By Guest Contributor Rachael Kay Albers, cross-posted from Latina Fatale

It is after midnight and I’m in a taxi on the way back to my barrio, mouthing the lyrics to a song on the radio that I’m proud to know the lyrics of when, suddenly, I stop (fake) singing. Spanish is my second language and memorizing song lyrics doesn’t come as easily to me as it does in English—if I can successfully sing along to a song in a café or on the radio, I wave the useless ability like a flag. But, as I silently croon in my cab tonight, I realize that, in my quest to hone my dual language lip syncing abilities, I have paid absolutely zero attention to the content of the lyrics I’m not singing.

The song on my cabbie’s radio is “Lamento Boliviano,” (Bolivian Lament). You may know it for its famous chorus:

Y yo estoy aquí
borracho y loco
y mi corazón idiota
siempre brillará
y yo te amaré
te amaré por siempre

(And I am here
drunk and crazy
and my stupid heart
will always shine
and I will love you
I will love you forever)

As I listen carefully to the lyrics, I imagine the scene being described: a drunk, desperate man declaring his undying love to his wronged mujer after saying, in earlier lyrics, that he feels there is a volcano of rage inside of him. I have lived this scene. The drunk, desperate man “in love” is not nearly as romantic as the Enanitos Verdes — the Argentinean rock band that croons “Lamento Boliviano” — make him seem. He can be, in fact, quite dangerous, especially when he says he has an, um, “volcano” inside of him.

Ugh — sexist lyrics glamorizing alcoholism and violence in Spanish, too? I think, dumbly. How has the thought never occurred to me before? I mean, what did I expect from the music that just happened to be playing the many times I have been fondled or — I’ll just say it — humped on various dance floors across Mexico? Hip hop gets the rap in the United States for violent, misogynistic lyrics with country music coming in at second place—both deservingly. But, what about the music I’m listening to in Latin America?

I decide to survey the music I have been deafly enjoying for the last few years, focusing on salsa, bachata, and reggaeton— genres I enjoy socially as well as for lip syncing purposes. I learn that salsa, a descendant of Cuban son, developed in the 1960s in the Latino barrios of New York City as an expression of the urban working class experience. Bachata was coming of age at the same time in the Dominican Republic—music many say was born out of the frustrations of Rafael Trujillo’s oppressed masses. Reggaeton, largely influenced by hip hop, developed later in Panama and, like salsa and bachata, the music has political roots, as well. Many feminists theorize that the emphasis on salsa, bachata, and reggaeton’s role in Pan-American working class resistance has obscured the genres’ treatment of women.

Working class resistance or not, under a microscope, the songs ooze sex—the ruling class sponsored kind that either idealizes or demonizes women while simultaneously objectifying them. Females across these genres are cast in three main roles:

• The young, virgin fruit, ripe to be plucked—by the song’s protagonist, of course
• The experienced seductress who drives the song’s protagonist to sexual desperation
• The deceptive, transgressing bitch who wrongfully broke the protagonist’s heart

She is usually anonymous— unnamed— and identified only by her physical characteristics and/or sexual desirability. That, or her wickeness and sexual impurity, as in the “scorned lover” songs so popular in bachata. In all cases, she is the victim of pre-meditated violence on the part of the protagonist, who vows in his lyrics either to use her sexually or abuse her violently.

For example, take these bachata lyrics: “Sabes que soy tu dueño / Y que vengo prendi’o’” (You know I’m your owner / And that I’m inflamed) and later “Yo vengo a partir brazos / A rescatar lo mío” (I’ve come here to break arms / To reclaim what’s mine). Or what about the salsa song “Cuando fuiste mujer”? “Conmigo aprendiste a querer y a saber de la vida / Y a fuerzas de tantas caricias tu cuerpo formé” (With me you learned to love and to know about life / And I molded your body with the power of my caresses). I’ll spare you the stuff about trembling and “moaning love.” Still, reggaeton is worse. Here’s one of my favorites: “If you wan’ me to take you, you must taste my yogurt.” I’m pretty sure someone has yelled that one at me in the street. And there are hundreds more like it.

You may be wondering what all the fuss is about, anyway. After all, if I wasn’t paying attention to the content of these songs before, why bother now? And if I am so unhappy with salsa, bachata, and reggaeton, why don’t I just stop listening? No one is forcing me to lip sync these lyrics.

The thing is, what first caught my attention about the lyrics of “Lamento Boliviano” was their eerie familiarity. The angry, drunk, amor-stricken man at one’s door is not a musical folktale, but a reality, both in the Americas and across the world—and it is one that I have lived. Popular music informs and reflects how we see ourselves and relate to one another as a society. That a music’s lyrics are violent and misogynistic is troubling and telling in a time when man on woman violence is so prevalent in the places where it is popular. I could easily go back to ignoring the content of the songs I listen to—in Mexico or any country—but I would be ignoring key landmarks on the worldscape of oppression.

In “Así Son’: Salsa Music, Female Narratives and Gender (De)Construction in Puerto Rico,” Frances R. Aparicio writes about “the underlying connections between sexuality and listening to popular music,” especially in countries like Puerto Rico — or Mexico! — where music and dancing are so influential in the years when a young person is constructing his or her sexual identity. The same was true in the suburb of Chicago where I grew up listening to pop, rock, and country music—not without their own elements of machismo. I still remember the lyrics of the Dave Matthews Band song I was dancing to when I met the first boy I ever “loved” (at the wise age of fourteen): “Crash Into Me,” with its closing line, “Hike up your skirt a little more and show the world to me.” Listening to that song on repeat over the course of my adolescence, I imagined myself as that elusive love interest, tempting men with my mysteries, hoping they would, as Dave insinuated, unlock some earth-shattering secret with our sexual intimacy. And sometimes I still feel that way! Looking back, there’s no denying that the Dave Matthews Band — and many similar bands — had a hand in shaping my early sexual self.

Connecting my experiences to those of my Latina sisters, I have to think that many of my tocallas were similarly influenced by the music they have been listening—and dancing—to since adolescence. What songs do young women who grow up with salsa, bachata, and reggateon listen to on repeat? I wonder. Which images influence their social and sexual formation? I think, remembering the female figures they have to choose from—the ripe, young virgin; the experienced seductress; and the deceptive, transgressing bitch. (They are a busy bunch, well represented in popular music, literature, art, and theater spanning centuries of cultural history). How can women resist the roles carved out for them by patriarchal pop culture? I ask myself.

In the conclusion of “Así Son,” Aparicio, while critical of the violent, chauvinist attitudes expressed in salsa music, urges readers like me not to despair—that Latina women have become active participants in the way gender is constructed in their cultures and they do this by engaging with chauvinist song lyrics and reflecting upon them, privately and publicly. Lise Waxer’s essay “Las Caleñas Son Como Las Flores: The Rise of All-Women Salsa Bands in Colombia” examines this deconstruction in action as Colombian women shatter the glass ceiling of the music industry and seize salsa as their own in orquestas femeninas, directly engaging in the cultural conversation on gender and sexuality. Indeed, wasn’t my own lyrical awakening during “Lamento Boliviano” an example of “reading” music and simultaneously deconstructing the gendered language within?

