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Notes from a Boy @ The Window

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Notes from a Boy @ The Window

Tag Archives: Symbolism

Fifteen Years + 1 Million Men Equals?

16 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

African American Men, Authenticity, Black Leadership, Black Males, Black Masculinity, Black Men, Exclusion, Inspiration, Louis Farrakhan, Million Man March, Nation of Islam, National Mall, October 16 1995, Race, Symbolism, Symbols, Washington DC


 

Million Man March, Washington, DC, October 16, 1995. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yoke_mc/12469525/flick.com This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

I wrote this five years ago, but the same questions can be asked, for better and worse, with an addendum. That in the light of what Black men should do and shouldn’t, should expect and shouldn’t expect — of themselves and of the world — this is a very narrow-minded way of thinking. Concentrating on some limited definition of Black masculinity neglects the need to address inequality, systemic racism, the theft of hopes and dreams, not to mention, relationships and the intersection of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and everything else (though Black women and women of color have to deal with intersectionality every day, the issue goes mostly neglected and — if ever thought about — misunderstood by Black men).

If the past five years have shown anything, the issues addressing Black men have never existed in a vacuum. Police brutality and regular killings, White vigilantism, joblessness, debt, a dismantling of already under-resourced public schools, mass incarceration. These cannot ever be divorced from the issues facing Black women, women of color, the Black LGBT community, Latinos and Latinas, Native Americans, the poor and low-wage workers of color. Nor should they have been twenty years ago.

=====================================================

Today’s date has meaning for millions of people. Forty-one years ago, the New York Mets won their first World Series, beating the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in five games. Crush #2 was also born forty-one years ago on this date (Happy Birthday!). But for a select group of African Americans — especially for over a million on the National Mall — today’s date marks fifteen years since the Million Man March.

I was there, though not among the million or so on the Mall that cold, windy and sunny day. I was in DC, on the Mall two hours before the gathering. I watched the highlights on CNN on the University of Maryland’s campus, all but completely clear of Black men under the age of thirty that afternoon. I met up with many a Black guy before and after the march, on the Metro as young men had taken the day off from work, school or college classes to go. On my bus back to Pittsburgh as older men talked of their broken lives, their remaining hopes and dreams. Most of all, I heard many speak of how inspired they were to go, as if God was calling them down to the Mall to find their true selves.

I didn’t go because I’d come down to the area that weekend for my dissertation research (including interviews) and to spend time with my long-distance girlfriend, who was a grad student at University of Maryland at the time. While I had some regrets about not attending, it’d been a while since I’d been involved with anyone on more than a passing occasion. Plus, I figured that my doctoral thesis on Black Washington and multiculturalism provided a significant intellectual exception to attending.

Louis Farrakhan, Million Man March, Washington, DC, October 16, 1995. Source: http://www.africawithin.com

Maybe I wasn’t being truly and authentically Black because I didn’t attend the march live, because I refused to stand in a sea of bodies to hear Louis Farrakhan’s voice encouraging Black men to take charge over themselves, their lives, their families. Maybe I did see myself as being above the fray because I saw all of this as a whole bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing but symbols. Maybe, in the end, being around so many Black men doing the same thing at the same time made me uncomfortable, just because I wasn’t sure what they expected to get out of the march after it was over.

Of course, symbols and inspiration are important, because without them, there is no action, no activism, no movement toward a goal that will ultimately change our lives, individually or collectively. But in listening to dozens of men who did attend the Million Man March that day and in the weeks that followed (as I traveled back to Pittsburgh, then to Minneapolis, then back to Pittsburgh, then DC, then New York in the month after the march), I realized that symbols and inspiration was all they expected out of the march.

Fifteen years later, the realization that nothing has really changed in the lives of many, if not most, of the million-plus men that attended the march on this date is disheartening. Those in poverty on that date may well still be in poverty. Those with years of addiction, or lives of crime, or without the compassion and skills necessary for fatherhood, all still struggling with these issues. That the cultural gap between Black men and Black women has widened since ’95 is obvious.

Yet there’s always hope, inspiration, and symbols that show that not all was for naught on Monday, October 16, ’95. It brought major issues facing African American males front and center to America and African America, and inspired many to work for social change and social justice for Blacks and for Black males in particular. Even if the messages of Farrakhan and company were mixed, contradictory, hypocritical, even sexist and bigoted. The march at least provided the realization that many Blacks cared deeply about finding themselves and finding solutions to issues that haunted them then, and haunt us still. Symbols are a powerful thing, even if it means we need many more of them before change can truly take hold.

Million Man March (Wide Above Shot), October 16, 1995. Source: Smithsonian Institution-http://photo2.si.edu/mmm/mmm08.gif

 

Fifty Shades of White People’s Imaginations

15 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, race

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Tags

9½ Weeks (1985), Aggrandizement, Body Heat (1981), Bondage, E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey book (2011), Fifty Shades of Grey movie (2015), Movie Reviews, Power Trip, Relationships, Self-Glorification, Sex, Symbolism, Whiteness


"Take a bow, James" screen shot from Wonder Boys (2000), starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Katie Holmes, and Robert Downey, Jr., September 29, 2009. (http://rosekohl.tumblr.com/).

“Take a bow, James!” screen shot from Wonder Boys (2000), starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Katie Holmes, and Robert Downey, Jr., September 29, 2009. (http://rosekohl.tumblr.com/).

So far this Valentine’s Day/Presidents Day weekend, Fifty Shades of Grey is making a killing at the box office, over $30 million on its official release on Friday alone. A movie with an estimated twenty-minutes’ worth of sex scenes, coming on the heels of the most successful self-published book in history? Take a bow, E.L. James, take a bow!

Oops, I didn’t mean to go there, Ms. James! Submitting to a bow would likely conform too much to one of the big themes of your book and movie. The idea that a college-educated millennial would play the role of submissive to a business magnate and engage in an unworkable romance, is, well, a theme straight out of Hollywood producer’s ass. Or, rather, a Hollywood porn producer’s average shoot!

Really, between the book, the movie and the reviews, it seems that Fifty Shades of Grey is really about affluent White folks all over the world attempting to be comfortable with what some would call “taboo sex” in the early twenty-first century. It’s like a whole generation of British Commonwealth and American Whites haven’t taken the time to see 9½ Weeks (1985) or Body Heat (1981), or at least, like to pretend that everything that is new is actually new when it’s not. At best, the book is like eating too much cotton candy at an amusement park while drink a fifth of vodka, getting on a roller coaster, and then vomiting on your five year-old (luckily, I didn’t spend money to read it). But really, Fifty Shades of Grey is a symbol of Whiteness played out in power fantasies, hardly sexual at all.

Most Americans (and many affluent Brits and Aussies as well) celebrate books and movies that aggrandize their ability to experience orgasms and overpower each other in relationships. It’s a reflection of a world without consequences, because everyone in James’ world is already on top, and need not fear falling into the real world. Where love, sex, struggle and self-discovery are about much more that belts and chains.

Whiteness, Symbols and Racial Context

21 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Youth

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Affirmative Action, Class Privilege, Colorblind Racism, Colorblindness, Entitlement, Individual Racism, Individualism, Institutional Racism, Privilege, Racial Assumptions, Racial Context, Racial Stereotypes, Racism, Structural Racism, Symbolism, Symbols, Whiteness


The Matrix (1999) meme (only, the "What if I told you" part is incorrect) featuring Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, May 21, 2014. (http://imgflip.com).

The Matrix (1999) meme (only, the “What if I told you” part is incorrect) featuring Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, May 21, 2014. (http://imgflip.com).

For most Whites, racism’s an individual thing. For most Whites, Racism must be obvious. For most Whites, racial bias can only be a deliberate choice. For most Whites, racism’s not infused in the fabric of American culture, or baked into America’s institutions, or infused in its very political and economic structure. Of course, these “most Whites” are just plain wrong. What scares them on this issue — maybe even more than actually using the words “race” or “racism” — is the possibility that though racism is learned, that it also isn’t a decision. It’s an assumption, or really, many layers of assumptions. Of “rights.” Of entitlement. Of privilege. Of being special. Of being colorblind. Of folks knowing their place, and they as Whites knowing where to place these folks.

As I wrote in another social media context last week, part of the insidious nature of Whiteness — aside from its ability to morph over time — are the issues of symbolism and context. Racism for most is obvious and relies heavily on the most obvious of symbols, like in the case of hooded KKK members burning crosses, or in Donald Sterling‘s case, an elderly rich White guy whose Archie Bunker paternalism can be seen from space.

These incidents are the tip of the proverbial iceberg of race and racism in the US because most people of color exist outside the context that comes with Whiteness. For walking in Whiteness without any acknowledgement of one’s privilege — but with tons of assumptions of privilege — is the psychological and social equivalent of breathing and walking at the same time — one only thinks about it when forced to. If those Black and Brown are on TV in orange jump suits, it fits the narrative and context of Whiteness. If someone like me is a college professor in a predominantly White classroom, however, the context doesn’t fit the Whiteness playbook, and with that systems error, many of my White students manifest so many racial assumptions.

Writer, educator and NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on ABC's This Week discussing NBA's response to Donald Sterling's racist statements, May 4, 2014. (http://www.politifact.com).

Writer, educator and NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on ABC’s This Week discussing NBA’s response to Donald Sterling’s racist statements, May 4, 2014. (http://www.politifact.com).

These out-of-context scenarios occur on individual and institutional scales. Like having White co-workers only recognize me in the context of being at work and at a desk, but being scared upon seeing me board an elevator with them five minutes after the end of a work day. Or in spotting me searching for something at a store, only to ask me to help them find something for them, assuming that I work there. Or in assuming that in the context of sports and entertainment, anyone Black or Brown with an IQ higher than 100 with verbal skills is “angry,” or is “too cerebral” to be successful, or has “an attitude problem.”

Then there’s the assumption that no matter one’s grades, test scores or degrees, that wee folk of color achieved all we have because of affirmative action, the symbol of so-called reverse racism in the US (talk about the narcissism and master-race assumptions of intelligence embedded in this line of reasoning!). For most of the history of Whiteness and racism in American history, this was an infrequent prospect. These days, these microaggressions and racist behaviors occur almost every moment of every day. Precisely because there are so many successful Black and Brown folks, at least in the semi-conscious mind of Whites in the midst of their own Whiteness. This despite the reality that these successful Black and Brown folks are only symbols of  the very success that has eluded a broad majority of those of color.

Agent Mr. Smith (played by Hugo Weaving) about to explode, The Matrix (1999), May 21, 2014. (http://www.oocities.org/)

Agent Mr. Smith (played by Hugo Weaving) about to explode, The Matrix (1999), May 21, 2014. (http://www.oocities.org/)

But the context here will rarely be obvious to those awash in Whiteness. Structural inequality and racism, institutional racism, even internalized racism — all confirm the world that most operating in Whiteness can see, precisely because this world is the one in which they are comfortable and virtually unchallenged. Challenging the very structures and institutions upon which Whiteness has been built is like trying to metaphorically deconstruct The Matrix. Most living in Whiteness don’t want to wake up, For waking up would obliterate their world, their very understanding of their existence. And that’s too high a price for recognizing racism and inequality, and their own inadvertent hand in both.

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

Places to Buy/Download Boy @ The Window

There's a few ways in which you can read excerpts of, borrow and/or purchase and download Boy @ The Window. There's the trade paperback edition of Boy @ The Window, available for purchase via Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Window-Donald-Earl-Collins/dp/0989256138/

There's also a Kindle edition on Amazon.com. The enhanced edition can be read only with Kindle Fire, an iPad or a full-color tablet. The links to the enhanced edition through Apple's iBookstore and the Barnes & Noble NOOK edition are below. The link to the Amazon Kindle version is also immediately below:

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Boy @ The Window on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-The-Window-Memoir-ebook/dp/B00CD95FBU/

iBookstore-logo-300x100

Boy @ The Window on Apple's iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/boy-the-window/id643768275?ls=1

Barnes & Noble (bn.com) logo, June 26, 2013. (http://www.logotypes101.com).

Boy @ The Window on Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boy-the-window-donald-earl-collins/1115182183?ean=2940016741567

You can also add, read and review Boy @ The Window on Goodreads.com. Just click on the button below:

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