fundraiser||women of color radio project

My friend, Tracey Rose has gathered a small group of young women in media to produce radio stories/podcasts from our perspectives. That means, for example, conceiving stories for audiences who look at Michelle Obama and see their mother, sister, neighbor or co-worker and so, would not need to be taught that people like Michelle exist.

I get excited, damn near giddy in the presence of these brilliant women. We are journalists, documentary filmmakers, producers, teachers, authors. Communities of color will feature prominently in our stories but they will not be our only subjects. It's fair to say that we're approaching this with a "World is Yours" mentality.

But we need your help. We need to raise $380 to purchase high quality recording equipment that will be collectively shared among our members. Learn more--and invest as little or as much as you like--here.

Any questions, please, please holla.


Photo credit: John Smock

writing out loud||father's day

It's a weird day for me. I watched the HFD greetings as they rolled out on my Facebook friends feed. One announced, with a smiley face, that he had cooked breakfast in bed for his little girl. Another sent greetings as a "daddy's girl."And another, with a beautiful boy, spoke of the "fraternity of fathers" to which he belongs. Which made me think about what this communal celebration means for me, who never really bonded with my dad.

Beyond a certain age, I rarely allowed myself to imagine that I belonged to him. Living in different countries helped. I am his daughter. He is my father. The words come out of my mouth as a fact of life, like, women have babies. I am not owned, nor do I own. But neither have I been free. Locked away inside, in a little room, is a tangle of hurt and feelings of abandonment that I am sure, bleeds into the way I have lived my life, the choices I have made. Though, not all necessarily negative.

Screw the theories about fatherless daughters. We're no more dysfunctional than your average human being.

A couple of years ago, I met a woman named Carla whose surname is my father's. Saying her full name aloud in my mind--which I often did--was like windowshopping for a pair of jeans. Buying was never the point. I just wanted to see what they looked like. My name next to his sounded fine, I guess. But so did, Carla Murphy.

Over the years, I'd tried to forget about that little room but that doesn't work. It's unnatural to forget about your parent. Right now, the little room just sits there. I don't bother it. And I'm mostly successful at not letting it bother me (I think)--except, of course, on Father's Day.

Today, I called my stepfather and later in the evening I called my dad. Neither was home. Leaving messages to no one in particular seemed about right. That's not a good or bad thing. It's just what it is.


* Photo credit: evilgreg3000 (flickr)

week in review||andré aciman and obama's neglect of egyptian jews

I wanted to be fully sympathetic. Novelist André Aciman points out that President Obama in his Cairo speech, forgot to mention the forced exodus of about 800,000 Jews from Arab lands, including Egypt, Aciman's former home. I was glad to learn this history for the first time but turned off by the piece's, See, look what they did to us, tone. It only invites the other side to rejoin. And around we go--again.

Forced migration and starting over anew must've sucked. But doesn't the current regional quagmire and its worldwide impact, suck worse? And shouldn't that big picture inspire a less harping, but not less truthful, approach to airing your grievance?

I suppose Aciman's op-ed struck me as quite insular, perhaps even, selfish. It displays little connection to or appreciation for the intractability of the wider regional conflict. It doesn't mention Egyptians, whose freedoms have been curtailed for nearly 30 years by President Mubarak. It doesn't describe how Aciman's family contributed to Egypt, only what his family owned and contributed to Egyptian Jewry. And in a world in which forced migration occurs all the time, and to families that can not afford maize, much less own a factory, Aciman's plight edges further down my sympathy scale.

But the bit that really furrows my brow is the final superlative that Aciman attaches to the Jewish experience in the ME:

But for [Obama] to speak in Cairo of a shared effort “to find common ground ... and to respect the dignity of all human beings” without mentioning people in my position would be like his speaking to the residents of Berlin about the future of Germany and forgetting to mention a small detail called World War II.

Is it really? In what sense is the forced migration of 800,000 Jews like World War II? Or does Aciman mean the Holocaust? And if so, why not be specific?

Is Aciman suggesting that the Jewish experience in Arab lands is the same as that in Hitler's Europe? And if so, what does that mean for how we view the Israeili-Palestinian conflict?

UPDATE: Rabbi Michael Lerner at progressive Jewish mag, Tikkun, issues a helpful backgrounder on the Aciman article.

UPDATE 2: Excellent context and thoughtfulness from David Shasha at The American Muslim who writes, "There is little argument that the Egypt Aciman discusses was a hell for the few Jews who remained. ... We can lop off the final act of the Jews of Egypt and dwell on the dysfunction, or we can place that tragic era into a larger historical context which would permit us to get beyond the hostility and the fatalism that Mr. Aciman chooses to provide us. Consider coming late to a performance of “Hamlet” and seeing all the dead bodies piled up on the stage but not knowing how they got there."

*Photo credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

court files||my sonia sotomayor "teaching moment"

The NYT's conservative voice, David Brooks, today wrote a, "Well, if I must..." column supporting Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.

What I want Brooks to explain in further detail though, is how some white Americans came to be color-blind--since that is the vaunted perch by which Brooks distinguishes himself from Sotomayor and the rest of her "I am ___"-ilk. I figure, this lesson could be the famed "teaching moment."

Color-blindness is the sometimes spoken but more often than not, unsaid, thread winding its way through the Sotomayor debates, particularly from the conservative corner. It's an admirable ideal. Though it's not one that I wish upon a society that can't even discuss race without reverting to a defensive crouch.

