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The Problem is Bigger than Tate
While there are many things that have got under my skin lately, it seems that every time I go on social media, turn on the television, or happen to have a conversation, the name Andrew Tate is uttered. His mere existence is like a virus, attacking not only my brain and soul but it seems a large population of the world. His popularity stems from his platform followed by thousands of men and young boys (it’s known as the ‘Real World’).
His platform ‘educating’ men on working smarter not harder has created a ‘brotherhood’ within the manosphere that celebrates success and wealth. Tate is framed as a man’s man, physically strong, rich and he even has a cigar attached to his hand (I wonder if he puts it down when he goes to the bathroom). It seems many of his aspiring followers want to mimic his fast rich lifestyle.
This seems to be welcomed, especially now when the price of bread has significantly risen (many of his followers would sell the closest women in their life for a whiff of his cigar, and of course to be deemed to have an Insta-desirable lifestyle). While this ideology has gained hype and mass traction in recent years (under the Tate trademark) it seems that his narcissistic, problematic image and what he stands for has only just been deemed a problem … due to his recent indiscretions.
There is now outrage in UK schools over the number of young boys following Tate and his misogynistic ideology. But I cannot help but ask … why was this not an issue before? I am aware of rape culture, victim blaming, sexual harassment, and systems of silence at every level of the UK education establishment. The launch of ‘Everyone’s Invited’ shone a light on the problematic discourse, so why are we only seeing that there is a problem now?
There are many reasons why there’s a delayed outrage, and I would be here all day highlighting all the problems. So, I will give you a couple of reasons. The first is the Guyland ideology: many Tate supporters who fall into the cultural assumption of masculinity expect to be rewarded for their support, in ways of power and material possession (this includes power over women and others deemed less powerful). If one does not receive what they believe they are owed or expected, they will take what they believe they are owed (by all means necessary).
There is also a system of silence within their peer group which is reinforced by parents, female friends, the media, and those that are in administrative power. The protection of toxic behavior has been continuously put under the umbrella of ‘boys will be boys’ or the idea that the toxic behavior is outside the character of the individual or not reflective of who they truly are.
I will go one step further and apply this to the internalised patriarchy/misogyny of the many women that came out and supported Jeremy Clarkson when he callously attacked Meghan. While many of the women have their individual blight with Meghan for reasons I do not really care to explore, by supporting the rhetoric spewed by Clarkson, they are upholding systemic violence against women.
The third point is that capitalism overthrows humanity and empathy in many ways. All you need to do is to look at a history books, it seems that lessons will never be learned. The temptation of material possessions has overthrown morality. The media gives Tate a platform and in turn Tate utters damaging ideology. This brings more traffic to the platforms that he is on and thus more money and influence….after all he is one of the most googled people in the world.
The awareness of the problematic behaviour and the total disregard for protecting women and girls from monsters like Tate shows, how the outrage displayed by the media about harms against victims such as Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard is performative. The news coverage and the discussion that centred on the victimisation of these two women have easily been forgotten. If the outrage is real then why are we still at a point where we are accepting excuses and championing misogyny under the guise of freedom of speech, without challenging the harm it really does.
It seems that society is at a point of total desensitization where there is more interest in Tate losing an argument with Greta Thunberg, posing with a cigar on an exotic beach for likes, than really acknowledging the bigger picture. Andrew Tate has been accused of rape and human trafficking. The worst thing is, this is not the first time that he has been accused of horrific crimes – and with the audio evidence that was released to the press recently, he should be in prison. But with the issues that permeate the Met police there is no surprise as to why he has been given the green light to continue his violent behaviour. But this is not just a UK issue. There has been a large amount of support overseas with young men and boys marching in masses in support of Tate, so I cannot be surprised that he was able to and continues to build a platform that celebrates and promotes horrendous treatment of women.
For many the progression of a fair and equal society is an aspiration, but for the supporters of the Tate’s in the world they tend to lean on the notion that they are entitled to more, and to acquire what they think they are owed, and will behave to the extreme of toxicity. While it is easy to fixate on a pantomimic villain like Tate to discuss his problematic use of language and how this translates in schools, the bigger picture of institutionalised patriarchy is always being missed.
It is important to unpick the toxic nature of our society, to understand the contributing factors that have allowed Andrew Tate and others like him to be such influential figures.
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The dance of the vampires
We value youth. There is greater currency in youth, far greater than wisdom, despite most people when they are looking back wishing they had more wisdom in life. Modernity brought us the era of the picture and since then we have become captivated with images. Pictures, first black and white, then replaced by moving images, and further replaced by colour became an antidote to a verbose society that now didn’t need to talk about it…it simply became a case of look and don’t talk!
The image became even more important when people turned the cameras on themselves. The selfie, originally a self-portrait of reclusive artists evolved into a statement, a visual signature for millions of people using it every day on social media. Enter youth! The engagement with social media is regarded the gift of computer scientists to the youth of today. I wonder how many people know that one of the first images sent as a jpeg was that of a Swedish Playboy playmate the ‘lady with the feathers’. This “captivating” image was the start of the virtual exchange of pictures that led to billions of downloads every day and social media storing an ever-expanding array of images.
The selfie, brought with it a series of challenges. How many times can you take a picture, even of the most beautiful person, before you become accustomed to it. Before you say, well yes that is nice, but I have seen it before. To resolve the continuous exposure the introduction of filters, backgrounds and themes seems to add a sense of variety. The selfie stick (banned from many museums the world over) became the equipment, along with the tripod, the lamp and the must have camera, with the better lens in the pursue of the better selfie. Vanity never had so many accessories!
The stick is an interesting tool. It tells the individual nature of the selfie. The voyage that youthful representation takes across social media is not easy, it is quite a solitary one. In the representation of the image, youth seem to prefer. The top “influencers” are young, who mostly like to pose and sometimes even offer some advice to their followers. Their followers, their contemporaries or even older individuals consume their images like their ‘daily (visual) bread’. This seems to be a continuous routine, where the influencer produces images, and the followers watch them and comment. What, if anything, is peculiar about that? Nothing! We live in a society build on consumption and the industry of youth is growing. So, this is a perfect marriage of supply and demand. Period!
Or is it? In the last 30 years in the UK alone the law on protecting children and their naivety from exploitation has been centre stage of several successive governments. Even when discussing civil partnerships for same sex couples, Baroness Young, argued against the proposed act, citing the protection of children. Youth became a precious age that needed protection and nurturing. The law created a layer of support for children, particularly those regarded vulnerable. and social services were drafted in to keep them safe and away from harm. In instances when the system failed, there has been public outrage only to reinforce the original notion that children and young people are to be protected in our society.
That is exactly the issue here! In the Criminology of the selfie! Governments introducing policies to generate a social insulation of moral righteousness that is predicated on individual – mostly parental – responsibility. The years of protective services and we do not seem to move passed them. In fact, their need is greater than ever. Are we creating bad parents through bad parenting or are people confronted with social forces that they cannot cope with? The reality is that youth is more exposed than ever before. The images produced, unlike the black and white photos of the past, will never fade away. Those who regret the image they posted, can delete it from their account, but the image is not gone. It shall hover over them for the eternity of the internet. There is little to console and even less to help. During the lockdown, I read the story of the social carer who left their job and opened an OnlyFans account. These are private images provided to those who are willing to pay. The reason this experience became a story, was the claim that the carer earned in one month of OnlyFans, more than their previous annual income. I saw the story being shared by many young people, tagging each other as if saying, look at this. The image that captures their youth that can become a trap to contain them in a circle of youth. Because in life, before the certainty of death there is another one, that of aging and in a society that values youth so much, can anyone be ready to age?
As for the declared care for the young, would a society that cares have been closing the doors to HE, to quality apprenticeships, a living wage and a place to live? The same society that stirs emotions about protection, wants young people to stay young so that they cannot ask for their share in their future. The social outrage about paedophiles is countered with high exposure to a particular genre in the movies and literature that promotes it. The vampire that has been fashioned as young adult literature is the proverbial story of an (considerably) older man who deflowers a young innocent girl until she becomes infatuated with him. The movies can be visually stunning because it involves the images of young beautiful people but there is hardly any mention of consent or care!
It is one of the greatest ironies to revive the vampire image in youth culture. A cultural representation of a male prototype that is manipulative, intruding into the lives of seemingly innocent young people who become his prey. There is something incredibly unsettling to explore the semiology of an immortal that is made through a blood ritual. A reverse Peter Pan who consumes the youth of his victims. The popularity of this Victorian literary character, originally conceived in the era of industrial advancement,at a time when modernity challenged tradition, resurfaces with other monsters at times of great uncertainty. The era of the picture has not made everyday life easier, and modernity did not improve quality of life to the degree it proclaimed. Instead, whilst people are becoming captivated by ephemera they are focused on the appearance and missing substance. An old experience man, dark, mysterious with white skin may be an appealing character in literature but in real life a someone who feeds on young people’s blood is hardly an exciting proposition.
The blood sacrifice demanded by a vampire is a metaphor of what our society requires for those who wish to retain youth and save their image into the ether of the cyberworld as a permanent Portrait of Dorian Gray. In this context, the vampire is not only a man in power, using his privilege to dominate, but a social representation of what a consumer society places as the highest value. It is life’s greatest irony that the devouring power of a vampire is becoming a representation of how little value we place on both youth and life! A society focused on appearance, ignoring the substance. Youth looking but not youth caring!
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Calling All Dads: Girls Girls Girls wanted. #SpokenWord
Calling all dads.
Reward for the first hundred daughters!
Calling all dads, Magic City Club is recruiting!
Magic city is the most elite strip joint in the world,
Any dad should be proud to have his daughter work for us!
We value our customers and want to give YOU the chance to shape Magic City Club’s future.
So we’re recruiting.
PLEASE send your daughters in right away.
We need your girls, girls, girls.
The most beautiful daughters in the world, we ask all dads to send them now.
You’re our valued-customers so you know MCC is about quality!
Send them in to Magic City Club, by express, in a rush, by plane or by bus!
Hurry, hurry, hurry we need girls – quick – these polls aren’t going to oil them selves.
We don’t care how you get these girls here we need strippers now!
Now we know this is a difficult task,
So we are offering a reward for the first hundred daughters!
The first hundred days to send in their daughters will get a lifetime ticket!
A lifetime supply of girls swinging on poles, every dad’s dream.
So send in your daughters, and the first hundred new donors receive a lifetime supply of free entry to any of our prestigious establishments around the world for you and a party of 10 men.
Imagine how your career will explore when you bring your colleagues on an annual, all-expense-paid trip to Magic city, and enjoy some other men’s daughters swinging from the polls. Swish. Slide. Spin, Twirl. And flap, flat on the ground, she’s in a split!
Dads, you will not be missed on any neighbor’s Christmas list when you invite the dads from your hood right on down to Magic City.
Don’t miss Father’s Day. Each year, Luxury Life Liquors sponsors our special Father’s Day event and fills pool on stage with whiskey. Watch these girls swim like mermaids. After the show, you know MC doesn’t waste good liquor.
Magic City.
It’s magic.
And somebody’s daughter has got to do it, has got to swing from these polls!
Act now, send in yours! Send in your daughters right away.
As our valued customer, you know Magic City Club has a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy for the backrooms, so: Employer shall be not liable for sexual harassment, STD’s, or in any way held responsible for unwanted pregnancies.
We provide the costumes; daughters must provide their own contraception.
Yours truly,
The management
*P.S. Magic City Club is not affiliated with that MC strip joint all the rappers rap about.
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My First Foreign Friend #ShortStory #BlackAsiaWithLove
I love school.
In the third grade, we had a foreign student named Graham. His parents had come over to our hometown from England with a job, and his family was to stay in our town for a year or two.
Other than Graham’s accent, at first he didn’t in anyway appear, or feel different.
The only time that Graham’s difference mattered , or that I knew Graham’s difference mattered, was on the spelling test. We had moved far away from three letter words, to larger words and sentences, and by fourth grade we were writing our own books.
But in the third grade, there was Graham on our first spelling test, and our teacher drilling words like color.
The teacher made it fun by using word association to aid in memory. Then, he paused to explain that Graham would be excused if he misspelled certain words because where he’s from, they spelt (spelled) things differently. Spell “color” differently, we all wondered?
Our teacher explained that there are many words where they add the letter U, that are pronounced in the same way. Anyway we have different accents in our own country. Heck, we had different ways of saying the word “colour” in our own city. Where does the extra-U go? Then of course, the teacher spelled out the word. He could not write it on the chalkboard because we were sitting in a circle on the area rug, on the library side of the classroom. It is then that I also realized that I had a visual memory, even visualizing words audible words, both the letters and images representing the meaning. I wanted to know why people in England spelled things differently than in America. Despite Graham’s interesting accent, and easy nature which got him along fine with everyone, he was going to have to answer some questions.
Though our teacher did not write the letters, in hearing them I could see them in my mind moving around. I started imagining how moving the different letters shifted – or did not shift – differences in sound, across distances, borders, and cultures. I started imagining how the sounds moved with the people. Irish? Scottish? People in our city claimed these origins, and they talk funny on TV. Britain has many accents, our teacher explained. “I’m English,” blurted Graham.
We didn’t know much, but we knew that except for our Jewish classmates, everyone in that room had a last name from the British Isles, which we took a few moments to discuss. Most our last names were English, like my maternal side. A few kids had heard family tales of Scottish or Irish backgrounds, German, too. One girl had relatives in Ireland. And wherever the McConnell’s are from, please come get Mitch. Hurry up!
How did we Blacks get our Anglicized names? Ask Kunta Kinte! And how did this shape Black thought/conscience, or the way we talk? I wanted to know MORE. I thought Jewish people were lucky: At least they knew who they were, and they were spoken of with respect. Since my dad is Nigerian, (and my name identifiably African) I had a slight glimpse of this. I knew I had a history, tied to people and places beyond the plantation, and outside of any textbook I’ve ever had (until now where I get to pick the texts and select the books).
My family is full of migrants, both geographically and socially, so homelife was riddled with a variety of accents. Despite migrating north, my grandparents’ generation carried their melodic Alabama accents with them their whole lives. Their kids exceeded them in education, further distancing our kin from cotton farming, both in tone and texture. This meant that my generation was the first raised by city-folk, and all the more distant from our roots since we came of age in the early days of Hip-Hop. At home, there were so many different kinds of sounds, music, talk and accents. Fascinating we can understand done another.
Our teacher also told us that Americans also used some of the same words differently. Now, I’ve lived here in the UK for a decade and I can’t be bothered to call my own car’s trunk a boot. Toilet or loo? Everybody here gets it. Unfortunately, Graham explained that he knew the British term for what we call ‘eraser’, which the teacher couldn’t gloss over because we each had one stashed in our desks, and he knew we’d have the giggles each time the word was mentioned.
I was still struck by the fact that in spite of all these differences and changes, meanings of words could shift or be retained, both in written and spoken forms. I wanted to know more about these words – which words had an extra U – and where had the British got their languages and accents. For me, Graham represented the right to know and experience different people, that this was what was meant by different cultures coming together.
“Here I am just drownin’ in the rain/With a ticket for a runaway train…” – Soul Asylum, 1992, senior year.
In retrospect it’s weird that Graham’s my first foreign friend. Both my father and godmother immigrated to America – initially to attend my hometown university. They’d come from Nigeria and China, respectively, and I’d always assumed that I’d eventually visit both places, which I have. Perhaps this particular friendship sticks with me because Graham’s the first foreign kid I got to know.
Through knowing Graham, I could for the first time imagine myself, in my own shoes, living in another part of the world, not as a young adult like my folks, but in my 8-year-old body. What interested me more was that I could also see Graham was not invested in the macho culture into which we were slowly being indoctrinated (bludgeoned). For example, Graham had no interest in basketball, which is big as sh*t in Kentucky. Nor did I. “Soccer is more popular over there,” our teacher explained, deflecting from Graham’s oddness. “But they call it football.” Who cares! I’d also seen Graham sit with his legs crossed, which was fully emasculating as far as I knew back then. The teacher defended him, saying that this also was different where Graham came from. I definitely knew I wanted to go there, and sit anyway I wanted to sit.
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Another Lone Gunman #BlackenAsiaWithLove #SpOkenWoRd
A lone gunman killed numerous people at a public place in America.
Another lone gunman shot up a school, another a nightclub, and
Another killed a kid walking down the street.
A few years ago,
Another lone gunman shot up a movie premier, dressed as one of the film’s villains.
Another – armed with a badge-
Took a woman’s life after a routine traffic stop.
Plenty of his comrades routinely did the same.
Another lone gunman in blue, killed a kid playing in the park, and
Another shot a man who was reaching for his wallet as he’d demanded.
Another shot a man with his kid in the backseat, while his girlfriend live-streamed it, and
Another took 8 minutes and 46 seconds to kill again.
Another watched while it happened, while
Another kept the crowd at bay.
Another. And another, and
Last week, in another American city, another lone gunman murdered more.
The lone gunman in blue responsible for safely apprehending this latest lone gunman said: This poor lone gunman just had “a bad day.”
We bide our time till next week’s breaking news.
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MLK: In his day-n-this day in 2021. #BlackedAsiaWithLove
In his day, they called Martin Luther King a thug. They said that he was disturbing the peace. They accused him of sedition, and jailed him on any charge they could find. The got him on any perceivable and inconceivable traffic violation. Mostly, the only charges they could find were loitering or disobeying a police order – do what I say, niggra! They convicted him to a 4-month sentence for a sit-in. They fined him and anyone in the movement for anything. You can’t imagine the trial/fiasco around his arrest for leading a bus boycott.
Sending his kids to school, peacefully.
Attending a comrade’s trial, peacefully. Loitering, peacefully. Sitting-in, peacefully. Driving, peacefully. Marching, peacefully. Preaching in the pulpit about the Prince of Peace, peacefully. Harassed, taunted, goaded, surveilled, bullied, bashed, arrested, convicted, abused by the police and their brethren among politicos – violently. Dear reader, please don’t find me pedantic by pointing out that this all sounds like 2020.
Here’s Dr. King’s full arrest record. He never once incited riots, yet they called him a thug. He never once missed an opportunity to call for calm, yet they said he was a looter. They made him a repeat offender, notoriously flaunting the law. Who was notoriously flaunting the law? The same sorts of folks who flaunted the law on January 6, 2021!
MLK grew up in the tradition of Black Liberation Theology, radically different from the individualist salvation and racism preached in white churches. King began to address this in a letter to white clergy, he wrote from a jail cell in bloody Birmingham. The pen is indeed mightier than the…cowardice of mobs and bombs.
Follow the drinking gourd
Dr. King understood that resistance is in our blood as strongly as the will to survive. Even with all of the stories I’ve heard from my elders, I still can’t imagine what it was like, even for my grandparents growing up picking cotton deep in the Jim Crow south. Yet, they resisted. And while I am sure that they feared white people their whole lives, they refused to study hate on them. Growing up, my grandparents had few choices in how they dealt with their white masters. Yet, they resisted hate. The roots of non-violence runs deep in our culture.
The roots of non-violent protest runs deep in American culture, but particularly so in terms of righting the legacy of our nation’s original sin: Slavery. In 1892, Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in the white section of a street car in New Orleans. Four years later, the US Supreme Court upheld states’ right to segregate by race. This solidified Jim Crow at the highest court, and gave way to a host of racial segregation laws, policies and everyday practices that means virtually every aspect of life was unequal. This is the world into which Dr. King was born.
Culminating nearly a century after the Civil War the Civil Rights Movement worked to address the legacy of Slavery. It took that long, so dear reader, please do imagine a century of Jim Crow. Emancipation, then that.
Dr. King, Bayard Rustin and plenty, plenty others in their crew were repeatedly jailed and dismissed as agitators. Now, how many poor people sit in jail because in the New Jim Crow, they can’t afford the fines and fees, that means you pay for your own bondage. This is where your taxes go. Violence won’t solve this problem, but they won’t listen when you take a knee. They call you an agitator.
We chose the BALLOT they chose the BULLET
Dr. King used all his power to negotiate reconciliation, peacefully, yet he was gunned down and murdered, violently. Now, they advocate for their right to bear arms, knowing they’ve always been spurred to arm themselves in order to squash us (and not their own masters). They traded in whips and chains for guns and jails upon Emancipation. Now, their descendants are so twisted and confused about it that they claim not to know that’s also our blood shed and the Rebel flag, not just theirs. They still don’t get it. They are threatened by inclusion, perhaps fearing their own mediocracy, so they’d rather build a wall. In 2021, they were finally able to wave the Confederate Battle Flag in the halls of the US Capitol.
Their people fought and died for the independent right to bond and enslave us, yet now they speak of Dr. King like he’s some poster child for kneeling and praying for forgiveness in response to any atrocity they commit (even that kid who staged a massacre in a Black church was taken into custody, peacefully). Now, the same people call Dr. King a national hero in the same breath used to denounce those peacefully protesting for equity and justice today. For them, Black Lives do not Matter.
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Bang! Smash! Pow! Representation Matters. #BlackenAsiaWithLove
A superhero walks into a bar.
A reporter walks up and offers a drink.
They end up spending the night together, and a love affair ensues.
*
A superheroine walks into a bar.
A reporter walks up to her and offers a drink.
They end up spending the night together, and a love affair ensues.
*
A Black superheroine walks into a bar.
A Black reporter walks up to her and offers a drink.
They end up spending the night together, and a love affair ensues.
*
A Black superheroine walks into a bar.
A Black woman reporter walks up to her and offers a drink.
They end up spending the night together, and a love affair ensues.
That’s Black Lightning.
*
Superman and Lois Lane got to love one another, and
Wonder Woman fell in love with the first man she met.
For generations of Sci-Fi and superheroes,
Everybody was straight and white.
The Star Trek franchise has been imagining a fairer future since the 60’s, but
It’s only now -on the newest Star Trek show – that
Yellow, black, white, red and brown people portray species from throughout the galaxy.
Finally, things as fickle as religion or gender identity aren’t barriers to love.
*
I earnestly wonder if it was the creators or the audiences who couldn’t see anybody else loved, but straight white people?!?
That only straight white men could save the day.
Representation matters.
Which superhero did you see at first?
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A sissy works at the beer garden. #BlackAsiaWithLove
A sissy works at the beer garden I pass on the way home. In Vietnam, these common watering holes are called “Bia Hoi,” and this one sits at the intersection of two major roads, across from one of the city’s largest parks, on a corner adjacent to one edge of a university campus. To say that this place is a sausage fest would be an understatement. Like drinking holes in so many parts of the world, this is a space for men.
Men come here. Me, too. Although I stick out as a visible foreigner, I am part of the crowd of men. In every part of the world I’ve encountered, there’s nothing weird about a guy sitting around having a beer. Hence, it’s not uncommon for local groups of men to send one over, or invite me to their table for a drink. This has drastically different implications than men in pubs buying drinks for women, especially a woman sitting alone in a drinking hole, which is the LEAST likely thing to see here, despite the number of Bia Hoi’s owned and run by women in Vietnam. The majority here are either men in starched shirts and slacks stepping out, or other groups of guys crossing from the park to gather here for a post-match drink. I started coming here years ago with a man I met through work, and stop by every now and again. As compared to other masculinized spaces, there’s no competition here, and the primary resource – beer – flows freely.
The sissy wears an apron to serve the food and beer. He ties his apron tightly over the same loose orange T-shirt all the other guys wear to serve. This, of course accentuates his curves. While the others walk around baggy, clothes hanging loosely like a barrel sac, with this apron, the sissy has seriously upgraded the uniform with color, shape and flare. What’s more, his hips switch back-n-forth, too quick to be a pendulum. Naw, he switches like nobody’s business, and you really see this the way the beer garden is set-up with several rows of long tables. This is his cat walk. While the other servers seem to be drudging through the labor, the sissy flutters around like a butterfly. And he always looks at each customer, takes time to chat, and seems to have the patience of Job when it comes to their eventual drunkenness. Beer loosens tongues.
The sissy has to march back and forth the serve the orders like a busy bee. It’s hot, so the sissy fans himself with the menu, like it’s a prop, as he prances up-n-down the rows as if it’s his own stage. Everyone else pales in comparison, they’re just there to work. The sissy is there to ‘work’, or as Fergie says: “Make YOU work!” Life’s a stage, they say, and er’body gotta play they part.
The sissy stands at each table like a tea-cup, grinning, weight shifted to one leg, hips leaning to the side, back arched, hand on his hip, holding a pen waiting for the men to call out their food orders. Unlike the other servers who seem to just stand there bluntly to take orders, the sissy acts like a host, and actively shows folks their seats, offers that they take a look at the menu, and genuinely makes sure they are all satisfied.
This sissy has mad flavor, even in this part of his career – of which I know nothing – save for what I’ve seen of him serving beer in a local Bia Hoi. He makes such a flutter when he moves around, just doing his job, that I too, see him on stage, among peers, not drowning in this mundanity. I almost wish he would bring some Hot Lunch from Fame, for those hips are already singing the body electric. Those shoulders practically shimmering as he walks friskily across the pavement, arms stretched open, elbows squeezed, holding a beer in each hand – swish, swish, swish. I can see the musical notes floating around him as he makes his way, doing his job dutifully, albeit with Glee. “Just do it,” I want to say to the sissy. Free us from these seats.
In some places, even today, our existence is a crime.
#ProudBoys
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Rocket Scientist (Ode to those real-life really Hidden Figures all around us) #BlackenAsiaWithLove
Rocket scientist.
Let’s face it. When most of us read those words,
We ‘see’ a man in our mind’s eye.
The so-called smartest job on earth belongs solely to women men.
What if those dreams kids dreamed – of going anywhere in the world –
Also included smart women?
What if we grew up knowing that women were rocket scientists?
As much as we use the oft phrase “it’s not rocket science” to exclaim simplicity,
What if the smartest person nobody ever met was a woman?
Nobody anybody knows has ever met a rocket scientist or a nuclear physicist, but we’re all sure THESE guys represent humanity’s brightest.
What if the brightest people in the world were both women AND men?
The black women ‘behind’ America’s space race, yet, ‘one step for man…’ really did mean one giant step for man-kind.
Have we stolen little girls’ dreams?
By concealing the truth of the Black women rocket scientists behind America’s moon landing,
Haven’t we squashed those ambitions for black girls?
It’s not that Black girls are absent in Pop Culture, they’re just normally, regularly
Relegated to a few very banal stereotypes.
By praising Black Jezebels, Sapphires and Mammies above all,
Haven’t we assured everyone on the planet that the last thing a black girl could do was grow up to become a rocket scientist?
Or president of America?
One giant step for white man-kind, indeed!
Now we have an unkind thug running thangs.
Mr. Backlash! Mr. Backlash!
It’s telling that the biggest modern feminist march happened because of his inauguration.
Michele Obama as Sapphire
What if the most powerful leaders in history were women?
What if, instead of deifying generals and soldiers, and
Rather than holding the torch for sword-bearers,
What if we regarded HIS-story through women’s contributions to society?
How have women determined the fates of nations,
Irregardless of men’s war of conquest and colonization?
What if we studied those who avoided war, not just those who indulged?
Would so many world leaders be calling the Coronavirus an “enemy” that we must “defeat”?
What if we celebrated the survivors of millennia of mostly male belligerence – where
Women couldn’t even own property, let alone vote.
Let alone control their own bodies.
Who were those men and women who fought for equality even then, and
Who were the detractors?
Who were those masochists who believed God had a son, not a daughter, and
Therefore, men have divine right to rule?
What if women had written the Bible, or any holy book or writings from any world religion?
Would patriarchy so regularly be the order of the day?
I’ll have an order of patriarchy with a side of misogyny and sexual objectification for dessert!
My drink order?
Ah, give me a cup of control over every business, government, religious and labor institution for over a thousand years!
Don’t forget the lemon, this is a sour business!
Oh great, free refills!
[sigh]
Wasn’t Shirley Chisholm brave for being the first black woman to run for president?
