LOVE LETTER TO A NEW FATHER

from printerest

Feeling Rebloggy


You're an "all in" kind of dad, and hesitation is not part of your process. Save for labour, delivery, and breastfeeding, I'd be hard-pressed to find any other act of parenting that you haven’t been able to do. Your fatherhood is more than presence—it is deliberate action and intentional love; a fertile soil where our daughter can take root and thrive.

- For Harriet 

Read much more: http://www.forharriet.com/2015/06/letter-to-my-husband-blessing-in.html#ixzz3divLPzyq   Follow us: @ForHarriet on Twitter | forharriet on Facebook

Fathers And Daughters, Richard, Venus, and Serena Williams

Venus Williams being interviewed at 14, with Dad not far away. The behind the scenes look at an interview is less than a minute long, but it's an awesome example of fatherhood.

Strong Fathering leads to Strong Daughters
Serena Williams on Racism In Tennis

"She overpowered her" is what they say whenever Serena wins. 

"[Apparently] they don't know how hard I can hit...I never get credit for the mental"

A HANDMADE CARD FOR HARMONY'S BIRTHDAY

 

A few days ago, when I read this for the first time, all I could really think about was
how hurt I was as a little girl when things like this were directed at me.



I was trying to imagine how upset I would have been if my friends parents, Laura Watt's parents had been different.  If Laura's parents hadn't been kind, generous white people with one foot inside always inside hippy culture, if they hadn't been as open as they were, I wonder how many different shades of devastated I'd have been if Laura had given me a card like this in 4th or 5th grade....or any grade.



Looking at this story again, I see that a 10 year old white
girl drew her friend a pretty card; knows that being a racist ("races")
is a bad thing; and hopes her mother will change her father's mind.

Judging by the video, the little white girl's hopes were dashed.



In the video, Harmony's Father said that the birthday party went off without a hitch. And maybe it really did. Everything  probably was okay during the party itself.  But Harmony wasn't okay. I know she wasn't  because I wasn't. My parents always wanted to believe the same thing when I was targeted because of my skin color. And I helped them believe everything was "okay." As young as 7 or 8 years old I knew what I was supposed to say.  I knew how to make my parents less upset on my behalf.



It still amazes me when parents say 'bad thing *x* happened yesterday, but then we did fun thing *y* immediately afterward. So she forgot all about it'  ...especially when bad thing *x* contains a suitcase full of racism that weighs more than the little person expected to carry it.



Still, I'm hoping Harmony genuinely did have the happiest of birthdays this year. Maybe her mind really didn't travel back to the moment she opened this card/folded note---not during the party anyway. And I hope she won't remember reading the note OR the reaction of her parents when they first read it... not too often, anyway.




I also hope the little white girl was at least somewhat distracted the night of the party. But better she had a night full of tears over being left out than lose the knowledge that her father's actions were
indeed racist and hateful --even though she loves him. Ten years old is rather a young age to figure out that you can love a person but despise some of what is inside them.



But she can do it. Others have. Others can. Others will.



More than anything, I hope that neither one of these girls ever completely forgets this incident and that we don't either.



I wonder what kind of artwork was drawn on the cover of the card?






READ MORE/SEE VIDEO  http://abc7chicago.com/562622/

FAKE DEEP by Cecil Emeke

"If I hear one more poem
written by a man telling women
how to live their lives
by policing their clothes,
bodies,
sexuality,
make up use,
reading habits,
exercise regimes
and cooking skills,

I’m going to slap somebody…

THE ARK OF RETURN U.N. SCULPTURE TRIBUTE TO TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

"It was only fitting that the ceremony take place at a site surrounded by the looming skyscrapers of New York. Slavery was the economic engine upon which American capitalism was built, providing the seed money for United States businesses to create the most vibrant economic system in the world."



from ATLANTA BLACK STAR

"The enslaved Black person (whose gender is purposely vague to represent men, women and children) lying inside the dramatically shaped marble memorial, which is called The Ark of Return, is a symbol of the millions whose deaths led to the building of those skyscrapers, the visual emblems of American capitalism’s enormous financial windfall for the white beneficiaries of slavery and their descendants.





