Why Do Black Women’s Mags Struggle in The Marketplace and Other Questions of Ownership For Futuristic Black Girls

Renina — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:50:21 +0000

Tags: Black women, Ownership, Video Vixens, Honey Magazine, Clutch Magazine

I’ve been obsessed with the idea of Black women and ownership for the last year or so. So I was particularly intrigued when I saw a post on tumblr by @BlackGirlRevolution (citing Clutch Mag ’07) on why mainstream Black Girl magazines struggle.

Black people are hyper consumptive. Our estimated buying power will be 1.1 trillion in 2015. This is a really fancy way of saying that given our wages, many of us tend to buy more than other folks, many of us tend to watch tv more, go to the movies more and in some ways use the internet more than other folks.

Now this issue of consumption is important when we think about how advertising companies value our dollars. Black girl dollars.

So, why do Black girl magazines struggle? I don’t have all of the answers to that question, but I do have a couple of ideas.

I think that there is relationship between the fact that many Black girls styles stay being co-opted, that many Black girls and women are hyper consumers and trend setters, and the fact that within mainstream media there is a deep investment in being ambivalent towards representing Black women in girls in print media in a nuanced , contradictory, glorious, human ways.

I see it as a willful erasure. But, #blackgirlsarefromthefuture. And Honey magazine is on tumblr

Black girl style (see the above XO Jane post) can be mined for and sold back to us within the mainstream, but we will have to continually fight struggles about whether White women should be allowed to appear on Essence.

For me this lack of representation isn’t about natural hair pudding or the new brick red lipstick, this is about the fact that I contend that a barometer of Black women’s freedom is their ability to produce, control, disseminate and profit from their own stories. My homegirl (one word) Dylan Digits says that folks are scared of stories/representations of Black women because it,

..messes up the narrative that we’ve been sold and grown comfortable with. Once that leap happens from face/prop/stereotype/object to a complex person with agency, then we’re forced to reckon with the humanity of that person. That’s a scary thing, because recognizing humanity in someone means you can see yourself in them and vice-versa. And if you can feel that sense of empathy, you can’t tell yourself you’re completely separate from and better than Black women. And if you can’t tell yourself that, then the whole system starts shaking a bit as all that poison you’ve ingested and internalized starts to lose its hold. Who knows what a person who is seen and treated as a whole human being is capable of?

Keep it even, Dylan Digits is a White woman and SHE sees me, she sees us. Perhaps most significantly she sees the connection between ownership, race and economic justice.

If the issue of Black girls and representation isn’t about hair pudding and brick lip stick ( I LURVE a brick lip color btw), it is about the intersection of racism and sexism, it is about the struggle to be seen as a citizen in the US when your body is marked as brown and female, it is about the fact that Ms. Lauryn Hill has sold 50 million records and is speaking publicly about the negotiations, sacrifices and benefits that come with being a public Black Girl Genius.

Ms. Hill writes,

It took years for me to get out of the ‘parasitic’ dynamic of my youth, and into a deal that better reflects my true contribution as an artist, and (purportedly) gives me the control necessary to create a paradigm suitable for my needs. I have been working towards this for a long time, not just because of my current legal situation, but because I am an artist, I love to create, and I need the proper platform to do so.

The nature of my new business venture, as well as the dollar amount reported, was inaccurate, only a portion of the overall deal. Keep in mind, my past recordings have sold over 50,000,000 units worldwide, earning the label a tremendous amount of money (a fraction of which actually came to me).

I think Ms. Hill’s comments are important because of the scale. We can sale 50 copies or 50 million copies, and issues of ownership and race will always be central to Black women’s work.

Because I contend however that Black women’s history is central to US history, I am always tracing the intersection of money, gender and race because we are still brave.

