on "Seen It All and Done the Rest" by Pearle Cleage

BOOK REVIEW:

If you’re not careful you just might miss it. Buried in the pages of Pearl Cleage’s “Seen It All and Done the Rest,” beneath the heavy dose of drama and cheesiness, is a story about people.

At the center of Cleage’s novel is Josephine Evans, an ex-Atlantan in her mid-fifties with a successful career as a renowned theatre actress in Amsterdam. After being gone for nearly 30 years and as her acting career falls apart, Josephine returns to Atlanta to check on her granddaughter, Zora. Months earlier, Zora found herself in the middle of a messy murder-suicide. Zora spirals further into alcohol-induced oblivion and promiscuity each day her face appears in the local tabloids.

When Josephine decides to fix up her West End childhood home, technologically-savvy Zora broadcasts it over YouTube. A five million dollar commercial deal rides on forcing Josephine and the rest of the community members out of their neighborhood. What begins with a single house becomes the journey of an entire community and a world of web-followers.

Cleage, a local Atlanta writer, fills the pages with references to Spelman College, Paschal’s, Soul Vegetarian and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, creating a version of the real world where worldly struggle always ends with personal triumph. Her affable characters draw you in, doling out advice in their dialogue. “Sometimes you have to burn a few bridges to keep from crossing the same river twice,” declares Abbie, a friend Josephine reunites with in Atlanta after parting ways in Paris 20 years ago.

Josephine flies back to America to be with her granddaughter as she staggers precariously close to drinking herself to death, an example set by her father (Josephine’s son). The big reveal of the tragedy glooming over Zora is a bit of a let down. It’s not until over 100 pages later that Josephine makes the decision to repair her house, long abandoned by the property management company in hopes that Josephine will settle for a few thousand dollars and clear the way for the commercial deal.

Without the presence of a suspenseful plot, at times the novel feels like it is dragging. Fortunately, it is in these between pages– after you’ve stopped speed-reading, driven by the curiosity of wanting an explanation for Zora’s behavior, but before you tangle with the storyline surrounding the house– that we meet most of Cleage’s characters. Like the slightly-clairvoyant Abbie, who leaves behind the smell of patchouli everywhere she goes, and Victor, the squatter with a cause.

Masterful in her descriptions, Cleage packs paragraphs with so much imagery and detail that characters come alive in front of you like new-age holograms. “She was a small woman,” writes Cleage, “but she had a big presence, and the intensity of her dark eyes made it seem even bigger. Her dark blue coat, small flowered hat, and sensible, low-heeled pumps completed a picture of churchgoing-black-womanhood that was as familiar to me as a my own face in the mirror.” You begin seeing the character in front of you, hearing their voices, and chuckling at their idiosyncrasies.

The give and take in the dialogue and the scenes Cleage paints for her reader make “Seen It All and Done the Rest” easy to fall into. As the story line culminates in an over-the-top finale, it only seems fitting for a women like Josephine, a seasoned thespian who dons flashy red Kimonos and stars in her own YouTube reality show. By the time Cleage sneaks in her surprise twist, strategically placed at the bottom of the page, you’re so wrapped up in the novel you’ll probably flip back and reread the sentence in disbelief.

At the end of “Seen It All and Done the Rest,” the devoted, idealistic characters have grown on you. More importantly, they serve as a reminder for all those touchy-feely words we should strive to attain, like justice and goodness. As Cleage writes, “you can only be a good citizen one step at a time.”

Seen It All and Done the Rest

Pearle Cleage

OneWorld/ $18

on “Feathered and Tarred”

Artists’ Exhibit: “Feathered and Tarred”

Janie Askew and David Calton

Not every relationship is meant to work out. Master of Fine Arts candidates Janie Askew and David Calton’s twenty-four piece exhibit, “Feathered and Tarred,” serves as the perfect reminder of this familiar aphorism. Unfortunately, only Calton holds up his part of the bargain in the creative partnership.

 

With its nudity and compromising positioning, “Feathered and Tarred” is best described as daring, irreverent, and even a bit scandalous. Calton’s collection, outrageous in its depictions of decadence, is uniquely refreshing. His Francisco Goya-inspired prints play with both empty, stark white space and corners crowded with details. The thematic narrative appears to be humankind’s bonds with beasts, or more specifically, our bestiality.

 

His message is best embodied by a single terracotta sculpture “Degrees of Separation.” An armless figure of imperceptible gender sits on a rock. Behind the rock lies a dog. On his website, Calton describes his work “as a metaphor in illustrating the characteristics that are present in both animal and human worlds.”

 

Animal-headed humans and human-bodied animals are portrayed with the stunning detail afforded by drypoint and aquatint printmaking techniques. Copious amounts of dead animals sprinkled throughout –dogs, deer, bunnies–stir up even more discomfort. But this very discomfort forces viewers to acknowledge Calton’s victory. The same cannot be said for Askew’s work.

 

Undoubtedly a skilled printmaker, Askew simulates both depth and texture in her flat graphite prints. The figures exude presence, invading your personal space as you peer into the work. But where Calton’s vivid portrayal of body parts pulls you in, Askew’s go overboard, seemingly existing more for shock value than to extend the work’s narrative.

 

The online “Flagpole Magazine” tagline describing Askew’s work as “raw, uncomfortable narratives on race” must be a misprint. Swollen lips and engorged loins aren’t strong enough to carry a thought-provoking narrative on race. In using recurring imagery Askew tries her hardest to make some profound social commentary, but she never makes it.

 

Orgasmic titles like “Facial,” “Sexual Eruption,” or “Trill Spill” lack the needed subtlety to tease the reader into reflection. What is Askew trying to get at, anyway? Is it that sexuality is beautifully complex? Or maybe it is a comment on the grotesqueness of sex. The ambiguous message defies the mark of good art: let it speak for itself. Calton’s work does just that. Askew’s scream­s­– except it’s all a bunch of jibberish.  Instead of being thematic, the sexual references feel cliche. Her work reminds you of a giggly, teenage boy playing with his father’s highly-coveted, dirty magazines: frantic and immature.

 

It’s too bad Askew’s artistic mediocrity is underscored next to Calton’s cohesive, imaginative body of work. But for art fans who find themselves at “Feathered and Tarred,” be confident that Calton’s work alone makes the trip worthwhile. Before exiting, make that one last internal note: Yeah, sometimes the best thing really is for folks to go their separate ways.

 

“Feathered and Tarred” appeared throughout the month of October and November in the Suite Gallery at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia; (706) 542-1511, art.uga.edu.

on Musical Bliss

Concert Review: The State of

 

On a chilly Monday evening in Athens, Ga., when the rest of the town is winding down, grateful for making it through start of the workweek, The State Of fills the Little Kings bar with their hypnotic harmonies.

 

The two-member female band composed of vocalist and keyboardist Steph Taylor and drummer Nabedi Osorio are uniquely in sync. Their almost identical medium-length, bobbed haircuts with bangs parted in opposite directions and matching skinny jeans, cue you in.

 

For nearly an hour they play, slowing up and speeding down in a set that includes covers like The Police’s “Message in a Bottle” and their own co-authored material. They describe themselves as dark, indie pop, attributing their influences to such artists as Radiohead, the Beatles, and Tori Amos.

 

On some songs, Taylor’s voice drones with sensuality while she pounds out chords on the keyboard with manic focus. On others, she hovers over it tapping lightly, words bleeding smoothly from her lips.

 

“This is a song about boundaries,” says Taylor. There’s furious keyboarding, a two-finger tap, back boned by a steady upbeat drum tempo. “How dare you tell me one thing, then tell another something else?” she boldly pleads. Osorio draws in and out, drumming instinctually. Her gaze thrown out the window until it comes time to blend her vocals with Taylor’s.

 

During a quick band conference of heads brought close together, hands up shielding their mouths, and muffled whispers, you wonder what they’ll choose to follow the previous cheatin’ song. Their selection is a love song with a self-proclaimed Janet Jackson lead-in, the slow dancing notes blown out on a melodica by the multitalented Osorio, whose percussionist skills also include the triangle and maracas.

 

“I’ll do anything for you,” croons Taylor with vocals ranging from deep and gravely to a feminine falsetto. It’s a love song that envelops you with its electricity of feeling. One that is not for the faint of heart or those who prefer to celebrate a love found with the relaxed dirge of a slow jam. Instead it’s one that leaves you on your toes, called to attention by its intensity and pace.

 

Earlier this month, The State of kicked off their Fall tour to promote their new cd, released on the indie record label Paper Bird Records. They’ll make their way through North Carolina, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin, playing in small, intimate venues, before swinging back through Atlanta at the end of October. Little Kings doesn’t have the best setup and the proud drum and audacious piano often overpower the clarity of Taylor’s mic’d voice. But it’s okay, because when the sound equipment fails the two musicians, their instruments articulate their own lyrics to the crowdless bar.

 

There are no more than 20 or so customers ambling around. Most trickle in towards the end of the set and seem to be there for the next performer who, with less than 500 views on her MySpace page, appears to have a larger crew of groupies than the Miami-based The State Of. With her out of tune voice and staid lyrics, the already polished musical craft of The State Of becomes that much more brilliant. Maybe it’s local pull that this next performer has? Or maybe it’s more believable, hopeful at the least, that these patrons’ late arrival during the 11^th hour is simply to drink Monday night into the next day.

 

There is an amazing amount of talent between the two, with Osorio topping off the evening serenading the audience with a goodnight song while strumming on her ukulele. Their remarkable blend of vocals, presence, and instrumentation belies a fierce and soulful partnership that leaves you in the state of . . . musical bliss.

on Fame Reincarnated, 2009

Fame is back. Only this time, will it live forever?

After hitting the big screen in 1980, the original Fame spawned a generation of wannabe dancers and singers. In the wake of its success, the movie inspired a television series spin-off, romanticizing the nitty gritty of what it takes to be a performing artist. For those of us who find ourselves born without a single drop of performance talent, Fame 2009 may convince us to jump on the stage anyway and steal a bit of spotlight, even if only for a moment. As soon as the music passes or the dancing stops, sadly, we’re returned to reality and reminded that we’re only watching a film, and a mediocre one at that.

From audition to graduation day, we follow a talented group of high schoolers as they develop their crafts. You find yourself amidst a collision of the performing arts. They’ve mastered musical instruments. They sing. They dance. They are actors who give powerful monologues, invoking the art of slam poetry. They direct short films. They even rap and create beats, a nice contemporary update to the original movie. The songs are a mixture of classically infused instrumentation layered over thumping bass and electric techno.

Seasoned actors Charles Dutton, Megan Mullally, Kelsey Grammer, and Bebe Neuwirth lend their names to the film of relatively unknowns. Yet their scenes are so minimal they never appear to truly convey the essence of their characters– if there is any. The one exception is Mullally, playing the same typecast funny-girl role she does in every other movie.

Naturi Naughton, arguably the breakout star of the film, has us hooked on her solo performance of the piano ballad Out Here on My Own and the Fame theme song, both originally sung by Irene Cara in 1980. But when you realize that the singing is all she’s got to offer, you find yourself disappointed that Naughton isn’t one of the brilliant actor- singer types you thought she was. Kudos to the fluid cinematography that went into making her newly acquired Bach-skills appear to be those of a piano prodigy.

Debbie Allen reprises her original role as Angela, only this time instead of being a teacher she’s been promoted to the principal of the school. Yeah, she’s in the movie, but then not really. Instead, we spend the entire time watching Kay Panabaker (“CSI: Crime Scene Investigators,” Disney’s “Phil of the Future”), Kherinton Payne (“So You Think You Can Dance?”), Asher Book and Collins Pennie, all incredibly talented– minus the acting skills. The only noteworthy role is Paul Iacono as the off-beat teen film director.

Other than singing or playing instruments, what else are the teens (or in the case of Naughton and Pennie, adults playing teens) doing throughout the movie? In no specific order some of the highlights include a breakup, a dropout, a couple of love stories, another breakup, another dropout, and a suicide attempt. Let’s not forget about the underage drinking or the Pussycat Dolls-esque performance passed off as modern dance. PG, you say? Maybe director Kevin Tancharoen learned a little too much on the set of his previous gig, The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll.

The kids are gifted alright. Who knows, maybe Fame 2009 would have made it live as a Broadway musical, with fewer breaks for acting and storyline. But as a movie, Fame 2009 just doesn’t make the cut.

The verdict? No. Fame 2009 won’t live forever.

on "Good Hair" and the NY Times

Check out the NY Times article on the film "Good Hair."

It has a lot of good reporting and presents some alternative perspectives to my recent blog post.

on Black Studies Programs at Black Institutions

What does it means to reflect critically on race? Is simply being black enough? Or does this ignore the fact that each of us, black or not, find ourselves situated in a hegemonic society where the dominant culture has a monopoly over knowledge-making practices?