During his speech unveiling the memorial, Ban Ki-moon spoke directly to Black people in the Americas and the Caribbean who are descended from the enslaved Black people who were sacrificed.



“I hope descendants of the transatlantic slave trade will feel empowered as they remember those who overcame this brutal system and passed their rich cultural heritage from Africa on to their children,” Ban said.



In his remarks, he singled out Black women in particular, noting that a third of those Black people who were sold as slaves from Africa were female.



“In addition to enduring the harsh conditions of forced labor as slaves, they experienced extreme forms of discrimination and exploitation as a result of their gender,” he said.




http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/03/26/united-nations-unveils-stunning-memorial-in-new-york-to-millions-who-died-and/





CLICK HERE TO TAKE A LOOK INSIDE and HEAR THE INSPIRATION FOR THE INTERACTIVE PIECE from ARTIST RODNEY LEON

NATE PARKER PROJECT NAT TURNER REBELLION To Begin Filming

Nate Parker

"August 21st, 1831, in Virginia, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion,
hoping to inspire a slave uprising in the south. Several dozen whites
were killed before the revolt was defeated. Turner was later captured,
tried and hanged...





Nearly 184 years later, many of us are still waiting for a definitive film
based on Nat Turner's historic revolt (and not necessarily a Nat Turner
biopic) to be produced..."

FROM INDIE WIRE - READ MORE

http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/the-cast-for-nate-parkers-nat-turner-project-is-set-shooting-begins-in-may-lets-go-20150409



CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON NATE PARKER'S CAREER

White Racial Apology #100,816,053, Cosmo Online Magazine

This may have happened back in January? Not sure.

But apparently a BUNCH of somebodies at Cosmo Online Magazine thought that all the white stars and models were gorgeous while all the black and brown models had looks that need to die (R.I.P.)

 

 

I haven't actually seen the apology yet. I don't know if there's been one made yet. I didn't bother reading the entire article below. I can't listen even one more time. But another apology is coming. Trust me.


And dare I say it? I do.

This is what comes of living around other white people that look like you 24/7 and only wanting to only see people that look like you 24/7 on TV and only wanting to see art centered around people that look like you.

Eveything body and everything not you gets tagged as less-than. Yeah, we know you're sorry. Yeah we know it wasn't deliberately done.  But we also know it comes so naturally, that we should be wondering if you'll ever be able to stop e-racing everyone else at the drop of a hat





Click here to read more at Buzzfeed

ELECTION DAY CHANGES THE FACE OF FERGUSON - by Huff Post

...or at least it changes the faces among the city council

"FERGUSON, Mo. -- Voters showed up at polling places in record numbers for a municipal election in this St. Louis suburb on Tuesday, tripling the number of black representatives on Ferguson City Council by electing two black candidates.

Tuesday's election in Ferguson would have been historic no matter the outcome. Three incumbents decided not to run, leaving half of the council's six seats up for grabs. The council now has one black member who was not up for re-election, and two black candidates were vying for one of the open seats. That meant city council was assured to have at least double the number of African-Americans once the votes are counted."

READ MORE, CLICK LINK BELOW

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7020472

Calling All Women!!! --Ruby Dee

Ruby Dee   Ruby Dee     Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis

Ruby Dee reading her own poem,

"Calling All Women"

‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ Archived in Library of Congress

At the 41st Annual Grammy Awards in 1999, Lauryn Hill made history as the first female artist to win five of the golden trophies in one night. Hill, rocking her gorgeous locs, was nominated ten times for her ’98 album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and took home major awards, like Album of the Year and Best New Artist. The musician and actress had proven her talent to be undeniable and a rare specialty while singing and spitting in hip-hop group the Fugees, but still, no one could have predicted the magnitude of sheer magic she would bring via her solo album.
READ MORE: BLACK ENTERPRISE http://www.blackenterprise.com/lifestyle/miseducationlauryn-hill-library-congress/

White Racial Apology #100,816,024 Deadline's "Unfortunate" Headline -

"Pilots 2015:The Year of  Ethnic Castings -
   About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"

Cutesy but Serious Format - Bart & Fleming, the apologizers,  must have these little discussions online much like Siskel and Ebert used to quasi-competitively review movies on television.