The question of ownership also came up for me a couple of months ago, when I learned that a professional photographer of video vixens had only 5 photos of the lady video vixens on Instagram, but nearly 2000 followers. I instantly thought to myself, if these women’s bodies are that valuable, then why didn’t the video vixens start their own social network or even internet platform. Clearly they have a brand and the provide a service and value that people are willing to pay for. A perusal of a few urban rap blogs will demonstrate how central Black women’s bodies are to pop culture. The below image is the result of a google image search for the terms “eye candy”.

I know that my argument for a central video vixen site assumes that video vixens would want to work together or that there was even a willingness to commit to such a project/site. To me however it makes the most plain sense. As Black women owners of their property, platform and value, they could eat the food of the urban rap blogger sites by charging a collectively decided minimum for add buy-ins and providing a platform to reach out to their loyal fans. A video vixen mobile app would be egregious. Rather than having their images appear on blogs with the promise becoming a model one day, the money could be obtained up front. I mean, if they can’t unionize, at least they can own their own platform, which is a default way of protecting their labor by changing some of the key conditions under which they work.

So yes, these are some of my working ideas on why Black Girl Mags struggle.

A version of this essay will appear in the book “Black Girls Are From the Future: Essays on Race, Digital Creativity and Pop Culture”, July 2013. Sign up here to receive updates and announcements regarding the book. Thank you for reading. ~R

Who knows what a person who is treated as a whole human being is capable of?

Why didn’t the video vixen’s start their own social media platforms? Was that even possible and or tenable?

Why does it mean that Honey Mag is on tumblr?

Does it really matter whether White women or other women are on Essence? I read it all of the time now, because of how it engages Black women and Black culture. No tome is perfect, but again, I like seeing us represented and Essence does that. I think many of us do.

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

The Black Girl Everything – 100 List

Renina — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:37:19 +0000

If you like the list, please, share, rt and reblog:) ~Renina

ps. I will not be updating this list, however you can add otro sites in the comments. ~RCJ

Continued.

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

There is a Difference Between Allowing a Black Woman to Entertain You, and Listening to Her Story.

Renina — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:16:11 +0000

There is a difference between allowing a Black woman to entertain you, and listening to her story.

Have you noticed that five Black women played the most highly rated Super Bowl (three of which are household names), but Black women filmmakers have a terrible time getting their stories out into the mainstream with mainstream backing?

This is the idea that came to mind when I watched the Super Bowl last weekend. While there where three Black women in the Super Bowl who are house hold names, and by house hold names I mean that the person’s profile is high enough that they are known in houses outside of Black homes, across social class. Of course I am referring to Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé Knowles Carter, and Destiny’s Child (which is a single entity in and of it self in some ways).

Of course Bibi McGill’s spotlight was fresh, in all the Quirky Black Girl ways possible (Peace to Lex y Moya), but I think that we need to be careful about over determining the symbolic importance of having our faces represented in mainstream media.

There is a difference between allowing a Black woman to entertain you, and listening to her story.

Less faces. More stories.

I have always said that a barometer of Black women’s freedom will be their ability to write, control, produce and disseminate their stories in both marginalized spaces and in mainstream spaces, and get paid to do it.

In talking about the reception to” Daughters of the Dust”, Julie Dash once stated, and I paraphrase her here, that many people don’t want to watch a film directed by a Black woman because they don’t think that there is anything to learn from a Black women. Implicitly, I read her to mean that sitting down for ninety minutes to watch a film means that you are making a tactic agreement with the director to be taught about life for ninety minutes.

What is it about stories by Black women that are so threatening? Why is it easier to watch Black women perform, rather than to watch their stories. Notice I said by Black women and not ABOUT.

Will it always be the case that Black women in the US can perform for the world, but they cannot share, amongst each other, how they see each other within mainstream spaces?

Given the fact that I have had my historical critique of how patriarchy plays out in a set a songs within Mrs. Carter’s catalog, did you know that I find the ways in which she controls her OWN narrative to be fascinating and inspiring? From Amy Wallace’s interview in GQ,

Before you get to see Beyoncé, you must first agree to live forever in her archive, too.

And this issue of ownership and narrative/story/image control is further illustrated in another article in GQ where Ann Powers writes,

Here’s the way it works now: If MTV or Access Hollywood or anyone else wants some footage of Beyoncé and Beyoncé thinks it’s a good idea, Burke shoots it and lets them borrow it. “It’s a win-win,” Burke says. “They get better access—that’s what we tell them—because I’m in the dressing room, where they would never be,” he says. But Beyoncé owns the footage. Same with still photos.

So, what do you think about the politics of Black women’s storytelling 2013?

Did you notice the contrast between Black women as performers and Black women as producers and distributors of beginning to ending narratives?

h/t Champagne Candy for the link.

*Peace to @DD re our #IveGottoOwnAllmyMasters conversation. Who knew Busta Rhymes would offer a Black Feminist framework for ownership of cultural productions.

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Rethinking My Work: “On Syd Tha Kid’s “The Internet – Cocaine” Video”

Renina — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 15:50:52 +0000

I wrote this post a year ago, and I have been thinking about it a lot about oppositional representations of Black girls and women, and the queerness of Black women in pop culture. These representations include The Bklyn Boihood, THEE Satisfaction, Tiona M’s work, the aforementioned Syd the Kyd video and the web series “The Peculiar Kind.” I am focusing on Black women, however, I know that The Peculiar Kind focuses on women of color in the video linked. Since last summer, I have been thinking about a post/essay about an emerging queer sphere of representations of Black women in pop culture. Let me keep it even, it is an overstatement to say that it is emergent, because that erases history and I don’t roll like that. Perhaps the issue that I am interested in, and I am thinking out loud here, is the intersection of these representations and the internet. Because I do produce a lot of digital work, I am interested in how other Black women, who question gender roles, who question race, who question Black sexual politics, I am interested in how we leverage the digital to find their/our own communities and to produce their/our work.

Originally Written Nov 2011.
I have contended that in a world premised on oppressing women, openly Loving a woman is probably one of the most radical things you can do.

The homie @danyeezy, just put me on to the new Syd the Kid video. Syd is the only woman member of OFWGKTA . @Danyeezy reblogged a link to Syd’s video “Cocaine” from the blog Life is Fair Game.

I watch videos with the sound on and with the sound off because it helps me to focus on the images.

I also teach my students do so because music videos combine text with images, which makes them very powerful. Often times, when we watch videos with the sound off, the videos end up having a different meaning.

The song, the instrumentation of it is hot. Sounds like Pharell with…I don’t know a funky Fiona Apple.

I also enjoyed the non-normative gender presentations of Black girls IN A MUSIC VIDEO.

Queer Black girls are not featured in music videos.

However, as I listened to the song, I thought, is she saying “I wanna, I wanna, Do you wanna do some Cocaine?”

Why yes, she is.

I get it, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Historically young people in general and young artist in particular have said and done outlandish things to stand out and rebel against their elders.

However, bodies have histories, and Black girl’s bodies certainly have histories.

Which brings me to a point.

In order to see masculine and feminine identified young Black women in a music video, the narrative is going to pivot on them “doing cocaine” together?

Given the history of both crack and cocaine in Black communities throughout the US historically, is “doing coke” something to sing playfully about?

Is this cost of entry to having a broad and varied representations of Black women in pop culture. Is this too high of a price to pay? In other words, if the trade-off for having queer young women of color being represented in pop culture is the that they are performing “do you want to do some cocaine” and talking about “slapping bitches”, is it worth it?

Sidebar. This is some real binary thinking, that I actually don’t stand by in 2013. But I see were I was going when I asked this question, but I don’t agree with it, at this point. I think that images can be both redemptive and problematic, rather than simply either or.

Is the trade off for being vulnerable and willing enough to grab a woman’s hand in a video that you to also be willing to say that you like “slapping bitches”, is that too high of a price to pay to BE visible in the first place?

