. And, though I found it jarring at first (because some rooms were surprisingly more tilted than others – I mean damn near 90 degrees askew), I found that my straightened form made everything very clear to me. I demanded the same treatment as everyone else. I demanded the same respect as everyone else. And, I defined my most linear plane. It may be crooked to others, but that’s simply because they are walking around like some Smooth Criminals…think about it. Ever found yourself in a crooked room? Heck, you may be in one right now…

To be continued…The Mammy, the Jezebel, the Sapphire, and Shaming

Buy the book here.

After you’ve seen that, you might be wanting to buy her book.

I must have played those tracks a dozen times on my recent road trip from Southern California to San Francisco. My absolute favorite song is “Café du Monde.” Take a listen at the samples here, and take it one step further and BUY the damn thing–you will not be disappointed.

But right now, Sandra needs all our help. She’s enrolled in the International Jazz Vocal Competition. This competition ends TODAY at 2:00PM PDT. She needs OUR vote. It takes just a second, and you’ll earn your cool karma points for the day. Vote here. When you get to the page search the performances alphabetically. Sandra is on page 23 and she has three songs listed.