Let’s face it, a woman running for any office right now is likely to get trolled online,
Likely to have folks write that they’re gonna rape her, so
You can imagine the hate Ms. Chisholm faced.
And oh, did I mention she was queer?
What gymnastics did Ms. Chisholm have to practice in earnest in those days?
“A woman cannot do the job of a man.”
This is a direct quote from a policeman’s wife when the NYPD integrated patrol teams back in the 70’s.
Aren’t the brave first female officers heroes?
A woman said the same thing at a 2016 Trump rally.
Aren’t women brave for running for political office and raising their voices in chambers?
[sigh]
There is no equal pay.
There are plenty o’ glass ceilings to shatter all around the world.
Yet, we take issue with this word feminist.
Feminist.
When some hear feminist, they think bra-burning,
Even though they never burned bras at the infamous feminist protest at the ‘68 Miss America pageant.
Media coverage dismissed this early feminist protest for equality as “bra-burning,” and thus the moniker stuck!
Bra-burning!
You side with anti-feminist masochists when you use that phrase.
You outta keep “bras” outta your mouth until you know first-hand what you’re talking ‘bout!
When some hear feminist, they don’t think ‘feminism’ oh, that means
‘My sister shouldn’t grow up beside me, scared of getting raped by a man in our family.’
When some hear feminist, they think ‘lesbians’.
So, feminists are lesbians, or lesbians are feminists?
What-ever!
It’s way too easy to say straight women can’t support equality in power, opportunity and access for all genders!
Seriously?!?
When some hear feminist, they think about men being oppressed.
They don’t think about the rights husbands have over wives’ bodies – marital rape is a fairly recent feminist protection.
When some hear feminist, they think feminists are ugly, jealous women.
They don’t think about the pressure to be beautiful,
Even in the age of social media where millennials show-up selfie-ready at breakfast, and
Spend half of breakfast posting about the breakfast rather than actually enjoying said breakfast.
But at least their lashes and brows are flawless!
Naw, when some people hear feminist,
They couldn’t even begin to think the amount of money an average woman spends on make-up over a lifetime, trying to make herself beautiful for the male gaze.
[Sing] “The men all paused when I walked into the room…
The men all paused and the brides held their grooms!”
You can best bet her face was beat up before she stepped a foot outside for her “burgers and sodas”.
Yes, there’s “A Meeting in the Ladies Room,” so you’d better bring your best compact, girl.
Flawless!
When some hear feminist, they think privileged white women.
They don’t think, ‘oh, my sister should have the same opportunities as me’.
Or, ‘gee, my sister shouldn’t have to worry about some creep making moves on her at work while she’s trying to feed her kids.’
They couldn’t even begin to know about the Hidden Figures.
When some hear feminist, they think men-haters.
They don’t think about all the hateful things we’ve heard our whole lives
About the dangers of women’s bodies:
Females menstruate -problem 1.
Menstruation makes females moody – problem 2.
Females can get pregnant- problem 3.
Female bodies are problematic… dangerous.
We teach this to everyone.
We teach girls to be mindful of men; we don’t teach boys not to prey on women.
We teach girls to dress appropriately; we don’t teach boys to respect girls’ bodies.
We teach girls to take a pill, almost a rite of passage, but
We don’t teach boys to grow up and research, develop and market a pill for men.
We teach girls: her power is in her sex; we don’t teach boys ‘conquering her sexually is sexist’.
Bash her!
“Beat that p*ssy up!” goes the chant of an infamous deep House beat!
You can take these lessons to the Supreme Court and still win!
So, what if we grew up knowing women were rocket scientists?
What if boys and girls grew up knowing this… taking for granted that girls were smart, too?
If this AND may such stories hadn’t been so conveniently “forgotten”
Would women have to prove themselves so much at work?
Would we be asking women how they balance a career and motherhood?
Or would we be asking dads that question just as often and effortlessly?
So, what if we grew up knowing women were rocket scientists, that
Women were excellent and disciplined at the height of logic?
What if we grew up knowing women were rocket scientists?
Would we use words like “hysterical” to mete out a symbolic hysterectomy?
Would insults like “bitch” or “like a girl” carry any weight?
Notice by adding “like a girl” to any phrase, it becomes an insult!
If women were known to excel at rational thinking like rocket science, then
Wouldn’t we then assume males are emotional beings, too?
Would there be such a thing as toxic masculinity, the irrational, natural extension of teaching kids the ‘Boys Don’t Cry’?
Did you know that by age 7,
Girls know significantly more words to talk about their feelings than boys?
If women were rocket scientists, too,
Would we still refuse to teach boys Emotional Intelligence?
Bury your feelings, boys, take it out with your fists.
Would we still refuse to teach girls that they can excel at math?
What world would we craft, if little boys and girls grew up knowing that muscle and brawn didn’t matter in the world of equality and respect we were told we’d built?
Michele Obama as Sapphire
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A song for Terry. #BlackenAsiaWithLove
A song for Terry.
Terry was just six when he died.
Not a long time spent on this Earth,
But enough to make himself known to the universe.
There were many obstacles in life waiting for boys like Terry.
If life is a vast ocean, then he only sailed a meager ferry.
Terry was born in a place, in a time and
In a body that didn’t count much –
A poor, southern Black boy and such.
He was loved, for sure,
I’d see his grandmother kiss him every morning,
As she sent Terry off to school.
Like mine,
Terry’s household didn’t look like those on TV.
None of ours did.
There weren’t any of those Cosby kids.
But Terry was like my brother, my dear friend.
I looked forward to walking to school with Terry each day.
He always had something interesting to say.
Terry and I were in the same class.
He lived across the street,
And our school was just a few blocks away.
There and back,
I wanted to be by his side.
Sometimes I would walk to my grandparents’ after school,
And momma would pick me up after work.
No sooner did we get home and settled did I ask to go outside and play,
With Terry.
Our story was short-lived.
Two kids on the block,
On the poor side of town,
We lived cocooned in a world of luxury:
We were cared for and we were safe.
Everyone on the block looked out for all the kids;
There were no strangers around home base.
But, we also lived
In a time and place of misery,
Where things like poverty,
Would determine your destiny,
And all the dreams we would dream,
Would have to fight the sun to live.
A handsome little brown boy,
And a finely picked mini ‘Fro.
An easy smile,
And an easy-going way about him.
Terry was a nice guy.
And did I mention he was loved?
He was not the most popular kid in class –
Naw, everybody feared that guy!
Terry was the one everyone liked.
For Valentine’s day,
The whole class exchanged heart-shaped candies and notes with one another-
All in pink, my favorite color.
My one time of year to shine!
I was so excited to choose one especially for Terry, my brother:
Will you be my Valentine?
Even the teacher got along with him.
Terry never got in trouble.
He got sad-eyed when any of us got marched off to get paddled.
At lunch, I’d always sit with Terry.
Terry got free lunch, and
Peanut butter and jelly is what I got when momma packed mine!
We’d hurry to the front of the line,
And finish our food quickly,
So we could go to the play area the rest of the time.
I didn’t like milk, but Terry did.
And he didn’t care for apple sauce, but I did.
Sometimes we’d split:
Half a piece of pizza for half my sandwich.
We’d trade.
We didn’t keep score, but
We were always even.
There, right in the middle of the cafeteria,
Smack in the middle of the school,
Was a large, carpeted recreational area.
There, we’d play and everything was cool.
After lunch, but also before and after school,
We could climb and crawl,
Spin and jump,
Run and hide,
Seek and find,
And holler as loud as we’d want.
Teachers would monitor from nearby, but
They left us alone and took their break-time.
Our teachers would even rotate who had this monitoring job to do.
We weren’t a rowdy bunch,
So, there were no fights to break-up.
There were neither hoops nor balls to tussle over.
No nets, no bats –
No competition and all that.
Just a space…
Where us kids could be free.
We were free.
Terry died in the middle of first grade.
We had found out from our teacher that Terry was sick,
We’d all heard of sickle cell, many in our own families, like mine.
But none of us knew what it means.
We knew Terry was not always sturdy.
One time he’d had a bad bout with asthma.
Our teacher helped him take his inhaler,
That she’d showed us where it was kept in her desk drawer.
Now, she was telling us that Terry was just spending a few days in the hospital.
The whole class avidly awaited Terry’s return.
She didn’t know more than that,
I needed to know when Terry’d be back.
I knocked on his door, one day
On the way home from school,
To tell his grandmother I hoped Terry’d be ok.
I knew my grandmother would be heartbroken if anything like that happened to one of us.
Kids that little aren’t supposed to die.
Not here, and not of diseases we can’t even see.
Even at that age, I knew this just shouldn’t be.
And yet turn on the TV,
Every day we see signs and symptoms of little Black boys’ morbidity.
Whether from war or starvation in distant lands, or
Dilapidation and disease on these burning sands.
Just like what was happening to Terry:
A casualty of a neglectful society.
I didn’t get to mourn Terry,
Didn’t have some cathartic corral with our classmates about
The fun times we had or how much we missed him.
There was no school counselor coming to our class –
No one explaining the cycle of life, nor
Asking us about our feelings.
I knew how I felt.
I loved Terry, and knew the way I loved him was seen as peculiar;
I couldn’t let anyone know about this one-sided affair.
I was sad, and all this was unfair.
What would I say?
We were only 6 years old, and
Terry was the first boy I ever loved.
—
In memory of Muhammed Ali, another Black boy who survived those same streets and corridors.
Thoughts from the criminology team 