Another Sidebar: @3:20 Syd throws the other woman out the truck. What is that shit about? I didn’t see this when I first watched the video but both beep and @danyeezy pointed this out to me.

Perhaps it is easier to talk about slapping “Bitches” than it is to be vulnerable. ~#allcity

On whose terms should Black girls be represented? And why?

Why she had to throw her out the truck?

Relevant Data: An episode of “The Peculiar Kind”

Here is another take on Syd’s video.

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Dave Bry asks “Is it Okay for White Rap Music Critics to Like Violent Rap Music?”: My Response

Renina — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:33:34 +0000

Dave Bry has an article up at The New Republic where he questions whether or not it is appropriate for White music critics to praise hyper violent rap music created by Black men. The article centers on new reviews of Chief Keef’s new album.

Here is the video for one of Keef’s songs titled “I Don’t Like”:

In the article Bry talks about how a few different White men bloggers and writers such as Noz, Jonathan Landrum at the Associated Press and Jayson Greene at Pitchfork have reviewed Chief Keef’s new album. For me, it isn’t so much about Chief Keef, but about an opportunity to move the needle on the conversation about culture, violence and masculinity.

Bry, a White man, makes a nuanced argument contending that race is most certainly a factor. While he argues that he can compartmentalize the images and the language within a rap song, he feels that it is worth listening to a Black person who can not compartmentalize the language and the images in rap music because of their lived experiences.

I think that it is tempting and dangerous to divorce rap music from its lived experience, because in doing so you turn a human being into an object. If Chief Keef is from Chicago, and Chicago has a ton of poverty on poverty violence that disproportionally impacts Black men, then it would make sense that the music is violent. Many people make art/music based on their lived experiences.

So the issue here isn’t so much Keef’s popularity, but White desire for this kind of violence in some music.

In many ways this conversation reminds me of a post that I wrote last year after Nate Dogg’s death. I said,

I am a little troubled over how White men’s investment in Black mens misogyny in rap music isn’t interrogated. And how that shit impacts me and the women who look like me.

Society is organized by and for men.

And our lives in the US are hyper segregated racially.

By and large Black people don’t live around White folks, so most White men can experience the pleasure of singing “and you even licked my balls” in the comfort of their cars, homes and apartments, whereas a young Black man said to me nearly two years ago on 125th street that he wanted to “stick his dick in my butt.”

On the street, in broad daylight.

I think that mainstream White masculinity needs for Black men to be seen as violent in order for mainstream white masculinity to be validated, and in order for it to function as a system of symbols.

In other words, in terms of mainstream White masculinity, if Black men are hyper violent, then the violent treatment that they receive in public from White men is justified. Within the context of mainstream masculinity White manhood depends on Black men being seen as hyper violent.

If Black men are hyper violent animals, they are not human beings, and if a person isn’t a human being then it it much easier to imprison them for non violent drug offenses for 25 years, it is much easier to execute them in Texas with shoddy evidence, it is much easier to shoot them when they are an unarmed unarmed teenagers holding skittles, it is much easier to shoot them 40 times when they are leaving their own bachelor party, it is much easier to shoot them in cold blood on a BART platform.

White men are also harmed by the this construction of masculinity because of its innate instability. In other words, if I need to believe that another group of people are born violent or come from a culture of violence in order for me to feel human, then what kind of human and I in the first place? #YupIgotExistential

One of the most interesting aspects of the article is when Bry talks about well meaning White people and violent rap music. He writes,

Well-meaning white people who like violent rap music will argue against the notion that it inspires real-life violence among those who listen to it. I will argue this. But what are we to say when a black person says, “Someone sees Waka and then kills Treyvon.” And we know that she sees Trayvon’s face on the TV news and can’t not see her own face in his, and thus see her own face in Chief Keef’s, because she believes, she knows, that much of her country sees, still sees, all black faces as the same. We want it to be different, us well-meaning white people. Maybe that’s even part of why we listen to rap music, or part of why we started to, anyway, because we want to do our best to make amends, to bridge the divide. We don’t want to be outsiders; we don’t want for there to be such a thing as outsiders. We want it to be different, but it’s not.

