Thursday, September 27, 2012

Never depend on others to fight your issues for you

I used to be one of those who thought that a progressive society would immediately and naturally run to the assistance of the most vulnerable among us to secure them and do that which pure common sense dictates, to protect them. Boy was I wrong! We live in politically complicated times were 'lobby groups' can actually insist on their rights to oppress and brutalize those within their domain and these lobby 'rights' are upheld.

I have come to realize that if the vulnerable don’t stand up for themselves and recognize and articulate their situation, the powerful strong lobby desiring the status quo...well it will crush them underfoot!

As a BWE proponent, in theory I accept that we as black women are on our own but it sometimes takes real life examples to remind me again and again how bad it is.

I was watching a program called Newsnight on the BBC a couple of months ago on the subject of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Now most of you have come across the term and know a bit about it. FGM is another name for clitorectomy (the cutting off of the clitoris of females). The medical community describes FGM in types; 1-3 with 3 being the most severe form of it. FGM is correlated with but not limited to Islamic cultures though there is a lot of debate on whether it is an allowable practice by the various Islamic schools of thought.

In this Newsnight program about five-seven young Somali girls from ‘Integrate Bristol’ (you can google their website) where in one corner arguing for the government to exert pressure to safeguard tens of thousands of minority girls who continue to be in real danger of undergoing FGM despite the practice having been criminalized for years now.

A little background here:

In the UK the procedure had been criminalized for ten odd years and has resulted in not one single prosecution! An investigation by The Times Newspaper earlier this year revealed that an estimated hundred thousand British girls had undergone the procedure. In France the procedure has also been criminalized but for a shorter time, and there have been dozens of convictions because of the 'no nonsense approach' adopted by the French government, while the UK pays lip service to its duty to protect minority women, preferring to sacrifices them on the altar of ‘cultural’ sensitivity. Apparently families from other European countries are now travelling to the UK to have their daughters ‘FGMed’! Indeed the UK is seen as such a laughable soft touch and they can get away with holding FGM parties here were up to ten girls are done at once! Shocking stuff!

The discussion was so very revealing. On one side was the government minister arguing in favour of ‘more cultural sensitivity’ in approach to the issue (the same approach that had led to zero convictions and parents continually brutalizing their daughters unimpeded). She was joined by a ‘Community leader’ Somali male, throwing as many ‘politically correct’ barriers as he could muster (you know invoking the right political language, 'No stereotyping', 'racial targetting', 'racism' etc etc), to ensure that the status quo situation (which was resulting in continued brutalization of women in his community), remained intact. He kept insisting that no community under any circumstances, should be ‘targeted’ and singled out for scrutiny-even though such scrutiny could save the wellbeing of young women from his community who were having their lives blighted and suffering infertility, infection and even death from the procedure.

The young Somali girls were essentially on their own on the other side, trying to counter what essentially was an attempt to resist the change that would rescue fellow sisters and friends, even the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Equalities, (herself a Jewish woman) Lynne Featherstone was busy insisting how intrusive it would be to carry out medical examinations on young girls to deter and also ascertain that young women had not undergone FGM. Imagine that!

The young Somali girls clearly had broken rank with their communities and the politically correct culture that is currently imprisoning the UK around minority issues. I can only imagine how much pressure they must be under from their communities. I can imagine the names they will be called; sell-out, native informant, Oreo. But they sat there insisting on the minority woman’s right for protection no matter how many political correct taboos that would need to be transgressed.

I couldn’t believe that this was 21st century Britain, and that cultural sensitivity (whatever that means), was taking precedents over the real and actual lives of black and brown women. Where were all the raging voices of feminism damning the establishments for daring to submit the very wellbeing of women to statutes of cultural sensitivity? How come there wasn’t a strong contingent of feminist voices to be heard reminding the ‘community leaders’ and their enablers that women's rights and wellbeing trumps all and we have no intention of reversing hard won women’s rights for some BS sensitivity to accusations of racism?

At the end even the host of Newsnight himself was exasperated with the Under-Secretary for putting community ‘sensitivity’ before the very lives of the black women affected.
 
Black women need to know that...

The wider society sees black women as the property of 'their' men and 'their' community and think these two entities have rights over black women that need to be respected. This is something they would not even begin to think of if white women were under consideration

If black women do not come out strongly and vigorously against any form of in-house oppression they are experiencing, this is seen as them agreeing with their treatment and a cue for society to let it be. With regards to black women, society does not even consider that black women may be unable to speak out or advocate for self or might even be suffering Stockholm syndrome. The notion that minority women are so totally oppressed and coerced that they cannot even speak out and might require intervention to break the stronghold, is one which isn’t allowed for with black women.

Individual black women are required to extricate themselves from even the most harrowing of brutality and the inability to do this is seen as an endorsement of their treatment.

Many black women are forced back into oppressive situations and social milieus by the wider society and by those who invalidate her right to be free from and act independent of community. Remember that breaking rank and acting free of community is deemed as an inauthentic choice for the black woman who is supposed to be community-tied always.


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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Who's Zooming Who: The Sequel


Which of these?




Which of these two women do you think is the First Lady of Cote d'Ivoire?
Answer Below



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Claudine Dominique Ouattara






On her wedding day with the current president of Cote d'Ivore

Have you read the Who's Zoomin Who Part 1 ?






My Latest e-books are now available to buy from my website book page or from Amazon. Please click on the corresponding links below for more info.




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Friday, September 14, 2012

Summer's end...some reflections

As we near the end of summer, I will say that it was this year's summer, that showed that a tide may be turning in terms of black women taking up the option of finding love with all kinds of races of men. I went to a number of music festivals and to the Olympic Park and there were black women of all shapes and sizes and all ages with white men, biracial children, Asian men etc. As most of you know, the number of black women in Britain dating white men is relatively high when compared to their counterparts in the US, yet you never quite see it. You hear about it, and maybe see one or two examples as opposed to the dozens and dozens of black men with white women you see every day. Well something seems to have changed and these black women are behaving as normal as possible and this is what gives me hope.

There was a very curious case I came across at a music festival; a 'Rastafarian' white man (with his long dred locs and all), and his black wife also 'loced' down (lol!). They were a middle age couple so this was clearly no Fad. I saw them strolling along just like every other couple out there, and that’s the main point here, they like many of the other women were going about life normally, engaging in lives little activities, communicating in low tones, slight gestures just like between two normal everyday people. You know when black women are with white or non black men and they are speaking very loudly and also looking furtively around...it just tells me they are uncomfortable and they want to suggest to others that this is not an intimate situation in fact the loud talking is inviting everyone to see that there is nothing intimate going on.

I also saw young black girls with white boys (a very hard group when it comes to Interracial Dating). The message is getting out there that it is normal to be attracted to and to date white guys even from school age.
 
911 Anniversary
I rarely say much on this subject every year, if I do remember to, I sometimes put up a picture and say 'God bless America' or something of that nature. After the recent events in the middle east, I am even more inclined to not just value Western freedoms but to realize that there is no similar kind of context of personal and individual freedom offered around the globe.

As black women we talk about living the best lives possible but make no mistake, the context within which we can live optimal lives is the western context, no matter how flawed and deficient it still is. If the western edifice does not endure, then as black women, you can kiss your fancy ideas about living optimal lives goodbye. Do you know that there are places in Africa now where as a black woman you can still be sold as a slave.

 
Indeed some of you think you have a fight/quarrel with the western social order but I can assure you that if you succeed in taking down the western edifice, what will replace it will make your hair stand on end. The West is not evil. It has deficiencies, it has flaws, somethings could be better...Do your best to better the system at the same time defend your freedoms and values which are under threat. The external threats are even more than those of so called 'right wing christians' because there are already laws in place that limit what such folks can do. There are actually external factors that may well reshape some of the west's most fundamental freedoms, as it seeks to align itself with the demands and agitation and financial might of other global power players and a new world order being ushered in as we speak. 
 
I am sounding this warning, Stop trying to take down the whole Western project. Stop being used and manipulated (through your anger or guilt or bitterness) into destroying your own civilization.

Now someone made the statement the other day, that the US went to Afghanistan to install Sharia law, they did the same for Iraq, they are in the process of doing it for Libya, Egypt and Syria and the rest of the middle east. When you really think about it, they are right. Imagine that!

Lets face it, no one knows if the Arab spring was really the flowering of democracy, the signs dont point to that. What is becoming more evident is that some of the most reactionary and anti-human factions co-opted the rhetoric of democracy and self-determinism to actually forward an agenda that will actually be illiberal, anti-democratic and is threatening to crush the minorities in their midst, who even under the worst dictators managed to find a safe space within these regions to live and be.

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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Sub-humans killed an Innocent Man

The Murdering of an Innocent Man
RIP Ambassador Christopher Stevens
NEVER FORGET ALWAYS REMEMBER

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Always Remember, Never Forget!

God Bless America

Sunday, September 02, 2012

Seek out spaces where you are Valued - Part 2

After last week's post, a commenter made me reflect on some other stuff that I had noticed at the barbecue; how black men and white men presented themselves in markedly different ways in terms of how they interracted with others. I responded to the commenter Samadhi:

That’s a good question. I think on some level they are doing the dance expected of them. I will write up a bit more on these thoughts in the next post but I was actually watching the actions of the white men at the barbecue versus the black guys. Most of the white guys performing any function were well behaved, went out of their way to be helpful and courteous, and assist people without judgement or telling anyone off. It seemed/s to me to be expected that the black guys were going to act 'some kind of way' possibly have outbursts, tell folk off, or transgress the social etiquette and rules of decorum, with people gearing up to make allowances for these expected responses. Even at work they receive patronage and the funding keeps rolling in if they fit the stereotype of the misunderstood black male, or if they play to the 'black men cant help themselves but react angrily', theme. Very sad because it keeps them in the cycle and they cant break out (because it is being rewarded)and be better than all that!

To add to this observation, as a result of work I am exposed to the dynamics of interaction between black men and women. I know a particular woman who has a black man on her team and I am struck by how she, his manager, treats him more like a son or younger brother. Whenever she asks him to take care of a piece of work she is almost up in his face imploring, meanwhile with her black female team members, she issues straight forward directives which she expects them to comply with pronto. I find her body language very revealing; when she is talking to him he is turned away while she is turned towards him almost up into his armpit.


With any other person, his kind of body posture would be deemed rude or would register as insubordination. It appears to me that there is this Caribbean cultural thing, where black women are supposed to be positioned as the pursuers of the affection, attention and the response (and good will) of black men who themselves maintain maintain an air of aloofness to all her efforts. While women adopt excessive obsequiousness, act all pleading and placating towards black men black men adopt a posture of entitlement to black women’s, indulgence, protection and extreme patience.

I find that if invited into an inner circle of black folks you are expected to actually adopt these rules and conventions for relating to black men if you are a woman and they will test that you understand and comply.

Lets talk about the good example of seeking out spaces where you are valued
Summer is music festival time. This year I attended a four day festival of world music. I haven’t camped in such a long while and my poor back complained bitterly after the first few nights. The music menu was varied and sumptuous; Turkish, Irish, Scottish, African, Japanese...you name it (the highlight for me was a Norwegian singer Ane Brun http://anebrun.com/ (absolutely sublime performance of 'Undertow' and 'What's Happening With You & Him').

On the second day I attended an Irish band session. There was no black person in the audience though quite a number could be seen at the festival itself. When the band leader called for some volunteers I put my hand up and I was selected (just as I knew I would be when he announced before hand that he would ask for audience participation). I was so sure that I discreetly put lip gloss on and secured my purse as soon as he made the announce. Why not, I was the only black person in the audience of maybe 100. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the probability of being picked was very high for me. They would definitely love to have me up there on stage trying out their Irish dance routine. I got a signed CD for my efforts!

I don’t think I need to spell out the moral of the story, there are places where your presence would be sought. I contrast this with so many 'black spaces' where black women love to frequent yet there is a pained expression on the faces of the black men when they show up! Where jokes are made about their weave, their 'attitude,' and black men are so eager to show how much they detest these black women and prefer the few white or mixed race women in their midst.

A lot of us have not tossed the idea that black spaces are best for us even though our experience tells us otherwise. At the same time so many of us will swear up and down that white folks are hostile and don’t want us in their midst and will do A, B, C. Yet we don’t know any such thing for certain, (we have heard it second hand) neither obtained it from experience because we have never yet 'integrated' any white spaces to know that such would be our fate. We are cowed and limited by the phantoms we created in our own minds about white spaces and when we enter them we sit huddled together in a conner with other black women because of our fears! We might even have experienced some discomfort or an awkward situation in white spaces but compared to our trails in black spaces these are nothing.

Do you know that off the top of my head I can list 5 places in my local area where I am sure to see one or no black woman, and thus such a venue could be used to my social even career advantage.

I am sure some people (one woman in particular), must have been peeved that I got called up over them, maybe they are Irish and love all things Irish and 'Who the hell is this interloper'. But who cares. In black spaces they would have a ball. Non-black women in particular are given premium value over regular black women even the most devoted black woman who would lay down her life for black unity. Many white and almost white women understand the game in black spaces and play it to their advantage to the very hilt and at the expense of black women, and give no apologies. Why shouldn’t black women find where they 'fit in.'


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Date White Guys?
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Supposing I wanted to
Date a White Guy...?
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