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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
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Published Letters: 54 Editor's Choice: 2
>>How the hell did we get here?<<
Wake up! WakeupWakeupWakeup! When are these so-called fearless female leaders going to realize that ABORTION is not the end and the beginning of "women's issues"?
As a member of the "tween" generation, and a recovering active member of the pro-choice movement (still pro-choice, just not in favor of the elitism and classism exhibited by the NOWs and NARALs), I must say there are bigger issues for women than abortion. There IS child care, health care, jobs, THE WAR, the economy.
Look, we lost the abortion argument from the get-go when it was presented to the Supreme Court as "a woman's right to choose" rather than a right of medical privacy. All we successfully created was new not-for-profit and lobbyist jobs for the neo-liberal elites wanting to hob-knob in D.C. congressional hallways and over $100 steak dinners in D.C. restaurants.
If you don't live in an urban area, then you probably do not have access to abortion, because there are no clinics where an abortion can be performed. Hell with Roe v. Wade! It can stand untouched but for the last twenty years those "pro-choice activists" who cry the loudest over the return of wire hangers have done nothing to build up the physical infrastructure needed to get an abortion in the first place. Besides, if Roe v. Wade gets thrown out, economically priviledged girls with just go back having “D&Cs” in their gynecologist’s offices. Privately.
It is time for those women claiming to represent the “needs” of American women to reprioritize their fourty-year old agendas, admit they blew the argument in the first place and get in touch with real women and real needs.
The average American Gal ain't lobotomized or dumb, it's just her female "fearless leaders" got nothin' to sell, so there's nothin' to buy.
>>when I was in NOW they were all over the place with lots of women's issues: childcare, health care, abused women's rights to charge their husbands with abuse.<<
Yeah, well, cosmicmojo, it's all about Marketing, as you said in your post. Then (it)should have been heralded at a "right to privacy", which Americans place extreme value upon, as opposed to "a right to choose", as in, "do I buy Minute Maid or Tropicana orange juice?"
What I saw from 1988-1992 was white, upper middle class women that had never wanted for anything tell those of their economic and social status that it was all about "reproductive rights" and "the right to choose", and in the same breath and in the same rooms and rallies tell women of color and poor white women that for them it was about "an unwanted baby ruining your life" and "population control". Incontinuity will kill ya' every turn.
Is it any wonder this prochoice "movement" is in the toilet? They're segregated amongst themselves and they've successfully segregated the entire frmale populace.
The average woman has a brain. And if she believes that her lot should not be cast with the NOWs, NARALs and feminist alarmists of the day, then, this has got to be accepted by those so-called "enlightened leaders".
And the wheel goes 'round.
>>When I was in NOW many years ago, it was very diferse: along racial lines, age, and sexual orientation. It reflected the community well. If you were in a chapter that was alarmingly white and middle class, I expect that was because you chose to live in a white middle class neighborhood.<<
I don't live in white-middle-class land. I live in inner-city Chicago, 75% of the population belonging to anything but what you described. Today the Chicago-chapter is opened part-time and cannot even afford a receptionist. "Please leave a message and SOMEONE will get back to you...".
As you said, your membership was many years ago. So was mine, I guess. But the bottomline from 88-92 was "CELEBRITY!" "Hey guys, let's have a big rally and invite all of these poor grassroots groups (for brawn, 'cause we wrich white girls are the brains) and let's have Raquel Welch, Jill Eichenberry and Polly Bergen flown in to speak on the issues!"
No. Really. That's what your sisters-in-arms did with the money they raised. And what a difference it made.
Technology and medical advancement has made abortion in first three months almost a mootpoint. And as someone said uptopic, there's more than one side to this article.
I still maintain that the so-called caretakers of the pro-choice argument gave themselves a clitirectomy, and sold their souls to the devil. The fact that this issue is still debated and Roe v. Wade is being flushed down the drain AND you can't get your birth control prescription filled at some pharmacies SAYS IT ALL.
The most dangerous word in the English language is "BUT". "Yeah we're (pro-choice groups) raggedy-assed and fucked up BUT they're (pro-life) evil."
That may be true, but apparently ain't nobody buying it. Even Hillary is jumping off the good ship pro-Abortion shop.
Well, cosmicmojo, you can hold on tightly to the fantasy of these feminists groups having yo' back, but I'm doing what I want to do by any mean necessary and I ain't sitting around waiting those out-of-gas-and-time crones to "save me" the way they believe I deserved to be saved.
>>The only question I have is why a black woman's being afraid of a spider makes her like a white woman. I am black; and I, and my female black friends, would freak if a spider were in our hair.<<
...oh, and we're also afraid of snakes. A lot of us sistahs are girly-girls, just like you, Steph.
See, this is why I think movies like "Something New" can be the start of something good.
This society may actually have to SEE black woman as just that: women. The same loves and fears and hopes and dreams and crazy thoughts and weaknesses that the white girls have. And this just in: we can be quiet and boring with the best of 'em!
