Raquel Cepeda's Blog, page 7

This Reminded of That: History Repeating Itself. Unfortunately.

This story…

…reminded me of this segment of…

Michael Moore‘s Bowling For Columbine, by the genius folks (and I’m not saying that because they’re helping me animate parts of Deconstructing Latina!) at FlickerLab. So, so, so true. Still. Unfortunately.

People can be really fucking stupid.

President Obama Bums Me Out & A Postscript About the N-Word

So, yeah. By now, you’ve probably heard all about President Obama’s new My Brother’s Keeper initiative on the tube. It’s aimed, according to a White House blog on the subject published this morning, at “empowering boys and young men of color, a segment of our society which too often faces disproportionate challenges and obstacles to success.” In the blog, the authors drop some alarming knowledge on us  about the state of young Black and Latino men. An example:

For decades, opportunity has disproportionately lagged behind for boys and young men of color – particularly in our African American and Latino communities.  As recently as 2013, only 14 percent of black boys and 18 percent of Hispanic boys scored proficient or above on the 4th grade reading component of the National Assessment of Educational Progress compared to 42 percent of white boys and 21 percent of black and Hispanic girls. Youth who cannot read “proficiently” by third grade are four times less likely to graduate high school by 19.

That’s the sad truth. And as a mother of a young Dominican- Haitian- and Black-American child, it’s a downright scary reality to be faced with. I hope that by the time my almost two-year-old is of age, our young men of color will have confronted and overcome the real issue: our collective Identity Crisis, and the lack of diversity and diminishing arts-driven curriculums throughout the country. Until we take a holistic approach to the problem, our young boys and girls—our nation—will continue to suffer the consequences. President Obama can conjure Martin Luther King, Jr. to the point of ad nauseam—and to do that so often is showing how (ironically) out of touch he is with the complexion of today’s America—and nothing will change. It feels dated. (And hey, is anyone else wondering why this initiative wasn’t introduced in his first term?)

Today, on NPR’s Barbershop (Confession: like Colbert, I don’t really tune in to NPR but as I was using el Google to research the topic, I came across this segment), I heard producer/writer Rick Najera say something that made total sense. I had stored away the fact that the Pew Research Center had published last fall: The Obama Administration has deported more immigrants annually than the George W. Bush Administration (WTF you say?! READ all about it here).

Fact Tank: Pew Research Center

So yeah, like Najera, I’m also skeptical. In the segment—listen below—he echoed something I caught when he told NPR’s Michel Martin, about President Obama’s initiative:

It didn’t seem like it was that much aimed at Latino youth…sometimes we look at him as the Deporter-in-Chief because he’s deported more Latinos than Bush did…and even look at the young men behind him—most of them are black…Yes. it’s a good program but let’s not forget the Latinos.

While I am not sure what Najera meant by “Black”—I’m assuming he’s speaking phenotypes because he did mention the exclusion of Mexicans, who have a huge presence in Chi-town where the group of young men standing behind President Obama were culled from, and therefore an exclusion of Indigenous-looking folks—but at any rate, that’s another story. Still, I can relate with his cynicism.

The other topic the Barbershop discussed (at the end of the segment), aside from Spike Lee’s remarks about gentrification, was the National Football League’s consideration of implementing a 15-yard penalty for players using the N-word on the field. The panelists sparred a bit on the point but I think they agree that the NFL shouldn’t play N-word police: you decide. But I did hear one of them express that heads today have re-appropriate the term that “works for them.”

I am not the N-word po-po and have tried to use the term, in a broader context (the earliest record of the word I’ve read was used as a slur against a West African slave in modern day Dominican Republic: see Open Veins of Latin America), to discuss how Latino- and Black-Americans have a (painful) shared history… Regardless, I would argue that the use of the word isn’t a re-appropriation: you would have to know the meaning and context before flipping the definition. I’m not sure that we’ve pushed that conversation far enough yet. And anyways, no matter what position you take, if the cultural leaders we’ve put on a pedestal use it to refer to themselves then I don’t see the masses following suit. But, I digress.

 

 

The (Identity) Crisis Continues

Last night, on the second anniversary of Trayvon Martin‘s death by murder, an important multigenerational gap was being bridged at The New School. Mr. Harry Belafonte, Dream Defenders‘ Phillip Agnew, Dr. Khalil Muhammad, and me wrapped up the The American Race Crisis Lectures with a panel discussion. Titled THE CRISIS CONTINUES, aimed to answer two major questions: Have the civil rights era passed the torch to those fighting for justice and equality today? (Short answer: I would  argue, no, not really.) and Where do we go from here? (Short answer: In order to move forward we need to face our collective Identity Crisis.)

The panel—see the full video below—delves into the aforementioned questions, and explores an array of other issues. I believe in a holistic approach: revolution starts within, with the self. We can not coalesce into a movement without building a strong foundation. Until we address this fundamental issue, this Identity Crisis, we will continue to see reincarnations of Emmett Till in the form of Trayvon Martin and, more recently, Jordan Davis, and scores of children whose faces and names we will never know. We must start getting to know ourselves, our history, and one another. If Zimmerman—and maybe this is a stretch—saw the historical and social and cultural similarities, the shared experiences, between his mother’s background and those of Black-Americans, he may not have acted like a scared-to-death wild cowboy. We will never know.

Do you agree or disagree with any of the points we made in the video? Please share. Let’s inform one another. 

Before I go, I wanted to give an extra special shout-out to Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf and Ladi’Sasha Jones of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for giving me the platform to talk about these critical issues. As the only woman to have participated in the series (including 1964!), their inclusion of a female perspective was crucial.

 

The MotherF*ckin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome

The other day, I was watching researcher Zaheer Ali‘s lecture on Livestream, cleverly dubbed X(CLUDED)—you can see it here—about how and why Malcolm X was disinvited to give a lecture at The New School in 1964, intended to “broaden understanding of the struggle for racial equality” during the Civil Rights Movement. The talk was arresting, spot on, and applicable to polarizing figures and events today. (This doesn’t apply to those white and conservatives overrated media figures who say the most outrageous things in the media under the veil of fervent patriotism: they are just expressing their love for Americanism.)

Zaheer, in a nutshell, spoke about four main issues monkey-wrenching Malcolm X that are still pervasive today:

Misreading:  Malcolm X was taken out of context by, in my words, those critics who, as we see today, are still being rewarded for assimilating to the idea of Americanism by not being muzzled or having their voices muted in the media. Today, when we see our nation’s cultural critics take the stage, you may notice that there is still no gender/biological/political/racial/ethnic diversity among them. Many are recycling the same archaic and carefully packaged conversations that we can almost sing-along to rather than taking those moments in the national spotlight to push the conversation any further. We aren’t putting things into its proper context when speaking about the American Race Crisis of today unless it’s filtered through a rigid Black-and-white lens.  And when it comes to our Identity Crisis, well—don’t get me started on that front (more on that later).


Piecing Apart: Taking a little bit of this and that without looking at the person and what s/he represents in totality continues to happen today. We are, in essence, dehumanizing our leaders and public figures, turning them into objects of worship rather than looking at them as fallible and complex human beings. I believe that if we accepted the humanity of these figures they would start to become accessible, and we may have accept responsibility for our own actions or apathy. So, for example, when we see a figure like hip-pop artist Nicky Minaj using an iconic image of an armed Malcolm X looking out the window, protecting his family from death threats, for her profoundly uncreative jingle in where she spits 1% values like an 85-percenter (hip-hop heads and Jimmy Fallon, ya’ll get it), we shouldn’t rush to judgement. We should take a moment and step back, think about the broader context of what this says about our educational system and our collective Identity Crisis as people of color, and maybe accept some of the responsibility. We created her, many have exalted her as a cultural leader, and have sent her out into the world ill-prepared. (Still, I’m crazy-disgusted by the stunt but am trying to approach the situation differently.)


Mischaracterization still happens today. People look at our activists and cultural leaders, often confusing the two, like they do race and ethnicity, and even popular culture and rap music today, through a binary lens. There are good activists and bad ones. There are so-called socially conscious rappers and then, what I call dandy rappers, who, by definition, are unduly devoted to style, neatness and fashion in dress and appearance. (To use “gangsta” as a definer of rap music today seems a little outdated.) You’re either conservative or militant in your political views. We look at each other the way we look at culture, our society, and race, etc., today: a Black-and-white lens. The world is a little bit more colorful than that. AND IF YOU REP THE MIDDLE, then—


Marginalization is what will likely happen to you and the Other voices, those figures that are often misread.

Just as I was really getting into Ali’s lecture, someone sent me an article about Brooklynite film director Spike Lee going on a “rant” at Pratt Institute for a lecture in honor of African American History Month. Let me translate: New York magazine dismissed Lee’s valid and colorful approach at voicing his frustration at seeing his ‘hood gentrified as being a rant. I and countless native New Yorkers feel Spike Lee to the fullest and are vexed by the “motherf*ckin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome” many gentrifiers are moving into the city with. It’s septic. And to see him marginalized and dismissed was, well, was a side effect of this syndrome. (I won’t even get into the shallow piece the magazine ran about gentrification in my Inwood ‘hood right now.)

Same shit, different decade.

Oh, How Time Flies!

Hoping to show you all why I’ve been silent for the last month and change: deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, and some traveling. Once published, I will post. Be patient with me: my goal this month is to master the art of managing my blog while making writing deadlines, push my documentary forward, work on several proposals, box (more on that soon!), and be present for my almost-two-year-old son and seventeen-year-old daughter. Oh, yeah, and update this site, especially the Appearances page (so check back often)! Oh, and how could I forget—I’m close to finishing a companion curriculum for my book Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina, out in paperback THIS TUESDAY, February 4!

Speaking of my daughter, I’d like to shout Djali out for the love she received from Ebony.com, who recently featured her in their Coolest Black Kid in America column (She also proudly identifies as Latina-American). I’m proud of her and all her accomplishments. A lot more is to come on that front and I’m excited for her. Pictured below is a moment djali caught when we were at the California Lighthouse in Aruba.

Anyways, I’m back. It’s good to be here.

 

 

Like Mother, Like Daughter…

I’m so proud of my daughter for more reasons than I have space to list. Among other things, she writes a fresh blog called Family Swank for Mass Appeal that features what the cool kids are doing around the U.S. And now, she’s been been featured on indighostly for her poetry. The piece, HERSTORY, explores generation-right-now feminism. She never ceases to amaze me (just don’t tell her that because I have to keep her on her toes!).

 

 

 

A dominiyorkian in Paris

A couple weeks ago, my husband told me he was going to Paris to film a leg of a documentary he’s working on about the history of hip-hop and urban fashion. I didn’t think twice about inviting myself to go with. I love Paris, even in the winter, and, more importantly, I had an overdue debt to pay to Saint Rita. A disclaimer: I’m not a Christian. I have a laundry list of issues with the religion—at least the way it’s been manipulated and practiced in the West—and I believe it shackles the soul into submission, guilt, and, worse, into believing that certain groups of people were are destined to, quite literally, live their lives as slaves. [Side note: Director Steve McQueen dealt with the issue beautifully and directly in his important film, 12 Years A Slave. See it, now. Right now. As in, read the rest of this post later...]

I respect my Christian/Catholic friends and have never challenged their beliefs even though I don’t agree with them. And while I don’t have faith in organized religion in general, I do believe in a Higher Being. God speaks an infinite number of languages, and as an omnipotent spirit, S/He manifests in just as many forms with cool names like Buddha, Ganesh, Olofi, Yahweh, Allah, and so forth, to help us process He/r awesomeness. God is so freaking cool and the ultimate enigma that S/He sometimes enlists helpers in the form of saints, demigods, spiritual guides, our ancestors, and even the forces of nature, to break things down for us measly mortals. And this is where Saint Rita comes in.

The last time I was here, in 2009, I was strolling around the city with my daughter when I found myself suddenly being pulled into the direction of the ancient Saint-Germain-des-Prés church in the sixth arrondissement. I went with the flow like I usually do, letting the spirit take me where it needed me to go. I sat down in one of the the tiny wooden chairs in the center of the church and imagined history happening around me. I noticed groups of people walking around with flowers and written notes in hand and placing them at the feet of different saints.

Inexplicably, I got up and walked over to a saint I had never heard of before Rita of Cascia, and wrote her a note. I asked her for guidance, blessings, and to help me move forward in my professional and personal life. I won’t go into the details but I proceeded to leave the note by her feet and light a candle. Then we left and I went on with life.

While I was looking for a photo from that trip about a year later, I came across a snapshot I took of Saint Rita and it all came back to me: the compulsion, the energy, the feeling I had met a spiritual guide through her…the note. And I remembered that I promised to go back and make her an offering if she worked with me to move things along. Every single petition I made to Saint Rita came to pass. When I began to research her, I learned that she was a real person born Margherita Lotti in Umbria, Italy. She was a survivor of domestic abuse and upon her husband’s murder—her sons died shortly afterward—, began to live quite an amazing, if not surreal, life.

While I’m not down with Catholicism, I respected the way she lived her life and, particularly, her diplomatic skills. And I began to understand why she invited me, if you will, to meet her in Paris. Saint Rita was canonized in 1900 and began to be the intermediary associated with realizing impossible causes, marriage, abuse, and mothers. Mothers. Maybe she chose me, I thought, because I never really had a mother. I was estranged from the woman who birthed me for most of my life. Saint Rita, knowing this, stepped in to be that presence in my life.

Earlier today, I had the good fortune of being able to return to the church, introduce her to my son, and light a candle for her. I didn’t want to say goodbye so I wrote Saint Rita another note and walked away without a word, all the while praying that life will lead me back to her so that I can add more spiritual currency to my karma bank.

