Obviously, people love food threads, so we'll do something similar this time:
What's a food you love that horrifies most other people?
I'm one of those "eat anything" people; there's very little I don't like. I mentioned the Headsucker's Ball in last night's comments. Obviously, the people that are going to this event aren't going to be horrified by eating crawfish (although, ironically, many are still squeamish about "sucking head" [no jokes from you, Deeky]), but I still find a lot of people that are completely grossed out by crawfish. I can't imagine why; they're fantastic.
I went out of town to a college "reunion" of sorts a couple weekends ago, and while I was there, I had frog legs for dinner. Obviously, I'm not the only person that likes them since they're on the menu, but just about everyone in our group viewed my meal with great suspicion. (It probably didn't help that I guffawed at the menu description: "Kermit's loss is your gain!")
When we go for dim sum, I'm the guy ordering chicken feet while everyone else screams.
How about you?
I'm checking in intermittently today
So E Pluribus Unum thinks more African Americans are not Republicans because we don’t listen to them. He suggests to us,
“how about listening? How about listening to what Republicans have to say, instead of what the Democrats say we say? How about listening to what we have to say before booing us out of the building?”I’d like to argue that we hear very well what you’re saying. The historian in me would like to point out how long we’ve been hearing it.
1. Acknowledge and remedy the fact that your party’s strong in the old Confederacy for a reason. Where I’m from, the Republican Party is a refuge for racists. You can dismiss that however much you want, but I’m not the only black woman who sees that.(cross-posted)
2. Acknowledge and remedy the fact that a portion of your party’s platform rests upon “misogyny, homophobia, [and] transphobia,” as well.
3. Realize that your glorification of the individual (and the lie that successful people primarily pull themselves up, with no help, by their bootstraps) may not play well in communities with a more community-oriented ethos.
4. Stop pretending that only conservative white people value self-help and entrepreneurship.
5. Recognize why some of us are not as wary of a government that intervenes as you are—and, no, it’s not because we all secretly long to laze about on “taxpayers’ (wink, wink) hard earned money.” You know some other occasions when the government intervened? During the 1870s when the Klan was terrorizing and slaughtering us. During the 1960s, when, despite previous efforts and laws, it was federal officials who had to register us to vote in many southern locations.
6. De-center for a sec. Just look at your party from the point of view of someone from a marginalized community. Prepare yourself by purchasing Dramamine before hand, though.
7. Don’t ever, ever again write racist bullshit such as this.
Lt. Daniel Choi writes to President Obama and begs to keep his job.
As an infantry officer, I am not accustomed to begging. But I beg you today: Do not fire me. Do not fire me because my soldiers are more than a unit or a fighting force – we are a family and we support each other. We should not learn that honesty and courage leads to punishment and insult. Their professionalism should not be rewarded with losing their leader. I understand if you must fire me, but please do not discredit and insult my soldiers for their professionalism.No one should have to write a letter like this, especially to a "progressive" President.
When I was commissioned I was told that I serve at the pleasure of the President. I hope I have not displeased anyone by my honesty. I love my job. I want to deploy and continue to serve with the unit I respect and admire. I want to continue to serve our country because of everything it stands for.
Please do not wait to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Please do not fire me.
(In which I fill up space on the blog by sharing my thoughts on an obscure piece of cinema: Today's film comes from Kentucky circa 2006. I have no idea if this film was ever released for public consumption.)
George Bonilla is clearly someone who wants to be a great filmmaker. Unfortunately, he has no idea what makes someone a great filmmaker. Worse yet, he has no idea what makes someone a competent filmmaker.
Make no mistake: this film is not good. The acting is awful, the writing is worse. Most shots are so poorly framed it lead me to wonder who, if anyone, was behind the camera. The dialogue is muddled, the sound effects cheap. The film is overlong, there are too many subplots, too many characters. People come and go throughout this film with no explanation. And much like Bonilla's Zombie Planet, this film hasn't the common courtesy to wrap up the storyline. Instead it just sets up a sequel, which, if we're lucky, will never get made.
