From the time we are young we are told that in life we have to get somewhere and that in order to do so we need to have goals. So we live our lives chasing the proverbial carrot. The carrot keeps us up at night, often times it’s why we get out of bed and it keeps us on a certain life lane. Often times when we finally get there, we either don’t realize that we’ve reached our destination or we’ve already got our sights set on the next destination.
I’ve been thinking a lot about actually thinking about where I am. Am I where I want to be? Tomorrow marks a goal reached in my life- the culmination of two years of waiting, gathering documentation, seeing a lawyer and praying. I am an African and I married a European man. Even after our marriage the prospect of my deportation was a real possibility. For two years I haven’t been able to move across borders freely because leaving this country would mean possibly not being let back in so already the seed of the next carrot was seeded: when I can leave, I will go here and do this. I spent most of my time being dissatisfied with all the things my situation meant I couldn’t do, so much so that I never stopped to consider the things I could do. When I got the letter from the immigration office last week telling me that my application was received and reviewed favorably, my elation was more about the next carrot than actually being happy about having reached the first goal. I can’t stop feeling like this probably is missing the point and reason for goals in the first place. My charge to everyone this week is to learn to be content as the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 4 verse 11 as he sat rotting in jail with no prospect of ever getting out: “for I have learnt to be content whatever the circumstances.”
Social media has long been hailed a medium that democratizes information
consumption and production enabling the consumer to become a producer as well
as a consumer. It has created the mash-up and regularly re-invents language
with terms like ‘prosumer’. In more recent times though, we have seen what
happens when absolutely everyone and anyone is given the chance to share their
views and apparently what the population of internet user truthfully think is
far more negative than positive. Social media platforms have given a voice to
people who, arguably, should not have one.
Gasp! I know you are thinking and saying 'but everyone deserves the chance
to be heard!' Not everyone. At the risk of sounding dictatorial
biased let me be clear that I am not advocating for muzzling freedom of speech.
What I mean when I say people who should not speak as freely as they do are
those members of society who use social media to be disrespectful, negative and
incite hatred for a particular individual, gender or person belonging to a
particular race. Access to social media tools has made it possible to spread
this negativity exponentially. Perfect examples of this were seen after female
tennis champion Marion Bartoli won the Wimbledon tournament or when Gabby
Douglas won gold at the Olympics. The kinds of hateful things that were tweeted about these women and many other
people in the spotlight were nothing short of making me lose faith in the
human race disconcerting.
In sheer disgust I posted an article to my Facebook about some of the
things tweeted about Bartoli where she was called fat
and ugly and therefore, not deserving of being a champion. My problem with
these kinds of comments goes beyond the obvious fact that they are a
demonstration malicious and unwarranted verbal abuse, but that all the things
pointed out as reasons of her unworthiness had absolutely nothing to do with
her ability. There was a disconnect in my mind as to what her physical
appearance had to do with her worthiness to be a winner. It still chills my
bones that there are those who feel that if a woman does not meet a certain
aesthetic ideal, she is the worthy recipient of threats of physical violence.
Not surprisingly all the people who posted horrible things about her appearance
were themselves ugly motherchuckers not especially attractive
individuals. A friend of mine responded to my post by saying “These comments send a shiver down my spine. It’s
less about calling her ugly as it is calling her a ‘whore’, ‘slut’ and ‘cunt’
summing up her deemed worthiness with threats of violence.” Not to mention the
things tweeted about the blossoming young actress, Quvenzhane Wallis,
instigated by the The Onion. The Onion, an online news outlet that
claims to be America’s finest news source, tweeted that Wallis was kind of a
cunt referring to the 2013 Oscars for which she received acclaim for her role
in the movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild. These are just some
instances where the public, who are trusted to use the power of democratized
media to add value to society, have abused that trust and used it to spread
venom and the spirit of unkindness. Additionally, these examples form part of a
greater problem of cyber bullying committed by cowards who hide behind their
computer screens.
My questions are:
Why do people feel entitled to treat others in a way they would not like to
be treated on social media platforms?
Why is it that when someone does something extraordinary onlookers, whose
accomplishments pale in comparison, are the first to try and tear them down?
And finally, why does the public complain about
wanting to break free from the unrealistic social expectations put on them
through the media, but then reinforce them every chance they get on the various
social media platforms?
I’ll end with a quote I read that said “If only
closed minds came with closed mouths” –Unknown.
The past week began with the provocative and, arguably, disrespectful
cover image for the March edition of the Numero
magazine. The magazine cover was titled ‘African Queen.’ The problem was that
the representation of said African queen was a young white American model, Ondria
Hardin. Not only was the girl white when in a plethora of African models in the
fashion industry but, she had been bronzed so much that her skin looked like
that of an African female. Many Americans and critics familiar with American history
were outraged because the move was reminiscent of blackface;
an offensive theatrical performance by white men painted black that was
practiced in the U.S. prior to and during the civil rights movement.
I found myself on a Facebook page for the care of natural Afro hair
perusing through the comments regarding the Numero
cover. I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of comments questioned why
the girl was not African American and pointed out that she didn’t look African
American. I found it strange. For a
cover that read ‘African Queen’, why were people expecting to see an African
American girl (AA) on the cover instead of an African one? I posed the question
in the group and unfortunately was drawn into an unpleasant exchange. I tried
to explain that nowadays AAs had come to represent all people of colour and
while there was nothing wrong with that, it was, however, a single story that
is not the story of the African female or any other black people elsewhere in
the world. The tone of the conversation turned hostile and defensive. The women
in the forum called me a bitter separatist claiming that I was unwilling to see
black as black and that I was trying to trick them (although I am not sure what
exactly it is I would gain from tricking them or how I would carry out this
trickery through my proposition). One lady claimed that asking for not just
representations of black women but African blacks specifically was tantamount
to me saying that it was a negative thing for all black people to be
represented by AAs and that they were not authentic African women. Let me be
clear it is negative for any one group to come to represent all because this
erases the unique and individual others. The more I tried to explain that the
absence of actual African representation outside of the negative news coverage
represented a gap that strips Africans of dignity and power, the more the insults
flew. The owner of the Facebook page called me childish for having apologized
for offending them because it showed that I was incapable of dealing with
opposing opinions. I found this to be ironic considering the insults, I was not
the one having trouble listening to another opinion. Everything I said was
twisted and used as ammunition to label and try to ridicule me, so I left the
group.
I once read a meme that said “Don’t get into an argument with a fool
because they will beat you with experience.” I admit that I have little to no
experience getting in heated debates with very defensive groups of people
(thank God) and so I will leave the point making to someone more eloquent. In
the talk ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ African author, Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie, points out how representations determine how people
identify with others and how foreign representations may come to define an
entire people and in doing so, inadvertently add to the invisibility of those
people. In this case the erased is the African woman. Being a writer, Adichie’s
experience is with literature “Because all I had read where books in which
characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature
had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could
not personally identify” she says. She goes on to explain that later she
discovered African books written by African authors which caused a shift in her
perception enabling her to see a space for African characters in literature.
She began to write about things with which she could relate because she saw
them represented in the works of other African authors. She began to write
about African things. While everyone agrees that the media attempts to reduce
the possibilities of blackness, the danger of the single story I was trying to call
attention to was the reduced possibility of beautiful African blackness through
synonymy with African Americanism.
Why was it so wrong to want African female representation to be the representation of ‘African Queen’ as opposed to anything else? Everyday people fight for representation of diversity in movements such as gender, recognizing that while we are all human, straight males cannot represent women, gay men or the entire species. In the movements for racial equality people advocate for the fact that one race cannot represent all because of the immutability of racial diversity. In a nation like the U.S. that is home to multiple ethnicities, despite being American people still feel the need to identify as Latin American, Native American, Cuban American, on and on. So why was it so offensive or petty for me to suggest that having a black model was not enough but that she needed to be African as well for an authentic ‘African Queen’ cover?
I can see how easy it is to consider my position as one that seeks to divide rather than provide a space for inclusive representation. What Adichie talks about as the creation of a definitive story through those who have the power is something that was briefly mentioned during the exchange regarding Numero. The media shapes reality through representations and selective information dissemination. For example, as a Zimbabwean I have grown accustomed to people thinking that my presence in Namibia or in France is as a result of escaping suffering in Zimbabwe because it is inconceivable that my being outside of Zimbabwe was a choice made long before hardship, corruption, hunger, death and poverty became the Zimbabwean narrative. Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda further illustrates that Western coverage of Africa is the truth of despair, helplessness and hopelessness but this truth is incomplete. At the time of his TED talk he explained that the reported reality of Africa was the smallest reality “Africa has 53 nations, we have civil war only in 6 countries” Mwenda says. What is my point? Knowledge gaps are created because of the fact that most media and its content are the narration of the African story told by the foreigner. These powerful stories negatively affect the lives of those who are either not represented at all or do not represent themselves. To see calling for more diverse representation as a negation of existing representations is a very narrow way to look at what I was trying say. Diverse representation as opposed to a single Western AA representation adds value to the progress that has already been made with regards to broadening the previous homogenous white female representations.
I left that Facebook conversation and page wondering why those women were so averse to my desire not to overlook the story of the African model but, my desire to see myself as an African woman in a story about an African Queen. I also left having learnt about the sentiments of others who could be quick to perceive the acknowledgement of diversity as either taking away from them or being an actor of division. Everything I feel about the whole online ‘squabble’ is in this meme below:
I recently watched a TED Talk
given by model, Cameron Russell, titled ‘Looks aren’t
everything- Believe me, I’m a model.’ Her talk was a truthful introspective
look at how her ability to thrive in the world is due to her feminine agency.
Said agency is as a result of historical racial bias that persists today. She
unpacks the gender and racial oppression that embody industries of consumption and
media. These industries operating as “the gatekeepers of beauty” as described
by Oscar winning actress, Lupita Nyongo’o, prescribe femininity as skinny with
white skin. Cameron’s talk highlights the fact that saying looks don’t matter,
doesn’t make it so. Based on the feminine beauty prescription, looks do in fact
matter and negatively affect the lives of not just women, but men who don’t fit
into particular prescribed body standard aesthetic. In Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy
of the Oppressed, he explains “Every prescription represents the imposition of
one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the
person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s
consciousness.”(2005, p.47). Oppression today exists in the form of repression
by those who are othered and suppression of otherness, particularly the
positives of otherness, in the media and in everyday life. Prescription is
telling people how to be or exist, which when it comes to looks is ridiculous
given that physical attributes are generally immutable and out of anyone’s
control. “There are people paying a cost based on their looks not on who they
are.” Russell says. Additionally, the power or agency that women like
Russell have is placebo power because as she pointed out she and women like her
are not in control of anything including their own agency. They too are slaves
to the need to ascribe to the prescription in order to maintain the power they
do have. So what is to be done about the persistent gender and racial
oppression?
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:
