It's crazy, I know.
This week, instead of posting here I've contributed to the website Lifetime Moms.com.
I have my dear friend Laura Grimm to thank, for sharing this blog with the powers that be. They liked my writing, gave me an assignment, and now it's live!
THANK YOU, LAURA!
I want to take a breath and welcome any new readers who may have found me via Lifetime Moms. Please take a look around...
I hope you get something positive out of this brainchild of mine. If you do, please subscribe and/or leave comments, so we can keep the conversation going.
I'll be back with a fresh post as soon as I recover from all this excitement.
Meanwhile, if you haven't already seen it, check out:
http://www.lifetimemoms.com/in-the-news or
http://www.lifetimemoms.com/in-the-news/my-kids-arent-impressed-that-keke-palmer-is-the-first-black-cinderella
and see my piece on Keke Palmer, Broadway's newest Cinderella.
Cheers!
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Friday, August 1, 2014
Race & Beauty
Earlier this week I caught an interesting piece on WNYC, my
go-to public radio station. The host, Brian Lehrer, was discussing the topic of
Race & Beauty, with journalist Maureen O’Connor, whose recent article is
the current cover story in New York Magazine.
It seems that black, Hispanic, and Asian women are seeking
the services of cosmetic surgeons like never before. Statistically, non-white
women are enjoying the power of more disposable income these days. The big
question was, are women going under the knife in deliberate pursuit of
a Western/white beauty ideal?
I’m in my forties. I’ve birthed two children. I can say
without hesitation that there are things about my body that I wouldn’t mind changing. I didn’t realize how content I was with my body in
my twenties, until that body morphed into my current one.
I’ve been body conscious as long as I can remember. At
sleep-away camp, where my bunkmates and I freely took off our clothes in front
of each other simultaneously, comparisons were unavoidable. Who was the most
developed? Who had hair in embarrassing places? Who had a bubble butt?
That was me: bubble butt. No bathing suit
could fully cover the roundness. In
dance classes, my leotards were either loose through the middle, or giving me a
wedgie. Most blue jeans were huge in the waist if they fit over my hips. My
mother assured me that my “hourglass shape” would be fully appreciated when I
got older. “Look at Marilyn Monroe!” she said. “She’s arguably one of the most
desirable women ever! Look at her curves.” But I didn’t want to be curvy. I
wanted a small, flat butt like the models in magazines, and most of my friends.
Then there were the lip comments. At some point in middle
school, someone came up with the term “b-j lips”. The “b” stood for “blow”… get
it? It was decided that most black girls had b-j lips. The boys acted like it
was a bad thing, and those of us who bore the label really wished we didn’t.
But by high school, a couple of the white girls with full lips were earning locker
room praise for their “b-j lips”. It turned out the boys liked girls with b-j
lips!
And then came the Tyra Banks photo on the cover of
Sports Illustrated.
I repeatedly overheard grown men debate whether or not Tyra
was white.
It was as if their hard-ons obstructed the link between
their eyes and their brains. Tyra had
the bubble butt, and the full lips, and the glowing bronze skin of a beautiful (albeit very fair) black girl. All that beauty made her race debatable.
Now, in 2014, we have Anjelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson
with their famously full lips representing the beauty ideal. The Kardashian
sisters are trotting around some pretty “ethnic” booty enhancements. And the US
Military is restricting black enlisted women from wearing their hair in natural
styles.
It’s all very confusing. Are we consciously moving toward a
diversity-based ideal of beauty? A melding of many ethnic attributes into one
gorgeously ambiguous form? If we’re becoming more accepting and more diverse,
why is the plastic surgery rate among non-white women ballooning?
Ballooning. Funny choice of words, as I sit here on what was
once a pretty cute bubble butt.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
chapter/ Camp
Here it is, late July. My girls did not feel ready to try sleep-away camp this summer. Some of their friends have already begun to return home with tales of great camp adventures. So I sit around, fretting about how my children are spending their time this summer, and I catch myself comparing their "now" to my "then".
I don’t recall the anxiety I must have had, knowing I would be separated from my mother for four weeks. I don’t remember feeling unloved or rejected. But at five years old, I’m sure I had some serious reservations about going to sleep-away camp.
My mother grew up in the country, on an anarchist commune outside of Peekskill, New York. Raised among radical intellectuals, artists, and activists in a rustic atmosphere, the natural world was the backdrop of her rich childhood memories. It was important to her that she get her urban child “up to nature” whenever possible. So it was decided: the summer I was to turn six, I would be spared a month of babysitter days stuck in our Bronx apartment. Up to nature I went.
My mother chose a Jewish Y camp for my first sleep-away adventure. Which didn’t strike me as strange, because I knew that we were technically Jewish. My mother’s mother was a Russian Jew, and after she died, my mother had been raised by a Jewish family. According to Jewish law, we were absolutely Jewish. But I didn’t think of us as really Jewish. My parents were atheists. At home and at school, I was taught to respect all religious traditions with equal weight, without having to subscribe to any. It didn’t occur to me that camp would be any different. I trusted my mother’s plan. But she had read the brochure. The one that described the weekly Shabbat services.
As instructed, we packed “four nice white shirts” along with the shorts, halter tops, bathing suits and towels, underpants, and ankle socks with my name tags sewn in, and shipped them ahead in an old trunk. At camp, everything got shoved into cubbies except the white shirts, which were hung on hangers in the bunk closet. And everyone noticed: my shirts were too fancy. Not plain, like the shirts the other girls brought. The lace bits and pearly buttons stood out, along with the rest of me.
I was one of the youngest kids at camp. And one of the very few black ones. A couple of dark-skinned girls stayed in much older bunks, way out of my reach. Surrounded by friends their own age, they seemed unaffected by the fact that their beaded braids and dark complexions made them different. On that first Friday night, they knew what to do for Shabbat. They seemed right at home. I watched and wondered, while I fumbled through the pre-dinner service in my nice white shirt. Four weeks of Fridays, with the unfamiliar rituals of challah bread and candles, and prayers to God in a foreign tongue. I mumbled along, hoping no one would single me out to light the candles or break the bread. I was sure they all noticed: I was that new little girl who isn’t even Jewish.
I don’t recall any specific unkindness, or mistreatment. And I don’t remember having made any friends there, either. What I remember is my lost, brown self, in a sea of white shirts, in the soft glow of candlelight, praying over shiny, puffy, braided loaves of bread. And that lonely feeling of wanting to fit in, not knowing how to shed the Outsider skin.
Although I withheld the details of my lonely Y Camp summer from my mother, she must have recognized my ambivalence about the place. The next year, we rented a bungalow in the Catskills and spent a solid month together. The following summer, we discovered Blueberry Cove, a small, artsy, back-to-nature summer camp in Maine. It was the ideal respite from the noise of the city and the structured school year. Blueberry Cove Camp became my summertime home away from home, filled with friends from all over the country, who came back, year after year, like I did. We ran around barefoot, embraced our mandatory farm chores, and swam in the frigid waters of the Atlantic. We connected with the earth, and the animals, and developed a common empathy for the natural world and each other. My mother, confident that I was happy and secure, was able to spend her summers traveling, or teaching part-time if she so chose. Summertime offered her a break from the single-parent pace of our lives.
And I got Maine. Shoeless, godless, and free.
For this week's post, I looked to my memoir manuscript and pulled out the chapter titled "Camp", thinking I'd tighten it up and post it. Then I remembered that I had already posted an old version of it, long ago. Turns out it was back in August, 2011: titled "Summer Camp".
Indisputable proof that my writing life has taken on a scary spiral form, in which essays become posts, and posts become chapters, and chapters become posts.
Indisputable proof that my writing life has taken on a scary spiral form, in which essays become posts, and posts become chapters, and chapters become posts.
The good news is that this new version is better than the old one.
I hope you'll pardon the indulgence...
I hope you'll pardon the indulgence...
chapter/ CAMP
“You’ll love sleep-away camp. I promise,” my mother said. “There’s not enough to do around here once school’s over. I’ll be teaching the first month of summer session. You’ll have a much better time in the country. Trust me. It’ll be fine.”
I don’t recall the anxiety I must have had, knowing I would be separated from my mother for four weeks. I don’t remember feeling unloved or rejected. But at five years old, I’m sure I had some serious reservations about going to sleep-away camp.
My mother grew up in the country, on an anarchist commune outside of Peekskill, New York. Raised among radical intellectuals, artists, and activists in a rustic atmosphere, the natural world was the backdrop of her rich childhood memories. It was important to her that she get her urban child “up to nature” whenever possible. So it was decided: the summer I was to turn six, I would be spared a month of babysitter days stuck in our Bronx apartment. Up to nature I went.
My mother chose a Jewish Y camp for my first sleep-away adventure. Which didn’t strike me as strange, because I knew that we were technically Jewish. My mother’s mother was a Russian Jew, and after she died, my mother had been raised by a Jewish family. According to Jewish law, we were absolutely Jewish. But I didn’t think of us as really Jewish. My parents were atheists. At home and at school, I was taught to respect all religious traditions with equal weight, without having to subscribe to any. It didn’t occur to me that camp would be any different. I trusted my mother’s plan. But she had read the brochure. The one that described the weekly Shabbat services.
As instructed, we packed “four nice white shirts” along with the shorts, halter tops, bathing suits and towels, underpants, and ankle socks with my name tags sewn in, and shipped them ahead in an old trunk. At camp, everything got shoved into cubbies except the white shirts, which were hung on hangers in the bunk closet. And everyone noticed: my shirts were too fancy. Not plain, like the shirts the other girls brought. The lace bits and pearly buttons stood out, along with the rest of me.
I was one of the youngest kids at camp. And one of the very few black ones. A couple of dark-skinned girls stayed in much older bunks, way out of my reach. Surrounded by friends their own age, they seemed unaffected by the fact that their beaded braids and dark complexions made them different. On that first Friday night, they knew what to do for Shabbat. They seemed right at home. I watched and wondered, while I fumbled through the pre-dinner service in my nice white shirt. Four weeks of Fridays, with the unfamiliar rituals of challah bread and candles, and prayers to God in a foreign tongue. I mumbled along, hoping no one would single me out to light the candles or break the bread. I was sure they all noticed: I was that new little girl who isn’t even Jewish.
I don’t recall any specific unkindness, or mistreatment. And I don’t remember having made any friends there, either. What I remember is my lost, brown self, in a sea of white shirts, in the soft glow of candlelight, praying over shiny, puffy, braided loaves of bread. And that lonely feeling of wanting to fit in, not knowing how to shed the Outsider skin.
Although I withheld the details of my lonely Y Camp summer from my mother, she must have recognized my ambivalence about the place. The next year, we rented a bungalow in the Catskills and spent a solid month together. The following summer, we discovered Blueberry Cove, a small, artsy, back-to-nature summer camp in Maine. It was the ideal respite from the noise of the city and the structured school year. Blueberry Cove Camp became my summertime home away from home, filled with friends from all over the country, who came back, year after year, like I did. We ran around barefoot, embraced our mandatory farm chores, and swam in the frigid waters of the Atlantic. We connected with the earth, and the animals, and developed a common empathy for the natural world and each other. My mother, confident that I was happy and secure, was able to spend her summers traveling, or teaching part-time if she so chose. Summertime offered her a break from the single-parent pace of our lives.
And I got Maine. Shoeless, godless, and free.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
The Ease of Blending In
I recently had the strange experience of traveling to a far-away
island and being mistaken for a native.
It’s much more usual for me to be mistaken for a “foreigner,”
with my light brown skin, black eyes, and unruly, curly hair.
Growing up in New York City, I was regularly presumed to be
of Latin American descent. Which made sense, since my mixed heritage includes
African, Spanish (from Spain), Russian, and Native American. I look like the
product of multi-generational miscegenation. Because that’s what I am.
But my high school Spanish classes didn’t prepare me to
respond capably to the rapid-fire queries of all those pretty brown people,
lost in the city subways, expecting me to help them find their way. I tried: “No
comprendo. Habla usted inglés? (I don’t understand. Do you speak English?)”
Which would meet with a dejected “No.”
Did they think I was trying to pass? Disavowing my native
tongue?
Late last month, my family and I traveled to Puerto Rico.
In preparation, my husband tried to scrape together some key
Spanish phrases. His favorite: “Pregunta mi esposa. (Ask my wife.)” Our
daughters claimed to not know any conversational Spanish, in spite of five
years of elementary school study. So I tried to brush off the buried remnants
of the Spanish I once knew, the native language of my beloved Grandpa Juan. We figured
we might be mistaken for Puertorriqueños, and I wanted to be prepared.
In the taxi to the airport, I practiced my Spanish with our Ecuadorian
driver.
My family was shocked, never having heard me converse in
anything but English before. The driver and I discussed our children, their
relative ages, and how they would each be spending the summer break. It was
hard work, but I did all right.
Landing in San Juan, we were no longer tourists.
We blended seamlessly into the sea of brown faces. Nearly
everyone we encountered addressed us in Spanish. Not text book Spanish, but the
fast Puerto Rican flavor, with lots of dropped vowels and English slang. By the
end of our week, our ears were well tuned to it, though we were grateful for
the ease with which most of our contacts could switch to our native tongue.
The big thrill for me was how well we fit in.
The people of Puerto Rico come in all shades of brown. And
for this brown girl, it was the first time I have traveled anywhere and not
felt “other”. I’ve been to every state in the Union, except Hawaii, and have often
felt like an obvious outsider; in a quiet, clear way, like a visitor from
somewhere else. Not white. Not black. Possibly not American. I’ve been called
“exotic” a few too many times.
In Puerto Rico, I found an unexpected comfort, for myself
and my children. It was the ease of blending
in.
Which must be hard to fathom, for those who’ve always known
it.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Browngirl Returns!
I’m sorry I haven’t written in a
while.
A lot has happened in the world,
and in my little life, since my last entry, dated January 28, 2014. I have a
long list of topics, craving exposition. But like I told you before,
I decided to finally hunker down and finish the manuscript project that has been
occupying the better part of my brain for the past let’s–just-call-it-fifteen
years. Since last October, when I stole five days in a tiny cottage in Woodstock, swearing I would come back with real progress made, I stayed the course. The shit is done. And let me tell you it was one giant effort.
When I realized I was really
finished, I gleefully alerted “my agent,” who signed me to a representation
deal ten years ago. She shopped an older version of the book back then; no one
bit, but several publishers offered encouraging feedback. So I thought that if
I worked hard at the revisions, it would sell this time. I was stunned to
discover that said agent is just not that into me anymore. She’s a rock star
agent, corralling a pretty fancy herd of rock star writers. The fact that she ever
took interest in my writing was a blessed surprise. I let myself
think that she would stay interested forever.
So I’ve been mourning the loss, in
my own quiet way.
I might decide to self-publish, if
only to get the giant beast off of my plate and out into the world. I swore I
wouldn’t go that route. I’d really like to hand it over to a publishing house
and gain that seal of approval. I think the book is pretty damn good. My
ex-agent only read twenty pages before she passed on it. I probably sent her
the wrong twenty pages. I’ll show her.
Meanwhile, it occurred to me
yesterday, when I decided I was done feeling depressed about this latest
rejection, that my next move is obvious: it's time to get back to this here blog. Honestly,
this is more fun that shaking out 400+ pages of memoir that I’ve read and
re-read too many times.
On to freshness!
Expect to hear from me more often.
I’m back :)
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Pete Seeger lost...
I've managed to accidentally delete my post of January 28. It was a dedication to Pete Seeger, National Hero. If anyone out there has a version of it, please let me know. Blogger offers no recovery methods at this time.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Scary Beyoncé Butt
I stayed up too late watching the Grammys.
My young daughters, ages 8 and 10, joined me for the first forty minutes, before I sent them up to bed. Their father, a musician and producer, was working late and missed the show. So we filled him in on the highlights at breakfast.
The thing we ranted most about was Beyoncé's butt.
My 8-year-old daughter made many hilarious comments during Beyonce's nearly-naked performance, like "Help! I'm scared of Beyoncé's butt! Make it go away!!" Her older sister just grumbled, saying things like, "Why is she hanging out of her costume like that? Ew!" We agreed that her song was dumb, and her performance was "so inappropriate!!"
We're not huge Beyoncé fans, but we don't dislike her either.
We admire her talent and her obvious beauty. So we have to ask: Why does she choose to do a soft-porn chair dance in a thong/push-up bra/stilettos/fishnets Hookerlady outfit at 8pm on network television? I had to explain to my girls that "that man" who joined her on stage was her husband, Jay-Z, eyes averted in a disconnected way even though he had a hand on her almost-bare booty. Where was his costume? No thong. No pimp hat. Nothing but a designer tux, while his wife is dressed like a lite bondage bimbo.
I sound old and conservative.
But the image of a gorgeous, almost naked black woman sexing it up for the camera, accompanied by her black husband who seems to hardly notice or care that she's spreading it for an international audience of millions, is a rotten scene from the degrading annals of pop culture and I am SO DISAPPOINTED in Beyoncé and Jay-Z, parents of a two-year-old baby girl. OK, I brought race into it. It's not just a feminist issue. It's a pride and respect issue for all women, including the sexualized black women of the world.
Shame on CBS and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for pushing the "marriage equality" segment into the after-11PM slot, while featuring Beyonce's butt at the top of family-friendly prime time. They got that one backwards.
The real highlight of the show was seventeen-year-old Lorde, in her loose black man-pants and twitchy dance, singing about the weirdness of celebrity. A weirdness she'll have to work with(in), as her two Grammy awards attest. And it was good to see Nile Rogers kicking it live, even in support of a couple of French disco robots.
My young daughters, ages 8 and 10, joined me for the first forty minutes, before I sent them up to bed. Their father, a musician and producer, was working late and missed the show. So we filled him in on the highlights at breakfast.
The thing we ranted most about was Beyoncé's butt.
My 8-year-old daughter made many hilarious comments during Beyonce's nearly-naked performance, like "Help! I'm scared of Beyoncé's butt! Make it go away!!" Her older sister just grumbled, saying things like, "Why is she hanging out of her costume like that? Ew!" We agreed that her song was dumb, and her performance was "so inappropriate!!"
We're not huge Beyoncé fans, but we don't dislike her either.
We admire her talent and her obvious beauty. So we have to ask: Why does she choose to do a soft-porn chair dance in a thong/push-up bra/stilettos/fishnets Hookerlady outfit at 8pm on network television? I had to explain to my girls that "that man" who joined her on stage was her husband, Jay-Z, eyes averted in a disconnected way even though he had a hand on her almost-bare booty. Where was his costume? No thong. No pimp hat. Nothing but a designer tux, while his wife is dressed like a lite bondage bimbo.
I sound old and conservative.
But the image of a gorgeous, almost naked black woman sexing it up for the camera, accompanied by her black husband who seems to hardly notice or care that she's spreading it for an international audience of millions, is a rotten scene from the degrading annals of pop culture and I am SO DISAPPOINTED in Beyoncé and Jay-Z, parents of a two-year-old baby girl. OK, I brought race into it. It's not just a feminist issue. It's a pride and respect issue for all women, including the sexualized black women of the world.
Shame on CBS and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for pushing the "marriage equality" segment into the after-11PM slot, while featuring Beyonce's butt at the top of family-friendly prime time. They got that one backwards.
The real highlight of the show was seventeen-year-old Lorde, in her loose black man-pants and twitchy dance, singing about the weirdness of celebrity. A weirdness she'll have to work with(in), as her two Grammy awards attest. And it was good to see Nile Rogers kicking it live, even in support of a couple of French disco robots.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Hits of 2013
I know I'm a little late for the glut of Year End posts. But I have been putting a lot of good writing energy into my manuscript, like the good girl I promised to be. You haven't heard much from me lately, right?
While it's still January, I'm tossing my two cents into the pool with this short little list of Hits of 2013.
Mayor Bill DeBlasio of New York City, my hometown. Finally a lefty activist/democrat running the most radical city on Earth. His mixed-race family, and Afro-centric-hairstyled offspring knock me out. Can't wait to see what the future brings.
Key and Peele. Comedy Central's amazing show featuring two (count 'em, two) biracial comedians who dare to say a whole lot of messed up funny stuff that a lot of people wouldn't dream of repeating in mixed (pun intended) company.
12 Years A Slave. The book by Solomon Northup. I am mid-way through it and am blown away by the beautiful language and remarkable story of this 19th Century memoir. Wondering why it took a black Brit to make the film everyone's talking about. Cheers to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and everyone who helped bring the book into the light.
Mama's Child. A new book by Joan Lester, YA author and journalist. An interesting work of fiction, this story of a modern bi-racial family is told from two perspectives: the white mother's voice alternates with that of her mixed daughter. Ms. Lester is herself a white mother in a mixed race family, bringing her authentic perspective to this unusual tale.
Southern Poverty Law Center. This non-profit organization has made incredible strides in fighting bias-based injustices here in the US. I've been a supporter for years, and thought I'd take this opportunity to send a shout-out. Visit http://www.splcenter.org to explore or donate.
Lastly, I have to mention that my mom survived a harrowing health scare in December. By New Year's Eve she was feeling pretty darn good. So Mom's healthy outlook makes it to my Hit list. Hooray!
Wishing you a peaceful and joy-filled new year.
While it's still January, I'm tossing my two cents into the pool with this short little list of Hits of 2013.
| photo: nydailynews.com |
| photo: hollywoodreporter.com |
Key and Peele. Comedy Central's amazing show featuring two (count 'em, two) biracial comedians who dare to say a whole lot of messed up funny stuff that a lot of people wouldn't dream of repeating in mixed (pun intended) company.
12 Years A Slave. The book by Solomon Northup. I am mid-way through it and am blown away by the beautiful language and remarkable story of this 19th Century memoir. Wondering why it took a black Brit to make the film everyone's talking about. Cheers to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and everyone who helped bring the book into the light.
Mama's Child. A new book by Joan Lester, YA author and journalist. An interesting work of fiction, this story of a modern bi-racial family is told from two perspectives: the white mother's voice alternates with that of her mixed daughter. Ms. Lester is herself a white mother in a mixed race family, bringing her authentic perspective to this unusual tale.
Southern Poverty Law Center. This non-profit organization has made incredible strides in fighting bias-based injustices here in the US. I've been a supporter for years, and thought I'd take this opportunity to send a shout-out. Visit http://www.splcenter.org to explore or donate.
Lastly, I have to mention that my mom survived a harrowing health scare in December. By New Year's Eve she was feeling pretty darn good. So Mom's healthy outlook makes it to my Hit list. Hooray!
Wishing you a peaceful and joy-filled new year.
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