Instead, I would be more inclined to believe these happy huggers of the color-blind ideal if they explained the process and method by which white Americans, after 400 years of living in a society that advanced a white superiority agenda, became color-blind. How, Brooks? How?

Within the last 50 years, what did you do? I don't mean what people of color did after legislation passed; they integrated schools, workplaces, etc. What specifically did whites do? How did you do it? For how long did you do it? What are your metrics? How can you tell if someone is color-blind? If they're not? What kind of conversation helps one to become color-blind? Did you take classes?

I aspire to not think about race as much as I do... perhaps, not at all. And I would like Brooks or some other conservative (or, liberal... this isn't a partisan ideal) to show me how to not do that. Seriously.

I want to know how not to notice that blacks and Latinos form a disproportionate majority of the incarcerated. I want to know how not to notice that the floor of last year's Republican National Convention looked like an AARP meeting for white people only.

What else do you want to know how not to notice?

media.savvy?||why valuing "smart people" is stupid

The scenes below, of a recent Sunday morning talk show about the torture memos followed by an HBO movie depicting the planning of Hitler's Final Solution, are radically different from each other. Still, I didn't have to look too hard for the similarities.

video||mos def and christopher hitchens

Watching Mos Def get sonned, as TNC describes the head-patting that Christopher Hitchens doles out on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, is like seeing a certain segment of young black men I've known, suddenly being told to shoo away from the adult table. I'm glad that Hitchens remained, well, Hitchens. The "soft bigotry of low expectations" is not a part of his particular British make-up. If he feels a soft spot in the armour, he's gonna stick the knife in deeper--and twist. Peep him calling Mos, "Mr. Definitely."



First of all, I agree with Bill Maher pairing "celebrities" with "real brains." Perhaps Maher does it to break up intellectual monotony/masturbation but I like the assumption that all of his guests start out on equal footing. Some may be tempted to say that Mos shouldn't have been matched with Salman Rushdie and Hitchens, both of whom--to differing levels of excellence--know their way around an Oxbridge debate.

Mos Def may not share Salman Rushdie's encyclopedic knowledge of the entire Western and Eastern canons but that is only ignorance. It doesn't mean that he's not smart, can't have a logical argument or ask incisive questions. I'll never tire of repeating this: Intelligence isn't measured by Harvard or Oxbridge. It is however, measured by initiative to educate oneself, which Mos shows, here, that he has not taken. At least as it relates to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

What stuck me most--I felt the knife twist deep in my innards--is Mos falling back on, "I'm from Brooklyn." If you engage in any kind of mental acuity battle (rap ciphers, Oxbridge debates, street corner jawning, boardroom arguments), falling back on a physical threat instead of a verbal take-down is tantamount to admitting defeat. You just lost. Bad. And Mos, despite the braggadocio, knows it.

I fear that some, even after speaking on the truth of this exchange, will be tempted to coddle Mos. I like him, even if it's just because he reminds me of cats I used to know, who're part of my nostalgia for my New York City youth. And dem cats, who got excited and just had to overshare about Panthers and COINTELPRO and Kemet because they read two or three books that affirmed what they already knew about the world, I'd tuned them out long ago. (that's not to say there aren't legitimate and logical discussions to be had about Panthers and COINTELPRO and police terrorism; there are)

I've seen Mos retreat into generalities and hide behind corner-speak on Maher before. I remember thinking, You're better than that. I remember thinking, I wish that, especially here, in this space, on national TV, where articulate young black men from hip hop culture are presented, by sheer absence as f&^king anomalies, that you would be as good as I believe you can be.

And I started to tune Mos out, too. Just like, over time, I tuned out rap. And how I tune out God-speakers... you know, the one's who drop Jesus's name like Prada and Dolce to prove a superficial alliance instead of having real fashion sense not already prescribed by a label.

It's one thing to starve for knowledge and, once filled, seek to share and expand on what you've learned. It's another thing to starve for knowledge that reaffirms your approach to the world and, once filled, seek to create sheep as unquestioning and uninterested in learning as yourself.

It's not that Mos isn't right to question received knowledge, particularly as it relates to US media presentations of anything Islam or Muslim. The fact is, though, he answered his questions about al Qaeda and the Taliban by *not* seeking out answers because he was comfortable in believing that the US government and media have been wrong. They may have been. But Mos didn't actually seek out the knowledge that proved that. He assumed. And Hitchens called him out on it.

Which raises the question of what happens when you're asked to leave your subculture of comfort? What happens when you're asked, not to pontificate on a position, but to be a diplomat/ambassador and explain the relevance of, say, Assata Shakur to folks who don't speak your language, who know nothing of your culture--and have them get it?

new writing||black girls, sport and title ix, part ii

Some New York urban girls are benefiting from an advocate and coach who helped New York City public schools kick off double-dutch jump-rope competitions this month. But critics say there aren't enough Ruth Paynes to go around. Second of two stories.

(WOMENSENEWS)--Tina Sloan Green, co-founder and president of the Philadelphia-based Black Women in Sport Foundation, says urban girls need more Ruth Paynes. She is the 64-year-old girls' sports advocate and coach who has been instrumental in establishing the first season of competitive double-dutch in New York City public high schools.

"Title IX is great but in order to bring about change it takes activism on the parts of parents and people who understand legislation," said Sloan Green, who introduces city girls to nontraditional sports like lacrosse, golf, tennis and fencing. "First, parents have to know how sports can benefit their daughters."

Kym Spruell, 33, is one parent who has recently caught on.

Read more on Women's eNews.

And check out the Black Women in Sport Foundation. Never mind that the site's Web -1.0.