But, is dialogue and deconstruction enough to drown out the macho male voices on the radio, in the bar, or at a party, singing about sexism in all its glory? Pumping millions of dollars into the ongoing North American campaign against misogyny in hip hop hasn’t stopped rappers from portraying women as high-end prostitutes or punching bags. From that angle, all this dialogue ends up looking like lip syncing. If feminists really want to make some noise, they’re going to need to write new music. Come on, ladies! Let’s sway to the sound of women organizing to overthrow the patriarchal system that is all but thanked in misogynist musicians’ liner notes. Let’s write the lyrics to our own liberation. Then, and only then, can the human race truly begin to make beautiful music.

Top image courtesy of vdrg danceschool

Twenty-year-old Egyptian blogger Magda Aliaa el-Mahdy rose to stardom after delivering a stick of dynamite via her blog, ‘A Rebel’s Diary’, in what she described as being in the spirit of the revolution.

(Editor’s Note: NSFW image is under the cut. – Arturo)

Who is Aliaa? Nowadays she’s known as the Nude Revolutionary and the dynamite was – you guessed it – a nude photo of herself online, which sparked outrage from both conservatives and liberals in Egypt alike. Here’s her take on why she took such controversial measures:

Put on trial the artists’ models who posed nude for art schools until the early 70s, hide the art books and destroy the nude statues of antiquity, then undress and stand before a mirror and burn your bodies that you despise to forever rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare to try to deny me my freedom of expression.

The North African country, with a population of roughly eighty-five million, is a largely conservative society.

Earlier this year, inspired by the wave of uprisings that struck the region following Tunisia’s ability to send their long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali packing, Egyptians from all social and political classes took to the streets with a unified dream of doing away with a system that had outlived its stay.

As punishment, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) subjected women to humiliating ‘virginity tests’, which entailed having a soldier insert two fingers into their croch. Once again, as discontent returned to Tahrir earlier this month, women’s bodies were targeted.

Women’s rights advocates like award-winning Egyptian writer Mona Eltahawy believes that El Mahdy’s act not highlights how in times of extreme repression sex and nakedness becomes the only weapon of political repression for women. In a recent article in the Guardian, she argues:

When sexual assault parades as a test of the “honour” of virginity, then posing in your parents’ home in nothing but stockings, red shoes and a red hair clip is an attack towards all patriarchs out there.

While Mahdy’s act has been hashtagged (#NudePhotoRevolutionary) and her name tweeted and Facebooked endlessly, others did not receive such attention.

Samira Ibrahim, the only one of the women subjected to “virginity tests” who is taking the military to court for sexual assault, has neither a dedicated hashtag nor notoriety. Another woman, Salwa el-Husseini, was the first to reveal what the military did to them, but news reports have said she can’t raise a lawsuit because she doesn’t have identification papers.

Not only did el-Husseini speak out, she courageously agreed to be filmed at a session of testimonies on military abuses. Again, hardly anyone knows her name, her recorded testimony isn’t racking up page views, and she was called a liar and vilified for speaking out. Both women have vehemently maintained they were virgins.

If “good girls” in headscarves who kept their legs together only to be violated by the military speak out and no one listens, what’s the message being sent?

Whether or not El Mahdy’s act was revolutionary or not it has definitely sparked a debate as to how far women should go in pushing the boundaries in their fight for a more inclusive society.

One question that probably pops in your head is: had she been a man, would the publics reaction have been different?

Critics argue that the embattled blogger not only insulted revolution but has tarnished the uprisings image.

#nudephotorevolutionary was the most daring conflicting act I’ve seen for a long time but was also the worst thing that happened to the liberal movement in Egypt,” Kamel argued. “Her actions have done nothing but stir a debate and allow the conservatives to have one more reason to call for an Islamic state and blame liberals and seculars for this. You will probably see one of them saying this is how all women will act if Egypt isn’t saved by an Islamic leader.

In the aftermath of her public expression, El Mahdy has been slapped with a lawsuit as the Coalition of Islamic law graduates in Egypt filed a case against the blogger and her boyfriend, Kareem Amer who also appears nude on the site, for ‘violating morals, inciting indecency and insulating Islam’.

In her defense, supporters have established a Facebook page in which they vow to also get butt naked in an act of self-expression. According to Eltahawy, El Mahdy’s nudity was a way of extinguishing the ‘dictators of our mind’.

Perhaps, but is this the way to do it?

I remember when I was still living on the streets and working as a delivery person in New York City while cleaning houses on the side. The delivery service was a family run business and in the midst of being delighted to finally have someone pay me for once, I didn’t even consider that the $20 a day for over eight hours of work was meager. Then a good friend C told me to quit that job and go art model.

I thought she had lost her mind. Now, it’s not like you think. It actually entailed going around to art schools and posing.

To convince me she said, “once you drop the clothes, it’s done and you got a new career.”

The idea didn’t sound bad to me, especially after discovering that NYU paid a hefty $18 per hour and most classes were four hours long. The major feat was challenging a lot of societal mishaps in the process but eventually I saw this as a great way to rekindle the artist in me, revolutionize my thinking and love my body.

So, I did it. After some time I was the most sought after model circulating the art scene and I felt empowered, liberated and I was an entrepreneur.

I use this example in an attempt to paint a visual image of one way in which nudity was used to empower an individual.

However, in the case of Egypt’s nude revolutionary, my question to readers is: Is any time the right time for the clothes to come off when advocating women’s rights? Is this truly an act of self-expression?

MTV ruined my mom’s hope for the Good Black Life for me, she said: Black husband, Black children, Black neighborhood. All because of the pretty white boys dancing and singing before my eyes as my hormones coursed through my adolescent body.

She was right…sort of.

I’ve had lovers of various hues in my life, but my long-term partners were white—including my ex-husband. I just knew that my love life would not be monoracial. Duran Duran and Adam Ant simply sealed that fate.

When I tried to find advice to help guide me on that path—my mom certainly didn’t and couldn’t help, since she dated and married only Black men—I read Essence. No help there:  while I was dating the rainbow, Essence touted various admonitions on how to achieve the Good Black Life, including the Kente cloth-themed wedding. The advice and articles about interracial dating treated those relationships as, at best, aberrations.

Cosmo? Glamour? Beyond some “general” advice on “how to catch a man,” it was some variation of planning romantic evenings and Kegel exercises.

The first publications about interracial relationships—this was the Multiculti Late 80s and 90s–treated them as cure-alls for personal and institutional racism. I knew better than that, so that literature didn’t quite interest me. And I walked the other way — more like ran across the street and screamed down the alley — when Shahrazad Ali’s pro-intimate partner violence tome Blackman’s Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman became the dating manual and coffeeklatch topic du jour for Black women in the US. Nope, definitely not for me.

When I finally discovered Racialicious a few years ago, I finally found someplace that talked about dating and race, especially interracial dating, that wasn’t full of foolishness. About a couple of years the R ran a post about the racial implications–and racist assumptions–of dating-advice books. And we did a breakdown of how race and racism worked in the online-dating world. And, of course, we ran a series on interracial dating as a response to Essence trying to position them as the Next Cure-All for the Black Woman’s Marriage Crisis.

