Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 960

Bomani & Jones: NFL 2012 Football Fantasy

SBNation 
It's one thing to be upbeat about your Fantasy Football team, which is undoubtedly headlined by a Brady or Brees, Adrian or Arian, and hopefully a receiver with the last name Johnson. But all these NFL fans suffering from delusions of grandeur? We'll set you straight real quick....or you can just wait until your team plays and see for yourself.

Got Solutions? Beyond Denial and Toward Transformation (Part 2)

Got Solutions? Beyond Denial and Toward Transformation (Part 2) by David J. Leonard | HuffPost BlackVoices
As I noted in part 1, white denial about racism and demands for solutions (for the racial injustices often dismissed) go hand in hand. As Mark Anthony Neal brilliantly reminded people in a Facebook status update: "The very essence of 'privilege' is when you enter into a space and are fundamentally unaware that not only have you changed the conversation, but have made the conversation about you." 
Beyond attempting to turn the conversation into what they want, what these demands fail to recognize is white denial about racism, male denial about sexism, and heterosexual denial about homophobia is problematic and is instrumental in the perpetuation of violence, inequality, and privilege. While I remain wary of the demands for solutions, especially in absence of a willingness to work toward social change and accountability, there are many individual and systemic changes that will not only foster greater equality and justice but will address historically produced inequalities. There is much that can and must be done as part of a movement of racial reconciliation and change.
Universal Health Care: A consequence of America's history of racism, violence, segregation, wealth disparity, and inequality represents stark differences between life and death. Whether looking at life expectancy, infant mortality, and countless illness, we see that racial inequality has consequences. In other words, racism kills. To combat the health consequences of American Apartheid, we must adopt a single-payer national health system. The grave impact of a Jim Crow system of "health care" is seen each and every day. According to a recent study from Harvard University, "Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care." Race matters here. Tim Wise notes that each year 100,000 African Americans die "who wouldn't if black mortality rates were equal to that of whites." Universal health care would not solve these disparities but it would certainly dramatically intercede against racism's assault on the basic human right of life. Lesley M Russell makes this clear:
Racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half of America's uninsured and they suffer higher rates of chronic illness than the general population. They are more likely to experience risk factors that predispose them to chronic illnesses such as obesity, and are much less likely to receive preventive screenings, regular care, and to fill needed prescriptions that could prevent or ameliorate their conditions. Because being uninsured often means postponing needed heath care services, people of color are diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and once diagnosed, they receive poorer care. Inevitably, they are sicker and die sooner.
A single payer system may not be a complete solution but it is a way to save lives, improve lives, and challenge the ongoing history of racism. Who is on board? It would seem that providing health care and dismantling America's prison nation is the ultimate fulfillment of family values. You want a solution, how about respecting and valuing every person's family; now that's some values I can get on board with.
While we are nationalizing things, how about we abandon the inequitable local funding formulas employed by school districts and ensure that equity and equality is maintained in each and every school district. Since I know everyone is interested in change, how about a higher education that is open and accessible to everyone.
Solutions are a-plenty. Abolish the Electoral Collegeand move toward publicly funded elections.
There are of course many solutions, from the Dream Act to dramatically changing the tax code and increasing minimum wage would take us on a path toward equality, justice, and racial reconciliation. If you want solutions, join me in fighting for them: if people get to deduct mortgage payments from their taxes, how about rental tax deductions; if children are deductible what about no children? Free childcare for all; what about public transformation in every community - interested? An end to the war on drugs and the military industrial complex! Are these the solutions you had in mind?
I could go on for pages, but I am wondering if these are the solutions you had in mind. Yet, what I have in mind is an end to the war on drugs, the war on women, and the war on the poor; or maybe a program that actually works to address poverty and homelessness. How about a societal commitment to end rape culture; ready to help by showing zero tolerance for the criminalization, shaming and demonization of rape victims? Are those the solutions you are so interested in hearing about? You ready to commit to protecting the vote for every citizen with equal zeal as many fight for the right to bear arms? I don't know about you, but to me surely making voting easier than it is to get an assault weapon in some locales would be both a step in the right direction and solutions in itself.
Solutions abound; policy initiatives, personal transformation, and a willingness to listen, dialogue, and look inward are solutions. And while I don't think the requests for solutions are always genuine, every proposal, suggestion, and potential solution is one that is possible. Yet, we don't have to look any further than our history books to find solutions, to find pathways toward freedom and justice. "On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway," notes Martin Luther King. "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." Or we can simply fulfill the demands of the Black Panther Party: "We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology."
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of the just released After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press) as well as several other works. Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan, layupline, Feminist Wire, and Urban Cusp. He is frequent contributor to Ebony, Slam, and Racialicious as well as a past contributor to Loop21, The Nation and The Starting Five. He blogs @No Tsuris.