Worse yet, it's boring too. Pacing is a concept foreign to Bonilla. As any fan of cinema knows, fight scenes are supposed to be exciting, not just two guys flailing at each other with sticks. According to his bio, Bonilla "turned his back on a successful career in television" to pursue his aspirations as a filmmaker. What exactly was he doing in television prior to this? Was he a janitor at a TV station? There is nothing in his work that suggests he's had any training, much less any experience behind the camera.
Dance With a Vampire opens with some guy being interviewed by two other guys. It isn't really clear where this is or who any of these people are, but I guess the two guys are detectives, and the other guy is some other guy. No one in this movie much has a name, or if they do, I rarely caught them. This may have been due to the shitty sound quality, which made a lot of the dialogue unintelligible. Of course, one of the huge problems with this film is that there is too much dialogue to begin with. Anyway, the Main Guy (we'll just call him that until we learn otherwise) is trying to warn the cops about a group of vampires that have just rolled into town.
These are no ordinary vampires, no, these vampires became undead in the Seventies, so they've an unnatural affinity for polyester leisure suits and Giorgio Moroder tunes. The Main Guy tells the cops if people start ending up dead, there'll be polyester vampires to blame. It's not clear why the cops are even listening to this guy, as his mutterings hardly seem credible. I guess it was either this or another night of rousting kids in the 7-11 parking lot.
Nonetheless, he turns out to be right, and the leisure suit vampires show up in town. First stop is an old discothèque. Unfortunately, the disco's been closed for thirty years and now houses a biker bar. The vampire gang is made up of a guy in a white, Saturday Night Fever suit, a tall, black guy with a huge afro, and a gaunt fellow with long, black hair. There are about ten others, but they're pretty indistinct from one another, and besides, most them are never seen again after this.
The disco is closed, but the vampires head upstairs to the dance floor anyway. Fortunately, closing the disco consisted entirely of stringing some yellow caution tape across the top of the stairs. Everything else is exactly as it was thirty years ago. The lights, the disco ball, it's all still there. They even managed to leave "Disco Inferno" cued up on the turntable.
The vamps stroll through the tape, through the cobwebs, and… wait as second! Those aren't cobwebs, they're "cobwebs." You know the kind. They sell 'em in plastic bags at Target around Halloween. Most folks hang them around their porches, along with paper jack-o-lanterns and plastic spiders, and they pretty much look fake. And that's how they look here: fake.
The film has lots of crappy effects like that. For example, lightning is imitated by flashing a strobe on the actors. But the light only hits the person in the foreground, and nothing else, the end result looking more like someone taking a photograph than actual weather. (Which is what I thought was happening the first few times it happened, until I realized what was being attempted.) Or when one of the vamps spews smoke, but it's just an actor standing next to a billowing fog machine. I don't understand the desire to use cheap, fake effects. Why not skip them altogether? You don't get bonus points for trying, not if the result looks half-assed.
We, the audience, are then treated to a long, drawn out dance number. The bikers giggle, and the home viewers cringe. The leisure suit vampires shake their undead groove things, all except The One With Long Black Hair. He waltzes with his lady. I guess that means he's old. I guess that means he's the leader. Though, if he is the leader, he doesn't have much of a presence in the film. Saturday Night Fever is in twice as many scenes, has way more dialogue, and even leads the big shootout with the cops.
The bikers' amusement is short lived, as the discoing vampires suddenly attack them. It's kind of confusing, as the shots of mayhem don't seem edited together in any way, and it's sort of just a random montage of blood and dancing. And maybe we'd feel a little sorry for the bikers if they just didn't stand there and let themselves be attacked.
Fade in on the next scene, the aftermath. We're introduced to another half dozen cops and the coroner, all of whom get hefty chunks of dialogue. This scene goes on far too long. In fact, all of the cop characters, and their subplots, could have been jettisoned completely, and the film not suffered. But apparently Bonilla never met a scene he didn't like, and he's shoved everything he's filmed into his movie. There are a lot of scenes featuring these cops, and more. I am not going to tell you about them, because I don't have all day, and neither do you. And as I have said, they don't really benefit the movie any.