My biggest takeaway from all of this is—surprise, surprise—the media and some people in our communities deeply participate in the Dating Economics of Not OK. Part of that economy is advertising that having color is not OK, unless you’re planning to date and mate intraracially. (The logic: you’re all the same race, so you two should relate, right?) The realities are infinitely more intricate, but intricate doesn’t sell too well.

So, I’m hoping that Samhita Mukhopadhyay’s book, Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life becomes a best-seller. Because she not only takes inventory of all those dating-advice books cluttering bookshelves and e-reader lists, she also takes that rarest of inventory: an anti-racist feminist inventory of the whole dating industrial complex.

Mukhopadhyay reminds the reader throughout her book that these books consistently erase those who are not cisgender and heterosexual  and able-bodied and middle-class. She also says that the dating industrial complex is also rather unkind to cisgender men–all of this because they’re trafficking in narrow stereotypes based on gender binaries. And if we believe in some sort of feminism? Well, Mukhopadhyay analyzes, these books try to make that belief the reason why we’re not getting laid, let alone married. We, to paraphrase DuBois, are the 21^st century problem to be solved because, so says this literature, we dare to exist–sometimes caring about being in relationships and sometimes not.

Her take, for example, on how these books—along with communities and porn—and their net effects on dating and race:

The mainstream media is ripe with oversexualized images of women of color, and policy often stigmatized and shames this same group of people. Women of color and poor women are blamed for their inability to keep their legs closed and for having too many children. For marginalized groups of women, sex is not linked to pleasure and freedom; it is demonized and used as an example of all the ways in which these women lack self-control. As a result, a lot of conversation around sexual freedom discount the experience of people of color, failing to take into account how much sexual freedom is assumed to hinge on a woman’s privilege—be it because of her race, economic status, or social standing.

Of course, not all women of color are sexualized in the same way. For example, while black women are considered lascivious, always consenting and out of control, Latina[s] are considered exotic or overly sensual and Asian women are considered childish and prude. These particular stereotypes are reinforced through popular culture and pornography (just Google respectively “Asian women,” “black women,” or “Latina women” and then “women” and see what comes up). The common thread here is that nonwhite women’s sexuality is seen as outside the norm of white heterosexuality. It’s therefore something to uniquely desired, manipulated, exploited or controlled. Within this rather toxic climate, being a woman of color who’s in touch with her sexuality is an act of resistance. Pushing past the negative media depictions and still finding a healthy, healing, erotic, and functional sexuality is no small feat.

I have often felt trapped between discourses of sexuality. If I’m overtly sexual, I’m a threat to what it means to be a good, pious South Asian lady and to the white norms of sexuality. As a result, when I am sexual, I am confronting my ethnic community and the norms of white sexuality. Finding a more authentic sexuality that’s just me means pushing past what is considered the appropriate way for me to be sexual based on my race, ethnicity, and gender. This has meant a lot of experimentation, sometimes playing up how “bad” I am or being tremendously secretive about my sexual transgressions (well, clearly not after this book). And it meant sifting through partners and figuring out which ones are a little too obsessed with my being Indian.”

Then Mukhopadhyay breaks out a list on spotting an exoticizer.

Yes. She. Does.

But that’s what she does throughout her book…and that’s what I thoroughly love about Outdated. It’s a great, intricate mix of feminist thought, media literacy, and a couple of tips for dating while feminist (of color) from your you-ain’t-never-lied friend who’s that romantic realist. Mukhopadhyay lets you know that whomever you date—if you even want to do that—is perfectly OK.

Image credit: Feministing

By Guest Contributor Tami Winfrey Harris, cross-posted from What Tami Said

For the past few weeks, as part of my project exploring black women, relationships and marriage, I’ve been immersing myself in books, films, blog posts and other media on the subject. Last week I read Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man and am still trying to wash off the film and stink of patriarchy. I told my husband over the weekend that I am unbelievably proud of black women. As a group we are able to hold our heads high in the face of the relentless narrative that there is something wrong with us that needs to be fixed; that, for us, admirable qualities like independence, only make us more unlovable–a narrative not only championed by the mainstream, but, too often, by members of our own communities.

So, singer, actor and (God help us) author Tyrese decided to drop a little wisdom on the black lady folk during a recent interview with NecoleBitchie.com. (above) He warns us about being “too independent.”

Huh.

There is nothing about the descriptor “independent” that is negative on its face, at least not based on Merriam-Webster’s definition above. My parents taught me to be independent. When I became old enough to drive, my father taught me how to check my tire pressure and oil and how to change a tire. I keep my AAA membership payed up, but I know if roadside service can’t get to me, I can take care of myself. To be independent is to be free. Because I can handle an auto emergency, I’ve felt free to crisscross the country on road journeys points southwest to northeast.

What could be wrong with being free? Nothing, unless, of course, you believe that it is not advantageous for women to be “not subject to control by others” or “not requiring or relying on others (as for care or livelihood).”  Would Tyrese caution men this way? Would he warn them against not needing women.

Sexism lies at the root of the actor’s monologue. In the regressive language of modern black relationship advice, it is not enough for a black woman to want a man deeply, with all her heart and soul. Male egos must always be fed with the idea that women are unfulfilled and incapable of living without a man. We must avoid being uneducated free-loaders, sayeth Tyrese, while being sure to remain needy and helpless enough to be attractive to men like him.

Tyrese’s “helpful” advice carries the condescension and arrogance typical of mansplaining, plus a dash of amorphous homophobia. What was that weird sidebar about homosexuality? No doubt, some ill-spoken repetition of the idea that gay black men harm black women’s marriage chances with their gayness. Silly.

But here’s another thing Tyrese’s advice is: racist. It is specifically black women who are singled out for some of the most dehumanizing and denigrating messages about their lovability and marriageability. Indeed, Tyrese directs his comment “especially” to black women. Our culture remains in a place where it is acceptable to assume black women, apart from other women, are intrinsically wrong and in need of correction. It is not just mainstream sources like ABC News that serve up “What’s wrong with black women?” programming. Black men like Steve Harvey, Tyrese and Jimi Izrael are getting in on the action. And no one blinks an eye.

Can you imagine comedian Jeff Foxworthy holding on to his largely white audience after penning a book and taking to the airwaves telling white women how their faults are keeping them single? Would Josh Duhamel, who appeared with Tyrese in Transformers, be getting many calls in Hollywood after, apropos of nothing, derailing an interview to to talk about how white women are too damned self-sufficient for their own good? Could Ira Glass say: “[White] women’s unrealistic standards are probably born of bedtime stories about handsome, rich men on majestic horses delivering damsels in distress. Girlfriends often tell similar apocryphal tales about the friend of a friend who nabbed a rich, hung sugar-daddy who saved them from a life of dishpan hands and lower-middle-class drudgery. Through the influence of popular media and the misguided advice they give each other, sisters combine these images and presumptions to draw a composite of a perfect [white] man.” and keep his job at NPR? His coworker Jimi Izrael wrote that and more about black women and is not only featured on National Public Radio, but was excerpted on The Root, where he once penned a column.