I recently found myself talking with a historically black college and university (HBCU) graduate about whether there was a place for Black Studies at HBCUs. Morehouse College and Howard University both offer Black studies degrees, while Xavier University’s website doesn’t indicate an option for obtaining such a degree. But are these programs even necessary within an environment that stresses and insulates the black experience for students?

My answer is yes. Attending a HBCU does not automatically make me capable of transcending the patriarchal, white-washed ideas that have surrounded me, as a black female, virtually my entire life. I have soaked up many of the same societal messages as my counterparts. And as the HBCU graduate pointed out, I was and still am subject to the same classroom pedagogy as everyone else, because it is the dominant culture that determines it, and it is why schools are a primary means of transmitting lasting societal messages.

I attended a predominately white institution (PWI). I was aware of prominent institutions like Spelman, Hampton, and Howard, but I chose otherwise. And though I have often heard graduates of HBCUs say those of us who attended PWIs missed out, I would venture to say that there is no comparison­– it is simply different. Admittedly, I may be a little late in the game in finding role models who look like me and affirm my identity as compared to HBCU graduates. Yet, as a result of attending a PWI and sitting through classes where inevitably I was the only black person, I have mastered the sitting-on-your-hands-so-you-don’t-reach-out-and-smack-nobody skill.

By this I mean that comments coming from a place of ignorance rarely upset me anymore; they merely signal a teachable moment. I may choose to pursue this teachable moment or leave it for another day­­– because I’ve sat in enough white classrooms to understand that there’s a lot of teaching that needs to be done, it won’t happen overnight, and the burden does not rest solely on my shoulders. Likewise, I value the level of consciousness that I developed from having to be so deliberate in my quest to explore who I was and where I fit in as a black female in a predominately white setting. My reflections on these experiences inform what I write about and study now.

It is skills such as these, that the HBCU graduate and I agreed are the crux of reflecting critically on race. It’s deeper than just being black. There is a need to be conscious and reflective beyond just your own experience. Therefore, I cannot assume that she was better off attending a HBCU as she cannot assume I was better off attending a PWI. Whether you are at the ivory tower or the ebony tower you must still hone the skills necessary to expose any of your rigidly held beliefs, so you can see beyond your own experiences, and reflect critically in a way that might even call into question your very own notions of race.

on Screening Chris Rock's "Good Hair"

Due out in theaters this October, Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” exposes the black women’s plight to obtain the perfect hairdo. The film’s success at the Sundance Film Awards has created a buzz, and I had the opportunity to attend a recent screening during the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention.

In the true nature of Rock-styled humor, the film takes a poignant issue and slathers it with comedy, leading the viewer on a roller coaster of emotions. I found myself cringing when a little girl reveals the age of her first relaxer at one way too young. Laughing, when in his witty commentary, Rock drops tongue and cheek phrases like “nap impresario.” And I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the eccentricities of the characters gracing the screen, invoking the burgeoning genre of “mockumentary.”

But as the impetus behind the film illustrates– Rock’s youngest daughter asking him in tears, why she didn’t have good hair– insecurity surrounding hair is deeply ingrained in the black community.

So Rock travels to hair salons, barbershops, hair schools, and product plants. He talks to major stake-holders in the black hair market– like the Koreans. He goes to India seeking out the major supplier of weave– Indian Temples. What results is an hour and a half long documentary that lets out a long kept secret– The expenses and discomfort black women endure to have that good hair.

Without a doubt, the film is one of those hilariously funny, strain-your-stomach-muscles kinds of films, and I commend Rock for making movies for and by black people. But I question whether or not the comedy only minimizes an issue that seems to be a festering sore that just won’t heal. Is it really that funny to recount stories of sitting in the hairdresser, sitting on our hands, as the sodium hydroxide forces our hair so far away from its natural state that not even God would recognize it?

And though I was sitting in a room full of highly educated, successful black journalists, whose jobs require them to think critically about the effects of media, what happens when the room is not filled with them? What happens when the audience doesn’t have the opportunity as we did following the screening to question Nia Long, who also appeared in the film, and Chris Rock, promoting more critical analysis?

Walking out of the theater, I didn’t just hear people say, “Girl, that was hilarious!” I also heard, “You know what I think was missing? They didn’t talk about how people are wearing natural styles these days.” Or, “They didn’t address where the idea of good hair being equivalent to straight hair came from.”

We were laughing at the women and men on screen. We laughed at the men providing details about the appropriate way to have “weave sex,” so as not to mess it up, and women paying for their weaves as if they were items on lay-away. We laughed at them, because it was so often foolish and nonsensical. And though I walked out of “Good Hair” with a sense of connectedness to others who also understood what it meant to feel like my crowning glory was also a burden, I wondered what effect it had on those who rocked weaves or sat through chemical burns each month, myself having “gone natural” early in high school.

Deep in thought, it took me a few moments to notice the crowd that was moving me along had stopped and begun to pile up. When I peered over the top to see what the hold up was, I caught a glimpse of why. It was pouring down rain.

“Do you know what kind of store that is?” one women pointed and asked me, exasperated. “Maybe I can get an umbrella.”

Another had a plastic bag on her head.

I smiled at the irony.

Gotta keep that good hair.

on A Post-Racial Society

It seems that our country coasts a long a little bit until the media grabs hold of an event that reminds us that we remain deeply scarred by the legacy of slavery. In the wake of the election of the first Black President, many mistakenly counted his win as an indication of having arrived to the promised land Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of the evening before he was assasinated. Incidents like the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., or the racial tensions that arose during a recent rally in Paris, Texas, where the anger over the dragging death of a Black man nearly a year ago continues to simmer, demonstrate that a post-racial society is not yet an appropriate moniker for America.

Even with the highest man in the nation being Black, many Black people continue to feel as though they are second-class citizens in a society that was built on the backs of their ancestors. Gates, believing that the mistreatment he experienced was simply, in his own words, because he is “a black man in America,” and the people of Paris, Texas believing that if Brandon McLelland were White, his murder would have been handled differently.

As usual, in such incidents like Gates’, many agree that the arrest was racially motivated. While others, both Black and White, are more apt to argue that if Gates was “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior” as the police reports states, of course he should have been arrested; it was his actions, and not his race, that motivated the arrest.

After nearly an hour of healthcare talk during his presidential news conference Wednesday evening, President Obama made a long awaited response to Gates’ arrest for disorderly conduct, the charges later being dropped. The reporter who when out of turn almost resulted in this controversial last question not being asked. But Obama, being the talented people-manager that he is, avoided a potential uproar.