Michael Eric Dyson & Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report Debate Obama Presidency

Democracy Now 
As President Obama accepts the Democratic nomination to seek four more years in the White House, we host a debate on his presidency with Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report and Michael Eric Dyson, professor at Georgetown University and author of numerous books. Ford calls Obama the "more effective evil" for embracing right-wing policies and neutralizing effective opposition, while Dyson argues Obama provides the best and obvious choice for progressive change within the confines of the U.S. political system.

So You Want to Talk Solutions? White Denial and the Change Question (Part 1)

So You Want to Talk Solutions? White Denial and the Change Question (Part 1) By David J. Leonard | HuffPost Black Voices
One of the common responses to discussions about racism and other forms of injustice is the demand for solutions. The commonplace entry into public and private discussions about racism, the efforts to take over comment sections, to silence those who work to highlight inequality with responses like "what's the solution" does not engender solutions but rather works to derail the conversation. Usually deployed alongside the descriptor of wining and complaining, this disingenuous demand (as opposed to a desire to figure out the path toward justice) for solutions illustrates the manner that white male privilege operates. In my many years of teaching and writing, the majority of those who felt entitled to have answers NOW and remedies yesterday were white men. The "shut up... stop complaining...give me solutions" reframe is the embodiment of privilege.
Recognizing our forms of denial and challenging our social and racial myopia is the solution. Refusing to accept the lies and distortions, the misinformation and stereotypes is a remedy. However, for those who are desperate for solutions, who feel disappointed with our collective failure to provide a road map toward justice you don't have to look any further, I got you.

Reparations: Given the history of racist violence, evident in slavery, Native American genocide, Jim Crow, forced sterilization, racist immigration laws, the conquest of Southwest and other crimes against humanity, I think reparations are in order. "Sorry isn't enough!" According to the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCBRA):
A necessary requirement of all forms of reparations is an acknowledgment by the government or corporation that it committed acts that violated the human rights of those making the claim for reparations. Some groups may want an explicit apology; however, neither the acknowledgement nor apology is sufficient - there must be material forms of reparations that accompany the acknowledgment or apology. Reparations can be in as many forms as necessary to equitably (fairly) address the many forms of injury caused by chattel slavery and its continuing vestiges. The material forms of reparations include cash payments, land, economic development, and repatriation resources particularly to those who are descendants of enslaved Africans.'
Financial restitution, especially given the amount of wealth generated through white supremacy, because of enslavement, genocide, and exploitation, is a necessary step of racial reconciliation. White financial and political success has been predicated on white racism. Malcolm X rightfully destroys the myth of meritocracy, bootstraps, and the white protestant work ethic as reasons for success:
If you are the son of a man who had a wealthy estate and you inherit your father's estate, you have to pay off the debts that your father incurred before he died. The only reason that the present generation of white Americans are in a position of economic strength...is because their fathers worked our fathers for over 400 years with no pay...We were sold from plantation to plantation like you sell a horse, or a cow, or a chicken, or a bushel of wheat...All that money...is what gives the present generation of American whites the ability to walk around the earth with their chest out...like they have some kind of economic ingenuity. Your father isn't here to pay. My father isn't here to collect. But I'm here to collect and you're here to pay. (From By Any Means Necessary, New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970, 123.)
Prison abolition: The history of America's prison systems and the criminal justice system as a whole is wrought with racism. As Angela Davis remarks,
In order to imagine a world without prisons -- or at least a social landscape no longer dominated by the prison -- a new popular vocabulary will have to replace the current language, which articulates crime and punishment in such a way that we cannot think about a society without crime except as a society in which all the criminals are imprisoned. Thus, one of the first challenges is to be able to talk about the many ways in which punishment is linked to poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and other modes of dominance.
America's addiction to incarceration requires dramatic intervention. No reform will suffice given the entrenched nature of the criminal (in)justice system within every institution, from the political to the educational, from the cultural to the economic. The systemic incarceration of people of color, of the poor, represents an assault on families, communities, and a betrayal of the principles of equality, fairness, and democracy. The addiction to incarcerating people of color, particularly the poor, continues a history of systematically breaking apart families and communities. It contributes to stop and frisk, racial profiling, and a culture of criminalization. As noted by Robert Gangi, one time Executive Director of the Correctional Association of New York, "Building more prisons to address crime is like building more graveyards to address a fatal disease." It is time to rectify a societal plague - mass incarceration. This would be a step in the right direction. In the next installment I will lay out some additional solutions.
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of the just released After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press) as well as several other works. Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan, layupline, Feminist Wire, and Urban Cusp. He is frequent contributor to Ebony, Slam, and Racialicious as well as a past contributor to Loop21, The Nation and The Starting Five. He blogs @No Tsuris.