An old friend said something very profound to me a few years ago, which is, “people buy what makes them feel comfortable.” I know why I watch Tyler Perry movies and why I like Too Short #Oakland, and perhaps it is time for some White men to interrogate why certain Black male rappers entertain them, and how and why these same rappers make them feel comfortable.

Are we still talking about race and rap music in 2013?

I think that we are in the middle of a paradigm shift on masculinity. What do you think?

Why is it so hard to see the (history) with the idea of Black men being hyper violent?

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Facebook Will Have to Charge (Some) Users By 4th Quarter 2013

Renina — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:29:18 +0000

Image via Mashable

According to legal scholar Susan Crawford at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, smart phone plans that include unlimited minutes and a gigabyte of data costs $12/month in Europe, a comparable service in the United States is $60-90/month. Crawford cites the lack of competition. The costs of the bills are really important because they are eating up family budgets which is significant in this economic climate.

Why are cell phone plans much more expensive in the US? According to Crawford, the telecommunication companies split up the regions, where certain companies received certain regions. This is why depending on which part of the city you live in, you may ONLY have option to Comcast, or may only have access to Verizon. Verizon and AT&T are the key players.

I see access to the internet as being connect to ones ability participate in civic discourse. Why? Because having access to information is tied to your ability to make informed well developed decisions and arguments. How can you participate if you don’t have information.

Before you say, well access to the internet is a privilege not a right, I will respond asking you whether you aware that the internet is a content delivery platform and that a significant portion of our communication will be happening on this platform in the next 5-10 years. Much of what I know about the changes in the internet as a content delivery platform is from Patricia Handschiegel’s blog. She is interesting.Read it if you are interested in the future of the internet.

Back to Crawford.

According to Crawford we are talking about “basic information access” as being central to civic participation.

She argues that the US should provide a $30/month access to the internet.

How is this connected to Facebook? Well, the profit motive is at work both with regard to how much folks in the US are charged for their smart phone plans and with the fact that Facebook just held their IPO.

Legally, a corporation is required to make choices that benefit its shareholders.

I don’t see how the Facebook will be able to continue at the rate that is going without exploiting that content that its users place on it. People rebelled when Instagram changed its user rules to allow for photos to be used in ways above beyond what customers/users desired.

The first hit is free. I know, I use crack to explain capitalism all of the time, because I think it is a really useful metaphor. Folks get addicted to Facebook.

In fact, earlier today there was an article on “Salon” Sarah Scribner breaking up with the Facebook. Scribner writes,

It’s been just a few days without Facebook, and I’m already feeling much better about not logging in. Although I’m fond of my Facebook friends, I don’t think I will miss their posts. In fact, I believe that I see my friends less because Facebook gives us the sense that we are connecting when we really aren’t: Maybe my quitting the site will mean that we’ll feel the need to actually have a drink together sometime. I definitely feel that a certain part of me may be invisible or even die without Facebook — that quitting means entering a silent, private, faceless realm. But that approval-seeking me is someone I said sayonara to all those years ago – and I don’t want her back.

The first hit is free.

I am not sure how the Facebook will charge people. Will it be major businesses, or only individuals who have over 1000 followers, or will a user be able to choose between paying or allowing their photos to be used in corporate advertisements? I am not certain.

I know that wall street will always get paid or it will leave social media alone, which doesn’t seem likely.

Would you pay to be on The Facebook? Why do people think that they should be allowed to use social media platforms and not have to pay?

Were you surprised to see how less expensive smart phone plans are in Europe?

