This blog is a visual articulation of MY views of the world around me. I will present various sides of arguments, and always sum them up with my own personal take.
My more entertaining/diverse/ridiculous/lovable blog can be found at http://mrjdjude.tumblr.com/ and I'll do all of my following from that blog as well!
Thanks and enjoy!
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Blacks, Bibles, and …I couldn’t come up with another B-word, sorry
I wish I was more creative to think of a word, that begins with a B, to complete the title, but I failed. Please forgive me.
I have long struggled to rationalize my ever changing stance on Christianity with my growing interest in social justice and equality. I often talk about growing up in a conservative-southern-Black-Christian society and how that affected me. Having had been experienced to SO much since then, I realize how much my initial upbringing affected the way I see the world, especially same-sex relationships.
In a moment of full disclosure, I once voted against same-sex unions. I can’t even tell you why. It was my first chance to vote (I was much more of conservative Christian back then too) and I think I was overwhelmed by how many things there were on the ballot to vote for. I clearly remember not reading the proposition well, but I do remember saying to myself, “I believe gay people should be able to love who they want to but marriage is sacred.” It hurts me to know that was my stance at that time. I’m proud to say that I now see how limiting and hurtful that stance was and I’m glad I’ve moved to a better place on that issue.
As the debate on same-sex relationships wages on, I wonder how my community, the Black community, and more specifically the aforementioned community I grew up in, will respond. Will we realize that our homosexual brethren are asking for the same equality we fought fight for?! Will we use this moment as a blessingand finally acknowledge our own LGBT community, a community we, as Black people, have kept hidden?! Will we go the way of some “wayward” Christian evangelicals (and Manny Pacquiao) and continue to insist that we LEGALLY infringe on the civil rights of American citizens?!
I have been critical of Black people who have blindly followed President Obama and have sucked up everything he’s said, without hesitation. That’s why, although I don’t agree with them, I didn’t mind Tavis and Cornell going on their world tour debating Obama’s ideologies. While I think their impetus to do so was, for the most part, fueled by selfish and self-indulgent reasons (jealousy even?), I think that type of discourse is needed and should be welcomed (I mean, he’s a politician at the end of the day. All politicians should be have their views scrutinized, right?). I’m going to go on the record and saying I hope, that on this issue, Black people blindly follow Obama’s lead. He is doing the right thing on this one and even after intense debate and scrutiny the truth and value of his position will be justified.
While reading up on these issues (and getting lost in the myriad of “related” articles) I came across two articles that spoke most directly to my current feelings. The first one spoke to the rising numbers of Black atheists and agnostics. While I still consider myself a Christian (and a proud one at that!) I have to say that I have moved away from the church and the more restricting forms of Christianity. I’ll leave it at that as I feel like there is another blog post in there.
The second article speaks, in a similar fashion, to what I’m saying in this post. I’ve highlighted a section that resonated the most with me:
Self-examination is also necessary to ensure that opposition to this and other polarizing social issues is not a result of twisting either the letter or spirit of biblical teaching. My pastor often says that when you take a text out of context you end up left with a con. For example, while the Bible was used by many whites to justify slavery in our country, the course of history has made it clear that they were motivated more by the desire to maintain their privileged political and economic status than fidelity to the scripture.
What is our “privileged political and economic status” that we, as heterosexual Blacks, are fighting to maintain? The sanctity of marriage? Shit, we lost that a long time ago! So then what? For real, someone answer that for me, please!
Anyway, I’m going to wrap up this rant by saying I hope we, as a community, align ourselves with The President, Michael Eric Dyson, Will Smith, Jay-Z, and numerous others, and support same-sex marriage equality.
On Blacks and Fat: Danielle Moodie-Mills
The older I get, the more I try not to pass judgment on people.
It’s a work in progress…
I highlight this article not to pass judgment on members of the Black community who are overweight or obese, or whathaveyou, but rather, to highlight the importance of staying physically active. I’ve always been a huge proponent of sports, and the value it can bring to one’s life, ESPECIALLY because it keeps people physically active.
The systemic inequalities Black communities have faced for centuries have resulted in a HUGE health disparity. We, as a community, need to do as much as we can, baby-step by baby-step, to do our part to fight for our health. Staying as physically active as possible is one way we can do that.
I Needed The Help
See what I did there? lol.
Anyway, I saw The Help over the weekend and it evoked a lot of thought out of me. It’s really hard to talk about it. I have a menagerie of feelings. I’m proud to know that we, as a people, have endured the life of the home servant. It makes me SO sad to know that after that, we still have so far to come. It pains me that the movie was more about the white women and their lives than it was of the Black women. I know that the movie didn’t focus on the Black men of the day but I wanted to hear from them. I am both happy and pissed the fuck off at some of the relationships the maids developed with the kids and women they were paid to take care of. I’m saddened that Hollywood will turn anything into a fucking love story! THE ACTING (by some) WAS FUCKING AMAZING! There weren’t that many moments that I realized that I was, in fact, watching a movie, so the production value was good. I don’t love the movie but would add it to my personal collection.