This would be Mistake Number 1
Two thumbs down

The Apology is just one thing in a list of things to discuss

Here we have Mistake Number 2
"nothing special happening here" conveyed instantly

The apology consisted of apologizing for specific word  choices and word arrangement while never, Ever, EVER EVAH discussing what those words ("Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?") meant collectively... ala the Levi Petty Pettit apology (#100,816,019). As long as they cyber-droned on, they only discussed how things sounded
 

This isn't just mistake number 3, 
this is mistakes numbers 1 through 100,816,021

How is it everybody above the age of 12 understands that beliefs are connected to thoughts are connected to the words that come out of your mouth...until race is the subject.   When race enters the picture, white fragility, being what it is, white folk and Bobby Jindal seem to suffer this pinpoint amnesia and forget there is a link between belief, thought, and words (and sometimes actions too). Yes, sometimes you say "math" when you meant to say "bath."  But really cannot explain away an entire sentence or paragraph this way.

But this isn't about that. 

This is about how most of us understand that putting individual words together give them a separate meaning that's more than the sum of their...parts(?)  And a lot of the time we mean those meanings, regardless of what we want to believe about the purity of our own motivations.

The words that form the question, "Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?" have a meaning collectively.

And most people of color who heard these words, understood their meaning, collectively. That's why, "HELL NO" was the answer cyber-shouted by Shonda Rhimes and a host of entertainment news reading others.  
 
We, the "ethnic," were not confused. We were especially not-confused about the "too much of a good thing" part

And it's very rare we all get confused and lean in the same direction, all at the same time, for the record. I'm not even sure this kind of unified confusion is possible when a thing as complicated as the social construction of race is at the center. 

  But the thing that really killed me about the 100,816,024th white racial "apology"was this:   Bart and Fleming? These two chuckle-heads discussed the true and offensive meaning of the headline without even noticing that they had done so.

Before they started riffing on forever about the offensive uses of the word "ethnic"(???) which led to a discussion of the how boring the word "diversity"(???) is, they actually give us an interpretation of   "Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?" 

FLEMING:

....My co-editor-in-chief Nellie Andreeva’s goal was to convey that there was such an uptick of TV pilot casting of people of color
that it pinched white actors who’ve historically gotten most of the jobs,

Yeah, we know that's what you meant. We KNOOOW.  And we knew when we first read that "unfortunate headline" that "too much of a good thing" was expressing worry over "it pinched white actors"

THE HEART OF THE APOLOGY

FLEMING: I agree with all this, but after our turn in the barrel, I wanted to say a few things to our core readers who felt betrayed.  That original headline does not reflect the collective sensibility here at Deadline. The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color."


But problem is that  THIS

"Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"
DOESN'T GET CLOSE TO MEANING

"The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color."   BUT IT DOES MEAN
  ...My co-editor-in-chief Nellie Andreeva’s goal was to convey that there was such an uptick
of TV pilot casting of people of color
that it pinched white actors
who’ve historically gotten most of the jobs,   ESPECIALLY WHEN FOLLOWED BY     and to question if this could last  if it was being treated as a fad.     which could mean in this particular collection of words
that this is uptick for "ethnics"
is temporary anyway
so why worry about it?    


Nellie may not have intended to convey the same ole, same ole  'What about US? Why isn't there a WHITE HISTORY MONTH!  I'm complaining because 95% of grade school, junior high school, and high school history class being about white wasn't enough.' 

Honestly, she may not have meant to express "What about us?" Again. But the headline, the explanation, and the apology  aren't slips of the tongue. This isn't like saying "math" for "bath." Hard core, card-carrying, overt racists express the very same things in harsher language. How many "bad word choice"  coincidences in a row are we "ethnics" supposed to swallow?

The War On Men Through The Degradation Of Women

FROM SINUOUS MAGAZINE, THE COMPLEX

When the press attacked her girl child or being free, Ms. Jada Pinkett Smith took some time out to tell us all how much more uplifted the men in any culture could be if they only invested in themselves by investing in their women.  

"How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye’s of an incomplete woman? The woman who has been stripped of Goddess recognition and diminished to a big ass and full breast for physical comfort only.

The woman who has been silenced so she may forget her spiritual essence because her words stir too much thought outside of the pleasure space. The woman who has been diminished to covering all that rots inside of her with weaves and red bottom shoes.