Sexism is real for all women. But the combination of femaleness and blackness is particularly devalued, sadly, too often among even black men. Tyrese reveals his expectation that women must bend to meet male needs. I don’t see in the above video a man who values black women and loves them. I see a man concerned that black women might be too capable, too free. Independent women have options and demands, as men do. Independent women are choosy, as men are. A strong man has no problem meeting partners on an equal playing field, but a weak man needs a weaker partner to feel strong. Any man preaching against independence for women unwittingly lays himself bare.

I really, really wanted to like CNN’s Black in America 4: The New Promised Land: Silicon Valley (which premiered last night) as well as Miss Representation, a documentary currently airing on OWN. Both, however, left me feeling the same way, which looks something like this:

A couple of synopses before I state why I felt this way:

Black in America 4 explores the rarely discussed facts and stories of Black people in digital technology, especially those who are inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Host Soledad O’Brien frames this through the stories of eight African American entrepreneurs who move into together as part of digital business owners Angela Benton’s and Wayne Sutton’s NewME Accelerator program, which provides Black entrepreneurs time and (relative) quiet space—and possible connections with venture capitalists—for their business ideas.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s Miss Representation connects some of the dots between the stats, the personal stories, and media images about women and how those images affect not only those in the media— Margaret Cho recounts the fatphobia and other drama around her 1994 comedy All American Girl — but also those consuming the media, meaning the rest of us.

Now, I know that both shows are, respectively, very much Black Studies and Women’s Studies 101, presented as and for those who may know very little to nothing about either Black tech innovators and owners or media literacy and feminism. So, I can see both try to provide a “hook” for their audiences with that in mind. However, the way their respective creative teams frame their stories does both topics a disservice.

When I asked O’Brien about the aim of this installment at a preview screening, she said, “First of all, [Blacks] are clearly using the technology, but we’re not innovating the technology. And Silicon Valley keeps saying how colorblind it is. So, this part of the series examines that statement.”

Watching BiA4, I felt like I was watching O’Brien trying to mash a news report with a reality show. (“Watch what happens when tech-y Black folks get real…with Soledad O’Brien!”) I can understand that the NewME Accelerator was a good (and, from a seeing-news-as-a-business standpoint, a fiscally feasible way) for CNN to gather a group of Black tech business owners (and the non-Black people who attempt to help and/or comment on them) to tell a relatable narrative about the dearth of Black people in the field.  (BiA4 states early on that less than 1% of digital entrepreneurs are Black. The majority, it says, are white, young, Ivy League and first-tier university drop-outs, which, as pointed out in the post-screening Q&A screening I attended, is a privilege unto itself as far as starting businesses.) But I actually think a better way to tell both stories is to decouple them. If I could reconstruct the story, I would have had O’Brien, say, follow one or two Black digital entrepreneurs in depth as they attempted to get investors and utilized Benton and Sutton as pundits— along with angel investor/philanthropist Mitch Kapor, who directly refutes Michael Arrington’s claim of the digital ownership as “meritorious.” Or I would have followed the NewME Accelerator crew as the main subjects of a full-length documentary to air on CNN.

Also, another questionable point is how Asians and Asian Americans are considered in this report. The show starts off by saying that the tech-innovation worlds are “white and Asian.” Though the presence of Asians and Asian Americans should not lead to Arrington’s erroneous conclusion that the tech world is, therefore, “colorblind,” the presence of Asian and Asian Americans shouldn’t be discounted as failing to bring racial diversity to tech communities. The more subtle equation BiA4 makes, however, is “Black=racial diversity.”

At least BiA4 addresses, albeit imperfectly, race and racism in the tech field, Miss Representation — for all of the visually racial diversity (you see Cho, former Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, Dreamworlds director Sut Jhally, media-literacy advocate Malkia Cyril, and Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker, among others) — fails to talk about the issue of race and racism. When I asked why at a post-screening Q&A, the response was “We only had 90 minutes, though we’re planning a second movie to deal with race.” (Refer to image at top of this post.)

However, there were places in the film where race and racism could be mentioned, and it would have taken about 30 seconds. For example, a young Black woman talks about her hair and how media images make her feel about it. The narrator could easily say something like, “Far too many images we see in the media are of white women swinging long, flowing hair. Imagine how that would make a woman of color, whose hair may not do that, feel?”

I timed it: the quote took all of 15 seconds to read out loud. (I’ll be generous and give it about 30 seconds to account for dramatic voiceover.) Or even acknowledge that the majority of media images—both in the film and in entertainment itself, from news to shows to porn—are mostly of white women as both idealized and in variety of roles…and these are, quite a bit of the time, functioning in tandem. Again, all of a thirty-second voiceover or a statistic that could be one of many the film uses to further its argument on how the media hurts women and other people. The silence about race (actress Rosario Dawson is the only person who explicitly mentions “people of color”) — as well as class, gender identity, sexual identity, and  and physical ability, though the film does give a nod at how the media, especially television, fails to acknowledge women above the age of 35 as an audience or as characters — flattens the documentary’s discussion about women to the category of “woman,” as if female-presenting people all suffer from media images the same way. Of course, we don’t.

And I just quite can’t with Black in America 4 and Miss Representation.

Image credit: Bossip

It ain’t no fun/if the homies can’t have none. – Snoop Dogg

You know, there are a lot of people weighing in on this Amber Cole thing. But most of the conversation is about her, as is par for the course in our culture. The boys involved are still anonymous in the eyes of the world. For me, I always wonder why there aren’t open letters to these kids? There are tons to Amber Cole – people saying they could be her father, people saying STFU with all that victim-blaming and feminist-scapegoating madness – but no one seems interested in writing letters to the boys involved.

But hey, maybe it’s just me. I guess when one of your friends – along with a person who sexually assaulted you – ends up in jail for gang rape, you start thinking about things a bit differently.

After I wrote the Not Rape Epidemic, right after I submitted the essay, but before it was actually published, I ran into an old friend at my local library. I hadn’t seen this friend in a decade – indeed, I didn’t remember her name until I left the library. Yet somehow, we both happened to be in the same library, at the same time, on the same day, after not seeing each other for ten years. We say hey, make small talk.

And then she asks me: “Did you know T got out?”

We both were silent for a second. We hadn’t talked since before the incident. She didn’t know that I had been to that trial. She didn’t know I had seen the girl. And I had forgotten she was far closer to him than I was. When T and the other kids were sentenced, we calculated they would get out when we were in our 30s or 40s. We didn’t realize how the system works, and how a lot of people end up released early. T had been incarcerated from age 14 to about age 24.

“His sister called me,” my friend continued. “She asked me if I wanted to come to his his welcome home party.” She looked at me, stared hard so I could feel the weight of her pain.

“How am I supposed to look at him after he did something like that?”

Folks have been largely silent on the role of boys and men in all this. Who, exactly, taught this young kid that the right way to treat a girl who likes him is to ask her to perform a sex act in public? (If the rumors are to be believed, she was attempting to win his affection.) Who taught the boy with the camera that they could video record sex acts and upload them to the internet without consent of the principals? Who the hell is the third kid who is just watching? Why is he hanging around while this is happening? Is anyone concerned that the things these boys learned, either explicitly from their peers or implicitly from society? That these actions got two of them arrested? Started them down the pipeline for incarceration? May have them branded as a sexual offenders for the rest of their days?

Oh, but that’s cool right?