If you know me you know I don’t go to the movies. Before I give you more detailed reasons know that my NUMBER 1 reason is that it costs too much for me. I don’t get paid a lot and I’d rather spend my little bucks on other shit. My other reasons is that I’m just overall dissapointed in what the movies offer. I got so mad while watching the previews (I tweeted, twice! and three times about it and will talk more about that experience later on) that it carried over to the first 20 minutes of the movie. Granted, the first 20 minutes also pissed me off. Those images of Black women having to acquiesce to every whim of these white women irked the shit out of me. It made me uncomfortable, in a good way. I was forced to face my history and I wasn’t able to turn away.
At my new job, I’m working on this play Neighbors that does a similar thing, only with blackface. It makes audiences confront our own complicity and doesn’t let us just shrug it off but makes us sit in it, like a baby who has to stay in their soiled diaper for hours.
Theatre, and art in general, should challenge us, make us think, make us feel, make us talk, inspire us to make change (in ourselves and in the world around us) and entertain. While I disagree, in some sorts with a lot of the plot pieces in the movie, I overall felt like it satisfied my aforementioned criteria.
If you are on the fence on whether to go see this movie or not, please do. If not only to give Viola Davis, Cicely Tyson, Octavia Spencer, Aunjanue Ellis and others credit for their hard word, but to have the experience of confronting your understanding of self in relationship to others, in the context of the experience of Black women working in the domestic service.
I have to do more research on the origins of the movie and the book and will come back on how I feel like the movie did in comparison to the book. I’ll also give my review of the movie. Look out for my post about the previews before the movie and why that adds to the reasons I don’t go to the cinema. Busy week. I hope to write it all…(current history says I won’t…)
If you’ve seen the movie (or read the book) what do you think about the movie?
Article Share: "White Women Do It, Too: 8 Things Black Women Can’t Get Away With Doing"
Let me start off by saying I’m SICK AND TIRED of this conversation. It’s the same rhetoric over and over again. If it isn’t a story about why Black women are single, or why Black men don’t want Black women, it’s a story on how the “other” side has it so much easier in the dating world. Everyone is looking for someone to blame or someone to yell at for “making” them a victim.
In the most recent “I’m a victim of society” news, here is another post by LaShaun Williams. I railed against a previous article of hers (unfortunately/fortunately I can’t find it). Generally I think she misses that mark and fails to take in the whole story when she writes. She has her right to do that, I just hate it when she uses her opinion to speak for the whole…
This article is yet another example of her style of broad generalizations and making those generalizations examples for the whole.
In the article she states that Black women can’t get away with sex on the first date (or within the first three months). Speaking only for myself, (trying to refrain from falling into the same trap I’m mad at her about) sex too soon isn’t a turn-off. Sex too late can be. There are no separate rules for Black women as opposed to the other races of women I’ve dated.
I don’t think I agree with either her sex tape or nose job comments. I’m sure if [insert Black celeb here] “leaked” a sex tape, she wouldn’t get too much backlash (depending on who she was…). It’s not about what race the person is on the sextape fiascos, it is all about the personal persona. If they’re a socialite or someone that others want to see naked, it won’t have a negative affect. As far as the nose job piece, plenty of rhinoplasties go wrong, Black and white, and many go well, Black and white. Plastic surgery is a whole other conversation (body image, European standards of beauty, access to the best doctors, etc…).
Her commentary on loud talking and low-rise jeans are real weak. DON’T TALK LOUD ON THE PHONE. Nobody wants to hear that shit. Black, white, Asian, male, female. That shit is always unattractive. Regardless. DON’T WEAR CLOTHES THAT DON’T FIT YOU! Also, not all Black women look bad in them. How can she forget about the diversity in body structures of Black women?! Another example of her myopic view of the world.
Without even commenting on her “Black women and angry faces” I have to say I am really annoyed by her commentary. Most things are repetitive. They come from a complete victim mentality. They are broad claims but she leaves out a large section of the people whom she is supposedly defending. What is most upsetting is this antiquated view on sexuality.
I talk about sex, a lot. I like love it. It’s important to me. I would venture that it is important to others too. All of Williams’ comments about sex support sexual suppression. Sexual liberation is a good thing. Why should Black women keep themselves from that? Who is asking for that? No one that I know.
Again, I’m really tired of this type of story. It saddens me that this is still part of the current dialogue. Not sure what it takes to get past it, but I hope we figure it out soon. My sanity depends (slightly) on it.
