Popeye's New Aunt Jemima

Dear BFDiary,

Most of my days are filled with reading, but I can't lie. I'm not yet willing to give up shows like Law & Order SVU and Real Housewives of New Jersey, Atlanta, DC... So I guess that makes me a a doctoral student silly enough to make time for TV (at least for now). Since I'm switching back and forth between critical theory and cat fights, Patricia Hill Collins and Andy Cohen (by the way, the Housewives of New Jersey Reunion was bananas!), feminist ideology and Food Network challenges, the lines in my head tend to blur a little. Since, I'm actually studying the media, this works well for me (not so much for someone studying say clinical psychology).

Just the other day I was reading a book by a woman who is a journalist and decided to write a particular piece with a somewhat "scholarly" feel. She discussed the traditional role of the black woman as Mammy as personified through, you guessed it, America's favorite woman to have at the breakfast table, Aunt Jemima. If you know anything about the history of black images in media then you probably realize that Aunt Jemima had a big makeover not too many years ago. She dropped that stubborn 100 pounds that was weighing her down, invested in some Ambi skin "lightening" cream, and ditched the head rag to show off her new perfectly coiffed curls. I guess this is supposed to make even black people feel comfortable eating her breakfast. The writer I'm referring to, however, said that Aunt Jemima's presence had nothing to do with the rag. Ummm, whose she fooling? The rag, complete the ensemble, kept us from seeing the part of her that we call her crown, her glory. Just like the weight kept us from seeing her beauty and sensuality and the wide smile kept us from seeing her pain, her discontent, and her quiet resistance of her position as the go-to woman in someone else's house.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm watching Popeyes reclaim their place as the only "bonafide" fast food fried chicken joint of America through a woman named Anne. Sure, she has a more modern hairdo (sometimes), but she's also in an apron. She's calling it her fried chicken, which couldn't be further from the truth. Popeyes came to fruition from a white guy named Al Copeland in 1972, mind you he was probably using a recipe some black woman that had worked for his family at some point may have influenced, but the point is, she'll never see a check.

The point of this post isn't to hate or get you to stop supporting these brands (your personal consumption is on you), rather, I want to draw your attention to the black femme body as a marketing tool for comfort foods. Are the women who put on "mammy" acts at Aunt Jemima cooking demonstrations around the nation, and, is Anne chosen because their great actors? I don't think so. It's all about the look. It's all about America's comfort with the image of black women. Within our national memory, the black woman has been (re)presented as a jezebel, as sapphire, and of course, as mammy. Relishing in our resistance to buck tradition and taint the status quo we reproduce these images, even after we've been clued in to how destructive they can be. So that in 2010, Aunt Jemima resurfaces on my chicken box.

I just can't be down with that. What recent representations have you seen that you want to publicly denounce? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Less is More, life without the fake fix

Dear BFDiary,

I’m a young woman whose starved herself through struggles between slim and sexy. You pick up enough Seventeen and Cosmo Girl magazines as a preteen and you find yourself ingesting all kinds of crap. When I got to college and realized that some people thought I was small and it wasn’t a good thing, as in it wasn’t the sexy thing to be for a black girl, my self-image brow-beating started all over again. In a college town 10 minutes away from the middle of nowhere with no dependable black stylists in sight, a chick had to depend on her curves to do what her budget wouldn’t allow in the way of fabulous clothes, routine mani/pedis, and awesome tresses fried, dyed, and blow-dried into perfection.

Now if you know me or if you’ve read more than a couple blog posts, you know that I’m not totally absorbed in my looks (I have a brain, I use it, I’m proud of it). You also know that I’m real, and a girly-girl. I’m also a sista, and looking good no matter what the cost (yikes, it hurts but its so true) is pretty much inscribed in our DNA. So, take these words for the greater meaning at hand, which I’m getting to soon.

I’ve done yo-yo dieting, one major “lifestyle change” at 16 that I still don’t think my parents realize did more harm than good (no 125 lb. girl should have to calorie-count between third and fourth period), and spiritual fasts like lent that truly brought me closer to God (on my 5^th consecutive day without chocolate and magazines I had no choice but to pray if I wanted to make it to day 6 with my sanity). All these experiences were active moments of self-denial, miserable means to achieve a greater, longer-lasting end. If I wanted to drop 10 pounds, I needed to drop the snickers. If I wanted to hear from God more clearly, I needed to stop listening to the Weezy and R. Kelly that somehow got on my iPod.

My fasting and even my crazy diets taught me an important lesson about the power in resistance. Every second of our lives someone or some ad is telling us one more thing we need to be happy, to be whole, to be better. No ad talks about being better, by having less. Being better, by not consuming. Being better, by resisting.

A recent incident that my bestie brought to my attention got me thinking about how us strong black femmes can be tricked into thinking that we’re weak. How women who are astronauts and mothers and CEOs and executive directors and teachers and department chairs and presidents and scholars and students all while managing to look as good as we do and be so many things to so many people can be tricked into thinking that in spite of all that, we just won’t be right without that fix. A fix could be the new bag and booties we can’t afford (guilty), the momentary pleasure of letting someone get too close too soon (guilty), or the 5th, 6^th, and 7^th chips ahoy cookie (guilty, guilty, and guilty).

Can you imagine conning and tempting Oprah with $100? It’d never work. Can you imagine tempting a strong woman of God with a man not worth the ground he walks on? Works all the time.

If I can survive cramps through an 8-hr work day and manage not to give everybody attitude, if I can put up dry wall and insulation in heels, if I can burp the baby with one hand and prepare dinner with the other, if I can be on the Dean’s List and be the head of two student orgs, if I can party in Paris and chill at the church picnic, if I can dazzle my boss and my colleagues, if I can do all this and still wake up the next morning to do it all again, I am phenomenal.

When we put it like that, ladies, we realize no short-term guilty pleasure can begin to really satisfy us. Our contentment comes from within

Chocolate City Housewives...not so chocolate-friendly

Dear BFDiary,

How real can the Real Housewives of D.C. actually be when only one of the housewives hailing from "chocolate city" is actually, well, chocolate. I'm officially unimpressed. Knowing what we know about our nation's capitol, not even the new wave of black and brown faces in the White House could land us fair representation in this supposed reflection of life in one of the most powerful cities in the world. And of course, since most of the housewives are white, most of their friends, are also white. At this point I'm wondering if Stacie (the token black woman) would've been better left outside this tea party.

For one thing, her most of her cast members have no idea how to interact with her, and probably wouldn't make it through a dinner with any black folks. At housewife Mary's birthday dinner the hostess "diplomatically" seats Stacie next to the other black guy at the dinner (who happens to be a celebrity hair stylist). All Mary can talk about is how much she thought they'd get along (because black people can't make it through nice dinners without moral support from our race brethren). Then, the chick, a grown woman, gets tipsy and starts talking about how we need to integrate hair salons. Ummmm what you talkin' bout Mary?

Oops, almost forgot, there was another black man at the party. Given his flawless blue-black complexion and his height and the fact that all anyone can ever talk about is how big he is, you can imagine why I almost left him out. Lynda, the cast member who totes the much younger "darkie" round on her arm (he's supposed to be her boyfriend) even describes this man based on how big he is. It's that classic king kong caricature come to life.

But back to our girl Stacie. As if this white girls party couldn't get anymore uncomfortable she invites the housewives over for a cooking demonstration with Janet Jackson's chef. And all Catherine (the new girl in town from England) can talk about is how much she thinks Bush is a better man than Obama (her husband is currently employed by his administration) and proceeds to do a finger-snapping neck rolling impression of Tyra Banks, who she also hates. I've never seen Tyra do either one of those things on her show. As a matter of fact, I've seen her bring new light to subjects that young people aren't really discussing otherwise.

Stacie, after this first episode I'm not sure how you made it through an entire season. I admire you for being the beautiful unapologetically black and successful woman that you are.

Bravo, do better!

Do You Have Enough Green to Go Green?

Dear BFDiary,

A couple years ago I took a very general Global Issues course where I learned all of the bad things going on in the world that scholars were actually talking about (of course this left out a lot that black and brown people deal with on the day-to-day). The hot topic by the end of the course wasn’t how Wal-Mart was putting whole goods manufacturers out of business and creating a new major retail model strangled the middle man and kept their truck drivers from doing natural things like going to the bathroom when they (I know, that’s what’d you’d want to talk about too right?!). Rather we spent a couple days on the gorgeous green grass outside the ivory towers (I HATED when professors chose to hold class outside on the ground, I mean what is it with some people and nature?) discussing how everyday people in the U.S. could minimize their carbon footprint.

When we started to talk about solutions to problems like severe consumerism and deadly chemicals that have so conveniently been worked in to the maintenance of our everyday lives. Then all these ideas about rules, like requiring everyone to shop organic, get rid of their vehicles and drive Prius’. The first thing I thought was how wasteful it would be for people to go green in the way that some of my peers were suggesting. I mean, they’d be tossing functional goods, to buy more goods, that would have to be produced using methods that we’re trying to get away from. Then I started thinking dollars and cents.

I thought about my grandmother whose paralyzed on one side of her body and buys things for practical functionality, how much would it cost her to buy all organic goods, and how much time would it take her to find a store in Saginaw (a town where I’m pretty much related to everyone) that actually sold said goods. Then I thought about the people who drove minivans because they needed the space and wouldn’t be able to afford a Prius. And what about the people who already have to pass 20 McDonald’s with 20 items under two bucks to find a decent grocery store with fresh over-priced produce. How were they supposed to care about this mysterious ozone layer when they’re block is a target for environmental racism. I’m just saying…we all don’t have enough green to go green. And for some of “us” a few things fall a bit higher on the list than global warming.

Broken Promises

Dear BFDiary,

One of my best friends in the entire world is someone I met when I was about three or four. For the first half of our lives we did everything together, we watched the same movies (anything with the Olsen twins), shopped at the same store (Limited Too), and went to camp together (she’ll kill me for saying it, but I rode the horses, while she pretended to be sick). We even developed crushes on guys that were friends.

Living on different sides of town and attending different schools, though, made sustaining the friendship difficult. After elementary school, I begged my parents to switch me to her private school, but they shrugged it off and mentioned that we could try for high school. Ironically, once ninth grade rolled around, I sprung for a private school in Farmington Hills and along with nearly everyone I’d known and befriended in middle school, she went to the best public high school Detroit has to offer. We decided that college was the only time we’d get to decide our own fate, and promised to room together at Spelman. Well, that promise was broken, but, considering our friendship has lasted more than a lot of marriages, I’d say our promise to be true blues for life was one we really meant.

All relationships are ready-made with some type of promise. We promise to obey our parents (for the most part) and they promise to invest in our livelihood (food, shelter, clothing, a last name). Hell, even my relationship with my manicurist involves a pact. I promise to tip her well and she promises to give me a student discount and premier service every time. Every now and again, like my old hair stylist who always swore to get me in and out in 3 hours, you make a promise you can’t keep. But the worst promises you break, are the ones you make to yourself.

I’m not talking a new years resolution where you vow to lose 15 pounds but never keep your promise to jog and stop eating French fries. I’m talking about the promises to love yourself—to keep yourself spiritually, mentally, physically, financially, and emotionally well. The promise you make when you decide to get up in the morning and face the day with fierceness and dust yourself off from yesterday’s disappointments. And the promise to never learn any lesson more than once.

The promise I made to myself when I got over my last heartbreak was that I’d be wiser, more cautious, and less trusting. Love, as it tends to do, pulled a fast one on me. And now I find myself wondering which promise I broke and when. How did I end up right here with(out) you….

The worst part of it all is that I can’t remember the last promise I broke that I made to someone else, anyone else. So my beautiful and faithful BFD readers, I’ll make a promise to you. I promise to put myself in position to be a better writer, one that doesn’t just write about problems you can relate to, but can offer real solutions that have worked in my life.

Because I promise you, not keeping this promise, won’t bring anything good.

What I Learned From Kwame

It’s no secret that I love my city just as much as I love space, we’ve got a lot of it, and after spending summers in NYC and Paris, I appreciate it more than ever. To love my city is to represent it and all of its beautiful characters. A big black man in construction site orange wouldn’t normally make headlines, but since his last name is Kilpatrick, his image has circulated print, broadcast, and online newswires around the world. Besides our proud Motown Royalty like Aretha Franklin (who people seem to forget is from D-Town) he seems to be the most popular character in our 313-story for the moment.

So tax violations, fraud, obstruction of justice, all very un-cool things for anyone who knows and enforces the law to be accused of, but for a politician, eh, it’s all pretty much part of a term’s work. Kilpatrick is not the big bad wolf who helped bring the worst city in the world further down into the dumps. As a matter of fact, Detroit isn’t the most dangerous, or the fattest, or even the poorest city in America. Detroit is the site of a beautiful boardwalk that’s a couple’s romantic playground or a family’s biking path. It’s home to the kind of athletic teams that don’t do much showboating, but wins championships as an actual team. And sure, we’ve got plenty of issues, from crooked cops to failing school systems (what urban locale doesn’t have those issues) but we aren’t ready to roll over and croak just yet. There’s plenty of life left here, and hopefully, in Kilpatrick’s career.

If you’re a cynic you’ve probably stopped reading already, but if you’re a realist, stay with me. As a Detroiter who remembers meeting the humble 30-year-old who was handsome enough to catch my eye and smart enough to allow my father to speak to his congregation, I’m compelled to look beyond the story people like Mildred Gaddis (don't bother calling into her radio show if you don't agree with her) would have you buy into and re-present him as a fallen young man whose mistakes teach us two very big lessons.

Lesson number one: No, the sex is never that good. All the greatest public servants we’ve loved have had mistresses, Kilpatrick’s someone he’d grown up with, but as we all know, Beatty was more than your typical I-sleep-with-powerful-men-to-eat mistress. She’s smart, successful, can stand on her on two feet, and has a family. They’re affair cost two public images and one broken family.

Lesson number two: When you give your haters ammunition, they will use it. Kilpatrick is mostly guilty of being young, powerful, and a target for hater-ation. He started feeling himself, he got flashy, and he got careless with his spending and his loving. Think about it, King David made the same mistakes and God still trusted him to write portions of the Bible. Kilpatrick’s reputation is under siege because people who never wanted to see him succeed, are now taking pleasure in perpetuating his failures—and by making stupid mistakes he’s given them the fuel they need to keep the fire going.

Never Talk to Strangers

Dear BFDiary,

Last summer I got paid to find sexy black guys on the street (sometimes single, sometimes not) and suck their real ideas on sex and relationships straight from the gut in less than 10 minutes (and no that's not all I did during my internship, I also got to work on some awesome but scary breast cancer profiles among other things). You can imagine that I didn't get paid a lot, but the responses I got, or didn't get for that matter, were priceless. Many of my afternoon adventures around Bryant Park and 125th street in Harlem have been fabulous conversation starters in some awful how-did-I-end-up-here-talking-to-you situations, not to mention, I learned that there is no shortage of attractive and "eligible" black bachelors.

In order to be successful at my job, starting from day one, I had to get over that whole don't talk to strangers thing with a quickness. In fact, journalism, I think, is about doing the opposite. Not only do you have to be comfortable with chatting with people you don't know, you have to engage them to the point where they feel more comfortable with you than the people they talk to everyday.

Now that my inner nerd has sucked me into the world of academia (I'm talking research and theory with the big dogs) I've found that I've lost a bit of my flare for talking to random black men. Thursday evening I was on my crowded bus ride home and the man dressed in tan from head to toe decided to sit next to me. Looking at the heavy black 80's frames on his face and the bare ring finger, my initial reaction was to tune him out after he pointed out a funny article on the front of his New York Times. Once I saw that his questions and quest for conversation weren't going to stop, I found myself annoyingly wondering, ok, so what does this guy want from me, he's old enough to be my grandad. Getting over myself enough to actually listen to the stranger next to me, I realized he wasn't that much of a stranger at all--he was a professor in the Classics department who'd taught at UCLA before he was recruited to Michigan. He was a fellow scholar who wanted to share a moment on the bus with me, since when was that a crime? Was I judging the man for just wanting to talk to me? Did all the rude street-encounters gone wrong make me weary of any decent man I might come across?

Have you ever had one of those "aha" moments when you realized you were on the defense for no reason?