The Oscars Briefly

While I'm throwing in my 2 cents on Awards Season doings, let me add my voice to a question I've seen posted repeatedly: Where were the black films this year?

Let me confess that I haven't seen many films in the past year. So my perspective may be a little narrow. I have no direct experience with any of Tyler Perry's projects, including his new film version of the groundbreaking play, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf". My favorite flick of the past 12 months was the crazy and marvelous "I'm Still Here", starring Joaquin Phoenix, who has my attention no matter what he does because he has a certain fabulousness I can't ignore. The movie was a gas. The premise was provocative, fresh, and very naughty. LOVED IT.

From the narrow perspective afforded by the worn red couch in my living room, having seen NONE of the contenders for Best Film excepting Toy Story 3 (guess why), I couldn't help but notice that Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry, and the late great Lena Horne stood out in the program in that weird Beautiful Black Women kinda way. Their achievements and contributions to the medium are huge. But they weren't in any breakout films in the last year.

And then... the grand finale was another feast for the eyes, in that Beautiful Brown Children kinda way. I adored those gloriously multi-culti fifth graders from Staten Island, NY who closed the show. They were fantastic, and their choir leader is clearly a god among men. It did leave me wondering, though, if there wasn't an eleventh hour push by the show's producers to bump up the brown.

I have my fingers crossed, that all the loud-mouthed black artists with something important to say have spent the past year busy in their studios and on location, and that next year's awards season will be flavored with strange and savory fruits.

Esperanza wins!

                                          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2JRGv91urY

The Grammy Awards kept me up too late last night. The commercials were long and lame. The musical acts were entertaining, some were even inspired. It was refreshing to see so many live instrumentalists on the big Grammy stage. Backing Bob Dylan, I believe I counted 3 double-bass players, 1 cellist, umpteen guitarists, 2 banjos... A band like The Avett Brothers getting the spotlight... Far out! I am a big fan of real music. That is to say, music performed by humans playing instruments with acoustic qualities.

So it should come as no surprise that I was thrilled to witness Miss Esperanza Spalding win Best New Artist. Not only is she a talented young musician and vocalist, she is a fellow brown girl. I'm sure some critic somewhere has already compared her in a superficial way to Alicia Keys, who is also a talented young musician, vocalist, and brown girl. But Esperanza is thriving in the jazz world. Bringing jazz to a young audience, impressing the old guard with her chops, and accompanying many established artists in a variety of genres. Her mere existence on the scene is exciting. Her success is thrilling.

Go Brown Girl, Go!

Conflict: Black History Month

I have conflicted feelings about Black History Month.
I think it's weird. Of course we don't need a White History Month, because we don't categorize events or eras as white-centric. It's a lot like the isolation of black authors in book stores and libraries. We're still a nation of segregationists : the non-white stuff needs a label and a shelf off to the side.

Black History Month must be some form of reparation. Acknowledgment. A big guilt band-aid. Band-aids help the healing, it's true. But when every theater, every school, radio station, TV network, book store - everyone takes a Black History moment in February, it doesn't feel good. The shortest month of the year, right? It's an old joke: Give the black folks the month nobody wants. Why is Black History Month celebrated in February, the shortest, coldest month of the year?

In two minutes, I found some useful answers in a Google search. Black History Month was initially Negro History Week, beginning February 12, 1926. The week was chosen because it encompasses the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In 1976, as part of the nation's bicentennial celebration, it was expanded and was renamed Black History Month.  My search yielded a lot of interesting points about Black History Month, and the many ways people celebrate and honor black history. I expected my bad attitude to be uplifted, to a higher ground. Black is beautiful!

My little research project left me feeling embarrassed and ashamed. I could write on this for days, but I'm trying to keep it brief. My rant for post-racial America:  This is not 1926. Or 1976. If in 2011 we still need a month in which to focus national attention on black history, then something has gone horribly wrong in our education system, and in the national discourse. The labels and the categorizations are self-perpetuating. Don't you see?

Womanpower #1

I know a handful of women, older than me, in fact closer to my mother's age than mine, who I consider living heroines. They are good listeners. They are creative, and intuitive. They like to talk about books, movies, cultural phenomena, and they like to hear about my children, because they are grandmother age, and they are curious about the paths of future generations. They are a lot like my mother in many ways, but they are not my mother. I love and admire them, and I'm honored that they enjoy my company. They are all busy, accomplished women.

I had lunch with one of my heroines today. She is a teacher of teachers. She loves to learn, and she also loves to share her knowledge. She is full of deep questions, and dares to "go there", wherever "there" may lead, and she doesn't pretend that it's easy. She just plunges in. Today she asked me if I could recommend something literary about racism, for a course she's teaching on Acknowledging Race and Racism in the Classroom (my version of the course title). She'd like to present her students with an essay or two that would serve to open the topic(s) for discussion. I immediately thought of two anthologies I've read recently: Uncle Tom's Children, by Richard Wright, and a new James Baldwin collection, The Cross of Redemption. 

Then I thought about the female writers I admire, and wished that their voices rang as clearly in my ears. I see how lopsided my exposure to literature has been. Reflecting, in truth, the lopsided reality of the published word, particularly in the African American language. I declare! I need to fix this. First, by reading more women's stories. Second, by promoting those stories. Third, by encouraging girls and women to write!

Mothers! Get your girls to write! 
Ladies! Get writing! 
Let's tip the scale!

All I Can Say Today

courtesy of today's New York Times

Spencer Ainsley/The Journal, via Associated Press

Can I Join Your Mixed Race Club?

Yesterday I received an email from a close friend, alerting me to a must-read New York Times article. It's part of a series called Race Remixed. And it was on the front page! Yes, we have made it to the front page of the New York Times, continued on two subsequent pages deeper in the A Section, complete with charts and graphs. I won't synopsize it here, because you should check it out:
"Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above" by Susan Saulny


The friend who sent me the link to the article is biracial.
We met as high school freshman, in 1980, and bonded instantly. There were three of us: another girl in our grade rounded out the trio. Three, in a class of over 700 kids. We talked amongst ourselves about whether we were mulatto, black, or mixed. We tried to fit into a prescribed category, and none of them felt right.

I believe we were the first generation to dare to question the "One Drop" protocol: If you have a drop of black in you, you're black. End of story.

The "African-American" label became popular just when we had grown tired of explaining ourselves.  "African-American" people seemed to bear the benefits of empowerment and self-actualization, without the implicit subjugation of  the One Drop principal. So we used it. It entitled us to membership in a much larger tribe. We were Americans, of known African descent. The label answered the fundamental question of whether we belonged.

My own racial identity has evolved since then.
I believe I've found a resting place with the self-imposed tag "mixed race".  Not because it's easy, or clear, or empowering. It just fits. I identify with white and black Americans. I am Russian Jew, Spanish, Irish, Native American and Black. I don't mind explaining my background anymore, and I am excited to share these great heritages with my children. I am thrilled to know that a group of college students in College Park, MD has made a game of the "What Are You?" question. I dreaded being asked that question throughout my young life. But as a game, it sounds wonderful! Challenging, enlightening, and fun.

I trust that my little brown girls are going to have much less confusion about their own racial identity, because their world will let them be who they decide to be.

Ya Can't Censor History

If you missed the latest censorship nonsense out there, here's a taste:
(excerpted from a brilliant piece by Michiko Kakutani, for the New York Times, linked here. )

"A new effort to sanitize “Huckleberry Finn” comes from Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, at Montgomery, Ala., who has produced a new edition of Twain’s novel that replaces the word “nigger” with “slave.” Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River."

Why would a professor of English Literature want to convince the general public that omitting the work "nigger" from Huckleberry Finn is a good idea? To avoid offending the reader? To protect our children? Really?  Check the embedded link "slave", in the excerpt above, for an explanation from the hopeful censor.


The blogosphere is full of clever explanations and reactions to this latest bit of Uncle Tom-foolery. Check out mixedraceamerica.blogspot.com and The Colbert Report for starters.


Here's my take.
Every time I type the word “nigger” I hurt. It’s a horrible, ugly word swollen with hideous imagery of brutality, hatred, and victimization. I resist saying it, and sometimes opt for “n-word” because “nigger” burns my mouth and lingers like bile. It hurts the ears too. Reminds us of an ugly past that most Americans (but not all) are ashamed to recall. But the power of words must be honored!  Writers of the caliber of Mark Twain choose/chose their words carefully. Ya can't go around changing the written word as it suits ya, Blanche! Ya can't!  

I have been called a lot of things. Nigger makes the list. Only once, when I was ten. 

I understood the mentality of the white girl who said it, and the superiority of her tone, because I understood the history of the usage of the word. She was not a stranger, nor did she ever pretend to like or respect me. She tolerated me. We hung out in the playground together with a bunch of other kids - all white - on a regular basis. She and I had a disagreement, a conflict, and she wanted to overpower me. She did it with words. My response was loud and profane, and then I ran home. Finished with that group, none of whom spoke up on my behalf.

It was the first time I felt the ugliness of racism firsthand. 
My mother urged me to appreciate that moment for what it was. The girl revealed her true self, and released me from that bogus social club.  My youthful interpretation of our country's racist history helped me appreciate the promise of brighter days. 


More rants about race labels to come.

My Ancestry.com

My father died in 1996, suddenly, and completely unexpectedly.
He was 59. He was luxuriating in early retirement from a successful career, when a massive stroke caught us all by surprise. It's likely that, had he known he was going to die, we would have managed to spend some quality time together during his final days. Maybe some of my questions would have been answered.

We were distant, but not estranged.
I was 29, and had been making an effort to get over our past conflicts. We were on a slow mend.

When my father died, he took his family history with him.
I had known his parents, but I knew nothing about their people. I saw them a total of five times in my life. I loved them dearly, idolized them from afar. They were my black family, my grandparents who lived in Harlem. What little I knew, I gleaned from short anecdotes they shared, and the simple facts my father offered in hopes of quieting my curiosity. My grandfather had worked as a pullman porter, sign painter, elevator operator, and banjo player. My grandmother suffered from glaucoma, but still held a clerical job with the NYPD for many years, and played piano. Every visit featured an impromptu jamboree, their tired bodies rocking and swaying to the old-time tunes they played by heart.

I never asked them where they came from.
Where were they born? Who were their parents? These were black people born at the turn of the twentieth century. How did they experience Jim Crow? Segregation? How did they come to be educated? Were their parents the children of slaves? Sharecroppers? Did they have brothers and sisters? Nieces, nephews? Where was everybody?

Grandma's photo albums held the only clues.
She made notes on the backs of some of the pictures, with names, places and dates. But they were first names. And places like "Woods house, Massachusetts". The folks in the pictures were fair-skinned. Same as my grandparents. So the likelihood of Irish and Native American bloodlines, as referenced by my father once in non-explicit terms, seemed viable. But what were the real stories? And how would I find them?

I am writing a book.
It is memoir, a coming of age story: my life as the biracial daughter of a black man who decidedly disconnected from "the black world".  I have hundreds of pages written, some of which will appear in chapter form somewhere in this blog, as it evolves. My father left a lot of stones unturned, and the writing has been helping me clear my head. I want to understand who he was, and why he chose the paths he did. The writing exposed a huge hole: I can't tell his story without knowing the family details he kept secret. I flash on the microfilm research I did in high school, and the ancient public records that might shed a trace of light on where my grandparents came from. And I've heard that a lot of those public records are accessible on the web site Ancestry.com. It seems like a place to start. So I put aside an afternoon and try to have faith. I imagine I will stumble through a tangle of family trees, produced by countless irrelevant strangers, linking arms/branches across nations; the blissful interconnectivity of all humans. Sprinkle fairy dust here.

Ancestry.com unlocked the answers.
First impression, the simplicity of the search protocol was too good to be true. But after a few carefully crafted stabs, I learned that my grandfather was born in Asbury Park, NJ in 1906. He was one of six children. I learned the names of his parents, his grandparents, and his great-grandparents. And my grandmother's story was just as clear. The trail started with their marriage certificate. Then their death certificates, and birth certificates. Aged, handwritten documents held the details of their lives, perfectly legible, even the complete address of the "Woods house, Massachusetts". With the help of GoogleMaps, I was able to locate that house without leaving my desk. And I unearthed a long chain of cousins, some of whom posted their family trees, ripe with my history.

The stories are making sense.
The people and places have names. The cousins are out there. I will keep writing, and continue searching, and wondering.

Who Is Browngirl?

I have been called

Nigger

Bitch

Mulatto

White

Mommy

Sweet Wife

Daughter

Sister

Beautiful Brown Girl

Smart

Sexy

Thoughtful

Sarcastic

Moody

Capable

Good

I am a(n)

Critical Thinker

Ethicist

Artist

Pacifist

Jewish Atheist

Tree Hugging Ex-Urban Mixed-Race Mother of Mixed-Race Children

I am Browngirl.