I Fought Last Night To Knock Out Cancer & Won!!! #HaymakersForHopeNYC

I won my first fight, in the master’s division, last night: not a bad way to continue my year-long 40th birthday celebration which started back in Gemini!!! It was cool, although I must admit that I never envisioned debuting in front of 1500 people at the Hammerstein Ballroom at a huge charity event. The ring was a bit disorienting because it was larger than the one I had been sparring in at Mendez, and I was a bit deflated by the technical glitch that happened during my intro video and ended after my introduction—the audience only heard the great announcer David Diamante say my last name the second time. Bummer. No matter. I went in and managed to shake off my nerves by round two…and I won. So, it was a great night after all. The best news, however, came this morning when I read in an email from one of  Haymakers For Hope‘s founders, that they raised about $575,000 so far, exceeding the organization’s expectations. Andrew and David Myerson, and the amazing Golden Glove champ Julie Kelly, are rock stars. I’m so honored to have been part of this great charity, blessed even. All of our fights should be posted on the site within the next several weeks or so…stay tuned.

A Vignette, for The New York Times: Travel

I contributed a piece in today’s New York Times called “My Caribbean: 5 Vignettes” which was published as the Travel section’s coverstory. I contributed a postcard, if you will, about a recent trip to my ancestral land, the Dominican Republic. I had gone there on a production jaunt earlier this year for a documentary I’m currently in production on called Deconstructing Latina (working title). It was a magical trip on most fronts (but I’ll get into those details later when we’re closer to finishing the film).

I have a love-hate relationship with D.R.: I hate it for many of its backward policies like omitting the identifier “indio” from it’s cedula (an I.D. card). That move was an attempt to whitewash the island’s Indigenous history: totally ass backwards if you look at how Indigenous culture is a main artery of the nation’s fabric and is being found in the DNA of its people, including my own. And, of course, the more outrageous plan to strip Dominicans of Haitian descent of their citizenship, is repulsive to me and many Dominicans here and on the island. These are two of a long laundry list of issues that make me want to give D.R. a time-out.

And yet, despite its ruling class and questionable policies, the island is pure magic. Santo Domingo is the seat of the Americas, for better and for worse, and is the New World’s original melting pot. It’s history is tragic and epic. The Dominican Republic is the site of the first slave rebellion in the Americas, in 1522, and has some of the oldest Indigenous cave art in the Caribbean. There are so many things about Dominican history, its real history—not the misinformation we’re taught in school and the self-loathing one-note narrative the media recycles (which is mostly fiction)—that make me proud to identify as a Dominican-American, or rather, a dominiyorkian, that I don’t have the room to list them all here. But folks, if you only knew the truth, you’d fall hard for her too. —> READ MY VIGNETTE HERE.

To Honor the 20th Anniversary of Wu-Tang’s Epic Debut, Myspace Did Something Novel

One of my favorite moments of the 1990s was going to Wu-Tang Clan’s record release party at Webster Hall in support of their debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). It was so fresh, so dope, I still remember it as if it all went down last night. I counted two, maybe three, yellow school bus loads filled with Wu’s friends and family from Shaolin. They were ushered in and given carte blanche to the front of the stage before any one else was allowed it. Genius. I remember running into my homie, the writer/actor/renaissance man Bonz Malone, who turned to me at some point during Wu’s performance and said, quite emotionally, “Damn, I love this shit.” I remember Ol’ Dirty Bastard limping around on stage in a cast—I have no idea what happened to his leg, but the cast was wrapped around most of it—and him falling on his back. The room went silent for a few long seconds and Ol’ Dirty exploded with a hearty “Come on baby, baby/ Come on, baby, baby/ Come on baby, baby/ Come ooooonnnnn!!!” as his crew in the front cheered him on and we looked on as if this dude was on some other shit. Well, he was on some other shit, but whatever it was, it made the guy levitate. I swear. If I had to sum up that performance and the night in two words, I would have to be: magic realism.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago: a staff writer from Myspace sent me an email inviting me to contribute a short story inspired by a song from the album. What a fresh idea, I thought to myself, immediately agreeing to it, not caring about whether or not I was getting paid for my piece. In the end, a collection of twelve short stories were gleaned together.

I chose a lesser known track “Tearz,” because I loved the storytelling in it. I love writing fiction and this was an fun exercise for me. It begins like this:

13.

I never understood why it didn’t occur to them to add a thirteenth floor when they built The Caroline Apartments. I mean, there’s a twelfth floor and a fourteenth floor but not a thirteenth? Why act like it doesn’t exist when it clearly does? I wonder if the assholes that built this housing nightmare and then broke out leaving us to fend for ourselves on some Lord of the Flies type shit thought we were that stupid. And it doesn’t really matter anyway because this whole building got a bad case of the fukú.

It all spiraled downhill the moment that motherfucker Tony got deposited in front of 14H…READ WHAT HAPPENS NEXT HERE