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1. Quote Me: Lurve from ATR and Tami « The Cruel Secretary on 22 Aug 2009 at 11:53 pm

   [...] …everyone swinging by from Racialicious. For those not in the know ’cause I was too slacker-y to post this when it came out last week: Carmen and I did an Addicted to Race podcast, in which we discuss Aretha’s Inauguration hat and the re-lensing of Black American church culture, why the media is attempting to make Obama’s inauguration seem as if it’s only an African American victory, and the strange cropping-up of feature stories and op-ed pieces about Black and Brown behinds in liberal/progressive media outlets. Listen to the two of us acting up here. [...]

Comments

1. The Cruel Secretary wrote:

   Let me do some follow-up with this: I passionate apologize for getting some of the info about Saarjtie Bartmann wrong. She was a member of the Khoi, not the Khosa, people. Further clarifying info, according to Wikipedia:

   “Saartjie Baartman was born to a Khoisan family in the vicinity of the Gamtoos River in what is now the Eastern Cape of South Africa. She was orphaned in a commando raid. Saartjie, pronounced “Sahr-key”, is the Afrikaans form of her name; it translates to English as “Little Sarah”, where the use of the diminutive form commonly indicates familiarity or endearment rather than a literally short stature. Her original name is unknown.

   “Baartman was a slave of Dutch farmers near Cape Town when Hendrick Cezar, the brother of her slave owner, suggested that she travel to England for exhibition, promising her that she would become wealthy. Lord Caledon, governor of the Cape, gave permission for the trip, but later regretted it after he fully learned its purpose. She left for London in 1810.

   “Saartjie was exhibited around Britain, being forced to entertain people by gyrating her buttocks nude and showing to Europeans what were thought of as highly unusual bodily features. Due to her steatopygia, she had large buttocks; in addition, she had sinus pudoris, otherwise known as the tablier (the French word for “apron”) or “curtain of shame”, all names for the elongated labia of some Khoisan women. (Although “sinus pudoris” refers only to the labia of Khoisan women, all labia vary in size and shape to some degree.) To quote Stephen Jay Gould, “The labia minora, or inner lips, of the ordinary female genitalia are greatly enlarged in Khoi-San women, and may hang down three or four inches below the vagina when women stand, thus giving the impression of a separate and enveloping curtain of skin”. [4] Saartjie never allowed this trait to be exhibited while she was alive.

   “Baartman later traveled to Napoleonic Paris where an animal trainer exhibited her under more pressured conditions for fifteen months. French anatomist Georges Cuvier and French naturalists visited her and she was the subject of several scientific paintings at the Jardin du RoI.

   “She died on 29 December 1815 of an inflammatory ailment, possibly smallpox, while other sources suggest she contracted pneumonia. An autopsy was conducted, and published by French anatomist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1816 and by Cuvier in the Memoires du Museum d’Histoire Naturelle in 1817. Cuvier notes in his monograph that Baartman was an intelligent woman who had an excellent memory and spoke Dutch fluently. Her skeleton, preserved genitals and brain were placed on display in Paris’ Musée de l’Homme until 1974, when they were removed from public view and stored out of sight; A molded casting was still shown for the following two years.

   “There were sporadic calls for the return of her remains beginning in the 1940s but the case became prominent only after U.S. biologist Stephen Jay Gould published an account, The Hottentot Venus, in the 1980s. When Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa in 1994, he formally requested that France return the remains. After much legal wrangling and debates in the French National Assembly, France acceded to the request on 6 March 2002. Her remains were repatriated to her homeland, the Gamtoos Valley, on 6 May 2002 and she was finally laid to rest on 9 August 2002 on Vergaderingskop, a hill in the town of Hankey, over 200 years after her birth.”

   And here are a couple of articles about church hats: the one Ms. Franklin wore and the play Regina Taylor’s “Crowns,” based on Michael Cunningham’s book of the same name.

   As for my opinion about Ms. Franklin’s hat, I’m sticking by it.:D

   Posted 28 Jan 2009 at 10:38 am ¶

2. Roger Green wrote:

   Not sure I agree with Andrea’s assertion about black dances linked to a time period. I mean, I’ve been to LOTS of weddings and other gatherings where the Electric Slide is invoked.

   Posted 28 Jan 2009 at 12:57 pm ¶

3. The Cruel Secretary wrote:

   @ Roger–the Electric Slide is a 20+-year-old dance. About to turn 40 myself in April, I remember the Slide coming out when I was in my late teens and early 20s. Before that–when I was early to late teens–the big line dance was The Smurf. When I was was a pre-teen and younger the big line dance was The Hustle. When I was under 5, the big dance was The Bump…and, if you do some math about the ages I’ve given and the corresponding decades, we’re back to the 70s.