Now is time for a little background on the Main Guy. He's standing on the street passing out flyers. Someone is missing and he wants to find her. Handing out leaflets is tiring work (just ask anyone at Tony Alamo Ministries) so the Main Guy ducks into a coffee shop for breakfast. In a stroke of good luck, his waitress claims to have seen the missing woman in that very diner just a few days ago. The Main Guy immediately jumps up and flees the diner. "What about your food?" asks the waitress. I was sort of wondering the same thing. But the film is filled with moments like this, where the characters do things for no rational reason. It's not like he actually had somewhere to be, because in the very next scene he's wandering a dark ally taping up more flyers. (And dude, using masking tape on brick: that ain't gonna hold.) 
Being in the alley does give the Main Guy the chance to finally run into one of the vampires. The vampire is big and bald and assaulting a street preacher. This is our first real peek at the vampire makeup. Shamefully, it's just a rip off of the scrunchy forehead look from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Big Bald recognizes the Main Guy and asks "Is that you, Elwood?" Finally, a name! I think. I mean, it's hard to understand Big Bald. First of all, his prosthetic teeth are really impeding his speech. Secondly, his voice is processed in a way that is far too reminiscent of Zandor Vorkov's in Dracula Vs. Frankenstein. Big Bald rips out the preacher's throat, despite Elwood clubbing him over the head with a tire iron. "That's gonna leave a mark, Redwood." Wait. Is his name Elwood or Redwood?
Oh, Jesus, who cares…
Before Big Bald can really beat the shit out of Elwood, a homeless man shows up and jumps on the vampire. A long, drawn out fight sequence follows. The director wants to make a point that this is no ordinary hobo. No, he's some sort of super-hobo. Still, he'd get his ass kicked too if yet another cop hadn't shown up. Yes, this cop brings with him his own subplot, but I am not going into that one either. The cop breaks up the fight, allowing everyone to escape.
Saturday Night Fever, Afro, and A Female Vampire In A Prom Dress stroll down a different fog-laden alley (yes, Bonilla got him a fog machine on the cheap and discovered shooting in alleys was easy to do) and into a Neo-Nazi rally. There's lots of exposition before a long, drawn out scene where the vampires attack the Nazis. Again, the victims just stand there and allow themselves to be bitten. I think we're supposed to feel glee at the vampires slaughtering the Nazis, but it doesn't really work. First off, the vampires are the villains of the movie. And when one group of bad guys kills another group of bad guys, it's hard to figure out who you're supposed to be rooting for. Secondly, the vamps have already been shown to murder innocent people, so their killing of the Nazis fails to interpret as some sort of moral victory. The vamps are indiscriminant killers, and the Nazis just one more meal for them.
The homeless man, we learn, is named Bolt Upright. He may be a superhero; then again, he may be a nutcase. Still, Elwood decides to join forces with him and stop the vampires. This is followed by a long, drawn out training montage, where Bolt schools Elwood in the ways of hobo-fu, which largely consists of hitting one's enemy with a long stick. We also learn that Elwood is something of a gunslinger, which sort of explains his cowboy hat and duster. It also stands to reason his name might actually be Redwood after all.
Their plan is to wash up a homeless woman, drape her in an evening gown, and use her to lure the vampires into a confrontation. I am not sure what the rest of their plan is since the last time they ran into a vampire they both had their asses kicked. The homeless woman cleans up real nice, as they say, and Redwood is immediately smitten with her. That doesn't stop him from using her as bait, mind you.
Before they can put their plan into action, we have to meet two more characters. Did I already mention this film as far too many characters and subplots? For the most part, I've tried to ignore them, but in this case, while the characters are superfluous, their contributions aren't. Doc Q (get it?) and his girl are mad scientists, of sorts, and they arm Bolt and Redwood with two things: a fistful of holy water bullets, and a gun that fires wooden stakes. These come in handy later. Much later. Okay, admittedly, the stake gun is never actually used, and the holy water bullets become a minor, distracting plot point later. Nevermind.