I am sure the men, who restructured our societies from cultures that honored woman, had no idea of the outcome. They had no idea that eventually, even men would render themselves empty and longing for meaning, depth and connection.

There is a deep sadness when I witness a man that can’t recognize the emptiness he feels when he objectifies himself as a bank and truly believes he can buy love with things and status. It is painful to witness the betrayal when a woman takes him up on that offer. He doesn’t recognize that the [creation] of a half woman has contributed to his repressed anger and frustration of feeling he is not enough. He then may love no woman or keep many half women as his prize.

He doesn’t recognize that it’s his submersion in the imbalanced warrior culture, where violence is the means of getting respect and power, as the reason he can break the face of the woman who bore him four children.

When woman is lost, so is man. The truth is, woman is the window to a man’s heart and a man’s heart is the gateway to his soul.

Power and control will NEVER out weigh love.

May we all find our way.
J

Different but equal. This is a concept that's recognized in regards to race. And it should be just as easy to recognize in regards to gender.




~ Jada Pinkett-Smith, Sinuous Magazine http://www.sinuousmag.com/2012/12/jada-pinket-smith-war-on-men/

Gratitude For The New Normal that Feminism Wrought

                                  

Last year or the year before that someone on the news announced that Rhoda was dying of brain cancer. I hadn't thought of Rhoda (played by Valerie Harper) in years, decades maybe. I couldn't believe it when they said she was over 70 years old, well over. That brought me back to thinking about my own age.

Couldn't believe that either.

All this inability to believe started me thinking about how MANY things that I now consider "normal" simply WEREN'T when I was born. Forget the internet, GPS, and microwaves. Bump all that! I re-realized that I was born a decade BEFORE women could easily get credit in their own name!!! 

When I was a kid, I heard about this new law that made women able to get credit on their own. I can just barely remember thinking, "Well yeeeaah....of course!"  I also remember being shocked that an actual law had to be written to ensure this.  I also remember being desperately glad that I hadn't been born a few decades earlier.

It's not so surprising that I thought this way, I suppose. I grew up watching and listening to feminism in what I considered "common sense" slogans as well as slices of speeches from Angela Davis, Gloria Steinem etc.  I thought all this "common sense" already existed.  I guess I knew but I didn't REALLY know this "common sense" was...


in the process of being born,

in the process of being fought for, of being protected

...and voted on. 

I didn't know my "normal" was being created and then reinforced by Mary Tyler Moore and Sally Struthers,' Gloria,  of  'All In The Family' fame.  I simply didn't know that they were representative of a new way of life for women, a new option. 

I didn't know women making their own money, working at a career, and making decisions that a WHOLE person with equal rights tends to make, sometimes looking for another WHOLE person (a man) to walk through life with - was new.  After all, my Mom did it for a few years before she married.

But Mary Tyler Moore's job was not a pit stop before marriage. Her job was important to her. She wanted to be good at it and succeed at it.  All her energy was not focused on getting a husband. That was a very different choice to have, one that wasn't there for women of my mother's generation.   Or if it was, it was seen as failure. Career as consolation prize? 


At 11 years of age, I hadn't grasped the fact that I wasn't considered as capable as or as equal to a male child either. (Well...most of the time I didn't) But somehow, I DID know that I was considered less-than as a person because of my black skin...by the majority of people in the country. This, somehow, I knew this practically from birth.  Sheltered as my parents tried to make me, I had eyes. Newspaper headlines shouted white supremacy at me daily too. And I couldn't walk past a television, without seeing a white cop sic a big dog with huge teeth on black people or take a fire hose to them. 

And those are the images that flashed in my head the day Show-and-Tell featured a white police officer talking about how  'a policeman is your friend'  ('oooh no-No-NO! not MY friend!!!')



Whatever. The racism-sexism knowledge gap (read: chasm) is another train wreck for another time.


But as a girl-child born in the land of the free and the equal, I thought Mary Tyler Moore and the rest of these characters were representing "normal" people with "normal" desires. And I think a lot of people came to see them that way...having laughed a little by the end of each episode.


Maybe the writing was special, like some like to believe it was. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" made the new, more feminist(?) world seem mundane. I can't remember and rehash something I really didn't notice to begin with.


But when I heard that Rhoda was sick? Maybe dying? That was when I remembered that women didn't always have...

• the same ability as men to get
   
• the same ability to keep a job.  A woman in her 20s could be fired because it was assumed she'd want to have a baby...soon or within a few years.
  
  
• and before that - the same ability to get credit,  and before that - the same ability to own property
  
  
• and before that - the same right to vote.

So then I considered that these changes didn't just change by magic. It wasn't  the "something special in the writing" that created these changes in society. The show only reflected what was in the process of happening. But shows like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"  blew little more air on a fire already burning. That was important. But more important are the women  that sacrificed and died advocating 'for women's rights on the grounds of that women should have political, social, and economic equality to men'--which is THE definition of feminism.


 Did you know that some of the women who started one of the earliest, feminist-by-definition organizations in the country, the National Organization for Women or N.O.W.,  were black?


A number of black women had a meeting after the meeting that was known as "The March On Washington" Why?  Because black female civil rights leaders like Dorothy Height and Diane Nash were not allowed  on stage to speak, deliberately not allowed to speak ...by men I was taught to worship as a child.   



The story goes, having forgotten their be-seen-and-not-heard place,  Gloria Richardson, Rosa Parks and other black female civil rights leaders were sent back to the local hotel in a cab.  And they were in that cab while Martin Luther King was giving his "I Have A Dream" speech. They listened to it on the radio. (It was all Lena Horne's fault.  Earlier in the day she had spent some time trying to introduce Rosa Parks to the foreign press.) http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/27/civil_rights_pioneer_gloria_richardson_91

 So, while too many people have let this word "feminism" be redefined by the status-quo loving / cowering-in-the-face-of-change opposition (and pro-feminist extremists too for that matter) I refuse to let anyone else redefine  "feminism" FOR ME.   I refuse to let them define it as something as silly as who should open the door for who OR something as ass-i-nine as "man-hater." 

-- in much the same way as I refuse to let some white people redefine "African American" as someone who is more loyal to Africa than America simply because the word "Africa" comes first. 

-- in much the same way as I refuse to let some blacks redefine "blackness" as being loyal to anything and anyone in black skin.

 

So I deeply believe in feminism even though:

1) I do not believe in ALL the positions that the official feminist organizations believe in (Abortion as a form of birth control method, is just one example)

2) I do not believe the words "sexual objectification" are meaningless at the very same time that I do know women need more "sexual freedom."3) I know that white feminists have put themselves first at the same rate of speed, or faster, that black anti-racists have put black men first. And in my patriarchy-soaked brain, women are supposed to be "better than that."

4) etc

And even thought I know all this heavy feminism baggage exists, what I ALSO know is that all of us ought to be grateful for "The New Normal." And I mean ALL of us. I know I am.


And I, for one, can't WAIT to see what feminism inspires next!  Can you?

~Deborah Lynn

ART: "The New Age Of Slavery" by Patrick Campbell

The New Age Of Slavery - Patrick Campbell. Coming to a Smithsonian Near You

POWER - Patrick Campbell

"Bodies hanging in the red stripes of the American flag and cracked stars. Never has a piece of art gripped me so hard and made me gasp.


It was like someone punched me in the chest and let the air out of me at the same time. The New Age of Slavery is the name of the work that has gone viral on the web this week, after the announcement that Eric Garner’s killer would not be indicted. It was especially shocking because Eric was placed in an illegal chokehold by a cop, and his last words (I can’t breathe) and last moments were on tape.

Those of us (me included) who have been calling for body cameras to be placed on cops immediately realized that it would solve very little (although it was just one step). In front of everyone was the indisputable fact that Black people are being lynched by the government, but instead of hanging in trees, we’re laying in the streets. And police are receiving the message loud and clear that they can do it without consequence.

So to see the piece of art was like having a bucket of cold water dumped on my head. It laid out the truth in acrylic and watercolor and it was beautiful in its honesty of an ugly reality. It ached and the paint that dripped down the canvas was crying for the lives of Black men, women and children lost.


http://thegrio.com/2014/12/06/new-age-of-slavery-painting-patrick-campbell/ 

Loving Survival