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Watching “The Best Man”: Old Movie, New Feminist Lens #allcityarchives

Renina — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:18:46 +0000

I originally posted this on New Model Minority.Com in March 2012. I cross posted it here as there are a quite a few posts from the #allcityarchives that I think deserve a broader conversation and audience. I will be posting those here regularly with added commentary.

Last night I watched The Best Man. What is significant about it is that watching the film with an eye towards representations of Black women, I knew that there were going to be major distinctions and differences that I would see now that I didn’t see before.

The first difference is in the opening when Sanaa and Taye are in the bathtub and she confronts him on his desires to take the next step towards commitment in their relationship. She gets upset, and gets out of the tub. The camera then remains on Taye’s character. This has the impact of forcing the viewer to experience the moment from his eye’s, not hers. This is important, because the focus of the camera tells us who the director thinks is important in a scene.

The second difference is that I noticed that the Black women fell into representations of “controlling images” that honestly could have come out of a Tyler Perry movie.

There was the “good Christian woman who deserved her man”: Mia/ Monica Calhoun.

There was the attractive Black woman, who was invested in her career more so on getting married, so she was seen as someone who “didn’t need a m an” and was “damn near a lesbian”: Jordan/ Nia Long.

There was the attractive, materialistic and shallow Black woman who emasculated her man/partner: Shelby/ Melissa DeSousa.

There was the attractive Black woman, who was smart and sweet, but held in a holding pattern by her gentleman friend: Robin/ Sanaa Lathan.

Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie but it was interesting that the Black women characters were very similar to the representations of Black women in Tyler Perry movies.

For a glimpse of how the women are portrayed see the trailer below.

In the book Beyond the Black Lady Lisa Thompson helped me to think about how women in general were presented in the film, Nia Long’s character in particular. Thompson writes,

”The middle class black woman (or Black lady) represents a problem to be avoided; she is too indendent, too intelligent, and too self sufficient. The men declare her a threat and romantic outcast who resonates to them in the same register as “the lesbian”.

Thompson then goes on to connect the dots regarding how middle class Black women are represented in films during this era. She writes,

Popular African American romantic comedy like “The Best Man” and “Soul Food” consistently reward women who pursue traditional female roles. They present the desperate social circumstances of professional black women as the result of misplaced priorities and aggressive personalities. In essence, these films uphold and further the cultural stereotype the black lady as cold, prim and passionless. They also, in light of bleak marriage rates for black professional women, send an alarmingly conservative message and signal a backlash against the recent academic and professional successes that women have enjoyed.

So, “The Best Man”. Old movie, feminist lens.

Now I want to rent Hav Plenty in order to see if my opinion of it has changed as well.

Thoughts?

Are there any other movies that meant something to you when you were younger, but changed once your awareness of gender roles and stereotypes broadened?

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Always Trust a Big Butt and a Smile: Thinking About Twerking and Black Girl Public Cultures

Renina — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 15:19:19 +0000

The other day this amazing video came across dash board by the Twerk Team. The video was mesmerizing in that the women move their butts like I don’t know what. I mean jiggling your booty while your are upside down, I could only imagine the skill and agility that that technique requires. On top of that the made me want to dance/exercise, so I take inspiration where ever I find it.

Which brings me to this. Women in general and Black women in particular are oftentimes the most visually interesting aspects of many mainstream rap music videos. In fact, as far back as 2007, I discussed how video vixens needed a union because they are one of the most valuable assets withing in the mainstream rap music video ecosystem, but they also tend to be the lowest paid. I mean, would the “Birthday Song” be visually interesting without the presence of women’s bodies?

I don’t think so. Pay equity in music video wages, of course!

Conversations about twerking are conversations about Black women’s bodies, and their right to do what they want to do with their bodies in public. In fact, I think that there is a direct connection between Erkyah Badu’s choice to go nude for the “Window Seat” video and the visibility of Black girl twerk culture. The connection has to do with a willingness to for Black women, at this time, to do what they want their bodies in public, without being constrained by the politics of respectability.