But it's time to put the plan into action, which means Redwood is again alone in an alley. I don't know what happened to using Homeless Woman as bait. Nonetheless Redwood suddenly finds himself surrounded by Saturday Night Fever, Afro, and A Vampire In A Miami Vice Jacket. Not too long later the cops arrive. All of them, it looks like. And suddenly, the cops are engaged in a shootout with the vamps. Do I need to mention it's a long, drawn out gun battle?
The shoot 'em up scene ends after Redwood plugs Afro, Saturday Night Fever flees, and Miami Vice is "killed" by police. (That last bit is just a set up for a long, drawn out sequence where Miami Vice springs back to life in the back of an ambulance, à la Hannibal Lecter. The best part about that sequence is how it suddenly jumps from the middle of the night to the afternoon for no apparent reason. It also features the least exciting car chase this side of Apocalypse.) After the dust settles and the fog machine shuts off, Redwood is arrested and presumably taken downtown.
What follows I a long, drawn out interrogation. Not of Redwood, no, but of Bolt. Huh? Somehow, Bolt is now in custody, taking the heat for the shootout, despite having not actually been there. And where is Redwood? Fuck if I know. What I do know is Homeless Woman breaks Bolt out of jail, so they can go save Redwood somewhere else.
It turns out Redwood is being held at the vampire's lair. (How'd that happen? I have no idea.) The lair appears to be decorated with items from the Hot Topic clearance aisle. There are velvet curtains, plastic body parts, "cobwebs," and of course fog. Redwood is tied to a skull-emblazoned throne, I think stolen from Alice Cooper's house. (For supposed vampires on the move, do they actually lug this thing from town to town with them?) 
Now comes the tearjerker scene. (Okay, I admit, my eyes only watered up because I was tired and yawning.) Redwood is finally reunited with the woman he's been searching for. It turns out she's his sister and he wants to save her. I'm not really sure what he planned to do once he found her, because, as I understand vampire lore, once you're undead, there ain't exactly a cure. Another thing I was wondering as I looked at her: She's a fair bit older than Redwood, and if I've followed what's been going on, she's been missing a long time, all the while trapped in an ageless state, which means she must've disappeared when Redwood was all of four years old. I am surprised they even recognize one another.
Their reunion is short lived. (Oh, who am I kidding, it, like everything else, is long and drawn out.) Bolt, Homeless Woman, and a dozen or so cops descend upon the vampire lair. What follows is battle between the cops and vamps, and the two parties dutifully snuff each other out one by one. Somewhere during all this Homeless Girl is sucked into a dream sequence with A Different Bald Vampire.
First they're in a white room, where Different Bald explains she's just dreaming, before he whisks her off to a meadow for tea and biscuits. I have no idea what the point of this is or why it was included in the film. It makes no sense and contributes nothing. I suppose though, that last sentence could apply to most scenes here.
Really, you could, as I mentioned earlier, ditch the cops and their subplots, especially all the stuff about their petty political maneuverings. You could get rid of the bit with the Nazis, this dream sequence, the mayor's press conference, the training montage, the car chase, and you'd still have too much movie. If you narrowed it down to just the vampires and disco, you'd at least manage to stick closer to what the film is allegedly about. Unfortunately, the whole disco angle is pretty much ditched after the opening scene.
What we have here is not a film, so much as a vaguely connected series of scenes. It seems Bonilla is trying to tell a story, but it all adds up to little more than a couple guys fighting some vampires. Somehow, the whole is less than the sum of its parts, as a slapdash, would-be epic collapses under the weight of its own pretensions.
Though, when stupid, random shit starts happening near the end, all pretense goes out the window. Or at least it should.
Four things happen next that seem so arbitrary that it's hard to make much sense of them: 1.) After rescuing him, someone hands Redwood a poncho, thereby completing his gunslinger look. 2.) Homeless Woman breaks her ankle and disappears from the film. This effect is achieved by her suddenly hunching over and saying "Ow, I think I broke my ankle." 3.) Bolt Upright suddenly dons a superhero costume, including cape and mask. 4.) The Vampire With Long Black Hair has suddenly mutated into a soggy-faced creature.
Okay, the last two are easy to explain. The stars have been replaced by different actors, and this was the director's way of hiding that fact.