   The Electirc Slide started in US Black communities. The funny thing about the Slide is, like breakdancing, which started in Black and Brown comunities, it jumped across communities. A personal example: I went to gay dance clubs in the 90s (rememeber I was in my late teens and 20s during this time). At the clubs–mostly white–where I danced, no one did the Slide. About 10 years later I popped into a mostly white gay club and–yes it did–The Slide broke out on the crowded dance floor.

   Now, The Electric Slide may have become a staple dance it’s not, unto itself, an eternal dance, something that Black folks have done since time immemorial. The dance has a history–a time period, if you will–and a community from which it came. It just feels like it’s been here eternally, that’s all.

   Anyone for the Cha-Cha Slide?

   Posted 28 Jan 2009 at 1:56 pm ¶

4. mute wrote:

   Does anyone know what happened to Lisa Jones? What is she doing now?

   Posted 28 Jan 2009 at 2:25 pm ¶

5. Arturo wrote:

   The Electric Slide gave me one of the most shocking sights in my life.

   About a decade ago, I was wandering through Universal Studios Hollywood with some friends when I heard music off in the background — like, club music. So we went to investigate and found a “country bar,” one of those Planet Hollywood-knockoffs, and I can hear “Atomic Dog,” and I peek thru the window … there was a black man standing to my right. We looked at each other, both of us utterly confused. Inside, there were 50 white people doing the Electric Slide. To George Clinton.

   Posted 28 Jan 2009 at 2:41 pm ¶

6. The Cruel Secretary wrote:

   @mute–what’s Lisa Jones doing now? Right now, she’s hurting my feelings because I have seen nor heard anything from her since The Aughts (2000-now) began.:( I thought–and still think–Jones was/is an incisive and funny writer about race, gender, and pop culture. She and Rebecca Walker were some of the influential thinkers of 3rd Wave Feminism: Walker’s To Be Real, which had one of Jones’ essays, was one of the pivotal works that marked the new shifts in feminism.

   So…Lisa Jones, if you read this blog, holla back, hear?

   @Arturo–bro, all I can say is bless their George Clinton-dancing hearts.

   Posted 28 Jan 2009 at 5:27 pm ¶

7. Orville wrote:

   Why does this website always focus on this binary of people of colour Vs white folks?
   Why doesn’t this website focus a bit more on what blacks think of Obama.

   I disagree I thought Aretha Franklin’s hat was beautiful. I liked it. I don’t understand the negativity about Aretha’s hat? She is a sixty something black woman and those kinds of hats are popular in the black church.

   I still think the white culture doesn’t quite understand African American culture. I do believe the Obamas are important because they present a different aspect of the black American experience the media tends to ignores. There are educated hard working black people like the Obamas that don’t get the media attention from the mainstream.

   I think it is odd that this website doesn’t talk about the black media and what they think about the Obamas? Where are the views about Ebony, Essence Magazine, Vibe and other black publications think of the Obamas? Why is this website so focused on what the Mythical Norm thinks of black folks?

   In relation to Michelle Obama I think it is interesting the media care more about her clothes then about her views about feminism?

   Posted 29 Jan 2009 at 12:18 am ¶

8. aimerrouge wrote:

   Aretha’s has was ugly. (And yes, I’m a Black woman.) She wore it in front of the world and the world has offered (various) opinions.

   “Where are the views about Ebony, Essence Magazine, Vibe and other black publications think of the Obamas? ”

   I’ve always found those magazines to be fluff. They have their place, but they are not where I go for politics. I’m put off that those magazines (with the exception of Ebony) never really covered politics until now. As far as their views, they support Obama with the unstated (but often stated reason) reason that he’s Black and so is his wife. But, as Michelle Malveaux has said (paraphrasing) “to the extent that journalism is now being affected by the economy, it is a good thing that entities that weren’t covering politics before are covering politics now. Employment for journalists is a good thing.”

   I think the editors /moderators are very clear about the objective of this particular website. They also encourage people to contribute content.

   Posted 29 Jan 2009 at 10:41 am ¶

9. The Cruel Secretary wrote:

   @Orville–

   I don’t disagree that the Obamas bring forth a part of Black populations and identities that ignored. But I also wonder–which has been commented on at this blog–is the possible exceptionalizing of the Obamas when their existence is quite normal of many Black Americans because we see so many folks like the Obamas–some who, like the Obamas–profess the Christian faith and lean upon their church communities to give them the wherewithal to work as hard as they do.

   Those church communities bring me to my point about Aretha Franklin’s hat.

