A friend of mine recently told me that she read an article about how being around negative people kills brain cells. Obviously there is some truth to this seeing as we all have a very strong urge to flee from the possibility of having to interact with dark cloud people. For some time now I have been tumblring (if that is even a word) quotes that keep me from committing acts that would land me in jail when I am having a rough day.
I am officially sharing my guilty pleasure with anyone who reads the Lamenting journalist:
The older I get the more I realize that the fight for
femininity in itself is biased and unbalanced so
many more levels than just gender. It is something
that women I have met across the board have talked
about whether in academia, entertainment or
professionalism. There is a clear skewing of what
it is to be a woman towards a caucasian woman.
All women are faced with the trauma of being
devalued for everything but beauty. We are constantly
taught that most of our success will depend largely on how attractive we are and it is
visible through all spheres of lived life. Older female actresses can’t find work
anymore except for playing the role of someone’s catty mother in law or evil boss. I
think the only thing women are burnt at the stake for other than ageing (which there
is nothing to be done about) is being “fat”. The fight to be rail thin is always on and
women actually purposefully make themselves look like an emaciated starving child
in some famine stricken country because that is what is considered beautiful.
Last but certainly not least is the actual framing of femininity and beauty as equated
to white femininity and beauty. The romantic films with the woman, who is adored,
sought after and fought for is almost always a white woman. Are these just the ramblings
of another bitter black woman? No. That label bitter black woman is the response people
give because the truth makes them uncomfortable or because it draws attention to the
malicious damage this does to women of other races.
Jackie from the Jammie Fox show was recently part of a panel that was discussing the
issue of women of color finding men. Also on the panel was New York Times best-
selling author Steve Harvey. He explained some of the principles in his book ‘Act like
a Lady, Think like a Man’. Jackie pointed out the fact that she goes out and acts like a
lady and sits and waits for a man to approach her. Whereas other women (not women
of color) run up to men shake their booty in the faces of men and yet they are still
adored. She went on to say that if she or a woman of color were to do that then there
would be a derogatory name attached to her. She went on to give an example of how
bad behavior by white women is rewarded like certain women who made sex tapes
who were then offered perfume fragrance deals, handbag deals, modeling contracts
and actually are totted around on the arms of athletes proud to call them their woman Again
I throw out the question: bitter black woman complaining? No. Woman of color asking the
question why has long hair; flat behinds and emaciation become the standard put
upon all women for beauty?
I joined a forum that teaches men how to be better at attracting women through
various techniques. For the longest time I have fought with myself on whether or not
to leave the forum. Why? Because all and I mean all of the imagery of “sexy” women
are white. One Arab guy actually posted a thread on how race is a barrier for him.
Why? Because he is gunning for white women. Another Indian guy wrote that he
needed help because the brown skin thing sometimes turns girls off. Which girls might
these be I wonder: Indian girls, black girls, Latin American girls? I think we all know
the answer to that. There was even a white girl who saw a picture of one of the
instructors with a black girl and her immediate question was “did you sleep with that
black girl?” What is the aim of the forum to teach men confidence and self actualization
or teach them confidence with a certain type of woman? A documentary was released
about being black in Latin America which looked at how many actors/actresses who
play African Americans are actually from Latin America but because “the world”
expects native Spanish speakers to look more like Penelope Cruz or Antonio Banderas,
the only parts they can get are those of African Americans.
A recent survey of diversity of models on the runways for the various fashion shows
indicated that there is some improvement to the number of models from other races
but not nearly enough for anyone to be patting themselves on the back for. The
importance of this variety is that the models on the runway are then chosen by brands
to represent them and that without variety the faces for perfume, clothes and shops
will continue to be white and thin. Click the link below to read the article
Now I want to be clear (and perhaps I should have said this in the beginning) I am not
against white beauty or whatever is can be called but I am against the valuing of that
beauty above all others to the point of erasure of all others. The world at large prides
itself on having moved forward from the days of race but I argue that all that has
happenedis a pretense of the non existence of race issues. I am tempted to say that
the quotefrom the film ‘The Usual Suspects’ is absolutely right “the best trick the devil ever
pulled was to convince the world he doesn’t exist”. In these circumstances it is hard
for women of other races to hold a sense of themselves when they are constantly
made to feel like they are performing failed femininity because they don’t have hair
that cascades down their backs. The talk of uniqueness and variety is all talk to give
people a false sense of acceptance when everything else suggests that women of other
races divest themselves from the bodies they live in. Self worth is being externally
shaped by people who do not have the entire female population’s interest at heart.
Nestor Torres Pictured with Tarik Abdallah at the Music, Power & Liberty Conference
In the first week of February from the 3rd to the 5th, the TODA Institute held a conference called Musique, Pouvouirs et Liberte (Music, Power and Liberty). The conference was focused on the various forms in which music transcends entertainment and becomes a tool for mobilizing people to action or addresses social issues. One of the main uses illustrated was a song which was a result of the so called Arab Spring of 2010. A song which is a collaboration of Tunisian and Egyptian artists which talks about believing in the dream of freedom and how as a people, they walked a long road to get to the point of liberating themselves.
One of the speakers, a Tunisian blogger during the revolt, commented that he thought the song was fluffy and insubstantial. He said “You can’t sing about revolution after the revolution”. I thought it particularly interesting and to some extent agreed with his sentiments. The song was aiming to foster a kind of solidaric revolutionary consciousness which already exists as a result of the revolution. Perhaps the song then was aimed at strengthening the already existing feeling.
Grammy winning flautist, Nestor Torres, was also a participant at the conference and commented on the fact that music is the one universal language. People from different backgrounds, languages and nations found common ground in some of the music that they listened to, therefore making it a massively powerful tool able to transcend all cleavages.
In an interview with Namibian artist/songwriter, actor and Big Brother 1 housemate, Stefan Ludik commented on the fact that a concept like Africanism is something that exists in the mind. Regardless of whether the music is produced in another country other than the one which it is said to originate from what makes it from a certain place is the fact that the creator has a consciousness of the place and that is carried within and carries over into the music despite other factors such as transnational cultural diversity.
What all these speakers had in common is the concept of a willingness to listen not only to the music but to each other. Dr. Ikeda said “From a healed peaceful heart humility is born, from humility a willingness to listen to others is born, from a willingness to listen to others mutual understanding is born and from mutual understanding a peaceful society will be born. Non violence is the highest form of humility, it is the supreme courage.”
The willingness to listen stems from the solidarity we all have in the mind as a race, the singularity of humanity. To limit ourselves as being defined solely by our differences is, as history can attest to, ungainly.
After the trauma of Cyclone Thane, gears shifted and that included the direction of communications projects. Auroville Village Action Group was mainly concerned with the water situation of the region prior to the cyclone as there was a phenomenon of people damaging the water pumps by motorizing them in order to get larger volumes of water much faster. The problem is that with the constant power outages in the region, the pumps did not work whenever there was no electricity and consequently no one had access to water.
This is an illustration of the lack of understanding of low level technologies which are better suited under certain conditions as opposed to modern technologies which are not meant for the infrastructure or perhaps lack of infrastructure into which they are introduced.
Post cyclone, even though the focus had shifted from water to disaster relief, the same mismatch of technology and situation emerged in the communication project I undertook. The government handed out free television sets to all the village households which all have electricity. The reason they did this was so that they could communicate with the people at the grass roots level. News of the cyclone reached the villagers through their television sets but no information was given on what a cyclone is or does or how to respond to it.
When I visited the villages post cyclone, none of the televisions worked any longer because without the knowledge to unplug electrical appliances during a cyclone, most of them short circuited or were crushed by larger falling objects. The project I embarked on was to bridge the communication gap that exists between the government and the villagers. Language was a barrier as I don’t speak Tamil and even if I did, many of the villagers are illiterate, hence my form of communication was aimed at simplicity and accessibility. I used a language that is self explanatory: pictures.
After focus group discussions with the village women in Poothrai, Navarkulam and Vasanthapuram, the villagers came up with ways to keep safe during a cyclone after having lived through the experience, which I then put into pictures.
The two way communication between the people on the ground is often emphasized in relation to development communications, but I think the two-way exchange should go beyond communication and extend to implementation of the tools and vehicles used to effect change in order to truly be actors of change. Considering the context into which technologies are introduced, whether formally or informally, is key for development to be meaningful. Lack of consideration results in the technologies becoming enemies of progress, as is the case with the electrical motors on the water pumps.
I decided to spend Christmas in India this year in a town called Auroville in the Tamil Nadu region. On the 30th of December the area was hit by category one cyclone called Thane. Despite the natural disaster, being in Auroville is an experience like no other because it totally changes your perception on constructs of waste and in applicable, everyday situations. I have been impressed and amazed at the concept of zero waste and how it is put into practice in a ‘waste not, want not’ way.
However, there are some leakages in the way people actually live sustainably, for example: we visited the Bhudda Garden, which is a vegetable garden that aims to make Auroville self sustaining by growing and supplying all organic produce. One of the problems the Bhudda garden faces is that people in Auroville are accustomed to the kind of fruits and vegetables that their diets were comprised of before coming to Auroville and as a result those are the fruits and vegetables they want. These however, are not indigenous to the region and so the things that can be grown may go to waste as there is not a large market for them.
On the 30th and 31th of December the entire Tamil Nadu region was hit by a category 1 cyclone called Thane. The effects were devastating and it is my observation that the places most severely hit in my immediate proximity are the ones that chose to build sustainably such as the Bamboo Center. A young man named Diego who was visiting our media mentor, Puxan, walked for hours in the rain on Friday morning to the Tibetan Pavilion to ask for shelter because he was staying at the Bamboo Center and the roof of his room was blown away and the collapse of the remainder of the structure soon followed. Everything at the center, infrastructure wise, was made from Bamboo because it is renewable and strong but most importantly it is a sustainable building material.
Incidentally, the last two talks we received before the natural disaster were about water management and beach erosion. Water in the region is a scarce resource which has now been aggravated by Cyclone Thane. Being that Auroville was founded by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the society is embodied by a spiritual aspect which is bound to sustainability. However, the spirituality aspect has in one instance stood in the way of sustainability in the creative water solutions. I posed the question as to why sewerage water is not recycled and used for drinking as is the case in my home country, Namibia, which also has water shortages as the country is predominantly desert. The answer given was that because researchers have found that water retains memory drinking water that has sewer memories would be ungainly for the well being of its drinkers.
I feel as though sustainability appears to be occurring and is based on selectivity such as in the case of the vegetables whereby people will eat sustainably by eating vegetables, but it is ineffective because it demands unsustainable production based on the type of vegetables people in the area prefer. Additionally, some sustainable options are not implemented because they are incompatible with the perceptions in the minds of people as is the case with the creative solution for water which ends up being an enemy of progress. Finally, using sustainable building material may not be the best way to be sustainable because should disaster hit, nothing remains. The conundrum is how to be sustainable in an inclusive and progressive manner? There seems to be some dissonance between sustainability methodology, Sri Aurobindo said that all problems of existence are problems of harmony.
Recently in Namibia there has been some discontentment and controversy surrounding the annual Namibia Music Awards, NAMAs. The reason: Stefan Ludik. The former Big Brother Africa 1 housemate who is now pursuing a music career has a new album called Burn This Town. Ludik received five NAMA nominations making him the artist with the most nominations for 2011. This news was received by the music listening Namibian public with disdain. Comments rolling around the ball park of “he should not have gotten more awards than the other artists because he’s white, what does he know about Namibian music?” I thought these were irrelevant arguments because nationality of a type of music is based on the music originating from that country as well as the artist being from that country, in both cases Ludik has proved his credentials.
Understandably, there exists racial tension in Namibia because it is a racially diverse nation on account of the former apartheid administration that is a precursor to the nation’s identity. Often times in everyday situations people of color are discriminated against be it in a store or at a restaurant with the service industry giving preferential treatment to the minority racial groups. In these instances people keep quiet and perpetuate a situation where the occurrence of such behavior is common place and tolerated. Certain racial groups have come to believe that they are entitled to be treated as superior and in turn treat people of color as beneath them. In these instances the affected people do not speak up. And then, at the most inappropriate time and for something comparatively frivolous, they vehemently speak out and unjustly project their anger at the wrong person. Some critics of the album Burn This Town claim that songs like ‘White Boy/Black Girl’ are particularly unappreciated because they feed into the discourse of predation of old presumably Western men on economically challenged young girls of color in an arrangement that is both frowned upon and coveted by members of the Namibian society. I think this is a misidentification or misinterpretation if the song which quite clearly is about mutual attraction playing on the multiracial context in which Namibians live. My response to this is that after so many years of independence it would appear that the mind is a hard thing to ‘uncolonize’.
As an African such incidences are disheartening because as a people there are so many odds against us already what with being from the developing third world. History has proven that divisions serve only as an enemy of progress. You would think that with Nelson Mandela as a shining example and patron of unity and the beauty of ethnic and cultural diversity, countries with similar histories would understand the importance of unity for development and progress. What is even more disturbing is that the outraged cries come from the youth often heralded as the future leaders by politicians. This begs the question, what has changed from the bad days of old? The future it seems looks to be the spitting image of the past with clear divisions re-appropriated along with other tools of the former oppressors.
Being an African female living in Paris one of the first things I identified upon moving here was where I could get my hair taken care of. I had settled on a Dominican Republican hair salon that costs what I assume is more than what my left lung is worth but they do an amazing job and have impeccable customer service. On account of being professional I have no problem with paying however, upon informing a friend of mine she told me that her mother owned a hair salon in the African Market and assured me that I would pay less than a quarter of the price I was paying at the Dominican republican place. I was skeptical truth be told but at the same time I wanted to support an African business as Africans often are accused of not supporting each other’s business initiative and preferring to put our money back into the hands of “the oppressor’s/ competition”. So my friend called the hair salon and made an appointment for me.
When I arrived on the street of the hair salon in the African market I was accosted by several people all biding for me to come to their salon. When I mentioned the name of the salon I had the appointment at, a tall friendly man declared “Yes, that is me. Come with me.” He walked me the short distance to the salon and announced our arrival upon entering “I have brought the customer for you, the friend of the patron”. I am not entirely sure but from what I understood the patron refers to the boss or owner. I was ushered into a chair and the lady went right to work. Midway I heard someone calling “Eh, eh, you girl, Sarkozy wife” I looked back because that last name was bizarre. Sure enough the calls were for me “Are you the friend of the patron’s daughter?” I replied and said I was. This infuriated the woman who began cussing in pigeon English at how she should never be called again to do someone’s hair and then an argument broke out between the lady doing my hair and her. The argument was all in pigeon what I did get however, was that the lady doing my hair was being accused of having stolen a customer… me.
The woman doing my hair was taken aback and tried to defend herself but all protests were vehemently quelled by this other woman who was now shouting. The woman doing my hair then said that she would leave and the other lady could do my hair and get all the remunerations. At which point the shouting woman refused and yelled some more. The lady doing my hair packed up her things and left. So I assumed now that the shouting lady would proceed doing the hair of the client she fought so ferociously for. I was wrong continued shouting this time in regular English saying she would not touch my head and that the lady (who had left) would finish it and that I should follow her. I was seething, and worried and in disbelief. This stupid woman was taking her feud with her co worker out on me and I was genuinely concerned for my scalp which was chemicalized and was now beginning to feel an uncomfortable sting burn sensation.
I picked up my phone and called my friend and told her to get her mother in the shop immediately as this was unacceptable. The patron arrived and took a hundred years to start enquiring on the situation, I explained with the loud woman continuously chiming in. In the end I shouted with tears in my eyes and said I would pay whatever amount but someone needed to wash out my hair. Eventually the barber came through and washed my hair. The problem was that he was inexperienced and botched up the conditioning and rinsing order so that when the time came to blow dry my hair it began braking of in large tangled clumps. I was livid and just wanted to leave. My hair was dry and needed a final blow drying which the patron timorously asked the shouting lady to do. The shouting lady screeched declaring that she would not touch my head. It baffled me how it was possible for her to refuse to do what her boss told her to do and how the boss had so little authoritative power in her business. At this point I got up and spoke as to everyone in the salon loudly that this was the worst customer service and that the employee feuds were not my problem and that it was highly stupid to punish the person paying. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall because I was ignored. Finally, the shouting lady decided to grace me with doing the final brush blow technique though reluctantly she even tried being friendly but by this time I was beyond sour and kept quiet. I had a good mind not to pay because their service was more damaging than anything else.
After I left the salon I told my mother who reminded me of the British Nigerian comedian Joycelin Jee once joked about how in African hair salons in England the ladies doing hair often act like they are doing you a favor by doing what they are meant to be doing and basically the service you are paying for. She said they would mess up your hair and then tell you “Don’t worry it will grow back.” It is funny to watch Joycelin but she is not kidding, sadly that is the reality.
Dr. Chika Onyeani, author of acclaimed book ‘The Capitalist Nigger’ hits the nail on the head when he describes what the African person’s problem is. Onyeani says “I am tired of hearing Blacks always blaming others for their lack of progress in this world; I am tired of the whining and victim-mentality. I am tired of listening to the same complaint, day in day out - racism this, racism that. It's getting us nowhere." Africans will be the first to stand up and blame other Africans for not supporting their business and conspiring with Westerners to maintain the unequal status quo, but when given a chance to provide a service and be supported they abuse you by not providing the service or doing so very poorly. I think it goes without saying that I will never return to that hair salon so long as I love and I will certainly discourage anyone I know from going there too. These kinds of experiences are what lead us to put our money elsewhere even if it means paying abundantly more money. Can Africans stop blaming others and start doing the right things in order to challenge power relations? It is not impossible and by raising business practice standards Africans create lucrative businesses that both uplift their economies as well as themselves hence leaving lasting legacies of excellence.
So what have we learnt?
1. Punishing the customer to prove a point to another employee you dislike is not the way forward in a business.
2. Having a full on row in front of customers also a non starter.
3. Not enforcing authority on your employees and having them openly defy you as a boss… what kind of business are you running?