When Jimi Izrael writes:

I am Amber Cole’s father and this should go with saying: I am angry with those boys. But I knew those boys. Those boys were my friends. I grew up with those boys, hung out with those boys.

He writes that he is the other guy. But there are no other guys. My friend didn’t have problems with gathering female attention. He didn’t seem like the type to do something like a brutal gang rape ending in sodomy. And, if what I knew about his personality wasn’t completely wrong, he probably did not participate. But he was there. He watched. He did not help this girl, being beaten bloody by one of his friends. He didn’t stop the act. Maybe he tried to intervene, maybe he didn’t – I don’t know, he had already been tried and sentenced. But he was there. And he left with the other perpetrators. That’s why they have accessory charges.

And that’s why I don’t want to think about him, and that’s why my friend didn’t want to look him in the face. Because he was there and said nothing.

Our culture teaches boys that this is okay. That it is okay to use people. That you are expected to disregard a woman’s feelings, to do what you want with her, to find women who are pliable who you can mold, who will seek your favor and happily trade a few moments on her knees for her affection. Our society teaches boys that this is ok, that this is what you do with women. The onus is on women not to be used. Men do not hear “don’t be an abuser” in the same way men don’t hear “don’t be a rapist.” The onus is always on women keeping themselves safe, on women not putting themselves in positions to be attacked or exploited. And when something does happen, when teenagers being teenagers suddenly becomes a nation newsstory, everyone wants to talk about what the girl should have done to prevent herself from being in the situation.

Once again, we aren’t talking to the boys.

So if the boys don’t know what is wrong, or why what they did was wrong, they will never know. Because we don’t talk to boys in that way. We want them to muddle through on their own, we allow them to consume messages that say the path to proving your masculinity lies in dominance, in the subjugation of women for sexual means. Because that’s all this really is. A boy, thinking he could be seen as cool, if he could get this girl to do this thing while his friends watched. A girl, thinking she could win this boy, by doing this thing, not realizing this wasn’t a game she could ever win.

We talk about the school to prison pipeline. We don’t talk about this.

We don’t tell boys what they learned is wrong. So we shouldn’t be surprised if they repeat the behavior, if that behavior becomes habit. We tell them, in our actions and words, that this was okay. Because there’s little outrage directed at these boys. So if they draw the conclusion that “she shouldn’t have let me do it” instead of “that whole situation that I orchestrated was wrong, and I hurt someone else very badly, and I hurt myself,” we shouldn’t be surprised.

And if these boys then repeat that behavior, then we shouldn’t be surprised.

Because we are too busy lecturing Amber Cole. We don’t know what’s going on with these boys. And so, it is only a matter of time before the women who know them cannot bear to look at them either.

This panel is all about titties and I feel like its my fault!  – Jonathan Jacques-Bellêtete

There are many things I expect to see in a panel called “East Meets West, Art Direction for a Worldwide Audience.” I expected to hear Isamu Kamikokuryo, the art director for Final Fantasy XIII-2 discuss how Japanese artists focus on creating new worlds, Norse mythology and its influence on the game, and drawing inspiration from Cuba for some of the beautifully rendered backgrounds. I expected to hear Jonathan Jacques-Bellêtete, the art director of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, talk about influences like Andrew Loomis and Metal Gear Solid. I had hoped for an interesting back and forth between the two designers on how technology influences artistic development as well as what happens to geographic differences in artistic influences in our increasingly connected worlds.

I did hear all of these things, but also something that pinged my feminist gamer radar.

In describing his influences, Jacques-Bellêtete mentioned he was heavily influenced by Metal Gear and Final Fantasy. Then he went into a two minute riff about “always trying to have very beautiful female characters,” noting that these were characters he would want to sleep with. After making a semi-disparaging remark about female characters drawn in a North American style, he concludes “I’d rather have female characters from Final Fantasy or Soul Caliber to sleep with.” This draws chuckles from the crowd.

And there it was, the truth about character design that so many players know but most designers wouldn’t usually articulate: most of the egregiously sexist character designs are based on fuckability, rather than playability.

Drawing attractive characters isn’t a crime. But it starts to become grating when characters are not only attractive, but hypersexualized and mostly defined by their appearance. Even when characters aren’t hypersexualized, they can still be boring and flat in execution if there is more attention paid to animating her curves than the character herself.

But the model for art in our fandom communities is often sex appeal first, to the detriment of characters. Over in the comics world, Laura Hudson broke down the problems with the faux empowerment form of “liberated sexuality” that is so common in contemporary storylines:

Let’s start with Catwoman. The writer and artist have decided that out of all possible introductions to the character of Selina Kyle, the moment we’re going to meet her is going to be the one where she happens to be half-dressed and sporting bright red lingerie. That is in fact all we see of her for two pages: shots of her breasts. Most problematically, we are shown her breasts and her body over and over for two pages, but NOT her face. No joke, we get a very clear and detailed shot of her butt in black latex before we ever see her face looks like. Can’t you show us the playful or confident look in her eye as she puts on her sexy costume? Because without that it’s impossible to connect with the character on any other level than a boner, and I’m afraid I don’t have one of those. [...]

[W]hat I keep coming back to is that superhero comics are nothing if not aspirational. They are full of heroes that inspire us to be better, to think more things are possible, to imagine a world where we can become something amazing. But this is what comics like this tell me about myself, as a lady: They tell me that I can be beautiful and powerful, but only if I wear as few clothes as possible. They tell me that I can have exciting adventures, as long as I have enormous breasts that I constantly contort to display to the people around me. They tell me I can be sexually adventurous and pursue my physical desires, as long as I do it in ways that feel inauthentic and contrived to appeal to men and kind of creep me out. When I look at these images, that is what I hear, and I don’t think I even realized how much until this week.

In many ways, the constant barrage of this type of imagery (and characterization) is not unlike the sh*tty neighborhood I used to live in where every time I walked down the street, random people I didn’t know shouted obscene comments about my body and told me they wanted to have sex with me. And you know, maybe a lot of those guys thought they were complimenting me. Maybe they thought I had tried to look pretty that day and they were telling me I had succeeded in that goal. Maybe they thought we were having a frank and sexually liberated exchange of ideas. I’m willing to be really, really generous and believe that’s where they were coming from. But in the end, it doesn’t matter that they didn’t know it was creepy; it doesn’t matter that they “didn’t get it,” because every single day I lived there they made me feel like less of a person.

That is how I feel when I read these comics.

As a gamer, full cosign. Two years ago, at my South by Southwest panel with N’Gai and Naomi, I talked about how in my 22 years of playing video games, I’ve been all kinds of characters: a Bandicoot, a Lombax, a pervert squirrel, James Bond, some dude addicted to painkillers, a few different folks hustling in the underworlds of Vice City, San Andreas, and Liberty City, Lego Batman, Joanna Dark, Laura Croft, Karin and crew, Tidus and crew, Sora and crew, and easily hundreds of other characters. But to play as a black woman, to inhabit and play as someone is similar to my real life identity? I’ve had five opportunities in twenty-two years. And that’s if I count characters that are biracial, characters that appear in reflections, and one tan colored viera.

And, to add insult to injury, these characters are also undermined from the get go. My first introduction to Resident Evil‘s Sheva Alomar was an ass shot.

So, at question and answer time, the feminist gamer Goddesses shined down on me and allowed me to ask Jacques-Bellêtete about his comments. I wanted to know how the approach to female characters influences their design. Do designers put more thought into female lead characters, or are they illustrated in the same way as characters who are intended to be eye candy? How does that presentation impact their playability?

Jacques-Bellêtete immediately blurts out “I feel like you’re trying to trick me,” laughing apologetically to avoid stepping into a controversy landmine. He takes pains to explain that Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a female lead narrative designer. Mary DeMarle shaped the story in a way that created strong primary female characters, which makes for different themes.  He acknowledge that I was “kinda right,” in that there is a difference in the approach to design between main characters versus characters he termed “cannon fodder.” He also noted that it is “such a cliche of our industry that women have big boobs” so most of his teams draw women with smaller chests – so much so the designers requested a big breasted character. But he ultimately agreed, “we broke the [usual character] mold a little bit because of the women in the lead.”

My question was the final question accepted, since N’Gai Croal (who was moderating the panel) had one more surprise – he had asked Kamikokuryo and Jacques-Bellêtete to each interpret each other’s work. So, Kamikokuryo drew Adam Jensen, and Jacques-Bellêtete drew Lightning. Jacques-Bellêtete’s work was unveiled first – and lo and behold, it’s a tit shot. For comparison’s sake, here’s what Lightening normally looks like versus Jacques-Bellêtete’s interpretation.

(Interestingly, Kamikokuryo said Jacques-Bellêtete’s work reminded him of Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop, and so he adjusted his work to have Adam Jensen share the same fate as Spike.)

Seeing the Jacques-Bellêtete’s image after his explanation about how he interprets female characters was disappointing, to say the least. But it was not surprising, as this type of sexism is endemic to nerdy industries. In a medium where we are only limited by our imaginations, where we can dream up princes rebuilding the cosmos with Kamataris and shelve that fantasy next to dystopian futures, it’s painful to see that kind of creativity doesn’t extend to the majority of women in game worlds. No matter how creative we are, we still can’t get past this base level sexism.

After the panel, I approached Isamu Kamikokuryo and asked him the same question I posed to Jacques-Bellêtete. I’ve been a fan of Final Fantasy for years, and a small part of that is due to the range of female characters that inhabit the world. According to Kamikokuryo, this was the first time he took on character design for the franchise. The same three artists have been doing the character designs from Final Fantasy VI to XIII. ”So,” he said through his translator, “We thought deeply about what we wanted to express with each character when designing.”

Seriously, that’s all we feminist fans really want to hear.

Resources:

Social Justice and Video Games SXSW Panel Slides
The Big Sexy Problem with Superheroines and Their ‘Liberated Sexuality’ [Comics Alliance]
Augmenting the Deus Ex: Human Revolution story [GameSpot]
Deus Ex: Human Revolution offers old school racism with your gaming fun [Feminsiting]
GODDAMMIT VIDEO GAMES: THE FIRST FEW HOURS OF ARKHAM CITY IS LOTS OF FUN, BUT SUPER-DUPER SEXIST [Film Crit Hulk]

By Sofia Quintero, cross-posted from Black Artemis

Who spiked the Evian? Lately, there’s been a rash of White women using the n-word – including self-professed liberals and progressives. As if that were not bad enough, they act shocked, defensive and even downright nasty when told by women of all races that they should cut that shit out.

First example: a few White women made and carried signs that stated Woman Is the N***** of the World for Slut Walk in New York City on October 1^st. (We found out it was two women carrying the same sign.–Ed.)

While some White women including those among Slut Walk NYC’s organizers and participants have stepped up to condemn these actions, there are too many who have come to their defense, ranging from the naively privileged to the unapologetically hostile. I’m talking Facebook posts such as, “It is NOT racist, and anybody who thinks so is a fucking idiot” to a White woman telling an African American woman to go fuck herself. (I’d post links, but in no surprise to me, the posts have conveniently disappeared.)

A few days later, Barbara Walters used the word and then played victim when told by her The View co-host Sherri Shepherd that she was hurt by it. Acting as if her journalistic integrity was called into question instead of hearing the pain of her so-called friend, Walters exploited Shepherd’s struggle to concretize her discomfort with Walters’s use of the word and attempted to make Shepherd feel unreasonable for taking offense. (I’ll save my musings on why Walters will never have a woman of color – least of all a woman of African descent – who is capable and willing to hand her ass to her on The View for another time.)

Then last night I learned that at Occupy Philadelphia, two Black women were called n****** by volunteers. Now the actual details of the incident remain sketchy, but from what I understand, the fact that these women were slurred is not in dispute. Apparently, charges of racism against the organizing group predated the incident.

Many women of all races such as Stephanie Gilmore, Sydette Harry, and the Crunk Feminist Collective have issued thorough, incisive and poignant analyses as to why it is never appropriate for a self-proclaimed White feminist ally to use this racial slur. There is little more I can add to the substance of these and other responses already made. Still I have a compelling desire (which I will hereinto unapologetically indulge) to contribute to the discussion by making an attempt to make White women perpetrators and their apologists viscerally understand what exactly is the impact of their use of the n-word.

Warning: it ain’t going to be diplomatic or pretty because we’re already far past that.

So to all the White women who think it’s cool to use the n-word, y’all seen the movie Carrie, right? Recall the pivotal scene where Carrie White’s nemesis Chris and her boyfriend Billy dump a bucket of pig’s blood on her. Before Carrie telekinetically wrecks shop, she stands there drenched in blood and humiliation as people laugh at her.

That’s how that shit feels when you use the n-word.

We’re Carrie White and you’re Chris Hargensen except Chris never fronted like she was Carrie’s friend.

A few of your apologists are Sue Snell, perhaps well-meaning but ultimately ineffectual and forever haunted by the damaged to feminist solidarity that you have caused.

But your most virulent apologists are bunch of Billy Nolans who pick up the havoc where you left.

Your use of the n-word is a huge bucket of pig’s blood. When you use it and defend yourself, you’re Chris licking her lips as she pulls the cord. It’s a betrayal, plain and simple.

Stop with the defensiveness and rationalizations for just a minute and sit with that. If you’re really ’bout it, just accept that already. Recognize that the mere ability to dig your heels in – telling us we don’t get it, defending your honor like some damsel in distress (by the way, how are you OK with pulling the most anti-feminist of anti-feminist shticks), etc. – wouldn’t exist without the racial privilege you think is somehow neatly tucked away in the folds of your gender identity. You really can’t get whiter than that.

And guess what? Recasting Black women who call you out as the threat to whatever image you have constructed of yourself got you looking really patriarchal right about now. You’re doing to Black women what men of all races to do to us all the time.

It’s a betrayal when you act as if you have no clue in 2011 about what feminists of color endure within our own community when we make the decision to trust in and build with White feminists. Patriarchal men and women of color are like Piper Laurie, doing everything to derail us whenever we align ourselves with you. When we throw on our jackets to head out to the meeting, they stand at the top of the stairs yelling, “They’re going to laugh at you.”

We have faith and show up anyway only for you to pull the cord on prom night.

(Side note to those anti-feminist people of color: now isn’t the time for you to say, “I told you so.” That’s when you go from acting like Carrie’s mother to making like her gym teacher. Instead of joining the laughter, you should be standing with us as we call out the racism rather than using it as an opportunity to gut check us on our feminism. Don’t bother if for no other reason than it’s just not going to work for you. All you do when you attempt to discredit feminism by throwing an instance of racist arrogance of certain White women in our face is play yourself. We’re just not that fickle. With few exception, we’re not going to come “home” like the prodigal Carrie White because, as you’ll recall, her mother pretended to comfort her only to literally stabbed her in the back. Yeah, we’re not playin’ that.)

Now back to you n-word loving White women. You want to show how hip you are? Stop listening to Yoko Ono and Kreayshawn and read a book, read a book, read a MF book. Preferably one by a Black feminist such as Audre Lorde or bell hooks. One course in an entire women’s studies program doesn’t cut it.

What to show how down you are? Quit with the silly references to hip hop culture as some kind of permission. As mad as we may be at you, even we don’t believe you’re that dumb. You especially denigrate yourself with that one so stop it.

To all you Sue Snells, when women associated with your movements (’cause that’s what it’s looking like right about now – YOUR movements — now matter how many invitations you extend) tell women of color to go fuck themselves, call us idiots for taking offense, say they’re sorry if we’re offended as if our feelings are the problem and not the actions that triggered them and other such nonsense, how ’bout You. Just. Check. Them. Despite all the historic and ongoing treatment of men of color as menaces to White womanhood, feminists of color usually have no problem pulling a brother’s coattails when he comes for you, but y’all kinda drag your feet when a White woman does the same to us or our men. And that high school tactic of pleading, “It wasn’t me” doesn’t suffice. I don’t mean to get all vanguardist on y’all, but how about you bench these chicks when they come out of pocket? Seriously, where is the discipline in this movement? I’m not saying to immediately show her the door (although that just might be appropriate on occasion.) Struggle with her if you must, but there has to be serious and immediate consequences for racist behavior even if it’s sending homegirl to an intersectionality boot camp.

Stop confusing the fact that the n-word is still used by some black folks as license for you to use it. Many women including White feminists still use the wordbitch, but I don’t see you abiding for one second any man thinking he can do the same. In fact, if a man who identified as a feminist and/or ally still had the audacity to roll up to Slut Walk with a sign that read Rape is for Pussies, all his professions to solidarity, insistence that we focus on the “real” issue and the like wouldn’t have zilch currency for you so don’t act brand new.

And while we’re on the subject of Black folks who embrace the n-word, I don’t give a damn how many Black friends you have who don’t blink an eye or even think it’s cute when that word comes out of your mouth. You still don’t and never will have license to use that word. Accept that. If you can’t stop insisting that you be allowed to use the n-word on philosophical grounds, how ’bout you just let it go on the simple fact that you will never win this one. Trust me on that. If any woman of color – friend, comrade, stranger — tells you it is offensive to her, the only right answer of a true ally is to knock it off. This mounting any never mind excessive defense of the use of the n-word by you or any other White person then turning around and complaining that our expressing our hurt and anger is a distraction from the “real” issue at hand… how’s that working for you? It isn’t, and you know it.

And you know why despite your Cool White Chick status you weren’t at the meeting when your Black BFF was elected representative-at-large for the United Black Diaspora? It’s because the election never took place and that organization doesn’t exist. They never did and even if they ever were to, despite your CWC bona fides, you still wouldn’t be invited. Trust me on that one, too. Until we make some meaningful progress in defeating racism, White anti-racists have their own lane. You truly want to be an ally? Stay in it.

Yes, this is harsh, but in addition to being furious at the recent number of White women who think they can use this word and still front like they are our friends, I’ve been spoiled. I have meaningful relationships with White feminists who get it, and they have set the bar high. Are they perfect? No. But unlike you, they listen. Perhaps that’s why you avoid them like the plague. If you were genuinely interested in dismantling racism and forgoing the white privilege that would require, you would spend less time on Facebook defending the indefensible and more live time with them.

And for God’s sake, stop watching propaganda like The Help.

The Slutwalk controversy keeps rolling. As a moderator, it’s always a bit disheartening when you get the same level of denials and racist comments due to high activity from feminists that you do when you are linked to from a racist hate site. It’s not quite as bad as when we linked to the picture of Giselle being carried around by black men, but it’s close.

In my first piece on the controversy, I made this statement:

But can you appropriate a term like nigger if your body is not defined/terrorized/policed/brutalized/diminished by the word? Can we use it in a context that is supposed to belie gender solidarity, without explicitly being in racial solidarity?

In my second piece, I made this statement:

Arguing that black people don’t have a monopoly on the term nigger is just fucking disgusting. You want it that bad? Really?

Which one do you think more people responded to? Apparently, it’s easier to be mad that some people aren’t entitled to some words, than to engage with a heavy discussion of the requirements of solidarity.

So, for people who are still confused, let’s do a breakdown.

Reclaiming Words (Slurs) That Aren’t Yours

As a commenter pointed out, the tension between words used is a hallmark of Slutwalk itself – the reclamation of a formerly damaging term by the women who hear it. People marched for other reasons, not just word politics, but a key part of the framework was proud pronouncements of self.

The trouble is, all women have not been denigrated using the term slut, as Black Women’s Blueprint and the Crunk Feminist Collective have pointed out. Depending on your experience as a woman, you may have heard slut in regards to your sexuality – or you may have heard other things. This probably cuts to my ambivalence about Slutwalk from the beginning. It was never a word placed on my person. And, upon further reflection, slut did seem like the domain of white women – if it wasn’t Kathleen Hanna walking around with slut on her stomach in the Riot Grrl days or countless white women writing about the need to shed their virginity (read: innocence) by claiming a slutty identity, it was used as a pejorative specifically used to describe white girls people knew. This doesn’t mean that no woman of color has ever been called a slut, or had that term used to police their identity, or that a woman of color wouldn’t identity with the term – it just means that the aims of the march didn’t resonate with me on a “hey, I have to be a part of this” level.

But more to the point, the sign in question was about claiming identities. Slut isn’t an identity I would claim – I have no personal experience with it. But the application of the idea that woman is the nigger of the world to people who nigger has never applied is puzzling, to say the least. First, it would assume that all women are in the same boat. And as the statistics show when you start breaking down issues of wealth, representation, health, maternal wellness, and just about any other measure, that would be a lie. It’s also trying to pull the experiences and pain of a term on to one’s body without ever shouldering the burden that goes with that term. To me, that’s as asinine as me trying to adopt an anti-Asian slur or an anti-gay slur. Those kind of words would never be leveled at me. I never have to labor underneath their weight. I am not a part of intra-community discussions around those terms. No one has ever tried to make me fear them with those words. I don’t face that set of issues. I don’t carry those burdens. Therefore, it makes no sense to keep ham-fistedly applying terms that don’t fit.

For a woman to reclaim slut, it would imply that they are not apologizing for living up to the idea of the slur. It would imply that people will not apologize for their bodies, clothing, or actions even if some read those things as slutty. It would call into question the validity of the slur in the first place, if the enhanced focus on “sluts” allowed those who rape/sexually assault others to walk because they can not, and will never be, deemed sluts under our current system.