Melissa Harris-Perry and Kevin Alexander Gray on Obama's Record and Re-Election

Democracy Now 
As President Obama prepares to accept the Democratic Party's nomination, we're joined by two guests: Melissa Harris-Perry, host of the show "Melissa Harris-Perry" on MSNBC, professor of political science at Tulane University, and founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South; and by Kevin Alexander Gray, a civil rights activist and community organizer in Columbia, South Carolina, and author of the book, "Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics."

Looking For Lady Day's Resting Place? Detour Ahead

NPR Morning Edition:


When Billie Holiday died in 1959, thousands of mourners attended her funeral at St. Paul the Apostle Roman Catholic Church in New York City. The overflow crowd lined the sidewalks. Honorary pallbearers included such jazz greats as Benny Goodman and Mary Lou Williams. Newspapers and magazines ran heartfelt tributes.
But where is Holiday buried? She's not in New York's Woodlawn Cemetery, the well-known spot for famous dead jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, Celia Cruz, Miles Davis and Lionel Hampton. She's buried at St. Raymond's Cemetery — or, as singer and Holiday fan Queen Esther puts it, "Way, way, way out," in the Bronx.

The Strange Story Of The Man Behind 'Strange Fruit'

The Strange Story Of The Man Behind 'Strange Fruit'by Elizabeth Blair | Morning Edition
One of Billie Holiday's most iconic songs is "Strange Fruit," a haunting protest against the inhumanity of racism. Many people know that the man who wrote the song was inspired by a photograph of a lynching. But they might not realize that he's also tied to another watershed moment in America's history.
The man behind "Strange Fruit" is New York City's Abel Meeropol, and he really has two stories. They both begin at Dewitt Clinton High School, a public high school in the Bronx that has an astonishing number of famous people in its alumni. James Baldwin went there. So did Countee Cullen, Richard Rodgers, Burt Lancaster, Stan Lee, Neil Simon, Richard Avedon and Ralph Lauren.
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bell hooks: "No Love in the Wild"

No Love in the Wild by bell hooks | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
An often repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it With this assertion in mind I leaving a viewing of the film Beasts of the Southern Wilds deeply disturbed and militantly outraged by the images I have just seen. Having traveled with friends an hour to see this acclaimed movie, I have no way home if I leave the cinema; there were images in the movie that I just did not want inside my head.  Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn tells students that putting images inside our heads is just like eating. And if “you are what you eat” it is equally true that to a grave extent we are what we see. Having read wonderful reviews of the film, pushed by friends and colleagues alike to see it, I was amazed that what I saw they did not see. The majority of folks I talked with, like the reviewers, praised the film’s compelling cinematography, the magical realism, and the poetics of space. In his long affirming review in the New Yorker critic David Denby praises the film, calling it a “vibrant feature.”    
Sadly, all the vibrancy in this film is generated by a crude pornography of violence. At the center of this spectacle is the continuous physical and emotional violation of the body and being of a small six year old black girl called Hushpuppy (played by the ten year old actress Quzenhane Wallis). While she is portrayed as continuously resisting and refusing to be a victim, she is victimized. Subject to both romanticization as a modern primitive and eroticization her plight is presented as comically farcical.  Some audiences laugh as Hushpuppy when enraged at the antics of her disappearing alcoholic oftentimes abusive wild man dad Wink, burns her shanty house. Initially, she hides from the fire in an overturned cardboard box until Wink rescues her by fiercely yelling mean spirited words that both frighten her and lead her to run for her life; in that moment she is more terrified of her raging dad than she is of the fire.
Hushpuppy has a resilient spirit. She is indeed a miniature version of the ‘strong black female matriarch’ racist and sexist representations have depicted from slavery on into the present day. Like the unrealistic racist/sexist stereotypical images of grown black women in the recent blockbuster film The Help who confront all manner of exploitation and oppression only to triumph in this ridiculous macabre fantasy of modern primitivism Hushpuppy is a survivor. From the onset of the film, she is depicted as a wild child, so at home in the natural wild of the Gulf of Mexico bayou world where black and white po’ folks create their own community affectionately called the Bathtub. This is the territory they claim as a renegade place of belonging. It is a total homemade world of make do, use whatever you got to survive.
Nature is the most compelling force in the world of the Bathtub. In this world there is no us-against-them mentality when it comes to human and nature, Instead there is an intimate merger so complete celebration of their collective feral animal nature binds everyone in a sacred contract; they are to resist domestication and civilization at all costs. As Diane Ackerman states in her short essay “Natural Wonder;” “Nature is both personal and panoramic, including a profound sense of our animal essence…All of our being juices, flesh, and spirit is nature. Nature surrounds, permeates, effervesces in, and includes us. At the end of our days, it deranges and disassembles us… There, once living beings, we return to our non-living elements, but we still and forever remain a part of nature.” As explanation this declaration provides the metaphysical backdrop for the role nature plays in Beasts of the Southern Wild. The natural setting that serves as poignant poetic backdrop is real and imaginary in the film. Hushpuppy finds solace in natural wildness, listening to the heartbeat of animals, envisioning her connection to a primordial world what anthropologist Carl Sauer calls “the world before the coming of the white man.” Hushpuppy has visions of a natural world humans are destroying. And even though the other black and white members of the Bathtub community do not share her visions they share the commitment to remain in the wild even as the waters rise. It is the survivalist narrative that seems to most enchant viewers of this film, allowing them to overlook violence, eroticization of children, and all manner of dirt and filth. Just as television audiences remain glued to their seats watching the reality shows that focus on humans struggling against harsh unnatural circumstances and each other to survive, audiences of Beasts of the Southern Wild enjoy this same rush. As in these everyday television survivalist narratives humans in the film are both at one with nature even as they are its potential, victims of a harsh natural world that respects no categories of race, class, or gender.  Of course the message that only the strong survive has been and remains an age old argument for politics of domination, that determine that some folks will live and others will die, that the strong will necessarily rule over the weak.
For many folks who see this film it is the mythic focus that enchants. And yet is precisely this mythic focus that deflects attention away from egregious sub-textual narratives present in the film. Writing about the role of myth n popular media that makes use of race in his book White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness critic Maurice Berger contends: “Despite the visual sophistication and supposed vigilance of a media-oriented culture …Western commentators, critics, and academics seem no to realize how duplicitous words and images can be. They simply do not understand how myths work, how myths hold us hostage to their smooth elegant fictions. The subject of race, perhaps more than any other subject in contemporary life feeds on myth…. Myth is the book, seamless narrative that tells us the contradictions and incongruities of race and racism are too confusing or too dangerous to articulate. Myths provide the elegant deceptions that reinforce our unconscious prejudices. Myths are the white lies that tell us everything is all rig ht, even when it is not.” Deploying myth and fantasy we are shown a world in Beasts of the Southern Wild where black and white poor folks live together in utopian harmony.  No race talk, no racial discourse disturbs the peace.
Only Hushpuppy has a philosophical take on why the world is the way it is but she like everyone else denies the reality of race. Relying on myth and fantasy to survive day to day, this six-year-old prophet shares that we must experience our interdependence and oneness with all living beings and with the past, present, future.  When the big primordial black beasts of her imagination come to confront her she speaks to them declaring “you’re my friends sort of.”  With this statement she acknowledges that nature is both friend and enemy.  For it is the powerful waters of nature that threaten the entire world of the Bathtub leaving death in its wake.  That Hushpuppy has this advanced state of cosmic consciousness is one of the fanciful and irritating aspects of the film. She is only six years old. Of course in the mindset of white supremacy black children no matter their age are always seen as miniature adults.”
Even though black and white folks who are different share space and live in harmony, embracing the notion that their solidarity is tooted in fierce independence, in the willingness to live beyond the law in a world where they make their own rules. Even though such utopian values are depicted as awesomely positive in the film, ultimately it is patriarchal masculinity that rules, that makes the decision. The more crazed, reckless, and violent the alpha male’s behavior the greater his control and dominance. In the closed community of the Bathtub Hushpuppy’s father Wink is the undisputed leader despite the fact that he is almost always ranting and raging with bottle of booze in hand. His male companions are all drinking buddies. Women, whether black or white, drink but say very little; they do not question male authority. When they do speak whether in their role as teacher of prostitute they are simply imparting to children a crude message of self-reliance. They teach the children that they can count on no one.
Hushpuppy’s father is the most vocal advocate of a lawless reckless independence. Wink is the representative hard badass black man. His character is a composite of all the racist/sexist hateful stereotypes that mass media projects about black masculinity. In his study of blacks masculinity From Jim Crow to Jay Z , Miles White reminds readers from the onset of their appearance in films black males were portrayed as “brute or the folkloric bad nigger figure, a lawless man, feared by black and whites alike.” White explains that black male bodies are consistently used in cinema to represent the “brute who is immune to physical and emotional pain.” Even though he is sick and dying from an unnamed disease that causes him to cough and spit blood he remains the ruthless leader of the pack; his hard badness made evident in matter large and small  (whether orchestrating the bombing of the levy or in violent attacks on his little daughter).
Indeed, one of the most disturbing scenes in the film highlights Wink’s dominance and control over everyone, especially Hushpuppy. All the members of the Bathtub community are sitting at the dinner table drinking booze eating fresh crabs. White and black together are all happily drinking and eating. One of the grown white males attempts to show Hushpuppy the ‘proper’ way to extract the meat, watching this Wink erupts into a volcanic rage and screams at Hushpuppy to BEAST IT (i.e. break the crab in half with her bare hands and such the meat out.) Hushpuppy’s mood shifts from that of happy-go-lucky child to one of fear and terror.  All the grown folks watch as she struggles to obey the commands of the father chanting loudly BEAST IT. When she succeeds everyone cheers that she is the man. She holds her arms in the air as though she is a prizefighter who has just won a fight.  And is told, “you’re the man.”
This transgender casting of Hushpuppy as sometimes representing maleness and sometimes femaleness is the constant image when the film begins. From the onset of the movie the camera highlights the back of the child’s body wearing a thin white undershirt and orange boy briefs leading onlookers to wonder are we seeing a boy or a girl. Again and again the camera zooms in on Hushpuppy’s behind. We see her gleefully running and jumping. Audiences wait for a gendered identity to be revealed. Clearly the camera toys with the child’s body pornographically eroticizing the image.
Lucy Alibar, the white female playwright who wrote Juicy and Delicious a play set in Georgia, was clear with this drama, which served as the creative foundation for Beasts, that her protagonist was a ten-year-old boy. With her directing partner Benh Zeitlin she changed the setting to a Louisiana bayou and the star of the show became a sex year old black girl. And it is mighty odd that the story by Doris Betts from which the film derives its name has one of the most sexist racist representations of black masculinity in contemporary southern literature. Given the recent mega success of films featuring southern black females this choice has an opportunistic flavor. And as with the other films, like the Help, representations of black folks are re-mixes of old racist and sexist stereotypes. Images of Hushpuppy echo those of Buckwheat from the once popular television show Our Gang.
Throughout Beasts of the Southern Wild, Wink acts as though he would prefer Hushpuppy to be male. His affectionate gestures towards her are often given as a reward for her enactment of meaningless violence especially when she mimics the behavior of a raging patriarchal male, which Wind personifies. Indeed, gender is performance in the film. When Hushpuppy and all the residents of the Bathtub are ‘rescued’ and taken to a shelter we see her transformed – clean, hair combed and plaited wearing a dress. In that moment she represents perfect domesticated tamed girlhood. But the film soon reminds us this is not the ‘real’ Hushpuppy who as soon as she breaks free of civilization will return to her feral untamed transgendered self. Queer theory helped everyone to understand gender as performance.  In an essay on queer theory specifically focusing on the work of Judith ‘Jack’ Halberstam writer Jeffrey Williamstalks about the ways she /he ‘complicates gender.’  He contends: “whether gender was constructed or natural; it implied a given content; a performance suggested a temporal act.”
Without healthy parenting Hushpuppy has no human being who offers her object constancy; she finds her grounding in nature. Presented as a child of the wild she basically parents herself. Her mama is absent.  Made visible only by Wink’s reminiscence of their sexual bond which he unabashedly shares with Hushpuppy as though he is speaking with another grown person; there are no full frontal camera shot of the mother. Just as the camera focus on the behind of the child wearing her boy briefs, Wink identifies Hushpuppy’s mother by her ass.  She is portrayed as wearing white boy briefs. Talking nostalgically to Hushpuppy about her mother Wink defines her by her hot sexuality. Again the focus is on her behind, which is so sexually ‘hot’ Wink tells Hushpuppy that when her mama enters the kitchen her hot ass turns on burners on the stove, boiling water, making the oven hot. Again as with Hushpuppy the camera zooms in on the mother’s ass.
In the absence of the body and being of the mother to establish object constancy, to teach her ‘female roles’ showing her own to live as a female in the wild, Hushpuppy projects that she hears the voice of the mother guiding her. Talking to the imaginary mother Hushpuppy places a sports jersey on a chair as symbolic mother and then the conversation begins. The jersey suggests symbolic deconstruction of gender. Without the body and being of the mother to help Hushpuppy establish a sense if self she dares to symbolically give birth to the mother by giving her a voice. We never know what silences the voice of the mother just as there is no explanation for her absence.
When the girls of the Bathtub are ‘rescued’ by a white male looking for survivors of the storm they are taken to a juke joint/whore house identified first by the neon sign announcing “girls, girls, girls.” Like so much else that makes no sense in this film it is not clear why the wise little Hushpuppy comes aboard this boat and allows her and her friends to be taken by a white male stranger arousing fears in the onlooker that the girls are destined to be the victim of a male sexual predator. However, at the juke joint it is grown women, white and black, who touch and hold the girls in ways that are inappropriate, at times maternal then sexual. Adult male sexual predators are observers of these interactions. Hushpuppy is ushered into a private room where a sexy good-looking black woman assumes a maternal role towards her, holding her, cooking her food.
When this new symbolic mother, who like the biological mom has no name, holds the small girl in her arms, cradling her, Hushpuppy says: “I can count on two hands the times when I’ve been lifted up.” This is the bold declaration that lets viewers know that Hushpuppy suffers psychologically from the traumatic pain in her childhood, that she is wounded by life with a violent raging alcoholic father, by the loss of her mother, and ultimately the death that will claim her dad. But she is only given cooked food and emotional shelter for a brief moment in time. With this feeding she is also given a lesson in survival, told that she has only her self to count on, that no else will be there for her, that she must be ‘strong.’ This is certainly the message black females have received in the culture of imperialist capitalist white supremacist patriarchy from slavery on into the present day.
Wink teaches his daughter showing emotions is a sign of weakness, that she must be tough. When she cries because her daddy is dying, he tells her to let those tears go. Parent and child roles are reversed, Hushpuppy becomes the pseudo adult hospice caregiver easing her father’s passage back to the watery womb of nature At times Wink is affectionate and caring towards his child but rage always engulfs their brief bittersweet positive encounters. Engaged in brutal acts of repressing emotions or acting them our Wink is a hard man without any boundaries. His pain and his pleasure are a constant mix and his mood shifts are as erratic and unplanned as the storms that threaten everyone’s well being. Of course after his rage passes like the storms in the natural world there is silence, calm, peace.
Hushpuppy finds her place of solace of calm in constructing a mythic life as she can have no meaningful grounding in reality. Her strength lies in cultivating the imaginary and living life as fantasy. Mirroring Wink she is trapped in a state of arrested development. Wink and his fellow inhabitants of the Bathtub choose to see their emotional responses as mystical revelations, as the primal blood speaking at the core of their being. Concerned with remaining always in touch with his untamed nature writer D. H. Lawrence provides a manifesto that can easily refer to the community values of the Bathtub declaring: “My religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect.  We can go wrong in our minds but what our blood feels and believes and says is always true.” In keeping with this emotionality of the blood Wink is dying of an unnamed disease that causes him to spit blood. Not only must Hushpuppy feed and comfort him, she (not his adult male drinking, not even the adult white male whom Winks declared will be her new father when he is gone assist or comfort her. Hushpuppy does not respond to this announcement, the white male does not claim her or help her build the floating funeral pyre where Wink lies awaiting his return to nature.
As she is throughout this film Hushpuppy is again abandoned. It is a major mystery that moviegoers adore this film and find it deeply moving and entertaining. Amid many real life tragedies of adult violation of children (i.e. Penn State,) violations that subject small children to verbal abuse, physical and psychological violence’ sexual assault, it is truly a surreal imagination that can look past the traumatic abuse Hushpuppy endures and be mesmerized and entertained by Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Ultimately this film expresses a conservative agenda.  Before audiences had a clue about its content, the notion that it was somehow a radical response to Katrina circulated. But there is nothing radical about the age-old politics of domination the movie espouses – insisting that only the strong survive, that disease weeds out the weak (i.e. the slaughter of Native Americans,) that nature chooses excluding and including. If Wink represents the dying untamed primitive then what does Hushpuppy represent. Her fate is unclear. Given all that she endures she may just end up being the mad black female, talking to herself, wandering in a wilderness of spirit so profound that she is forever lost.
No wonder then that seeing this film causes some of us to feel a deep sense of hurt and remembered pain.  Sorrow for all the lost traumatized children, but especially abused and abandoned black children, whose bodies become the playing fields where pornographies of violence are hidden behind romantic evocations of mythic union and reunion with nature. In the end there is no one to lift these small bodies up, to call down from the skies a healing grace that can redeem and set free. R and B artist Jackie Wilson sang of a love that lifts one higher. For Hushpuppy and those like her, there is no love, no hands holding on, just a blank emptiness onto which any mark can be placed, any fantastical story written. All along the way Hushpuppy has not been at the center of Beasts of the Southern Wild. She is marginalized; she is a backup singer. No wonder then, so few listeners fail to choose a standpoint where they might witness her suffering or hear her ongoing anguished lament.
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bell hooks is Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies at Berea College. Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, she has chosen the lower case pen name bell hooks, based on the names of her mother and grandmother, to emphasize the importance of the substance of her writing as opposed to who she is.  She is the author of over thirty books, many of which have focused on issues of social class, race, and gender. Her latest book is titled Belonging: A Culture of Place. 

