”This is the spiritual capital of the African diaspora. Something had to be done.”
IBO BALTON, the housing department’s planning director for Manhattan, on Harlem. February, 2001
Ibo wandered in my office and was flattered that I had a photocopy of his NYT Quote of the Day taped to my wall when I worked for the city’s housing agency back in 2001. I remember telling him that I needed to have it there to remind me why we do what we do. He had come to ask me for a copy of the Bradhurst Negative Declaration (he was always asking me for a copy of the Bradhurst Neg Dec) but instead, he posed a question that clearly had been weighing on him, “Maybe we really are gentrifying Harlem?”
To be clear, we asked ourselves this question frequently.
Manhattan Community Board 10 is probably the regional equivalent to everyone’s idea of what Harlem is. Bounded to the south by 110th Street, to the north by West 155th Street, to the west by Morningside Avenue and to the east by Fifth Avenue, Community Board 10 covers roughly 60 city blocks. Maybe more. And in 1998, the Community Board asked the City of New York to fight to bring middle class residents back into Harlem. One of the oldest residents and members of the board who had lived in Harlem all of her life, and was fortunate to own her home, knew that to make her community remain sustainable, meant that those acres of vacant lots along Frederick Douglass Boulevard and across West 116th Street, on the east end of Marcus Garvey Park (Mount Morris) needed the middle-income families. She had already seen her share of public investment in her community, which unfortunately included a heavy saturation of low-income housing. And while there were a disproportionate amount of African-Americans who’d benefit, the black middle class had all but disappeared. Where were their housing opportunities? The best and brightest who were born and raised in Harlem leave and then return to see their community remain stagnant? Property taxes pay for infrastructure. Infrastructure supports communities. When wealth disappears from a community, how will it pay for itself? Public safety, street repair, all things that makes communities run? A mixed income community spends cash in their neighborhoods, creates and sustains jobs for local residents, spurs investment in open spaces and parks. It means that there’s a tax base to support the services the community demands.
So when an elder and owner of Harlem brownstone curses you out and tell you to make sure 55,000 square foot vacant property contain affordable AND market rate homeownership apartments because it brings an influx of stakeholders to her community, regardless of what color they look like, you do it.
All of this comes to forefront of my memory in reading the recent Times article about greater Harlem’s shifting demographics and the subsequent reactions to it. Many folks were offering compelling narratives of housing’s discrimination past, a history of institutional and economic racism. I get that and don’t dispute that legacy. However, I know and have been active participant in a different story. Continue reading →
Someone sent me a link to yet another piece of writing admonishing Tiger Woods and its inevitable knee jerk comparison to liberal disappointment with Obama.
Le grand sigh. I think my greatest complaint stems from the following paragraph:
Both men are of mixed race. Yet the majority of the country, including black Americans, sees them as black. That’s not a bad thing. Except when such men of intelligence and talent, men who have such influence and power, can’t help but succumb to the age old twins of greed and power. Although each has risen from ordinary beginnings to be at the top of their field but now things don’t look so good for either of them. Woods income is as tied to endorsements as it is to his talent. And Obama is so caught up in party donations and the power that those who donate have, he can’t allow himself or his party to do anything to thwart those donations. If Woods had been smart he would have kept his head down, played golf and taken care of his beautiful family instead of publicly destroying them. If Obama had enacted campaign reform as the first order of business real change could well have happened. But money and fame go to the head and any other result seems to be a fairy tale, a dream, an impossibility. Somehow money corrupts the moral compass, whether for one’s self or one’s party.
Let’s be clear: Woods is an athlete, not a world leader. And believe me, I’m no shill for Obama, but his job is a little different from an athlete who’s amazing, innate talent earned him the right to be a cog in corporate beast. The author’s presumption lumps Woods and Obama into some black monolith. Dowd did the same thing with Desiree Rogers and Woods in a vapid column last week.
Post racial America seems to lack discernment. And anyone who’s paying attention to the struggle for health care reform knows that the blame is shared, mired in the intrigues among insurance/pharmaceutical corporations, lobbyists, AND Members of Congress.
Health care reform is not the same as the Green.
UPDATE:
Actually, language and logic is what really bristles. ‘If Woods had been smart he would have kept his head down, played golf…’ The sentence seems innocuous except that in our complicated racial history, a white person suggesting that a black person self-identified or otherwise, should ‘keep their head down’ is a flash point to language from the segregation era. It’s just bad diction here. Certainly, the immediate turnoff when we compare marital transgressions to perceived failings in leadership to pass legislation begins with, ‘Both men are of mixed race…’ Yikes. And? So? I don’t presume that this author is racist, but the language and logic speak to a problem some of us are sensitive to when engaging white liberals. A blissful unawareness of the racist attitudes embedded in the language. It’s like that time when Joe Biden said Obama was ‘clean and articulate’ and the New York Times wrote an op-ed to explain to everyone why that’s a non-starter with Black America.
Fat girls named Precious. I think it begins there for me.
In the 2nd grade, I was terrorized by a fat girl named Precious. She wore pink berets and ribbons in her hair. She was her mother’s first born. She was her mother’s only child. They lived across the street. My mom insisted that we play together because she was in want of new friends. Precious went to my elementary school.
Precious was a bully.
I didn’t know how to fight back yet.
I got transferred to a different school. Precious moved away. I don’t know what’s become of her. I’m not sure if I care. She was a bitch; a precocious, insufferable, spoiled bitch that had everything. I had government cheese.
So I may be the last black person on the planet that will go see Precious at the theaters. Continue reading →
My mom likes crap movies. She always had. I like indie movies. Films that break open or challenge conventional sociopolitical norms. I like nuance. I grew up in a poor, working class neighborhood. I can’t really explain why I like what I like. Looking at both parents, my tastes probably come from my father. My father was a mix of street and academy. He loved Gil Scott Heron and Led Zeppelin. My mom loved the Stylistics and Sister Sledge. I grew up knowing and loving all of it, but the complexity in Heron and Zeppelin carried greater weight.
In the aftermath of the Tyler Perry interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday, I remembered this variety of tastes in my own family. Perry’s interview ended on a sour note as he responded to Spike Lee’s criticism of his films. Yet, it left a set of lingering questions for me.
Does every black artist have a responsibility to represent only positive aspects black life in relation to the white imagination? Or can it be represented as it is? Because being black in America often means trying to prove you’re something you’re not. Our cultural identity is formed in opposition of a projected ‘norm’ [ahem, whiteness]. We’ve internalized and accepted our identity based on what white folks will think of us. What do we actually think of ourselves?
Do white people in America worry this much about the perception of white men in schlock or crap film? I doubt it. Yet, if we were to rank representations of the class within white society, we would see proportionately fewer stories of poor, rural, working class, white Americans than those living the middle class bourgeois suburban American dream.
My grandmother, my mother and my aunts like Tyler Perry’s films. Madea is recognizable to them: the trickster, the Shakespearean fool, Elegba, the foil character that pushes other characters to revelation of a truth. To my grandmother, Madea might as well been Brer Rabbit or Anasi. When I was in high school, my grandma insisted that we go see one of those chitlin circuit plays at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee. It was a family event. I’m not going to lie; it was entertaining. But I also knew it was crap. To some folks in my family, they received it as high art. I was already a snob. Earlier in my theater class, we were searching for monologues for women of color beyond the usual suspects (can you name them? A Raisin in The Sun, Fences) and I stumbled upon George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum. And I found a kindred spirit. Wolfe’s Museum is composed of satirical vignettes of black American culture, representation and history. After reading one of the vignettes, The Last Mama on the Couch Play, I couldn’t take the play we were watching seriously. It had all the tropes and moralizing that broke me out in hives.
What’s the most quoted film in the black community? Ask anyone and they’ll tell you it’s The Color Purple. Walker’s novel was sanitized from its complex examination of sexuality and abuse in its film incarnation, produced by a black man and directed by a white guy. It was commercially viable, a breakout that told a narrative of the black experience that hadn’t been seen in a decade or at all. But my uncle Walker hated The Color Purple. I remember a Sunday after church, where he, my aunts and grandmother hotly debated whether the success of the film was damning to the representation of black men. He didn’t want the white world to view him as abuser. Does his objection make the story any less true? It’s one element of a narrative that’s bigger than just one black man’s experience.
The moralizing center in Tyler Perry’s films grates the nerves and infuriates black intelligentsia and middle class. This conflict isn’t new. Paul Robeson had similar critiques about religion’s (namely Christianity) role in the formation of black culture, political thought and engagement with the white majority American society in the 20th century. His feeling (which I share) was the over reliance on the faith sometimes created a passivity that paralyzed individual growth and social mobility (more on that for another time).
As for Spike Lee… I’m not sure if he should be throwing rocks. Just as much as Perry’s women characters lack dimension, Lee’s women characters have their ‘limits’ too.
If there were more diverse representations of the black American experience in film and television, would that dampen the voracity of Perry’s critics? Would it steer some of his fan base to consider other narratives of the black American experience beyond what they recognize as familiar? Step outside their comfort zone? Perhaps. Ultimately, the question comes down to whether or not these stories are economically viable to the dream factory. Can Hollywood profit from presenting the wide swath of the black American experience to satiate all classes?
I don’t know. For me personally, I like what I like. I like shows like Community because it presents a diverse ensemble cast that experiences America a little sideways with authentic and quirky voices. I like shows like Mad Men because it’s nuanced and challenges me as a viewer and as a writer. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I get that. Perry’s films lack dimensionality for me. But my mom, my aunts, my grandma all own DVDs from Perry’s dream factory. Do I disown my relatives for their love of crap? As much as my grandma has expressed pride and admiration for Perry’s opus, I can’t forget that she was the one who gave me her copy of For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enough, and gave me William Earnest Hinley’s Invictus to remind me that I defined me, not everyone else. The same aunt that owns a DVD of the stage production of Madea, was also the one who put me on to Tori Amos’ From the Choirgirl Hotel and Portishead’s Live at Roseland. My aunt likes what she likes. And while there’s always a little bit of friction within a family in terms of class and social mobility, I don’t feel it’s fair to invalidate their experiences simply because mine have ‘changed’. I can relate to Martin Lawrence’s Roscoe Jenkins and the work it takes to reconcile the contradiction of class and culture within your own family.
I do feel that the criticism from some folks in the greater African American community for Tyler Perry is rooted in middle class notions of ‘respectability’, and certainly complicated by centuries of dehumanizing depictions of blackness in American and Western society. To be clear, I don’t like Tyler Perry’s films or plays. However, I can’t be dismissive of the population that does because to them, those characters mirror their reality.
I recognize that we all want to see idealized versions of ourselves. Something to combat the siege we feel as African Americans to constantly provide contrasting representations to stereotypes, caricatures and overly simplified assumptions about who and what we are to white society, and the world. Something that lives in the popular culture that can limit how many times we have to explain why we’re so articulate or why we’re capable of leading companies, or nations, without fear that we’ll get shot to death at our doorstep.
For me, I feel my responsibility as a writer is to create work that is an honest reflection of what I value and admire. I don’t expect that every black artist to create work I’ll like, nor do I expect every black artist to celebrate my work. But I believe there’s room in the universe for both to exist.
Jay Smooth’s Illdoctrine videoblog is something I return to often and highly recommend. His apt deconstruction of the popular topics are brilliant little gems that also entertain. It’s lonely in your head sometimes when you’re trying to tease meaning in the maelstrom of commentary upon commentary about today’s new hot old topic, racism.
When I think of September 11th, 2001, I am thinking more of the days just before it. I am remembering Sunday, September 9th. It was a light Sunday afternoon where Lynne, Bassey, Seed and I met up in Fort Greene, had brunch and then not quite ready to part ways —there was so much more for us to say to each other— we went to Fort Greene Park, hiked up a hill to the highest summit in the park to the Prison Martyr’s Ship monument, laid out a blanket and took in all that was beautiful, young and full. Seed was visiting town from Knoxville and had a gig at the Nuyorican. We talked about writing and music. I brought my camera along, for no particular reason. I had stopped taking pictures for a year after college, but I was getting serious about it again. Seed had an idea for a musical. I think we talked poetry, nationals, dreams, plans… always, always about writing and art. I don’t remember the details of what we talked about. I do remember feeling content and connected. We felt possibility with each other. We were all together. For no particular reason, I looked over my right shoulder and said, ‘Hey, you can see the World Trade Center from here.’ I don’t remember if it was Bassey or Seed or Lynne or if they all said ‘Yeah, you sure can.” I snapped my shutter. We were in the park for hours until the September wind chilled and we decided to go to Chez Oskar for dinner. There are gaps in my memory; they bleed into the following night. That night before, it rained so hard. A punishing and wrenching rain. I thought to myself, God is weeping. I remember earlier in the day that I couldn’t see the towers from the window of my boss’s office at work. The sky was muddy. And my memory flashes to a bar, and there we were again, together. Al had joined us. He had just finished a show at PS122 and we all went to a bar on University Place that wasn’t Reservoir. Al and Bassey spontaneously broke into characters, our private comedy improv group. Seed, Al and Peter took turns wearing my glasses, and goaded me to take their pictures. Elana mocked Al and Bassey’s schtick. Everything was lively and our conversations glittered. We were fully present in our innocence. Before the collapse of towers, before two wars, before Bin Laden, before cancer, before tumors, before…
I was up so late that I barely slept, Seed crashed at my apartment and kept me up talking about his grand idea for a musical he was writing. My dreams were a mashup of Moulin Rouge and Stevie’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale. I still woke up at my usual time. And the only thought in my head that morning was that I had been meaning to go to the World Trade Center for days to pick up something I ordered at one of the stores. I remember saying to myself, if I don’t go today, I’ll never go. How was I to know the truth of such words?
I remember listening to the radio because the TV signal was out. Answering my phone to tell everyone that I was home in Brooklyn, that I hadn’t left my house yet. I remember Bassey telling us to come to her apartment. I remember that night we left Bassey’s and went to Park Slope to eat. I had an inexplicable craving for tabouli. I remember that we ran into Matthew who was comforting a friend who worked in the Towers. I remember that Al, Bassey, Lynne and Seed were my family for those days and will always be family because of it. I can’t remember now if Al had worked for American Airlines as a Flight Attendant, but I do remember him saying that he could’ve been working one of those planes because it was a route he’d worked frequently, and if he hadn’t had the gig at PS122, pursuing his art…
But all I know is that we felt blessed to be with each other. We were all where we needed to be, holding each other, waiting for the new world to begin.
It’s the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This is a clip from the documentary Trouble The Water. If you haven’t seen this film, you should Netflix it now. It’s an intimate narrative that centers around a husband and wife, with home video of those waters that overtook the Ninth Ward when the levees failed.
It’s a common thread in the narrative of black and brown people in America.
Bob Herbert’s column in the Times today highlights some key points. Police interaction with communities of color, and people of color, cuts to the marrow. It doesn’t matter if you’re Ivy league educated or the average street negro, all brown boys in America have a story about being pulled over or stopped by cops simply because the color of their skin. It’s more than a scene in an Oscar winning film.
Over the weekend, I found that we were still talking about it. Over brunch, another friend expressed her rage as best a poet can, saying simply, ‘Am I to believe then, that their blue line is worth more than my blood?’ An implied deference to law enforcement, without any accountablity to the people they are sworn to serve and protect seems to violate the social contract. Or should I infer from all of these stories that we were never party to that social contract?
Again, I could put it to rest, but then I came across this in my readings today. From Ross Gay’s collection of poems, Against Which,(Cavankerry Press, 2006). I’m hoping he doesn’t mind my posting it here. It struck nerves.
Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ 8:00AM
It’s the shivering. When rage grows hot as an army of red ants and forces the mind to quiet the body, the quakes emerge, sometimes just the knees, but, at worst, through hips, chest, neck, until, like a virus, slipping inside the lungs and pulse, every ounce of strength tapped to squeeze words from my taut lips, his eyes scanning my car’s insides, my eyes, my license, and as I answer the questions 3, 4, 5 times, my jaw tight as a vice, his hands massaging the gun butt, I imagine things I don’t want to and inside beg this to end before the shiver catches my hands, and he sees, and something happens.