So, for people who have bodies policed by the term slut, or see enough kinship in their own struggle with this one, it would make sense to reclaim the term, to strip it of shame, to wear it with power and pride. (Word to Kenyon Farrow.)

For those outside the racial binary, they have a more complicated reality with racially charged terms. Nigger may be placed on their bodies, but in a way that is modified or different. One of my friends who is Desi remembers being held down and called a nigger by the girls at her all-white primary school. She remembered being confused – after all, she was brown, but not black. But no one said racism was logical. People from the Middle East/Central Asian region have a variety of epithets, but sand nigger is also in the mix. What is the relationship with the term nigger in these groups? An interesting dialogue rolls in the rap world, particularly about non-black emcees using the term, even in a hip-hop space which uses the term freely. But, as most people who have been the subject of a slur know, the politics are complicated. And that complication, once lived, probably speaks to why the vast majority of the pushback has been from white people.

Most white women have no relationship with the term nigger. It is not a term used on white bodies. Speaking historically (because words change and migrate over time) the term has ever been applied to white women, except in one clear way. Anna Holmes, in her post Jezebel life, has sent me reams of info on women in the civil rights movement. One of the women she fixated on what a young white woman who was murdered for her participation. The term they applied to her was not nigger. It was nigger lover. The idea that white women would willingly associate themselves with Black people was an offense where these women could not be allowed to live. Complicating this is the relationship that white women (and white people, more broadly) have instituting the term as a mark of difference. We could start with debates about suffrage, with some white women being aghast that black men were given the right to vote before white women, or we could go back even further to how white people used the term nigger to keep black people aware of their place in society. So, already, we are speaking about very different relationships with a term.

This is why we hear the same simplistic arguments. One comment we received was something along the lines of “Come off it, it’s nothing worse than what you would hear in the average rap song.” This amused me to no end. So, we’re using rap as a justification now? First of all, if “rappers do it” is enough of a defense, then should we be marching to reclaim “hootchie mama,” “hoodrat,” and “big booty ho?”

Secondly, it’s kind of hilarious when people just point at rap when nigga/nigger isn’t the most used term by a fucking longshot. The Hip Hop Word Count project is still under construction, but here’s one small study indicating that profanity (fuck and shit, respectively) are the most used terms. Nigga is up there, but it really depends on the artist you listen to.

Third, I’m always amazed how people can point to rap, but not black community internal debates about the term. Why don’t people ever bring up the nearly endless internal debates about using the term. Taalam Acey’s take even made Janks Morton’s What Black Men Think documentary.

Solidarity would require some familiarity with what goes on in different communities – but as we can see, this isn’t about solidarity.

Artists Are Still Part of Society

Another argument I hear often is that one can’t critique art with all this silly political correctness. Again, this is illogical – if artists often comment on racism, classism, and other oppressive structures in society, why wouldn’t artists also be potentially influenced by these same structures? We can talk about Vanessa Beecroft or talk about high art’s fascination with servile women of color and what it means, but race, class, and society always play a role. You don’t excuse this for art’s sake without understanding what is being excused. Ono and Lennon took a very calculated risk in doing what they did, but that brings me to my next point.

What Matters is Solidarity

Which is where the issue comes again. Now, John Lennon and Yoko Ono would not be subjects of anti-black racism. They are not the authorities on how terms used to police black bodies should be used. However, the first time I was tipped to this song, way back in 2008, the conversation we had then was much more exploratory. The comments were lost in the Disqus transition, but my tone was a bit different. Why? Because we were looking at the context of the song and when it was written. See, the thing I haven’t had a chance to really parse out was where John and Yoko felt they were in society. John Lennon spent seven minutes explaining a two minute song. (Which I believe is far longer than Nas spent trying to explain his meaning.) He did this for a reason.

Because he wanted people to understand he was in solidarity with this struggle. That’s why he and Yoko approached different black organizations before the song came out, and held a press conference where they specifically invited black media. (Why he and Yoko didn’t ask black feminists how they felt is a bit beyond me.) They wanted to make sure their intent was heard. But more important than intent was action. What else were Yoko and John doing?

Standing in solidarity with struggles of people around the world.

This is why I asked “Can we use it in a context that is supposed to belie gender solidarity, without explicitly being in racial solidarity?”

If we look at the other tracks on the album, there’s a tribute to Angela Davis, a reflection on the Attica Prison riots, songs about the situation in Northern Ireland, as well as work on education, feminism, and unity. So, while we can debate if “woman is the nigger of the world” is a true phrasing, or reflective of current situations in feminism, Yoko and John truly and sincerely believed they were speaking from a place of radical solidarity. And they were both very concerned that their meaning came through clearly, that they did not offend those who they wanted to stand with.

Contrast that with what happened on the Slutwalk NYC Facebook wall.

John and Yoko created the song while standing in solidarity with oppressed people. Our reviews on it are mixed (due to those existing tensions between intent and effect) but looking at the whole context of what Ono and Lennon were doing, it makes sense.

What we saw post-Slutwalk was people appropriating a term because it sounded good, dismissing the current struggles of other oppressed people in favor of privileging their own, and defaulting to racist norms when they received pushback from the people they were supposed to be organizing with. See the difference?

Artists Are Still Part of Society, Redux

So, back to the art section of this debate. Holding people accountable for the art they create is difficult, because art lies in the interpretation. What people take from the work could be completely different from the artist intended, so art is almost always an act of conversation. One of my favorite works is Saul Williams’ The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, all it’s fabulous sampling and complexity, with my fave track currently being “Tr(n)igger”:

I’ve heard the idea that we should treat all forms of the term nigger indiscriminately. If we don’t want rappers just to throw it around, and we don’t want people like Johnathan Rys Meyers, Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton, Michael Richards, John Mayer, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Dr. Laura, and Charlie Sheen to spew racist crap, then we should just end the term entirely. After all, didn’t the NAACP symbolically bury it in 2007?

But at the same time, artists need the space to play with the boundaries and taboos of society. But this ability to play isn’t freedom from critique or criticism. It doesn’t mean an artist is always effective at conveying their message, or that the message was that great to begin with. It’s kind of like asking how do people interpret Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ. It can be seen as blasphemy or an exploration of the relationship between the sacred and the profane, but it normally sparks a very strong reaction. However, the difference here is that “Woman is the Nigger of the World” wasn’t intended just to be art – it was supposed to be a rallying cry, and a call for solidarity with the plight of women.

It’s fine if an art piece alienates huge chunks of its audience – part of art lies in provocation. But does that premise still hold with an anthem about solidarity?

So, once again – do we all carry this burden equally? The idea of doing away with the word, or disempowering it, is interesting but unlikely. After all, it only took one senator to bring some obscure racial reference out of history and into the recent present. And the idea of no one using the word starts to undermine and camouflage our messy history. Is Huckleberry Finn still the same story by stripping it of racist terms?

The trouble isn’t within just the word – it stretches back through history and roots itself firmly in our racially divided present. Many black women had a swift and immediate reaction upon seeing the word, but nigger is just a trigger for everything that lies beneath once you scratch the surface.

(Image Credit: Y The Last Man, via Mechanistic Moth)