You Betta Werk!: Professors Talk Style Politics

You Betta Werk!: Professors Talk Style Politics by Tanisha C. Ford | special to NewBlackMan *
In recent years, appropriate attire for professors has been a hotly debated topic. Scholars from various disciplines have offered instruction, fashion tips and personal narratives about the importance of dress. In response to my article, Haute Couture In The Ivory Tower, professors of color posted on my Facebook and twitter pages, recounting their own fun and sometimes troubling stories related to dress in the academy.
The lively conversations in the social mediasphere motivated me to put on my “Oprah” hat (a stylish Chanel one of course!). I interviewed several female and male hip hop generation professors who make it werk (Tim Gunn voice) everyday on campuses across the country. Yet, their stylish choices and intellectual talents do not immunize them from scrutiny and questions. In fact, my interviews reveal a heightened level of criticism, shock, and awe particularly directed at women of color faculty.
Below are excerpts from some of the interviews I conducted with women professors of color. Together, these interviews illustrate that studies on fashion and adornment politics offer a powerful lens through which we can explore other important issues such as women’s rights, motherhood and relationship status, pleasure and sexuality, and the politics of “respectability.”I asked them the following questions:
How do you incorporate your personal fashion sense into your professional attire?Do you think women and/or men of color in the academy face unique challenges that are (directly or indirectly) linked to a politics of dress and adornment?
Dr. Siobhan Carter-David is an Assistant Professor of History at Southern Connecticut State University and the curator of “Strong Shoulder: Revisiting the Women’s Power Suit.” 
I incorporate my personal style into my professional attire by mixing the moderate (sometimes, even conservative) with the extreme. Exposed tattoos are coupled with silk dresses, ornate vintage belts and handbags, and “serious” statement jewelry. I do have to make some small changes to accommodate my pregnancy. I choose shift dresses, pretty tunics with tights, and cute fitting blazers (left open) to go along with my pregnant look. I do think that women and men of color face unique challenges that are linked to our politics of adornment. Being an expectant mom does add another dimension to these politics. While I am not socially conservative, I must admit that I find comfort and security in prominently displaying my wedding ring(s) while pregnant. It is a defense mechanism against the prejudices of students, faculty and staff on campus. I was prejudged during my first pregnancy five years ago. I am African American, appear several years younger than my actual age (so I’ve been told), with a style aesthetic that I refuse to give up. In my students’ eyes, I looked like a “ghetto teenager” since I don’t wear pumps and pearls. Despite my accomplishments and credentials, I am still proud to be that girl from the Bronx. But my students’ could not imagine me as also being a wife, mother, and intellectual. That girl, they imagine, doesn’t know shit about the social and cultural implications of [U.S.] Reconstruction.
Dr. Tiffany Gill is an Associate Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of the award-winning book Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women’s Activism in the Beauty Industry.
I focus on wearing pieces that make me feel confident, feminine and powerful. I focus on bold colors and prints, trendy accessories, classic staple pieces, and my signature face: dramatic eye makeup and sparkly lip gloss. When I stand in front of a lecture hall full of sleepy undergraduates, sit around a conference table during a long faculty meeting, or give a public lecture on my research, my style allows me to bring the various aspects of my life together in a way that is unapologetically me. While I’ve always been confident in my personal style as a professor, even as it departs heavily from that of most of my white colleagues, I have never underestimated the peculiar challenges I have as a young (I got my first tenure track job at 29) black woman in the academy. I’ve had many instances, especially early in my career, when students have entered my classroom looking for the professor and were astonished when they realized that it was me…As such, I have always known that I have had to fight to earn the respect that some of my colleagues automatically receive by virtue of embodying what a “real’ professor looks like…Today I see scholars of color in my generation flexing our intellectual as well as aesthetic prowess in unprecedented ways.  We have reclaimed the pleasure of style and have merged it with the rigors of intellectual pursuit. The academy must be willing to embrace a multiplicity of style choices as well as intellectual perspectives.
Dr. Asia Leeds is an Assistant Professor of African Diaspora & World Studies at Spelman College.
One of my friends describes my style as “urban-earthy.” I’ll mix an African print dress with a black blazer, for example. On days that I wear a more understated or monochromatic outfit, I’ll incorporate a pop of color with shoes. Fun, colorful belts are also a way that I bring a plain black or navy blue dress to life. Needless to say, I need color in my life!  It gives me energy. I don’t like to look like everyone else; my personal style is an important extension and reflection of my identity.  I am young, a global citizen, and “Afropolitan,” if you will. During one postdoctoral experience, however, I wore a head wrap to campus and had a meeting with colleagues that day. I wasn’t trying to make a statement, but inevitably I did.  My colleagues (none were black) were so intrigued–a little too intrigued for my taste–and I felt like they were exoticizing me, as I felt they had with my previous hairstyle and jewelry choices.  They always reacted in seemingly positive and excited (and anthropological!) ways, but I don’t feel comfortable having SO MUCH attention on what I am wearing, especially when we should be discussing research and ideas! The best thing about academia is that you can define “professional” for yourself.  Now that I’m teaching at an HBCU and a women’s college, I do feel like I have to present myself as a role model, in terms of fashion, feminism, and as a ‘natural hair ambassador.’  I want students to take note of how Afros, African prints, etc. can look professional.