The is important given the history of Black women being property during chattel slavery.

Which brings me to @StrugglingtoBeHeard. Last May she posted a video titled Twerking for Mothers Day on her personal blog, it was then uploaded to World Start Hip Hop, without her consent, where people, many of them Black men and women, began to leave out of pocket, sexist and misogynistic comments.

@Strugglingtobeheard is rea clear about the purpose with which she created this video. She says that she is twerking in honor of Mothers Day, that she was raised by a single mother, and that she understands that the work that mothers do tends to be unappreciated and unacknowledged. In short, care work is necessary and disrespected.

She goes on to say that twerking for solidarity, twerking for justice and twerking for liberation is about,

Owning your body and celebrating who you are and doing what you want to do, and doing what makes you feel good.

With this one sentence asserts the importance of mothers in general, and mothers of color experiencing pleasure and feeling good in their bodies.

After the video was uploaded to World Star Hip Hop @Strugglingtobeheard was really clear about the fact that she didn’t consent to her video being placed on the site and that she had something to say about how she was being discussed in perceived.

In an interview conducted by Leonine, she discusses her response to the video being featured on World Star Hip Hop. She responds,

I do not like it. World Star Hip Hop is a terrible website. They do not respect Black women at all. The title dissed my butt and acted as if twerking for liberation was impossible. It seems they were too simple to even understand the general message I left in the beginning. Now, if someone had messaged me and said that my video was featured on a website and talked about the ways we don’t want to see mothers as sexually autonomous beings or how the art of dance really can be liberating or fulfilling, especially for women of color, I wouldn’t mind. But the website wanted to degrade me and judging by their messages to my complaints of their misuse of my video, they also hoped the degradation I received by their site goers would compel me to take my video down. It was an attempt to shame someone they have read as a Black woman for not falling into the “respectable” mold of womanhood. I do not appreciate that.

Now, the latest update to this is that MTV or VH1 has offered her between $200-$250 for the video, with the anticipation that Lil Duval will critique it on one of their shows. How would her interests be served, other than the money, by consenting to this in light of what has happened with World Star Hip Hop? Waits.

An essential component of being free in a democracy is having the ability to move about in the world. In this instance, the world includes online media spaces as well.

Sidebar.

I realize why I have had issues with the hook of Poison all these years. Never trust a big butt and a smile is a coded way of saying never trust Black girls. Well, I say, always trust a big butt and smile:)

So what do you think about Black girl twerk culture?

Why is it so challenging for people to see Black women in public on their own terms?

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Thinking About the Steve Harvey Industrial Complex and the Interior Lives of Black Men: On Black Masculinity

Renina — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:11:08 +0000

Image via Black Public Media

I haven’t written about Django Unchained, and I don’t plan on doing so, because so many others have been eager to do so and I don’t have anything to add.

But I will tell you this, earlier to day I was having a conversation on The Facebook with @RahaReiki about this Crunk Feminist Collective post which explores ratchet culture, pop culture and Black masculinity. In the conversation we began to explore why it appears as though Black women can see the writing on the wall and start taking care of themselves, that they start taking care of their interior and exterior lives.Yet, on the other hand there doesn’t appear to be a similar public effort on the behalf of Black men. At least at first glance.

I ultimately came to three conclusions. First, I think that some Black women hold on to their dysfunction like a warm blanket, others are invested in becoming whole human beings and they are willing to do the personal development work to grow and evolve. Often times we are a combination therein where we are trying to evolve and hold the warm blanket at the same time. #struggle.

Second, I stated that I suspect that the reason why some Black women may get to the point that they realize that the old way are not working sooner than Black men is because we deal with the intersections of racism and sexism, at school, at work, on the street, in our families and especially in terms of media representation. This intersection kills us health wise.