The stance the president took, though admittedly biased, was that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.” New York Times reporter, Katharine Q. Seelye, wrote the next morning: “Americans got a rare glimpse Wednesday night of what it means to have a black president in the Oval Office.” Yes, the highest man in our nation being a Black man is significant when the oval office responds to accusations of racially motivated treatment, but I have to wonder if by rare glimpse, does Seelye mean that sometimes Obama is Black, and at other times he is something else? And what does it mean to have a Black man in office? That somebody with major credentials is finally paying attention to such insidious injustices as racial profiling?

Regardless of what stance is taken, the friction stemming from the actions of the Cambridge police, reveals that we have yet to obtain the highly-desirable status of a post-racial society, as some thought. Put another way, racial lines are still being drawn when we have to think about the question that CNN correspondent Soledad O’Brien posed: Would things have been different if Henry Louis Gates Jr. was a White man? President Obama’s election was a milestone, but let Gates’ arrest and the Black community’s reaction be a reminder that we still have a long way to go.

on Being Hairdresser for a Day

I'm fresh off my stint as hairdresser for a day. My fingers are sore. The left pointer finger I used to catch the toasted sections of hot pressed-out hair is now tender with the beginnings of a blister.

“Do you know how to straighten hair?” my friend had asked me earlier that day.

“With a flat iron or hot comb?” I answered.

I knew that with the former I could dust off the ancient skills I developed pressing out my own hair when my hairdresser Maria, the one other individual I trusted with a smoking comb so close to my scalp, was unavailable. But I wouldn’t dare use a menacing hot comb on somebody else’s head without a professional license, or at the very least– overblown audacity.

“I can flat iron,” I said. “I may not be able to get a professional, bone-straight look. But yes, I can flat iron it.”

I was the last choice, I knew, but with the late hour approaching and a departure for an overseas trip the next day, I was also the best.

“It doesn’t feel straight,” my friend said after reaching up to finger my first attempt, a move that I learned through painful means from both my mama and Maria growing up, is a cardinal sin.

It looked straight to me. In fact, it looked bone-straight. But women, black women in particular, are sensitive about their hair. I know this. I understand this. I relate to this. So my response is to simply go over it with the flat iron again. Then go over it with the rotating, curling and flat iron brush contraption I'm handed, fresh out of its box. Then once more with the flat iron, each time the limp hair, its post-shower, boistorous curl now absent, falling tired onto my raw fingers.

I’m just going to wear it straight for a few days, my friend explains to me. She wants to arrive at her final destination with it straight. But summer heat, an exotic location, and beaches guarantee that there will be swimming. The straight hair will only last until this urge to swim takes over, and the curliness and thickness will again reclaim their rightful place crowned atop her head.

I can tell she’s not satisfied with the straightness of her hair. But I press on (yes, corny pun intended), and she sits cooperatively as I jerk her head around with a hairdresser’s prerogative. It takes over an hour, not including the other pertinent steps of the process: washing, blowing out, and of course, snacking. It’s the wee hours of the morning by the time we finish.

But we do and she’s off to the bathroom mirror admiring my handiwork. She spends a few minutes playing with her hair, shaking it, pushing it to one side with another, and positioning the curled ends that had outright, and with much frustration, refused to go straight until the very last minutes.

The commentary begins.

"It did finally curl."

"It looks nice."

"It’s got bounce."

"I like it."

Good, she likes it, but that’s not what makes me smile inside.

It’s when she says: “This is the way I’d have my hairdresser do it if she could. She always goes bone-straight. This has body!”

Have I inched her a bit towards a natural nap? Maybe if she asks me next time, I’ll leave a bit more body in it, slowly and deliberately undoing a lifetime of being socialized into the norm of straightness.

on Losing the King of Pop

Though his life was troubled, The King of Pop has definitely gone out in style. Today’s coverage of the memorial service for Michael Jackson was reminiscent of President Obama’s historic inauguration– right on down to the ticket lottery.

Uninterrupted, live coverage was on all the major channels. Televisions and streaming computers tuned in throughout workplaces. Twitter and Facebook updates featured citizen commentary on the likes of Mariah as she struggled to hold a note, Al as he channeled the spirit of an authentic African-American funeral, and sweet Paris, her presence creating a rainstorm of tears. It will be a moment to remember.

I often sit and reflect on the major events of my parents’ and my grandparents’ lives as they grew up. For my grandparents there’s Pearl Harbor or the Stock Market crash. For my parents there was the Supreme Court’s ruling to desegregate public schools, the day that Martin Luther King was shot and killed, or Elvis Presley’s death. As I pile on the years, I wonder which moments will stand out in my life. Some will because of their fatality, like 9/11, or historical significance, like Obama’s election. Others, like Michael’s death, are significant because of the lines that they cross—gender, class, race­­— and the sheer number of people that are affected.

Michael was after all, simply a pop star. Yes, his career spanned decades and he was a prolific entertainer. And yes, he was a humanitarian and wrote conscious lyrics, but his life was also riddled with “questionable decisions,” as Motown record label founder Barry Gordy pointed out in his eulogy.

I say this not to take away from Michael’s life, but to highlight how in his death, he has been able to unite more people than he was ever able to do when he was alive. This to me is what is most significant­­– the masses that have been brought together to mourn the life of a single individual.

You don’t have to be a diehard Michael Jackson fan. Whitney Houston happens to be the soundtrack to my life. But it’s moments like these that you begin to eclipse a bit what Maya Angelou so eloquently said through Queen Latifah’s voice during the service: “Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.” Public grief is a reminder that in the diversity of our life’s journey, the one thing we share is that we’ll each leave it at some point. It is not scandal, eccentricity, nor the painfully obvious lack of love Michael had for his Blackness. Instead, it is how the end to his imperfect life united people that this moment goes down on my list of significant historical moments.

on Kinky Curls

So my hair’s natural. When I say natural, I don’t mean the no-relaxer-but-I-rock-a-Dominican-wash-and-press natural. I’ve decided that the best name for my hair is kinky curl natural. My hair prefers to settle in a wooly nap with a barely perceptible tendril curl at the tip­­– hence the name kinky curl.

But the kinky curl that I’ve grown so fond of is the result of years of hard work. I’ve sworn off the press and curl, and yes, they were still calling it that when I used to frequent the hair shop. I managed to survive the vein-popping, awkward length stage when any handy scissors would almost certainly be used to complete the finishing touches to my hairdo. Newly purchased products too often made it to the trashcan, because they were too greasy, dried my hair out, or dribbled down my forehead, giving me acne or stinging my eyes. And there’s no forgetting the days of experimenting, when I would leave the house rocking a new hairstyle and take note of people’s responses, asking myself, “Are the Black people looking at me like I’m crazy?” Followed by, “Are the White people looking at me like I’m crazy?” Those days are far in between now, but every once in a while you’ll catch me boldly stepping out with a new style­– one that I’m just not quite sure about yet. I’ve grown alongside my hair, and now there’s a third question, “Do I really give a damn what other people think?” So even when (not if) I look jacked up, I strut still, crowned by an incorrigible do that deserves nothing less than to be worn with the utmost confidence.

Yes, my hair’s natural, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t require work. I think that’s one of the biggest misperceptions of the natural-headed. We do our hair just like you do yours. Even locs, which I place under the category of a ‘natural style,’ require the effort of twisting every loc on your head at intervals determined by the amount of new growth nap you are comfortable with. The more comfortable you are with God’s nap, the less you’ll find yourself twisting that new growth.

When I tire from the daily effort that is required from my basic natural, I typically gear myself up for the 4 - 7 hour transition to a natural style. My style of choice is the two-stranded twist. And though I find myself complimented often and asked that utterly affirming phrase for the Black woman, “Girl, who did your hair?” – I have to let my dirty little secret out. I only twist because I don’t know how to braid extensions into my hair, cornrow, or flat twist. . . I don’t have enough upper arm strength to blow out my hair. . . And oh yeah, I’m cheap, so it has to be the most special of occasions for me to pay someone else to do my hair. But like I said it’s my dirty little secret, so most often I smile and toss back, “Oh girl, thank you. I did.”

Even after the twists are in, I still have to make the effort to keep them neat. In my personal preference, I’m all nap and fuzz when I’m rocking my fro, but when the twists are in I like them tight. I figure, what’s the point of 7 hours of twisting if I’m still going to have to do double-takes in the mirror just to check my edges? So I retwist weekly and each morning I strategically remove my shower cap with approximately 2 minutes left to my shower. It is this dreaded object that sometimes triggers full-fledged flashbacks to the relaxed days of my youth when I used to do and sacrifice anything just to keep my hair from getting wet, like using the textbook during a freak rainstorm even though I knew my homework for that morning was nestled inside, sigh. After removing my shower cap, my natural style finally requires the ease of effort that many Black woman, some secretly and others more vocally, want: Wet lightly and shake it out like a White girl.

And though I have arrived at this point, I never forget, nor do I devalue what it has taken to get here. There has been foolishness sitting atop my head, even teary-eyed anger when my hair refused to do what I wanted it to do or what I saw it doing on other folks’ heads. There was also damage states when I forced it do it anyway. But more importantly was the tremendous amount of growth I experienced as I learned to listen to my body, my hair simply an extension of it, or the boost in self-confidence as I finally accepted my God-given hair type. This point that I’ve arrived at is not one where I celebrate the fact that in the mornings, I get to wet lightly and shake it out like a White girl, but it’s one in which I celebrate a journey that has ended in the knowledge that my Black hair is to be revered in all its complexity and beauty.

on Loving Country Music

I’m a cowry-shell-rocking afroed Black girl who’s in love. I’m in love with country music. I don’t mean just the ever-so-familiar faces like the power-couple Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. Everybody knows them. I mean the artists who you’ll only hear on country music channels like Little Big Town or Julie Roberts. I don’t just stick with modern country. I love the classics, too. Loretta Lynn, George Jones, the famous rock-a-billy artist Brenda Lee, or Patsy Cline whose career, just like Donny Hathaway’s, ended entirely too early by a tragic death. I don’t just enjoy the country of Kenny Chesney or Keith Urban. That’s that mild stuff, I tell people. You’ll find me coasting down the highway, radio cranked up to a slap-your-thigh bluegrass song by Alison Krauss. My friends, they’re Hip Hop Heads, neo-soul lovers, and jazz aficionados, but you may rightfully call me a Twang Head.

A Yankee by upbringing, I wasn’t always in love with country music, but I couldn’t help myself when I stuck around Nashville after finishing college. The city is home to some of the most well-known landmarks on the country music scene. The area known as Music Row is a couple of streets densely packed with major country music record labels. There’s the Bluebird Café, whose Writer’s Nights have been frequented by such folks as the songwriter of Kenny Roger’s hit, “The Gambler,” or the unsigned and aspiring Garth Brooks in the 80’s. Then there’s the Ryman Auditorium, the early home of the “Grand Ole Opry.” This weekend when I drove back to my old city to see a friend off to Canada, the memory of my first visit to the Opry came flooding back. It was there that I fell the hardest.

***************************************************************

Attending the Opry seemed only fitting as a country music fan. The show has been going strong since 1925 when it was first broadcast live as a radio show. Today the lineup is a motley crew of historical country music fixtures like Dolly Parton and the newer, like Canadian-born Terri Clark. The Opry tapes in different locations throughout the year, but what the true Twang Head wants is to attend the show in its original location at the Ryman Auditorium, where it aired live from 1943 until 1974, before moving to a larger, more modern venue.

I couldn’t find anyone to go with me, so a fledgling Twang Head and solo, I headed to Opry at the Ryman. I decided to attend on a night when Charley Pride was performing. Back when Black country musicians were nonexistent, Mr. Charley Pride charted 29 number-one country hits between 1966 and 1989. He still hangs onto the title as the most successful Black country singer ever. There’s got to be a few other faces like mine in the crowd, I figured.

The Ryman sits about midway down the hill that marks your entry into downtown Nashville. From the top of the hill at night, you can see a rainbow of neon lights, the country clubs, cowboy boot stores, and bars lining Broadway Street, until they fall off into the dark, disappearing into where the Cumberland River meets the bottom of the hill at 1st Avenue.

I’m parking with only a few minutes left until the show is supposed to start. I’m hustling down the street, mad that I didn’t set my clock back from CP– colored people– time, so I could arrive promptly for my official induction to the country music world. At the Ryman, I pass one of those notoriously expensive busses, the extravagance of the pimped out interiors superseding the mediocrity of cross-country transportation by bus. I smile when I see that it’s one of the busses of Montgomery Gentry. Their song “Some People Change,” with a verse about a neo-Nazi, down on his names, praying, rising up a changed man, breaks out at the refrain with a surprise traditional gospel choir vocal. This is one of my favorite songs, combining my love of country music with the socially relevant message. It’s a song that I can hold on to, one that recognizably coincides with my exterior.

I pick up my ticket from will call. I had decided that to do the Opry, would be to do it in style. So I bought the best that I could afford. At the Opry, a little goes a long way, and for around 50 dollars I would be sitting at the foot of the stage.

Before going in, I have to make one phone call.

“Hey Dad,” I say, knowing exactly where he would be, sitting in the rocking chair in his childhood home across from his 89-year-old father, who would be absorbing random strings of the seven o’clock news, as his old age dozed him in and out.

“Guess where I’m at?”

I take a deep breath, beginning to feel the nervous energy swell inside.

“I’m at the Grand Old Opry, about to go in and see Charley Pride.”

I pause as my news is broadcasted throughout the room on the other end of the line.

“Guess where Marona is?” my dad echoes to my grandfather and my grandmother, she no doubt sitting only feet from Papa C.L. at the kitchen table, as she has done for over 60 years.

There’s no missing the muffled excitement of the room transmitted back to me, voices singing haphazardly out of tune in the background.

“I gotta go. It’s about to start,” I say, hurrying off the phone.

I step in the auditorium. I may be late, but I haven’t missed a performance, only the historic welcoming to the Grand Ole Opry. The auditorium is dark, but I’m up so close, the stage lights are blinding me. I’m sharing the spotlight with the likes of Little Jimmy Dickens, imagining my fro casting a silhouette across the stage, wondering if the Opry-attendees behind me are irritated by their obstructed view.

The show starts at 7:00 but Charley Pride won’t be playing until 9:00. I sit through Ricky Skaggs, Jimmy C. Newman, Earl Scruggs, counting down the hour until Mr. Pride graces the stage, reminding myself that this is not a jazz concert so I shouldn’t be snapping, nor is it R&B, so my hand doesn’t need to be waving rhythmically in the air, obstructing even more views.

Charley Pride comes on. “No doubt about it. It's for sure I'm coming down with love,” he sings. There’s something about sitting in the dark gazing up at a fluorescing stage that makes you feel like the person working it sees no one but you. “Don't cha, don't cha, don't cha fight the feelings of love,” Every time he stands in front of me, I take it as an official welcoming of my love of country music, each sonorous note sung validating me. My grandfather, my father, and now Mr. Charley Pride scoot over to make room for a new fan.

The lights come up. I stand up, stretch, and turn around. From where I stand, I see no other faces in the crowd that look like mine. I smile. It’s okay.

This proud cowry-shell-rocking afroed Black girl has declared her love for country music.

My friends, they were at the club and open mic night, but on this Saturday evening, I headed to the Grand Ole Opry, a name coined during the 20s by harmonica wizard Deford Bailey– the first Black country star.

I’m in love with country music.

on Black Graduation Ceremonies

Over 100 Black students marched into an auditorium this weekend swaying in time to the beat of drums, the mundanity of “Pomp and Circumstance” absent, replaced by the powerful and moving sounds of African drumming. It was an occasion of vibrancy and creativity, each graduate adding his or her own touch with the spirited swaying of his or her shoulders as they filed into the crowded room. It was a celebration of Bachelors, Masters, Doctors of Philosophy, and Medical Degrees. It was Stanford University’s Black Graduation Ceremony.

As I sat through my little brother’s BGC and scanned the crowd of smiling family, friends, and mentors, I was overwhelmed with pride. Sharing the joy in my heart that my baby brother’s graduation held, was the feeling of knowing I was standing in a room in which I felt deeply linked to each and every other person around me.

BGCs are held throughout the country to honor the achievements of black students, including at my alma mater, Vanderbilt University, and my sister’s, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Indiana University where she obtained her JD. Given the statistics that still paint a dismal picture of low graduation rates among Black students, the achievements are indeed significant, and should be celebrated.

Some criticize the tradition of BGCs as separatist. But as the Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Stanford University’s Black Community Services Center said as she opened up the ceremony, BGCs are about “congregation, not separation.” The members of the audience, who were not all White nor all American born, congregated to celebrate the success of Black students. It was a subset of the celebratory weekend, with most students, if not all, also attending university-wide commencements and departmental ceremonies.

BGCs symbolize different things for different individuals. For me it was about seeing what is so integral to my identity reflected back. As a student attending a predominately white institution, I often felt like I was on the sidelines. On the evening of my BGC, I stood on the stage front and center in honor of both my achievements and my culture. At that moment, I knew every part of me was being affirmed.

For some, it’s about tradition and celebrating the collective experience, from the donning of the Kente Stole to the singing of the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, a standard for most BGCs.

And still for others it’s about celebrating the feat of managing to achieve at a predominantly white institutions, triumphant in the face of adversity.

In the midst of celebration, there’s insulation from the negativity of those who are critical of the place these ceremonies have in 2009. If you have participated by gracing the stage or simply sitting in the audience, you’ll realize that the experience is indescribable. And when done right, these events, as my baby brother put it, are nothing short of spectacular.

on Minority Opinions

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge Sonia Sotomayor have distinctively different views rooted in their experiences growing up as minorities in America. Sotomayor tends to favor affirmative action programs and racially-conscious law, while Thomas consistently fights against it. If Sotomayor is confirmed, it is likely that the two justices would be at extreme opposites for many decisions ­– and this is the way it should be.

As a someone who supports racially-conscious programs that deliberately seek to reverse disparities (call it affirmative action if you want), I still recognize the importance of having a diverse set of perspectives within the minority vote, which Justice Thomas provides. Not all African-Americans believe in affirmative action, but it is important to note that most do.

A 2003 poll done by the Pew Research Center found that 86% of “nonwhites” favored affirmative action. In a more recent Quinnipiac poll earlier this June, 78% of Black respondents said they “think affirmative action programs that give preferences to blacks and other minorities in hiring, promotions and college admissions should be continued.”

Although Justice Thomas’ views may be held by some, it is not representative of the majority opinion. Sotomayor will provide a perspective that is more aligned with polling results for the minority population. Our highest court should be representative of the American population and not just skewed to interpret the Constitution as the sitting president pleases.

The minority voice is only going to be strengthened with the addition of Sotomayor’s to the already vocal Thomas’, each making decisions involving race and ethnicity from a place of first-hand experience as no other justice can.

on A Racially-Conscious America II

The confirmation of President Obama’s choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court could be another historic milestone. If confirmed Sotomayor will become the first Hispanic to sit on the Supreme Court.

As conservatives build their case against Sotomayor, one of the cases they are paying attention to is her ruling on Ricci v. Destefano. In 2008 Sotomayor supported the city of New Haven Fire Department after they threw out a test that was to be used for promotions after too few minorities scored high enough on it. Ironically enough, if Sotomayor is confirmed soon, she may end of ruling again on the case which is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor has said, “Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.” She goes on to acknowledge, “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and Latina heritage.”

Obama’s nomination is illustrative of how we are attempting to address the question I posed on my first blog about “A Racially-Conscious America.”

How does America move forward from a history of injustices?

Though not everybody may agree on the method, bringing diversity to the various branches of government and ensuring that multiple perspectives are represented is our current answer to this question. With a Yale and Princeton pedigree, Sotomayor also has more experience as a judge than any of the other sitting justices had when they were nominated. There is no question that she is qualified, and her status as a minority female will bring a unique and beneficial perspective to a panel that is dominated by white males.

So let the battles begin.

on Loving Georgia

As an expatriated Yankee, I’m often asked why I love Georgia so much. During my recent Memorial Day travels, I was reminded why.

It’s driving down back country roads, the bass from my speakers flowing from my car interrupting the peace of the country. “It’s that city noise,” I imagine the cows cursing at me underneath their breath.

It’s how naked porches look without the presence of a rocking chair. The fact that there’s the indoor broom, but then the one over there, worn and aged after a diligent life spent indoors, is now solely responsible for all outdoor spaces. It's a lifestyle of leisure. One that allows you to sit on your porch, watching cars pass by, speaking to people who, simply because they live in your neighborhood, automatically lose the title of ‘stranger’.

On the back roads in towns like Midville with fewer than 500 people and a mere 2 square miles, you can still find gas stations with pumps circa 1960s, trusting you not to prepay. Because as a resident, self-described as being just about everything in town– police chief, county commissioner, etc– explained as he assisted me, the city girl, “We figure down here, that we can catch up to you before you get to where you’re going.”

It’s when I step into the gas station to use the bathroom, and I come out with an aroma of fried chicken or barbeque smoke trailing behind me, because the gas station is also a popular restaurant.

Or when you see people walking along back roads, and you start wondering where they’re going because you don’t see anything in sight.

I may be an urbanite by upbringing, but I’m a small-town girl in spirit. And in the South, small towns never mean only few black people as they do in the North– a product of the end the Civil War, as newly freed slaves either claimed their old plantations as home or scattered a few miles away before establishing all black communities.

It’s the one-room churches, appearing mile after mile, Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, Jehovah’s Witnesses. . . with Euphrates, Jordan, and Zion in their titles.

Or the abandoned, dilapidated, southern mansions, whose histories are rooted as deeply as the age-old trees that shade them. It’s how making up stories is a must when driving Southern back roads. The ones that make you wince: whose spirit was broken in that house? Then there are the ones that are comforting: is that house a forgotten stop on the Underground Railroad?

It’s standing squarely with my back to the future and it being impossible to ignore how far the South has come. It’s my grandmother’s pound cake. It’s where my family is from.

And for me, it’s the first and only state that has ever truly felt like home.

on Confederate Memorials & Monuments

After being in Georgia for a little over 2 years now, I thought it was finally time to see what Stone Mountain was all about. It has great laser shows, people tell me. And during my first summer in Georgia when drought conditions were at an all-time high, it was front-page news when Stone Mountain considered canceling their show due to fire safety concerns. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I learned Stone Mountain was also known for its Ku Klux Klan and Confederate history. So when I found myself in Stone Mountain visiting a friend from high school I hadn’t seen in a while, my curiosity took me on a detour that landed me at the entrance to Stone Mountain Park.

At the gate, the parking attendant handed me a pamphlet outlining the history of Stone Mountain which, as a native of Massachusetts, I knew nothing about.

The central attraction in the park is arguably the Stone Mountain Confederate Monument, where the faces of Confederate stalwarts– President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, and General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson– are carved into the stone at 90 by 190 feet. It forms the largest sculpture of its kind in the world.¹

“It’s a giant memorial to the Confederacy,” I thought, genuinely in shock.

I first wondered what specifically was the monument meant to memorialize. If you had a good history teacher (or someone at home to fill in the holes), you learned that there are complexities to the Civil War. The Confederate states in the South fought to maintain their economic infrastructure and for their “state rights,” the desire to remain free from interference of the federal government. But I have to wonder how a Confederate Civil War monument could memorialize its fallen heroes without inadvertently memorializing the bondage of Black people which was at the heart of the South’s economy.

At the forefront of the monument project was Helen Plane. After her husband died during the war, she went on to become the first president of the Georgia State Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Although the idea for a Confederate monument on Stone Mountain was not hers alone, it was Plane who organized the Stone Mountain Memorial Association through the UDC. It was to the Association that Samuel H. Venable, the owner of Stone Mountain, deeded the face of Stone Mountain to in 1916. “Georgia yields to none in its love and veneration for the departed heroes,” declared the first volume of the Stone Mountain Magazine published by the Association.² On the surface, the monument does appear to be built to honor those who died during the Civil War, but if you look deeper, memorializing the bondage of Black people was not, in fact, completely inadvertent.

On the evening of November 25, 1915, William J. Simmons revived the Ku Klux Klan on the site of Stone Mountain, only days before Birth of a Nation was set to premiere in Atlanta.

After seeing the movie, the next month Plane wrote to Gutzon Borglum’s, the first artist commissioned to work on the monument. She said “. . . I feel that it is due to the Ku Klux Klan which saved us from Negro domination and carpet-bag rule, that it be immortalized on Stone Mountain. Why not represent a small group of them in their nightly uniform approaching in the distance?”

Though this never materialized, Borglum would later become an active member of the KKK, along with several other members of the Association. Venable, who still owned the remaining parts of the mountain, allowed the KKK free reign to gather each Thanksgiving on Stone Mountain. So though its primary purpose was to honor those who died fighting for the Confederacy, for many the monument also mourned the loss of slavery. ³ Incidentally, Stone Mountain helped boost his reputation and Borglund went on to create the Mount Rushmore monument in South Dakota in 1925, with the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Today, the Stone Mountain Confederate Monument, as massive as it is, serves only as a backdrop to the other park festivities. Stonewall Jackson Drive, Robert E. Lee Boulevard, and Jefferson Davis Drive, circle what is now referred to simply as “Stone Mountain.” As the Civil Rights movement gained momentum, there was a push to finish the monument where work has ceased after the start of World War II. Purchased by the state of Georgia in 1958, the park is now a huge tourist attraction. But how many people know the history of Stone Mountain, or does the exhilaration of the lightshows and fireworks overpower it? Is it necessary to know this history, or is “forgetting your past” an indicator of progress? It was an eerie feeling to be at the entrance to Stone Mountain, questioning the purpose of a monument to the Confederacy and deciding what to do with this new bit of historical knowledge preceding the theme park.

Because my detour came at the end of a long day, it was admittedly brief. Now armed with a historical foundation, I plan to return and participate in some of the mountain festivities and see if the eerie feeling remains.

I wonder if they have a celebration for Juneteenth?

on A Racially-Conscious America

As we await the Supreme Court’s decision on Ricci v. Destefano, here are some of the places I went to brush up on the details of the case. I’m always curious about what varying news outlets are saying.

The Root
The Center of Individual Rights (make sure you read their homepage. . .)
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New Haven Independent

A group of white firefighters are suing after the city of New Haven “threw out” a promotional exam over concerns that it was racially discriminatory. Of the 77 test-takers, none of the 19 African American firefighters qualified for a promotion based on the exam. The Root article does a good job of defining exactly what is meant by the language “threw out,” which recurs throughout the newspaper coverage.

The members of the board that certify the use of the exam for promotion use voted 2-2. With a deadlock, the exam cannot be certified, therefore preventing any promotions being made based on the exam. It is unclear whether or not the city rejected the exam in order to ward of cases brought by black firefighters or whether they rejected it under an interpretation of the “disparate impact” law which deems practices that result in an “unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class,” even if unintentional, as discriminatory.

If the test had been certified, adverse impact would have been on the African American firefighters, with only white firefighters being promoted. The group of white firefighters argues that because the city did not use the promotional exam, they, in turn, were discriminated against based on race. It’s a complicated case that has been going on since 2003 when it was first brought in front of the lower courts. The case was heard in the Supreme Court in late April.

There’s no denying that race was considered in the city’s decision not to use the test. Instead, the question has become whether it is okay to consider race if you’re seeking to protect a particular group from obvious disparities. As the New York Times put it, it is the difference between “race-consciousness and unlawful race discrimination.”

Rulings from cases like Ricci v. Destefano or the University of Michigan’s Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger deal explicitly with the way America treats race. They are part of a larger, age-old question that nobody seems to agree upon: What is the best way to move forward from a history of past racial injustices?

No, the white firefighters did not benefit when the test was thrown out, but in a sense, aren't they now on equal ground with the black firefighters, none of whom would have promoted using the exam? Is this not what we are trying to accomplish, a society in which race is not a disadvantage, one in which everyone starts on equal footing?

Or are we trying to create a country where race is not a factor? There’s a significant difference, and I always cringe when people promote ignoring race. You can move past your history, but you can’t forget it. Nor should we try. With a past littered with imperialism, slavery, forced removal–and all the other debris– is a such a society even plausible? And would this mean that it is wrong for a fire department in a city that was 37 percent black at their last census to reject a method that prevented them from promoting any black firefighters into leadership roles commensurate with their numbers in the population?

If we ignore race, we are left with a country that is still rife with disparity, with the upper levels overwhelmingly white in areas like supervisory positions, socioeconomic status, or higher education enrollments.

To ignore race at this particular point in our history would be premature. It would render certain groups invisible. It’s a peculiar sensation, this feeling of looking out and not seeing yourself reflected back. For me, this feeling is tempered by the fact that I know it’s not always with intent; there is often no malice involved. It is simply the growing pains of our country as she matures.

So we’ll wait for the rulings and statements surrounding Ricci v. Destefano because it is rulings like these that in large part determine who America will grow up to become.

on The Color Spectrum

I’m halfway through Marita Golden’s “Don’t Play in the Sun,” a memoir about her experiences growing up as a darker-skinned black woman and her feelings of inferiority and invisibility within the black community. As Golden puts it, it is “African Americans’ pernicious, persistent dirty little secret­– colorism, color-conscious, color-struck, color complex.” I’ve found the book enlightening, mainly because it’s personalized. It contrasts with another one of my favorite but more academic books, Tatum’s “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations about Race.” Though a memoir by genre, Golden, a professor, sprinkles bits of context-setting historical facts throughout her work, which makes it easier to extend the intimate experiences beyond just her.

If you were to ask me if I was dark- or light-skinned, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I’m not ‘high yella’ nor am I 'blue-black,' as they say. While some use dark to describe me, others say I’m on the lighter side. I don’t think I’ve ever really cared. I lighten up when deprived of sun in the winter and love to lay out in the sun with a good book and 'sunning' during the summer. I’ve never been overly self-conscious about where I fall on the color spectrum, but Golden’s book has me thinking about why I seem to have been spared from this color complex struggle.

If I had to identify what color I was, I would have to base it off of my experiences talking with other people about 'shade' and say that I fall pretty close to right smack dab in the middle. So as I journey through Golden’s book, I ask myself, is it possible that I have not thought about the color complex struggle because I am what colorists would say to be the perfect shade? Not too light, nor too dark, but just black enough.

Growing up I remember liking the light-skinned boy. That was okay. But I also remember liking the dark-skinned boy. One experience stands out to me. As a middle schooler I was sitting with my girlfriends in the cafeteria.

“Look,” one of my friends said, spotting my current girlhood crush.

“Where?” I asked, eager for a look.

“Near the coke machine,” she answered.

“Where?” I asked again, “I don’t see him.”

“That’s because he’s so black he blends in with the side of the coke machine,” someone else

giggled.

I can’t tell you why I remember this moment. I do remember that it took me a few more seconds to spot him, and indeed he was standing right to the side of the coke machine, in a black shirt and black pants. I never considered the teasing that I received for liking a dark-skinned boy to be any different from the teasing that was inevitable when your girlfriends found out who your crush was. But I remember that when they teased me about this crush, it was about skin color.

As someone who rides the middle of the color spectrum, is my lack of experience in never feeling like I was too light or to dark somewhat equivalent to white people living in an American society where ‘whiteness’ is the standard? (I look foolish in ‘nude’ stockings and most ‘skin-colored’ band-aids are definitely not my skin color.) Is white being the perfect shade in race-conscious America similar to my shade of blackness being the perfect shade in race-conscious Black America? And more importantly, was I spared from feelings of inferiority because of this?

I don’t think the answer is a resounding yes, but it is questions like these that have sent me on a welcomed journey of newfound self-awareness regarding my position in society as determined by my skin color. Along this journey, I find myself rethinking the accusation that black people, myself included, have been known to remind white people: “you’ll never understand what it means to always know that you are judged against a norm that looks nothing like yourself.” Because my brown skin with its golden undertones is a standard against which some colorists judge others, it places me in a similar category of being the ‘norm’ within the African American community.

. . . Or at least until I start up my daily visits to the back porch, laid out with a good book, with a newfound gratitude of growing up in a family and a decade that has been more supportive of my love of playing in the sun. . .