Debra Dickerson touched on this a few months back in her lament over the "Wedding Crashers" not coming to her soiree and dancing with her 'nana. And I am always quietly disturbed when I hear Ricky Nelson's "Traveling Man". Everywhere on the planet but Africa. Or the Carribean. Or Harlem.
Black women are the last American sexual frontier, and some of it can be squarely blamed on ourselves as we've internalized and regurgitated a lot of dangerous and inaccurate crap. Somehow, in the battle to fight the stereotype of being hypersexed-yet castrating battleaxes, we got erased from the "on-being-female" section in the public psyche, and in our own psyches. Oh, and the O.J.'s and Reggie Jacksons didn't help the black female image by publicly saying that we just didn't measure up like the white girls.
So here's to "Something New". May that truely be the case...
I saw "Diary", and I plan on seeing "Family Reunion" too.
The bottomline is: if Hollywood can continue to turn out in mass rotten-to-the-core "general market" (i.e. "white") movies, then why can Blacks and other ethnic groups make mediocre to just "so-damn-bad-they're-art" movies? As long as they make money, since that's all Hollywood (and the rest of America) is interested in.
"Diary" was certainly not the best movie I've ever seen, but it was funny and provided the escapism I was looking for. It also provied me with the rare chance to sit in the same theater with my fundamentalist Christian girfriends (and also a Jewish girlfriend)who aren't open to seeing the more "provacative" movies out there.
Tyler Perry hit a goldmine. And whether anybody wants to publicly admit it (so I will): Amos 'n Andy were funny as hell! Racist, but comic genius. For black people to sit around and denigrate that and other chitlin-circuit entertainment is hypocritical and embracing a cultural denial that borders on ethnic mental illness. Every black comic working today stole their act straight off the chitlin circuit. Black people-we laugh at ourselves and our current and past situations for emotional relief, plain and simple.
As for Mr. Perry's sexual orientation-well if you ain't trying to screw or marry him, who cares? What's the relevance? "What would the black church think?" Oh, I dn't know, the same thing they think about all of the closet gay choir directors and those two ladies that have lived together and come to service now for the last thirty years. The Black Church (just like the "white" church and synagogues) continue to stick their head in the sand over the issue of any sexuality, hetero or homo. If you're looking for clarity and compassion on sex, stay out of the Church, Synagogue and Mosque.
There was a time when there was nothin' but so-called chitlin-circuit entertainment for black people. The road is wide and long now, and if you just can't bear the thought of a loud black man in drag, then exercise your options.
Mr. Perry has a built-in audience. No one has the right to deny them what makes them laugh or cry.
And one last thought to my fellow "negros": isn't it time that we got over the whole "this is so embarassing in front of the white folk! What will they think of us" angst that we've carried around since the early days of integration? WE OVERCAME! We can put out shit and roses with the rest of them. Pick on something else, something valid.
...if you look. And you don't have to look far. The multiplex is not the only place, and certainly not the primary place, to find blacks on film in three-dimensional roles. As a matter of fact, most times those roles intersect with characters of other races and the plotlines are not race-based.
But even if you look at just the "all-black" fare out there, then you're suffering from short-term memory loss. Just two weeks ago you got "Something New". I see a couple of new African-American themed movies released on a monthly basis, not to mention DVDs. Oh, and there's TV, inDemand, and Premium Cable. Not to mention (Gasp!) books and periodicals galore that represent a full spectrum of African-American experiences - yes - that's plural, because they're legion. Just get your high-end expectations out of the Hollywood machine and the world opens up.
From Amiri Baraka to Ward Connerly? Well, you can always count on Spike Lee-coming up, a documentary on Katrina for HBO and a theatrical release in a few weeks starring Denzel Washington. Oh, and if you're looking for right-wing controversy, there's always Larry Elder's "Michael & Me". And Samuel Jackson's "Freedomland" came out the same day as "Family Reunion".
We got plenty 'o somethin'. What happens is one movie gets its fifteen minutes of dissection in the mainstream press and we feel compelled to defend or denigrate it as if it's the only offering or as if we must validate said critics' politically correct indignation.
White liberal movie and cultural critics don't get black people. Hell, they don't even get white people for that matter. Their reviews tend to be more about class dynamic-and they skew to the upperclass-than about anything else. Tyler Perry's plays probably made more money than Eugene O'Neill's and Arthur Miller's combined and now they take notice? And because someone white goes into a dark room and sees black people on screen for 90 minutes being broadly funny, and perhaps even stereotypical, I'm supposed to gag from the "embarassment" my people have brought forth on screen? Oh, please!
When Roger Ebert, et al are ashamed of "Blue Collar Comedy", the "Ernest" series and "My Name is Earl", then I'll hang my head over "Madea".
Note to Mr. Smith: It's pronounced "Ma-Dee'r" (silent 'r'). Shorthand for "mother-dearest". Term of affection for one's mother used by black southerners and carribeans. Nothing to do with the fictional character of Greek mythology.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