Third, I went on to say that we can’t assume that this work isn’t being done by Black men, just because we don’t see it. In fact now that I think of it, I know of quite a few Black men who do public work around Black masculinity such as Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, Dr. Gary Lemons (one of my college professors), D r. Lewis, Kevin Powell, Byron Hurt and Tony Porter. There is also this engaging project, Question Bridge, which that @marquette_jones just told me about. This project uses multimedia to interrogate and examine Black masculinities. This is an interesting project as well.

Last, given the emotional investment in terms of Black public discourse on Django Unchained and given how Steve Harvey has been able to leverage his dating advice book into an empire of sorts, perhaps the energy that is being placed on Black women’s dating lives can be placed on interrogating Black masculinity and the interior lives of Black men. Yes, it is far less sexy, but the work needs to be done.

I think personally, that I have accepted the fact that pop cultural icons are not going to embrace a kind of Muhammad Ali oppositional stance. The stakes are too high. I sill think that it may be useful to actually look for the people who are doing this intergenerational healing work around gender roles and Black men and masculinity that doesn’t make hyper-patriarchal ideas the norm.

In my blog work and my academic work I am drawn to and I focus on the interior lives of Black women. From blog posts about Kathleen Collins, to posts about Zora Neal Hurston and Pariah. The interior lives of Black women fascinate me, because if I assume we have an interior life, I am also asserting that we are human, which is important.

Perhaps there is time for a dedicated public space, time for art work that explores the interior lives of Black men. Is their a space online that talks about the humanity of Black men that isn’t rooted in patriarchal norms? What conditions would need to be met in order for it to be created?

Women will not be free until men are free.

When Black women are free everyone will be free. ~The Combahee Collective.

The Steve Harvey industrial complex!?!?!?!

Do you think that there is a gender distinction between how some Black women and some Black men approach healing and personal development? If so, why?

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Thinking about Andrew Sullivan’s Move to a Subscription Service and Wu Tang Clan

Renina — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:45:55 +0000

Nearly three years ago I wrote a post about blogging and the difference between community building vs.serving advertisers. In this post I quoted Rafi Kam saying,

If you’re chasing all the traffic you can get on your site, that means you’re probably aiming to please advertisers more so than your audience.

Andrew Sullivan’s move to his own subscription model struck me because of how bold and audacious it is. He is going to charge $19.99 a year for access which is the cost for an annual subscription to many magazines. Christine Haugney, writing in the New York Times quotes Sullivan stating that for his

new venture [he] had decided not to depend on advertising for revenue because of “how distracting and intrusive it can be, and how it often slows down the page painfully.” He added that advertisers also require too much effort for a small company. “We’re increasingly struck how advertising is dominated online by huge entities, and how compromising and time-consuming it could be for so few of us to try and lure big corporations to support us,” he wrote.

When I learned that Andrew Sullivan was moving to a subscription service model I was struck for two reasons.

First, nearly 48 hours ago in a conversation with @afrolicious, she said the barriers to accessing information on the internet is going to go up 2013. Pay walls in the form of subscription services is just one example. I am packaging blog posts and new essays into printed books and possibly ebooks, which is another example.

Second Sullivan’s move to a subscription model is serious because artists, historically, have struggled to have control over the distribution of their work. Charging $19.99 for access to his post is about as revolutionary as the RZA negotiating a group contract for Wu Tang and individual contracts for each of the members. It simply had not been done before. It also set the tone for other historical precedents to be made for artists owning control over their work such as Master P who retained ownership of his work while signing a lucrative distribution deal with Loud Records.

As a scholar, I look at who owns, distributes and controls the distribution of art that features Black women. But the same issues are at play here in the blogosphere. Blogging is work, especially if you are doing it systematically and consistently.

I am interested in seeing how this plays out in 2012.

Who knew that I bring Wu Tang into a blog conversation about Andrew Sullivan?

Thoughts?

Do you think that pay walls are going to go up for the communities the sites that you visit or are you indifferent?

Share and Enjoy

• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS