weary blues

BLEH!  Isn’t that what Frog and Toad say when they’re frustrated or put out?  BLEH sums up how I’m feeling today…I’ve got another bad cold.  This was Week #1 for me in terms of the spring semester, and that means teaching once more (hurray!) but also shlepping back and forth from Brooklyn to Massachusetts.  I missed my 6am bus on Monday but caught the 8am train from Penn Station; I walked from the train station to the bus station in Springfield, and was told that taking public transit to my college was “too complicated.”  That meant I had no choice but to take a cab, and that cost me nearly $40.  But it was a sunny day, and the driver was nice–I didn’t even mind when he said, “As soon as I pulled up, I knew you were my fare.  I knew you had called a cab.”  If I hadn’t gotten up at 4am that morning and whacked my head getting off the train, I might have asked him just what it was that made me stand out.  But I’ve learned to just leave those comments alone.  I remember being in Louisiana a few years back, and shopping at a consignment store.  The two white female owners were looking at some new inventory, and one held up a painting by Klimt.  “Excuse me,” she said, “would you happen to know the name of this artist?”  As soon as I answered, she smiled smugly and said, “I knew you’d know the answer.”  And the other woman behind the cash register said, “Yeah, I knew she’d know, too.”  Again, I didn’t say anything, but it drove home the fact that I clearly stood out in Baton Rouge, and was being read in a way I couldn’t fully control.  In March I’ll be presenting at the Brooklyn Museum; the new feminist wing is hosting a conference called Feminism Now, and I proposed a paper on the art of Mickalene Thomas.  I’m new to the art world, so I’m a little anxious about this paper; really, I want to talk about how representations of the black female body are READ or consumed by others, but how do you actually measure something like that?  I took a small group of college students to the Brooklyn Museum last fall, and when I read some of their reviews of the art, I was surprised by their lack of confidence.  One student in particular was especially frustrated that there wasn’t a “blurb” posted next to Thomas’ painting, A Little Taste Outside of Love.  Despite having taken 3 courses with me, including one on black feminist theory, my student didn’t trust herself to “correctly” interpret the art.  And that made me wonder: am I failing as a professor?  Or do we only gain confidence in our own point of view over time?  Last weekend I went to the museum to hear a panel on Michelle Obama and the status of black women in this “post-black” moment.  The speakers, Studio Museum in Harlem Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden and CNN Entertainment Correspondent Lola Ogunnaike, were asked by Elvis Mitchell to reflect on art, gender, and issues of representation.  Not surprisingly, one of the things that came up in the Q&A was the idea of Michelle Obama being “a real black woman.”  I’ve heard a few black women say they knew Obama was “the One” because he chose to marry “a true sista” and not some curly-haired, light-skinned woman (so Barack can be biracial, but not his spouse? Lola rightly referred to Michelle as “an asset” to Barack in his political life; having a light-skinned wife might have made him & his campaign for change less believable to many black women since so many successful/powerful black men select white or fair-skinned mates).  I’ve heard Michelle Obama referred to as “black from a distance,” and Lola admitted that she sometimes gets approached by people who are proud to see a “fine chocolate sista” on CNN.  She also shared an anecdote about being in a club with her husband, and overhearing a black man saying to a prospective partner, “I’m looking for my Michelle Obama!”  I’d like to believe that it *is* a new day, and that light-skin privilege is on its way out.  I’d like to believe that having an educated, assertive, independent, attractive black woman in the white house will have an impact on the way black women are represented in the media and in popular culture. But Tyler Perry has yet another “Madea” film out, and I’m sure it won’t be long before Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence find a reason to don a fat suit and perform grotesque, ridiculous caricatures of black women.  And in the interest of full disclosure, if you haven’t seen a photo of me, *I* am a light-skinned, curly-haired black woman; whether I like it or not, I benefit from light-skin privilege, and I’m not about to deny that darker-skinned black women have been treated like second-class citizens in this part of the world.  It would be great if Michelle Obama’s visibility changed the way black women and girls feel about themselves, and how others think about and treat black women. I’m just not sure we’re making “progress” by holding onto notions of who’s authentic and who’s not, who’s a “true sista” and who’s only black “up close.”  There’s a lot of pain that hasn’t yet been fully articulated in the black community & US society, and Patricia Williams did suggest that maybe the new First Family would provide an occasion for a national conversation about colorism.  Where to begin?  I teach Dael Orlandersmith’s play, Yellowman, in my Black Women Writers course.  That’s a powerful text, which exposes the tangled roots of the problem.  But it doesn’t offer any solutions.  I guess we’ll have to figure those out on our own…

And who am I to talk about not judging a book by its cover, when I’m so proud of the new additions to our book–new stickers for Shadra’s John Steptoe Award for New Talent, and for being an ALA Notable book!