By this point, all that is left is the big finale. The cops, Redwood, and Bolt must destroy The One With Long Black Hair. Guess what happens next. If you said long, drawn-out fight scene, you're right. It's discovered that wooden stakes and holy water don't work on the master vampire, for some stupid reason. It is also discovered that Redwood's sister has been spirited away by another vampire.
So, does that mean three of the main characters have disappeared from the set prior to the film being completed? Come to think of it Saturday Night Fever hasn't been around in a while either. Hey George, maybe you want to start paying your actors in something other than bologna sandwiches. It'll probably save you a lot of rewrites.
One thing is certain, the whole basic story, Redwood's search for his sister, remains unresolved when the credits roll. Bolt mentions he's going to set out after them, laying the way for a sequel. The One With Long Black Hair is eventually killed when Bolt stakes a block of C4 to his chest. The One With Long Black Hair makes no attempt to save himself, he just stands there growling until he explodes.
So, here we are, at the end of this thing. Finally. Taking into account all the dozens of characters, all the plot points, subplots, and set-ups throughout the film, how many have reached a resolution by this point? Zero. This movie has ultimately gone nowhere. That may be its worst offense. If a filmmaker's job is, at its most basic level, to tell a story, Bonilla has failed in this regard.
Bonilla is quoted as saying "Don't confuse independent film with amateur film." Well, George, an amateur film is exactly what you've given us. There isn't one ounce of professionalism in the whole endeavor.
You gotta "love" the Great Orange Satan.
Oh, wait, no you don't.
Looks like I'm "quick to be offended" again.
Let's quit trying to find reasons to be offended by each other and instead deal with the real issues facing us.I think that's the ultimate bingo quote, right there.
While chatting with Oprah yesterday Simon Cowell predicted Adam Lambert will win this year's American Idol competition.
Cowell described Lambert as "fearless, unique," adding "he's got swagger." All winning traits according to the professional bully/obnoxious co-host.
Go on, Adam, get your homomentum on!
(Lambert is pictured here singing the national anthem.)
What is your idea of the perfect meal?
There will be lobster. And there will be creamed spinach. And some sort of potato; preferably au gratin or twice-baked. There will be bourbon. There will be coffee and pie afterwards. And there will be one very satisfied spud when I'm all done.
More casualties of the Bush Legacy:
BAGHDAD — The United States military said Monday that five American soldiers had been shot to death by a fellow soldier who opened fire on them at one of the biggest American bases in Baghdad, and that the suspected shooter was in custody.This kills me. It just breaks my heart. President Obama has pledged to improve mental health treatment for Veterans. I seriously hope that this is being put into action; not just for "returning" Veterans, but for all members of the military. PTSD doesn't wait until you're home.
The killings appeared to be the worst case of soldier-on-soldier violence among the American forces based in Iraq since the invasion more than six years ago.
The shooting occurred at around 2 p.m. local time at Camp Liberty, part of the sprawling Camp Victory complex near Baghdad, according to a military statement. The names of the dead soldiers were being withheld pending family notification, the statement said.
“Anytime we lose one of our own, it affects us all,” Col. John Robinson, a spokesman for the American military in Iraq, said in the statement.
The attack took place at a clinic for soldiers who are seeking help for stress. CNN, citing identified officials, said that at least three others were wounded in the attack.
Recommended Reading:
Echidne: The Bully Boys Gals
Vanessa: Abstinence Only Education Fails LGBTQ Youth
Copyranter: Drinking Skim Milk Instantly Photoshops the Fat Right Off Your Face
Julie: Gendered Parenthood on Mother's Day
Kyle: Debunking Another Hate Crimes Lie
Karnythia: I Would Make A Terrible Superhero Girlfriend
Vanessa: Texas Rape Survivors Charged for Rape Kits
For Losties: Rachel's Follow the Leader Lost Recap is Up!
Got links? Leave 'em in the comments.
My niece is a cashier at a local "casual dining restaurant." It suits her usually bubbly personality well. There's also the fact that she's 5'11", quite thin, and pretty. That draws a lot of attention paid in the forms of compliments, unexpected tips, and advice for her to model. Her manager admits she's the first black woman they've ever had "at the front" and that part of the reason she's there is because of her visual appeal. She is not monstrously conceited, but she does spend a lot of time on her appearance and is not particularly modest--I'm not offering that as a criticism of her. We know women are valued and rewarded for their physical appearance and adherence to rigid beauty standards under the patriarchy.