Dr. Treva Lindsey is an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Missouri who lectures on hip hop soul and black women’s sexual politics.
I proudly identify as a “single black female addicted to retail!” (Thanks Ye!)…One of my many nicknames, Dr. Diva, conveys a sense of the connection I make between my personal fashion sense and my professional attire. As a self-proclaimed diva, I embrace audacity, timelessness, sultriness, and an unwavering commitment to feminine artifice…I strive to feel fully present in my professional attire. More likely than not, I will have on some fly heels or boots and a perfectly tailored pair of slacks or a form-fitting knee length dress…On that rare occasion, when I question if a dress or skirt is appropriate, I tend to go for it. I write about African American women defying conventions and rejecting politics of respectability—so why not explore the terrain of defiance and boldness in my personal-professional style? In addition to the many challenges people of color in the academy face, we must combat particular challenges regarding attire and adornment that often inscribe our experiences. From politics of respectability to controlling images such as the Jezebel, professors of color navigate a volatile terrain of self-presentation. Many of the issues we combat entail multiple fronts. I feel pressure to “dress” professionally, while many of my white male counterparts do not feel a similar pressure. BUT, if I look “too fashionable,” questions arise about my commitment to being a scholar…Ultimately, I know it matters “what we wear,” and yet, the complexity of politics surrounding how we adorn ourselves continues to perplex me.
Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers is an Associate Professor of History at Indiana University-Bloomington and the author of the award-winning book Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston.
My favorite color is red (it’s my “power color”) so I try to incorporate it (and other, bold hues) into my professional attire in order to give my teaching outfits a little “pop.” …Many of my outfits are actually very low-key. I veer toward the classic over the trendy any day, likely a holdover from my days in investment banking. But, [my outfits] appear “pulled together” or punched up because I’ve paired a basic skirt or classic dress with a great pair of patchwork suede boots, for example. I’ve noticed that many of my older, white colleagues (male and female) have a somewhat peculiar reaction to my attire, and to the attire of women of color in general. Their comments have often implied that those who “look good” must not be terribly bright, or that they are maybe not as serious about history, or not as intellectual as they are, because they are too focused on clothing and other “frivolous” matters… On the flip side, however, if I showed up in the classroom dressed the way many of my older white colleagues do (particularly the male ones) I would have an impossible time being treated with respect by my students. Many of them are already inclined to be disrespectful towards me because I look young, am female, short in stature, and a person of color. How I dress thus does matter, and there is clearly a politics of dress. At the end of the day, I dress for myself, but I am always cognizant that others are watching.
Dr. Ebony Utley is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at California State University Long Beach and the author of the critically acclaimed Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta’s God.
My personal style manifests in my professional attire via period dresses and heels. Every day of lecture throughout the semester I wear a different dress so students are shocked when I show up to the final in jeans. Because students dress increasingly casually, I don’t feel pressure to suit it up. That would create too much of a division between me and them. Also, because I teach popular culture classes or courses with huge popular culture components, I need to look like I know what’s trendy or I lose my credibility. I often “shop my students.” By that I mean, take stock in what’s trendy for them and try to incorporate some of the accessories or styles into my own look so that I can continue to connect with a younger and younger crowd. I’ve never seen my wardrobe as a justification for who I am or a justification for my presence in a certain space. My sartorial choices have always been reflective of my personal style not others’ expectations of me. And truthfully, those expectations have always been relatively low—because I look younger than my age (which is younger than most), and because of my race and gender. No one expects me to open my mouth and sound smart. I use that to my advantage, especially when surrounded by strangers… If anything, I think there are more young professors who aren’t afraid to [express their personal style] because the penalty for surviving this academic game and losing yourself is just too high.
These interviews elucidated the reality that women of color in particular face complex adornment politics. A Chronicle of Higher Education article, Professors: Hot At Their Own Risk, demonstrates the challenges of being an attractive and stylish black, female academic. Commenters—self-identified as professors—targeted Professor Ebony Utley who unapologetically stated that she cares about her appearance and strives to looks nice. They posted insensitive remarks such as, “If this is what she wears when she lectures then I’m not surprised she is approached by students,” when responding to Utley’s story about a student who told her she could “make more money as a high class hooker.” Another scolded, “We’re not there to be ‘hot.’ We’re there to teach.” Utley and other women of color aren’t hearing any of this.  Instead, they are continuing to use their personal style to define “appropriate” and “professional” on their own terms.
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Tanisha C. Ford, Ph.D., is an award-winning writer, intellectual, and activist designing her own brand of “Haute Couture Intellectualism.” She is currently writing a book, Liberated Threads: Black Women and the Politics of Adornment. She is an Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Follow her on Twitter @SoulistaPhd.
*Originally Published @ The Feminist Wire

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