   As I stated in the podcast, I’ve grown up around Black church-going women who’ve worn hats. My maternal aunts, in fact, were hat-wearers on the Sundays when they weren’t singing in the church choir. My last living maternal aunt in in her 80s. She’s of a generation where men and women wore hats when going out in public least they’re judged as “inappropriately dressed.” My mom is also a hat-wearer–though she took to the tradition when I was in my into my 30s. My mom is Franklin’s age–and they’re of the generation where “hat requirement” was considerably loosened. Two generations of church-going brim-wearers whom I personally know, coupled with nearly 30 years of being a church-goer myself, mostly in the Baptist church, a tradition where, when it comes to dressing for church, the hat on a woman’s head was the pièce de résistance of her outfit. So, if a woman is going to rock such a look, esp. at The Inauguration (especially of the first Black president!), the hat should be so spectacular President Obama would want to give *it* a position in his cabinet.:D So, I suspect the negativity may come from the hat not looking sharp *enough* for such an occasion. (The thought: “Aretha, you’re singing at the Inauguration and *that’s* the best you came up with? Lord, let us pray indeed…”) And popularity doesn’t make a piece of clothing look good–it’s the aesthetics of it, which usually boils down to taste and opinion. To my personal aesthetics, based my years of being exposed of church-hat culture, I disliked the hat. On this point about the hat, you and I have to agree to disagree, Orville.

   Also, Orville, US popular culture–and, by our begrudging admittance, we’re US-centric here, though we’re working hard to change that–is part of a culture where whiteness is seen as the norm, the good, the epitome–at the expense of PoCs. (The “Black Brown Booty and the Obama-era Media” part of the podcast alludes to that.) The racial politics in this country has been placed on the unfortunate and tight binary of “Black” and “White.” It’s that idea that gets played out again and again, esp. in this nation’s pop and media culture. Realizing that binary–and the lived truths and dynamics of non-Black PoCs in dealing with white culture as well Blacks and other PoCs, Latoya started a series a while ago on “The Things We Do to Each Other,” which deals with the very question you asked in regards to the binary you think the blog “always” deals with. The series also belies the “always” claim you just made.:D

   And, Orville–with the idea that “race” is more than just about the souls (and opinions) of Black folks, it wouldn’t make sense for this blog to “focus more” on what *only* Blacks think of Obama. Obama is the President of the United States, not King of the Negroes. As Carmen and I said in the podcast, many folks of many hues–because this country multi-racial, not “post-racial”–invested their time and energy into getting Obama into office, not just us Black folks. I can dig some posts on how some Black media outlets cover Obama and the rhetoric and images used to do it–but why not do that as well as a comparison with Black media outlets and, say Asian American media? Or a comparison of Latin@ media outlets and First Nations media outlets? Or other combinations? And, Orville, since you suggested it–and I mean this seriously and sincerely–why don’t you write it? As Latoya says, we’re a volunteer staff and this blog’s content comes from folks like yourself who have an opinion and a keyboard. So, if you’re seeing some topic that we’re missing but you think should be covered, put your fingers to the k-board and write it.

   Posted 29 Jan 2009 at 11:51 am ¶

10. bdsista wrote:

    I like Aretha’s hat and I have a whole row of hatboxes in my closet. I personally want one in red with a red satin bow!

    I am really sick of people commenting on Michelle Obama’s behind, and I honestly agree that its a part of marginalizing her intelligence to reduce her to a thing.

    The hat thing is really important if you go to church a lot. I have hats from my grandmother (God rest her soul) and my mother, who likes them smaller than I do. You have to have one with a veil to wear to funerals and big ones to wear to Easter, Garden parties and the races. We have horse racing in MD and in Barbados if you go after Christmas. Nothing hides bad hair like a big-A** good lookin hat! Didn’t get that color done? Behind on your perm schedule? Get that hat girl!

    Posted 29 Jan 2009 at 1:59 pm ¶

11. Brothel Poet wrote:

    It is depressing that human-hood, a sense of ourselves as people is so centered around one group of people- the dominant group. Why do we care what they think? I live in a very white city and I find myself thinking about what white folks are going to think of me today. Because- white people have the power. They can control our lives. How do we wrest that control from them? Well, psychogologically we have to reaffirm that they are not “right” about us. We have to free our minds,a nd then, perhaps, perhaps- our wallets and communities will be free. Of course by our I mean non white communities- which for a healthy mind is about segregation…. We have to cast our selves in the same mindset that got us here to begin with- the idea of that “we” are the center of the universe and the other must be “dealt” with. It’s maddening.

    Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 9:19 pm ¶