Over the weekend, President Obama took time out of addressing graduates at the celebrated, historically-black, all-male, private college, Morehouse, to remind about black men who make bad choices, chalking up failures to The Man and myriad other excuses.

“We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. Growing up, I made a few myself. And I have to confess, sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. But one of the things you’ve learned over the last four years is that there’s no longer any room for excuses. I understand that there’s a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: ‘excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.’ We’ve got no time for excuses – not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they haven’t. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; that’s still out there. It’s just that in today’s hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with a billion young people from China and India and Brazil entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven’t earned. And whatever hardships you may experience because of your race, they pale in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured – and overcame.”

True.

But why do a roomful of young, black male college graduates, in particular, need this admonishment against excuse-making and expecting goodies they have not earned? Surely our Commander-In-chief would argue against conservative charges that real racism is dead and that his America is rife with lazy, irresponsible and demanding (black and brown) “takers” Why, then, do his speeches to black Americans so often warn against creeping pathology? (For instance, the 2008 Father’s Day speech that centered on shiftless and absent black sperm donors, instead of men who take the role of fatherhood seriously and are present and active in their children’s lives, whether or not they are part of a married couple.)

Of course, our President isn’t the only person seemingly subconsciously invested in the idea of inherent black dysfunction. In Michelle Obama’s speech to graduates at historically-black Bowie State University, the First Lady complained about young, black students with dreams of hip hop celebrity and urged parents not to accept failing schools. Ta-Nehisi Coates brilliantly addressed hand-wringing over hip hop aspirations in his piece, “How the Obama Administration Talks to Black America.” But it is also worth noting how offensive it is to suggest that the average black parent needs to be told to seek the best education for their children. And why lecture black college graduates, who have clearly demonstrated a belief in the power of education?

Hyperfocus on alleged black faults and how “we need to do better” is an outgrowth of the way black people have absorbed the race biases and stereotypes of the majority culture over centuries, combined with our desire to prove our own decency.

This isn’t just about the President and First Lady. I’ve sat in many a pew and auditorium seat, wedged between other black folk, wondering why a speech meant to inspire me instead sounds like an unspoken accusation or a caution against some sin I never dreamed of committing. There is something about a chance to speak to a room full of fellow African Americans that seems to make the siren song of respectability politics nigh irresistible. And amidst the “show ‘em you’re one of the good ones” boot-strapping oratory is always a clutch of disturbing implied messages: Mainly that WE are the ultimate problem; not centuries of systemic racism or classism or educational and prison systems rife with inequality. And that, deep down, we are who they say we are. That even the best and brightest of us are one good, finger-wagging speech away from every affront to mainstream Judeo-Christian, middle-class, patriarchal American values. (Of course, the only values that matter.)

This sort of thinking reveals itself in many ways. For example, the entire let’s-teach-black-women-how-to-be-marriageable industrial complex hinges on the idea of inherent black, female dysfunction. But this scolding of black America is even more problematic and damaging when conducted by our country’s leader–the person ultimately in charge of education, healthcare, housing and countless other systems. Black people don’t need Barack Obama to lecture us about why education is important for our children; we need to know what steps his administration is taking to ensure that our children have an equal shot at good, accessible education. And we don’t need a black president tacitly confirming the worst ideas of the African American community by using nearly every engagement with us to urge us to fix ourselves.

The post The Lie of Inherent Black Dysfunction appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Armah says the Fly Girls project was inspired, in part, by incidents like the now infamous Onion tweet about Quevanzhane Wallis. “Too often, there is a casual hurtful hateful space for girls of color. The response and reaction revolving door to these incidents can be exhausting, what I’m passionate about building is a path to power that girls create and control”.

Part of building this path requires honoring girls’ voices and experiences. Attendees at the kick-off event will receive journals and be encouraged to celebrate personal worth through writing and social media. The goal, says Armah, is to provide for girls a “sacred space to lean on that is powerful, precious and theirs.” The month of supporting activities also includes a regular blog, “Scar Stories,” by La-Vainna Seaton (*Trigger warning: rape*), who, in one post, writes frankly about wishing for boys to view her a beautiful, rather than “equal.”

Other elements of the campaign include a Sista2Sista Youth Summit on March 15 and a March 30 Twitter panel, dubbed “Own your Body; Use your Voice,” featuring Armah, political strategist L Joy Williams and activist Glynda Carr.

Armah is emphatic that Fly Girls Day is not a one-time effort, but the beginning of something bigger. “International Fly Girls Day will be an annual global event. The aim is to grow, to get more girls. This is not a moment, it’s a movement.”

To learn more about International Fly Girls Day, visit the campaign website.

The post Program Helps Girls of Color Celebrate their “Fly” appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

I am a proud feminist. A black feminist. Oh, I’ve had my moments when, fed up with racial tensions within the movement, I’ve threatened to flounce. But in the end, I refuse to abandon an ideology I think is a foundation of equality and a movement that many black women sacrificed to build. To say that feminism is only for white women, as several have argued when I’ve written about feminism on Clutch in the past, is an affront to Sojourner Truth, Audre Lorde, Coretta Scott King, bell hooks and The Cohambee River Collective.  (Not to mention my mother and husband, who also call themselves feminists.) Black women and other women of color have a right to claim the mantle of feminism. But we are not obliged to.

Of course, many women, of all races, choose to believe in gender equality without donning any labels at all. And some other black women are womanists. Both feminism and womanism are dedicated to establishing equal opportunities and treatment for women, but womanism is specifically focused on black gendered struggles and is steeped in the experiences and histories of black women, men and families. Alice Walker, who coined the term “womanism,” says that womanists are “committed to the survival and wholeness of an entire people.”

Author and activist Walker revealed some of the underpinnings of womanist ideology with her new poem, called Democratic Womanism, performed on the eve of the 2012 Presidential Inauguration.

Many black women, who feel excluded by perceived biases of race, class, ability, sexuality and gender, expressed by some feminists, have found refuge in womanism. In a post about the ideology on the blog, Womanist Musings, Clutch contributor Renee Martin wrote:

Just as feminism speaks to your experiences, Africana Womanism speaks to mine.  It allows me to articulate my spirituality, my connection and love of Black men, a genuine sisterhood with other Black women, a connection to family with a special emphasis on motherhood, a self-defined identity, unconventional gender roles, collective outcomes, group achievement, self love, nurturing, and a recognition that all isms effect women.

(Africana Womanism, by the way, goes one step further in centering the discussion of equality on the experiences of the African Diaspora.)

What about you? If you believe in gender equality, but are uncomfortable with feminism, does womanism seem like a better fit?

The post Have You Considered Womanism? appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Last Sunday afternoon found me on my knees, waist deep in the corner cupboard of my kitchen, looking for the damned lid for my favorite saucepan. Here it is! … no, too big … finally! … mmm, no—steamer top … aha! … God, I don’t know what this one fits. Eventually, like a real-life, natural-haired Goldilocks, I found the just-right topper, and dinner was saved. That old saying is right: There is a lid for every pot.

That adage is about love and not cooking. In fact, the idea of a woman finding a partner, who uniquely fits who she is, has been lost amid concern (-trolling) about female singleness, especially black female singleness. America’s new national pastime is schooling black women, nearly 46 percent of whom have never married*, on what we need to change to convince some guy to put a ring on it. In other words, ladies: If you can’t find the lid, the pot must need “fixing.”

Often the (heteronormative) suggestion is that black single women need to better understand the allegedly universal needs of men. To be fair, Cosmo and Glamour were telling women how to please men long before Steve Harvey, Michael Baisden, and Tyrese became authors. Blaming women for being single is a sexist problem with a deep history. And the rhetoric is — and always has been — off base:

It sells women short
Relentless criticism of single black women is predicated on the idea that a woman not chosen as a wife is somehow defective. That is not how we view single men. (And, by the way, nearly 49 percent of black men have never married.) Singleness does not equal brokenness. Not every woman wants to get married. Not every woman wants a man. And even women who want to marry someday can have full and happy lives should that dream not come true.

It sells men short
All men are not the same. All black men are not the same. Any romantic advice predicated on men being simple creatures only interested in having sex and being “the leader” in all things is offensive. The men I know are far deeper and more complicated than that.

It’s not the way to a healthy relationship
The other day, I asked my husband of nearly 12 years what he thinks is the key to a successful marriage. He said the best thing you can do to ensure a good marriage is to know yourself, what you need, and what you want; then choose a partner wisely. I agree. (And that, by the way, is one reason of many why I married my sweetie: He’s a smart guy.)

For more than a year, I have been interviewing black women for a book on love and marriage and have been lucky to hear sistahs talk about their real-life relationships and depth of connection with their partners.

Danielle, a married 30-something awaiting her first child, said of her husband, “From the moment we got together, it was perfect. We were very much in the same place. We have a lot in common — a similar mindset and way of thinking.” Recalling the word games the couple likes to play, she adds, “The nerds inside us speak to each other.”

The action plan being sold to black women is, sadly, not one likely to result in the kind of love Danielle describes, based on friendship, mutual respect, and common ground. How can a black woman find someone to love her just as she is if she is constantly encouraged to be someone else — to execute some rote and reductive performance to appeal to the opposite sex?

On a literal lid hunt, one looks for the top that suits the particular contours and properties of the bottom. No one would dream of perching a saucepan lid on a cast iron skillet and expect the fried chicken to turn out right. And you wouldn’t take a hammer to your crockpot to make some random cover fit. But society constantly bangs on black women in an effort to mold us into something allegedly more attractive to potential partners — as if our needs are secondary and as if they don’t really care about healthy partnerships, but just marriage for marriage’s sake.

Committed love isn’t about learning what “men” want and waiting to be chosen; it is about knowing what you want, choosing the right man (or the right woman), and working toward mutual happiness.

*According to the 2010 United States Census, 45.5 percent of black women, age 15 and over, have never been married; 48.9 percent of black men in the same age group have never been married.

The post Marriage is Like Kitchenware and It Doesn’t Matter What Men Want. appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

I first received news about the tragedy in Newtown through a CNN alert in my work inbox and then turned immediately to Twitter as the story unfolded. Weeks before that, on election night, I watched my Twitter feed more closely than MSNBC or C-SPAN. And earlier in 2012 still, I sat in a restaurant in Hyde Park, Chicago, and watched as diners received news of singer Whitney Houston’s death on their mobile phones.

According to Mashable, more than 50 percent of people have received breaking news from social media rather than traditional outlets. It should come as no surprise, then, that social media is poised to overtake newspapers as a primary news source. In fact, if you are a member of the millennial generation, you are likely already turning to services like Facebook first. The Pew Research Center says adults under 30 are more likely to get their daily dose of news from social media than newspapers. TV fares a little better in comparison … for now.

This shift in news consumption habits never fails to elicit an eye-roll, plus we’re-going-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket sigh, from some folks, especially those old enough to remember when most everyone took the daily rag and tweeting was something only parakeets did. (I see you, fellow GenXers!) These sanctimonious types often proclaim social media the domain of ignorant narcissists, making their own disinterest in technology proof of an evolved character. This sort of condescension and worry is short-sighted and evinces little understanding of the way social media works, and the real pros and cons of using it.

Social media has legitimate downsides as a source of news. Fast news isn’t always accurate news. It is hard to explain complicated things within Twitter’s limit of 140 characters. Opportunities for confusion are high. These things understood, I’d like to offer five reasons to consider social media as both a news source and supplement to traditional media. (Note: I’m going to use Twitter as an example a lot, because, well, I really like Twitter.)

1. Traditional media in one place: When I say that I get my news from Twitter, I don’t mean I get it from some dude tweeting as ilovetheladies55. The service actually connects me to traditional outlets and journalists, locally and nationally. For instance, on election night, Twitter allowed me to follow The New York Times and all of the major cable news outfits, plus my local news for the latest on races in my state; as well as voters still waiting in line at polling places in key battleground states.
2. Immediacy: We’ve already acknowledged that the rush to be the first with news can result in misinformation (But I submit that this problem plagues traditional media as much as social media. I see you, too, Fox and CNN!) Timeliness, though, is what makes news…news. Social media allows traditional media to report things quickly. (Daily newspapers can break mid-day news that customarily wouldn’t be seen until the next morning’s edition.) But social media has also been successful in breaking stories before traditional outlets—the Egyptian uprising, the Osama bin Laden raid and the Hudson River plane crash to name a few.
3. Diverse voices: Social media connects people from all over the world with disparate viewpoints and experiences, including marginalized people who are often left out of discussions in mainstream news or whose lives are too often not considered newsworthy.
4. Smart analysis: “Um … what?” Say those of you who think social media is ground zero for idiocy. But I think of Twitter and Facebook as sort of virtual salons (The gathering of people for conversation type, not the “dyed, fried and laid to the side” type). If the conversation is insipid, you probably need to invite better people to your gatherings. Try following folks like Melissa Harris-Perry (@MHPShow), Oliver Willis (@owillis), Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice), the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (@PPact) or the Crunk Feminists (@crunkfeminists) on Twitter, and then tell me what you think about the level of discourse on social media. I watch really smart people discuss really smart things on social media every day.
5. Hidden gems: Social media is a great place to find good writing on your favorite issues and news. Follow writers for alternative outlets or just ask your followers for links to great stuff. Last week, I asked folks on Twitter for links to the best race analysis of the week, and someone shared this piece by Alyssa Rosenberg — smart media analysis I would have missed if not for social media.

Twitter, Facebook, Reddit — they are all valid conduits to news — as valid as any other. It’s time we all acknowledged that evolutions in news consumption habits don’t have to lead to an uninformed public.

The post Five reasons to embrace social media as a news source appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

This is what happens when bookish black women start talking about good literature on a lazy holiday weekday. I asked folks on Twitter and Facebook to help me craft a list of 10 books by black women that everyone should read. Instead of 10, I got 100.

Not surprising, really. Despite the absence of names like Paule Marshall, Gayl Jones and J. California Cooper on many mainstream lists of “bests,” the well of sistah girl literary talent is deep like the Lakers’ starting lineup, but unlike Kobe ‘n’ ‘em, greatly underappreciated.

I was once earnestly told, in an online discussion about the screensaver on the original Kindle, with its pencil-sketch parade of mostly white, mostly male and mostly dead authors, that writers of color and women writers were excluded from the literary canon, because, “for whatever reason,” none had written anything to approach the brilliance of men like Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe. Feasting on privilege, and your high school English class reading list from two decades past, can make a body mighty myopic. One wonders what else this reader thinks people of color and women cannot do as well as white men — “for whatever reason.”

I sought out several of the books below to read about black women’s experiences—some like my own, to learn from other black women and to support black women making art, which is not to say that reading books by black women is some act of largesse on the readers’ parts. The books below and the women who created them are, quite simply, damned good and deserve a space on bookshelves for that reason above all others.

I asked 2,500 people: “What book by a black woman author should everyone read?” Below is the result — a list of 100 books by black women, crowd-sourced mostly by black women. This is not canon. There are plenty of great books by sisters that aren’t here. In fact, to get the list down to 100, I had to make some tough choices about which books by Edwidge Danticat, Toni Morrison, Pearl Cleage and Octavia Butler would be here. Nearly all of their work was mentioned at least once. I haven’t read all of these books (Though maybe we can fix that—more in a bit.) and certainly cannot promise that every one will meet your tastes. But be assured that nearly every book on this list was highly praised by multiple respondents. I did not tinker with these suggestions but to try to confirm titles, author names and genres, and to trim the list slightly to the 100 you see here.

And now, for a challenge: This year, I want to read as many of the books on this list as possible and I hope you will join me in the 2013 Clutch Reading Challenge. In the coming months, we’ll host some special panel discussions right here on Clutch magazine. But, in the meantime, join the 2013 Clutch Reading Challenge Group on Goodreads and let’s keep the literary conversation (and support of black women authors) going.

1. Krik! Krak! by Edwidge Danticat (Fiction)
2. Caucasia by Danzy Senna (Fiction)
3. Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris Perry (Nonfiction)
4. Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
5. The Upper Room by Mary Monroe (Fiction)
6. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Children’s Books)
7. Ugly Ways by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
8. Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America by Lori Tharps and Ayana Byrd (Nonfiction)
9. Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Fiction)
10. Small Island by Andrea Levy (Fiction)
11. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction)
12. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Fiction)
13. Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story by Elaine Brown (Nonfiction)
14. A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry)
15. Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (Fiction)
16. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)
17. Breath, Eye, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (Fiction)
18. Daughters by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
19. Sula by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
20. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Fiction)
21. Naughts and Crosses trilogy by Malorie Blackman (Fiction)
22. Coming to England by Floella Benjamin (Autobiography)
23. But Some of Us Are Brave by Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith (Nonfiction)
24. Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry)
25. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (Fiction)
26. 32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter (Fiction)
27. The Fisher King by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
28. Before You Suffocate your own Fool Self by Danielle Evans (Fiction)
29. Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in a Racially Divided Economy by Maggie Anderson (Nonfiction)
30. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (Nonfiction)
31. Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (Nonfiction)
32. Abeng by Michelle Cliff (Fiction)
33. Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor (Fiction)
34. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
35. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Autobiography)
36. Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker (Nonfiction)
37. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Various (Nonfiction)
38. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Fiction)
39. The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake (Children’s Books)
40. The Shimmershine Queens by Camille Yarbrough (Children’s Books)
41. Darkest Child by Dolores Philips (Fiction)
42. The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey by Toi Derricotte (Nonfiction)
43. Gathering of Waters by Bernice McFadden (Fiction)
44. Corregidora by Gayl Jones (Fiction)
45. The Cutting Season by Attica Locke (Fiction)
46. The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir by Staceyann Chin (Autobiography)
47. Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis (Nonfiction)
48. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (Nonfiction)
49. Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair (Fiction)
50. Zami—A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde (“Biomythography”)
51. Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood (Fiction)
52. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker (Nonfiction)
53. To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry (Autobiography)
54. Her Stories: African American Folktlaes, Fairy Tales and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton (Fiction)
55. The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissak (Fiction)
56. Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd (Biography)
57. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (Children’s Books)
58. Betsy Brown by Ntozake Shange (Fiction)
59. Kindred by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)
60. Baby of the Family by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
61. Cane River by Lalita Tademy (Nonfiction)
62. Daughter by asha bandele (Fiction)
63. Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do by Pearl Cleage (Fiction)
64. The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (Fiction)
65. Homegirls and Handgrenades by Sonia Sanchez (Poetry)
66. Efrain’s Secret by Sofia Quintero (YA)
67. When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost by Joan Morgan (Nonfiction)
68. The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales by Bessie Head (Fiction)
69. The Collected Poetry by Nikki Giovanni (Poetry)
70. Jubilee by Margaret Walker (Nonfiction)
71. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology by Barbara Smith (Nonfiction)
72. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Fiction)
73. For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange (Fiction)
74. Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and Values Wars by Sikivu Hutchinson (Nonfiction)
75. The Hand I Fan With by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
76. Deals with the Devil and other Reasons to Riot by Pearl Cleage (Nonfiction)
77. Kehinde by Buchi Emecheta (Fiction)
78. NW by Zadie Smith (Fiction)
79. The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker (Fiction)
80. Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks (Nonfiction)
81. Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid (Fiction)
82. Ain’t I A Woman by bell hooks (Nonfiction)
83. The Street by Ann Petry (Fiction)
84. Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriweather
85. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriett Jacobs
86. Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis (Nonfiction)
87. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
88. Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman by Michelle Wallace(Nonfiction)
89. Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime by J.California Cooper (Fiction)
90. Meridian by Alice Walker (Nonfiction)
91. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin
92. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (Fiction)
93. Homemade Love by J. California Cooper (Fiction)
94. Bitch is the New Black: A Memoir by Helena Andrews (Autobiography)
95. Color Blind: A Memoir by Precious Williams (Autobiography)
96. On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe (Fiction)
97. Oh Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker by A’lelia Bundles (Biography)
98. Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior by Dr. Marimba Ani (Nonfiction)
99. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
100. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)

The post Gurrrl, You Just Have to Read This! The 2013 Clutch Reading Challenge appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Sometime this spring, the Oxygen network will air a program called All My Babies’ Mamas, featuring someone called Shawty Lo. You probably already know this because a press release and video leak last week (video since removed) caused the heads of good black folk to explode all over the interwebs. You could hear the pop from space. The one-hour special documents Shawty, 31, whose mama named him Carlos Walker, and his relationships with his 11 children, their 10 mothers, and his newest, a 19-year-old girlfriend. Oh, and in the spirit of Flavor of Love, the women on the show will have their identities erased in favor of nicknames like “Fighter Baby Mama,” “First Lady,” and “Bougie Baby Mama.”

Lord, pass me my smelling salts.

The impending debut of All My Babies’ Mamas has been met with some predictable responses: A petition urging Oxygen to shelve the special and a whole lot of people vowing never, ever to let their eyeballs see this shitshow. But two reactions I find troubling: black shame and a heap of demeaning talk about single-parent and nontraditional families.

The “Ban All My Babies’ Mamas” petition, which, as I’m writing, has 73 signatures on Change.org, calls for the Oxygen show to be canceled for demeaning black women, girls, and children and stereotyping black men. I have no doubt the show will do all these things. And — make no mistake — the show’s creative team, Liz Gateley and Tony DiSanto, mean for this to be so. Nearly every reality show, from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo to Love & Hip-Hop, is built on the exploitation and promotion of bias and stereotype.

A few months ago, when I spoke to author and media analyst Jennifer Pozner about Honey Boo Boo, she said, “You can almost hear TLC saying, ‘Step right up to the Poverty Voyeurism Comedy Tour!’.” In this case, the message is undoubtedly, “Come see a dysfunctional, black family up close!” Or maybe, “Live, unmarried, over-sexed black women!” Or, “In this ring: triflin’, black sperm donors!” And we know — because racism works this way — that Oxygen’s stereotype-pimping will make black lives just that much harder, as we are judged by the actions of a man and women that have nothing at all to do with the rest of us.

But that doesn’t mean that we have to accept the stigmas that racism foist upon us. A commenter named Tay on Shadow and Act wrote:

This IS an unacceptable embarrassment to the black community, not to mention for women in general. We need to STOP acting like this – and we for damn sure need to STOP acting like this IN PUBLIC. We need to stop condoning this type of behavior with our financial support AND/OR with our silence. We complain about white people treating us like we are all lazy and ignorant and violent and on welfare and constantly out there making babies, etc… BUT THAT IS ALL THAT THEY SEE IN THE MEDIA. And we the black community continue to pour our money into supporting the very idiots (like this moron, and Chris Brown, OJ, pretty much the entire NBA….) who constantly throw us under the bus. The media-driven minstrel show needs. to. stop!!!!

There is a lot wrong with this comment, but let me focus on the idea that black Americans should be embarrassed by this show, that All My Babies’ Mamas is an illustration that African-Americans need to “do better.”

No.

Stop owning the idea of black dysfunction. Stop repeating that “we” act this or that way. Stop believing that every ill-advised or socially unacceptable act of an individual black person (or 20 black people or 1,000) is a blight on the whole of the black community or YOU personally. Stop pretending that all black behavior is endorsed by the black collective. That racist America thinks this way is no endorsement. But taking to comments sections to proclaim loudly your disgrace at how other black people are living is an endorsement of credit-to-your-race type thinking as well as the idea that the caricatures the media treat us to really are representative of our race.

Stop it with the black shame. Shawty Lo is not the black community. If the white guys over on Gawker aren’t hanging their heads over Mick Jagger, his many children, and their mothers, then you can still hold your head high in a world where Shawty Lo and “Fighter Baby Mama” exist.

I know what you’re about to say: “But … but … but … 72 percent of black children born out of wedlock!” Right. The face of family is evolving all over the world — not just in America and not just among black people. Marriage rates are at an all-time low in the United States and across Europe. Rates of cohabitation and children born to unmarried parents are up. And these combined statistics don’t always add up to economic and social decay. (Hello, Sweden!) We need to begin figuring out how to adapt to these changes. And if you want to, you can lament that the changes are occurring. But here’s what you can’t do: pretend that Shawty Lo and his family are representative of single-parent or nontraditional black families. Because you know damn well they are not.

A News One commenter wrote:

I am glad this is coming on. Like it or not that is a pretty accurate portrayal of black ghetto family life. How many articles have we seen black women say a man is not needed in the home and marriage is not important? This show is the end result of that logic and mindset.

As long as men and women remain silent and black women celebrate baby mama ideology this will continue. “I don’t [need] no man” …  the black community is lost.

Society has been branding black families dysfunctional since the days of Django Unchained on through Lincoln and — boosted by the much-maligned Moynihan Report — all the way up to today. And people like the commenter above, KIR12 on News One, are ever-eager to believe we are what they say we are — no matter how many times all those stories about “welfare queens” and the like get debunked. The media and conservative propagandists (of all races, because we have some black ones, too) constantly serve up aberrations like Shawty Lo’s situation as illustrations of dysfunction and then sit back and say, “I told you so.” That’s some sleight of hand, for sure.

But neither impersonal statistics nor reality TV shows have anything to do with the lives of actual black parents, single or married, co-parenting, or going it alone. It obscures the real discussions we need to have about marriage and poverty and policy and instead taints black mothers, fathers, and their offspring.

For the last year, I have been interviewing black women for a book on marriage and relationships. One participant, raised by a single mother following divorce, told me:

“I am a college grad and am currently working on my master’s. [When people] hear my story about being raised by a single mom, I get all these sympathizing looks and ‘Oh wow, you made it!” pats on the back. It is aggravating. Why would I not make it? … My childhood was excellent and not being raised by both parents did not ruin my existence.”

Another sistah, a never-married 40-something who raised three children as a single mother and has recently joyously welcomed her fourth, says, “Life is what you make it. I am just a regular ol’ sister with kids, making it in today’s world. And I have never been anybody’s ‘baby mama’.”

These are real black women, with authentic and specific family lives and experiences. To erase those real stories — and my story as a married black woman, a proud stepmother to two, and a product of generations of married couples — in favor of a racist reality-show caricature is a bigger sin and a shame than Shawty Lo will ever be. (I have to add that I doubt this show will fairly and accurately portray the actual people involved … but, hey, they signed up for it.)

I’m not going to watch All My Babies’ Mamas because it looks like a hot-buttered racist and sexist mess. (Have I used the word “shitshow” yet?) But my aversion won’t be driven by manipulated embarrassment or a belief in the inherent wrongness of black families of any type.

The post Black America is not Shawty Lo appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Murphy is a television screenwriter, director, and producer, know for work, including Nip/Tuck, The New Normal, Glee and American Horror Story, which is now in its second season on F/X. American Horror Story is an homage to frights on film–a pastiche of tropes, classic horror scores and anything-can-happen, edge-of-the-seat shocks. Each season of the show introduces a new balls-to-the-wall storyline. This season, true-to-form, in just four episodes of American Horror Story: Asylum, Murphy has thrown us a serial killer; two demonic possessions and an exorcism; aliens; man-eating, forest-dwelling zombie thingies and a mutilating Nazi doctor. He has also assaulted us with his trademark casual racism, ableism and disregard for marginalized people.

Using off-hand slurs and un-PC narrative is as much a part of American Horror Story’s schtick as devil babies and overt sexuality. In season one, a scenery-chewing Jessica Lange, as Constance Langdon, spouted lines like “Why can’t you people just be content with having pets? Why must you subject an innocent child to your perversions?” (to a gay character)” and called her daughter with Down’s Syndrome “a Mongoloid.” This season, in episode three of the series, we are treated to Lange as Sister Jude, along with everyone else, referring to a Latina patient derisively as “The Mexican.” But it was with Wednesday’s episode of American Horror Story that Murphy cemented his trolling credentials. This week, who should be ushered in to the Briarcliff Mental Institution’s hellish halls, but Anne Frank (or at least a woman who claims to be Anne Frank), who has hidden her survival of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp so that her recently-published book can continue to inform the masses of the Holocaust’s horrors.

World War II and Nazism have been used as fodder for drama, and even comedy, before. But belittling evil men, as in say Hogan’s Heroes or Inglorious Basterds is different than appropriating the life of a young victim of evil men. What next? Will Emmett Till show up as an asylum orderly?

American Horror Story recappers seem to be titillated by all this. On Salon, J. Bryan Lowder wrote:

As far as I can tell, there’s no word in English (but probably one in German!) for the reaction that most recappers experienced when Anne Frank shuffled into Briarcliff last night—something  like gasping, cringing and being turned-on by the brashness of it all, simultaneously. Call me crass, but I just kind of took her arrival in stride; are we really surprised that Murphy would make a move like this in an already delightfully ridiculous show?

The problem is that Ryan Murphy uses “isms” not so much for character or plot development (The narrative doesn’t need Lange to call a patient with microcephaly a “pin head,” as it doesn’t need Anne Frank to out the background of the asylum’s resident doctor.). Murphy has no message to deliver that I can see. He does is all for no greater good that demonstrating American Horror Story’s clever edginess, to turn us on “by the brashness of it all.” He does it to provoke…or maybe for the lulz.

I am not convinced that this kind of manipulation is more worthwhile than an asinine Reddit subthread. It is certainly no more enjoyable for me.

Look, there are ugly people in the world. Of course there will be characters and story lines in art that reflect that ugliness. But racism and antisemitism and homophobia are not jokes–least of all to the people still subjected to them. The subjects, at least, ought to be handled with thought and care, not levied for crass attention-grabbing.

The post Ryan Murphy Is Trolling Us With American Horror Story appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Why does it matter? The need for awareness, preventive care, screening and effective, life-saving treatment is color blind, yes? Not entirely. A study published earlier this year in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment revealed that black women with breast cancer reach the disease’s late stages more often than white women, and their tumors are more likely to be larger and more biologically aggressive–a gap that could be ameliorated by breast cancer screening. Some studies have revealed that not getting proper follow-up care after an abnormal mammogram may be a factor in the lower survival rates among African-American women. We are also disproportionately plagued by other chronic illnesses (diabetes, hypertension) that affect overall health. And, in addition, a 2004 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that black women are more likely to be uninsured than white women and 30 percent of black women have “unstable” health insurance.

Clearly, African Americans face unique challenges when it relates to our health, including the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Organizations that address those challenges specifically, like The Denise Roberts Breast Cancer Foundation, an organization that targets minority men and women, are invaluable. These charitable organizations need the time and money of supporters even more than their bigger, more well-funded counterparts, and they are less likely to get it.

This is not a call for readers to abandon patronage of, say, the American Cancer Society, which does positive and important work. This is a reminder for those who can give to spread the wealth and to research and identify African American-specific organizations to benefit from their largess. This sort of equity in giving is not just a good thing, but for the black community, it could be a matter of life and death.

Recap:

• Go Pink! Join Us for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
• Know Better, Choose Better: 9 Things About Mammograms
• Denise Roberts Doesn’t Want You To Become A Young, Breast Cancer Statistic
• Study: Regular Screenings Could Eliminate Gap in Breast Cancers Deaths Among Black & White Women
• Donate A Mammogram to Help Minority Men & Women Stay Healthy
• Breastfeeding after breast cancer?
• 5 breast cancer survivors who fought back
• The ones breast cancer has left behind
• Alarming breast cancer rates among troops
• Gabrielle Union and Planned Parenthood launch breast cancer initiative
• Breast Cancer Awareness Month: True life — I got a mammogram
• Study: Larger breasts in women linked to breast cancer
• Breast cancer survivor: You ‘shouldn’t wait’ for screening
• Are self breast exams the best option for women?
• Breast Cancer Screenings in the Black Community
• Beyond SGK’s Pink Ribbon: The Real Battle Against Breast Cancer
• Breast Cancer Screenings in the Black Community
• Black Men and Breast Cancer: Detection, Prevention and Survival

To learn more and to donate, visit the Denise Roberts Breast Cancer Foundation website.

The post Equity in Charitable Giving Could Be a Matter of Life or Death appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

I admire a good ghost story, especially a “true” one. I read tales of the paranormal. I watch those ghost investigator shows on television. And I’ve been known to take ghost tours in cities that I visit. I am intrigued by the idea of unknown realms beyond our comprehension. I love that glance-behind-you-and-make-sure-the-closet-door-is-shut chill that lingers for days after hearing a particularly delicious spooky tale. And I am fascinated by the places where history and the paranormal allegedly meet, like Gettysburg, Pa. But one aspect of ghost stories—true and otherwise—that I am not so fond of is the demonization of the traditional spirituality of people of color.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard reputed hauntings attributed to Indian burial grounds, angry shamans or the mere fact that “y’know where your house sits used to be Native American land.” (Cue ominous music … duh, duh, duh, DUH!)

Not as popular, but too common, is the “slaves were here” explanation. Watching a DVR’d episode of Ghost Hunters, I heard a woman at a historic house that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad explain a supposedly haunted room by sharing the accepted lore about the space: (paraphrase) People say some slaves got in here and sacrificed an animal. (Cue ominous music … duh, duh, duh, DUH!)

Why do we never hear this?

Worried homeowner: I just don’t understand what is happening. Furniture is moving about the house. My wife hears disembodied voices in the laundry room. Our little Billy is interacting with a shadowy figure in the backyard and the dog refuses to go into the basement.

Ghost expert: Well, Mr. Homeowner, we’ve done some research and…some Episcopalians once held a church service right on this very land! (Cue ominous music … duh, duh, duh, DUH!)

What? Not scary enough for you?

The message inherent in this horror trope is that the traditional spirituality of brown folks is evil and frightening. For instance, thanks in part to racist Hollywood depictions of the faiths, Voodoo and Santeria are often used as devices to conjure up all kinds of nasty images.

Voodoo is a religious tradition originating in West Africa, which became prominent in the New World due to the importation of African slaves. West African Vodun is the original form of the religion; Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo are its descendants in the New World.

Santeria is a syncretic religion with West African and Caribbean origins. It merges Yoruba religion with the traditions of Roman Catholic Christianity and was spread throughout the African Diaspora, in part, through slavery.

Now, you may not practice or agree with these belief systems (or any religion at all), but they are no more frightening than the Celtic polytheism that influences a lot of modern New Age belief and indeed some of traditional Christianity. Yet, New Age spirituality is seen as benign, if not a bit silly, while African-based traditions are viewed as exotically malevolent. Race bias creeps in everywhere, doesn’t it–even into hokey ghost-busting shows?

Oh, I know this is a little thing. Ghost stories are meant to be harmless fun. I take them in that spirit. But it rankles when I see drumming, gyrating, chanting, scantily clad Africans, bathed in firelight, used as shorthand for impending evil in some film. And it annoys me that the tour guide at the Underground Railroad stop mentioned above would assume slaves were summoning ghosties with their dark tribal religion, instead of, say, gathering spiritual strength for what must have been a harrowing journey to freedom.

The post Gimme That Old Time Tribal Religion appeared first on Clutch Magazine.