Anyway, she worked Thursday, and one group of her customers was a young white family. The woman, who was pregnant, told my niece that she was pretty and so friendly, then proceeded to ask her if my niece would consider babysitting for pay.
My niece was shocked, which is why she told the story to me.
And I said, "Girl, somebody better get Miss Millie!"
Miss Millie, of course, is the woman on The Color Purple who inspected Sophia's kids, determined they were clean and well-kept, and asked Sophia to be her maid.
Let me tell you how I and Sophia--given her reaction--hear that: "Random woman of color, I see the love, care, and time you invest in yourself and your motherwork. I think that such effort would be better placed in my home, with my family. I have no problem trying to change your labor of love into one of sorrow* because we both know full well that I will probably underpay and overwork you. I feel that you, who are used to it, should do the drudgework, while I do more important things."
This incident--and the fact that I'm revising the chapter of my manuscript that discusses black women's work options in the early-to-mid-20th century--started me thinking, once again, about feminism and long-standing divisions along racial/ethnic and class lines. One of the things that it has been hard for white feminists--particularly essentialists--to accept is that white women have and do benefit from the relegation of women of color to low-wage, low-status "reproductive" work. Here is a passage from a post I wrote a while ago: From Dr. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, who expresses it much more eloquently:
What has been equally hard to accept is that white women's role in the subordination of WoC's labor has not been indirect or oblivious. Even if we wanted to argue that white women didn't realize that overworking and underpaying WoC made it physically impossible for many of them to care for their own children (demands on their time meant that domestic servants sometimes only saw their kids on the weekend; low pay meant that adequately feeding, sheltering, and clothing their children was often little more than a dream), there are many times that white women directly and vocally opposed and impeded WoC's efforts to improve their working conditions and attain a decent standard of living. Two examples:White women may actually have a material interest in the continuing subordination of women of color in the workplace. To understand the contemporary divergence between the priorities and interests of White women and women of color, we must first understand the historic differences in their experiences as workers. A careful reading of the history of Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American women workers reveals a persistent racial division of "women's work." This division of labor has subjected women of color to special forms of exploitation, subordinating them to White women and ensuring that their labor benefits White women and their families.**
In other words, work may be divided by gender, but it's divided by race, as well, a significant factor to "overlook." From another article by Dr. Nakano Glenn: In the first half of the [20th] century racial-ethnic women were employed as servants to perform reproductive labor in white households, relieving white middle-class women of onerous aspects of that work; in the second half of the century, with the expansion of commodified services (services turned into commercial products or activities), racial/ethnic women are disproportionately employed as service workers in institutional settings to carry out lower-level "public" reproductive labor, while cleaner white collar supervisory and lower professional positions are filled by white women.***
Domestic workers were left out of legislation that protected women workers in the early 20th century, left out of the provisions of the Social Security Act of 1935, left out of minimum wage/maximum hours legislation of 1938. Prompted, in part, by such exclusions, domestic workers tried to organize themselves, again and again, into unions. Their white female employers, at best, were ambivalent, and at worst, resisted unionization, refusing to negotiate or hire domestics involved in organizational activities.****
Then there was the Bronx Slave Market, where Depression-Era Black women, desperate for work, offered their services for unbelievably low wages: Back in the 1930s one of the largest black presences in the Bronx was the women who would come over from Harlem and line up on a street corner in the Bronx looking for day work as domestics. It was the Depression, and some of the few jobs available to black women were working as charwomen, cleaning white homes. Most of these women were Southerners recently arrived in New York. One of the most populated corners for the day workers was on 167th St. in the Morrisania section, not far from where the Bronx’s original slaves toiled on the Morris farm.
How well "all the nasty jobs they didn't want to do for themselves" were done was absolutely crucial to the status of many middle-to-upper-class white women. Because they were under pressure to be domestic goddesses, with higher and higher standards of "cleanliness," white women demanded that WoC help them achieve and maintain that status. As Nakano Glenn notes,
There they would wait, standing around as white women would walk or drive by and eye them up and down. When they were chosen they faced a day of hard housework, for what they were told would be about 30 cents an hour, though sometimes employers reneged and paid only half that. The black women with the most callused knees would be hired first–worn knees indicated that the women were accustomed to scrubbing floors. The work was brutal, as the white mistresses would palm off on their black menials all the nasty jobs they didn’t want to do themselves.We may have to accept the idea that any policy to improve the lot of racial ethnic women may necessitate a corresponding loss of privilege or status for White women and may engender resistance on their part.
Working with the example of domestic work was perhaps the most illuminating moment for me when I was trying to understand theories of intersectionality in grad school. At the root of the problem is the sexist demand that women should be concerned with and confined to the domestic sphere and that the work they do in the home and for the family has little remunerative value. But who really does that work and why it is is perpetually undervalued speaks to issues of race/ethnicity and class as well. Domestic work is monotonous, often grueling, and low status, the kind of work that has historically been constructed as WoC's work.***** It is also the work of poor women who a) have rarely been trained/allowed to develop a skill set beyond that which is determined "naturally" feminine and b)need the work desperately and can't afford to argue about hours or rate of pay. Thus, while gender privilege makes domestic work "women's work," race and class privilege make it, most often, poor WoC's work.
Something else bothered me about the woman's request of my niece, and it took me a while to put my finger on it. Even now, I'm not going to say that I can adequately argue it, but I can give you a look into it.
She was attempting to relegate my niece to a "mammy" position, an image white people took comfort in, that made them feel safe, even if it existed largely in their own minds. Mammy was fat, asexual, devoted to her white family.
Non-threatening.
And here stood my niece, in many ways, the antithesis of the mammy******--"attractive," self-confident, unwilling to blend into the background. The thing I'm wondering is, was this an attempt, even subconsciously, to put my niece in her "rightful" place and to protect her own, internalized sense of self as the "ideal" (i.e. white woman)?
(crossposted)
________________________________
* Here, I am referring to Jacqueline Jones's pioneering Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow. Jones posits that, while paltry pay and low status were real concerns for black women as domestic workers, they also disliked domestic service because white employers and the work itself denied their womanhood—their roles as mothers, wives, and community workers. It was these roles that constituted their “labor[s] of love.”
This issue is also discussed by Sharon Harley in “For the Good of Family and Race: Gender, Work, and Domestic Roles in the Black Community, 1880-1930,” Signs 15, no. 2 (1990): 336-349.
** "Cleaning Up/Kept Down: A Historical Perspective on Racial Inequality in
'Women's Work'," Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1333-1356.
***"From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of
Paid Reproductive Labor," Signs 18, no. 1 (1992): 1-43.
**** I should also mention that organized labor was often opposed to organizing women--particularly AFL unions that saw working women as threats to men. See Tera Hunter's To 'Joy My Freedom; Phyllis Palmer's Domesticity and Dirt; Donna L. Van Raaphorst's Union Maids Not Wanted . I just got Eileen Boris's and Premilla Nadasen's article, "Domestic Workers Organize!" but, given their previous work and my skim of the first few pages, I'd recommend it.
***** Which is not to say that poor white women didn't work "unpleasant" jobs, but that there have often been clear demarcations between what is white women's work and what is WoC's work.
******In the comments to this post, for example, people argued that there weren't any racial overtones to the image of a black model cradling a white baby, because to invoke "mammy," the black woman had to be fat. I didn't agree, but there you have it.
Come on along and join us
Come on along
We're gonna have some fun
Come on along and join us
In a little bowl of Vegetable Soup
It takes all kinds of vegetables
All kinds of vegetables
All kinds of vegetables
To make a Vegetable Soup
Aside from Hedwig, Iain has some other surprises for me this week, starting with the fact that he took the week off work, and my presence has been requested for a variety of as-yet-unrevealed activities that will, I expect, quite pleasantly engage my time over the next few days.
So, posting will be very light from me this week, and I won't be attached to email 24/7, but the rest of the crew will surely such good company you won't even miss me.
See you soon!
How apparent is it that I know nothing about NY geography except "It's Big!"
We're inviting you to a party!!
It's a listening party for the SPEAK! CD, featuring readings by contributors Black Amazon and Mamita Mala.
What is the SPEAK! CD?SPEAK! is a group of women of color media makers. In the summer and fall of 2008, they created this CD compilation of spoken word, poetry, and song. With contributors from all over the U.S., these recordings are testimonials of struggle, hope, and love.
If you haven't gotten your CD, a track listing is here and it's available here.
This CD’s purpose is two-fold. First, we hope that this CD will be an outreach tool and a resource for women of color and allies seeking to bring important issues to light. Many teachers and activists are already planning ways they can use the CD in their work. We have a free curriculum available for download underneath the Listening Party page in hopes that people will come together around the CD.
Second, this is a fundraising tool. We plan to use all profits from the sale of the CD to support single mothers of SPEAK! in coming to the Allied Media Conference. Mothers are instrumental to our work and have been some of the key advisors to the AMC’s INCITE! Women/Trans People of Color Media Track, as well as instigators and shapers of SPEAK! from the beginning. We use the Allied Media Conference as a place to come together and plan our work.
I love the CD; it is powerful, poignant, and affirming. I'm using it this summer in one of my classes (and I'd already used the work of many of these women in my teaching before).
So go listen! RSVP to katie@alliedmediaconference.org for the address and details, and remember, SPACE IS LIMITED.
Iain surprised me Saturday night with tickets to the American Theater Company's production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, one of my favorite, favorite things (as many of you already know). It was remarkably wonderful.
Crossposted from AngryBlackBitch.com.
This bitch spent the weekend blissfully offline. I turned the cell phone off and let Ms. SisterGirl MacBook power down and instructed our TiVo to stay away from new-based programming. And it was fantabulous!
Don’t get me wrong…a bitch adores y’all! I do!
Pause…consider…continue.
Yep, even the knavish trolls among you who have yet to figure out that a bitch moderates comments…I’ve been called that ig’nant shit so much it doesn’t have the impact you think it does…and every bigoted comment reminds me why I do this shit.
Enjoying 48 hours offline isn’t about disliking my time online…’tis more about needing a break from Corn Flakes so I can discover them again.
Anyhoo, a bitch is now refreshed…and this MacBook is happy as a motherfucker too.
Shall we?
Former Vice President…and yes a bitch is glad I can finally type that shit…Dickey C. is finding it hard to say goodbye to yesterday. A bitch caught up on what his ass said this past weekend and I can’t help imagining him getting his Boyz II Men on about torture.
I see Dickey C., rancid as ever and scowling hard as a motherfucker, on a darkened stage in the spotlight where he loves to be.
How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times (of causing other pain) that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad (like the ramifications of violating the laws of the religions I pontificate about living by when it suits my political objectives).
I thought we’d get to see forever (because I was shooting for a dictatorship, natch).
But forever’s gone away (in a landslide, damn democracy).
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday (and the power of hold another’s life in the dewy palm of my hand).
Sigh.
Yeah, that’ll probably give me nightmares too.
The thing is that Dickey C. is demonstrating through his recent media blitz that he was full of shit when he said that he didn’t care about how history will judge him. He cares…a lot…so much so that he’s taking to the telly to make a case that he denied having to make over and over again when he was in office…that our government tortured people in that name of national security.
And that’s the bit that is lost in all the post interview speculation going on…that this knave is now defending what he denied. And that begs the question of why the hell deny it if it’s legal and justifiable and worthy of praise rather than condemnation?
And I’ll take with me the memories
That concern for the nation angle doesn’t pass the smell test.
To be my sunshine after the rain.
And the lifting up of policies that the Bush administration told the masses they weren’t doing…and then that they weren’t doing the way we think they were doing them…and finally that they of they did them they did them for the good of the people, but saying that in no way is an admission that they did them.
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
No, this performance is about power and the lust for power now lost.
But Dickey C. should know…it’s the cover-up that gets you.
***logs off to beg David Frost for a sequel***
