Fall From Grace Under Pressure

"Don't put it on You tube!" exclaimed bootylicious songstress Beyonce after a nasty fall from a flight of stairs during one of her live concerts in Orlando, FL this week. That is the first thing Ms. Knowles thought to demand from her audience, who witnessed her "fall from grace," as it were; so, naturally, everyone pretty much disregarded her plea and various You tube videos have captured the fall...that is, until Sony clamped down on these and began removing them faster than your high speed Internet access.

Oh, Beyonce and Co., where's your sense of humor? Must you take yourself so seriously?

Granted, it's very easy for me, who's not in the public limelight, to be critical of Beyonce's sheer embarrassment (I can only imagine how humiliated she must feel, but surely, it's nothing like the humiliation of Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spear's emotional meltdown as she squats to pee in front of photographers at a photo shoot - Eww!). However, as someone who has taught in a university setting, before a room full of merciless adult students who would gleefully scrutinize me for any hint of weakness, and who has also made certain gaffes in front of the classroom, I have learned that the best thing one can ever hope to do is laugh ... at yourself!

Considering that the singer was performing during her hit single "Ring the Alarm," I could think of some choice punchlines at my own expense, were I ever in Beyonce's shoes:

"Oh my!" I would tell my audience. "Somebody, please ring the alarm and get me some flat shoes cause these heels are gonna do me in!"

Or

"Of course, that was all staged!" I'd joke with my fans. "But I really shouldn't do my own stunts, should I!"

Or (for those loyal fans who were concerned about any injuries that I sustained)

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" I'd yell at my gasping fans while twirling around. "In fact, I'm so fine, I'll do that again! Stop the music! Now, I'm ringing some real alarms here! Let's do that over!" (I would then climb back up the stairs and redo it without stumbling, just to prove the point to my fans, so that when I completed the descent flawlessly, I'd let my adoring fans roar out applause while I continued with my routine.)

Whatever I did, I'll tell you right now: I would not implore the audience to stay away from You tube!

Something about that plea just smacks of self-absorption and control-freak paranoia. First of all, in this hyper-information age of high surveillance, one can expect that all of our flaws will be amplified - especially if you're a gigantic celebrity - and that, sooner or later, such a public performance would wind up on the Internet. I first learned about Beyonce's fall while eating breakfast as I watched the morning news, and even they showed footage of the fall. So, why did Sony and Beyonce's management team play into the hands of laypeople who are quick to highlight her fall? Didn't they realize that her plea and subsequent response to pull videos from You Tube only encourage us to call further attention to this?

I say: Laugh at yourself, develop thick skin (which will cushion your falls), and, most of all, ignore the naysayers and keep doing what you're doing. Sure, it's humiliating to fall flat on your face, but Ms. Beyonce did get up and did keep dancing as if she didn't even fall. Her response to the videos should have been likewise. That's what's called "grace under pressure," which would've wiped out her previous "fall from grace."

If only today's young stars would stop micromanaging their image and simply ride the waves. And I say "young" because I can think of some choice divas who would have been just as embarrassed but quick-thinking on their feet, who may have come up with some useful punchline to put everyone at ease. If Diana Ross could ride the wind and the rain when her Central Park concert was washed out decades ago, Beyonce should be able to do the same.

Seriously, no alarms need ringing over such faux pas.

Forget Black President: Is America Ready for a Black First Lady?

"I just don't think you're fit to be the first lady."

-David Palmer, fictitious character running for the U.S. Presidency, to his soon-to-be-ex-wife and everyone's favorite villain, Sherry Palmer, during 24's final episode of season 1

Who could forget that spiteful pronouncement coming out of the mouth of the fictitious U.S. Presidential candidate, David Palmer (played by Dennis Haysbert) when he decided, during the final hours of the final episode of season 1 in the popular TV show, 24, to ditch his ambitious, power-hungry, and conniving wife Sherry (played with delicious cunning by Penny Johnson)? Whatever we may think of Sherry (who would later prove in subsequent seasons to be as untrustworthy, dangerous, and evil as David thought she was), there is a certain hard truth to acknowledge, as a black woman watching the vilification of a fictitious black woman (alongside parallel storylines of foreign and domestic terrorists and various femme fatales) in a television series that had captivated me until I tired of its racist misogyny, when the imagination bumps up against reality. That hard truth is simply this: whatever kudos our cultural producers get for "imagining" a day when our country could have a black president, it's quite possible that we'll never be able to accept its corollary - that we could also one day have a black first lady. We'd rather our black president go it alone than to be dragged down by someone so "unfit" to characterize the epitome of national femininity.

I thought about Sherry tonight while tuning into CNN's coverage of the Democratic You tube debate, the first of its kind, and taking stock of the "frontrunners" Hilary Clinton and, of course, Barack Obama. I was watching the program with some members of my family, and while we debated which was more possible - the first female U.S. president vs. the first black U.S. president and what we thought of the Clintons when they were in the White House - we soon started talking about the candidates' spouses. So, it was with real surprise that I received my aunt's final pronouncement about why Obama won't eventually win:

"As if America's ready to pay Secret Service to protect a black woman and her two small children," my aunt blurted out.

Was it possible?, I thought. Did my aunt really think the matter came down to whether or not the nation would accept Michelle Obama's role as First Lady in the White House, more than it came down to whether we were ready to place Obama on the world stage as "leader of the free world"?

Somehow, my aunt's dismissal of that possibility brought back memories of that 24 episode and our unimaginative rendering of black female ambition, of our overachieving accomplishments both to be revered (in the acceptance of Oprah and Condoleeza) and to be reviled (in the rejection of Lani Guinier and other "quota queens" that have followed in her wake, and to some extent, even in that same grudging acceptance of Oprah and Condoleeza, who can only be tolerated because they remain so faithful to their white audience or white president). More than the unrestrained power hunger that we possess - which seems to be the flip side of the same coin that overdetermines our representation as oversexed, uncontrollable vixens and various "bad girls" - is the longstanding tradition of perceiving black womanhood as incongruous with the "cult of true womanhood," encapsulated in the mythical construct of the "lady," the ultimate paragon of decorum, virtue, and femininity. It was the perception of black women's "inability" to be "ladies" that led to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century black club women's adherence to rigid values of respectability and eventual cultivation of the "Queen" stance promoted so heavily during the Black liberation era of the '60s and '70s. Fortunately for us, Shirley Chisholm eschewed the pretenses of being "First Lady" and ran instead for President in 1972, becoming the second woman (Victoria Woodhull is the first) and first African American in U.S. history to do so, preceding both Hilary and Obama in the process by more than thirty years.

Michelle Obama is an accomplished woman in her own right, practicing law - much like Hilary - and advocating human rights on a global level. And, while Hilary had received so much criticism when she served as First Lady during the Clinton years - precisely because she did not embody the proper submission and demure characterization of a first lady - we can only wonder how Michelle would also fare in this role, especially if the prevailing opinion is that "black women can't be ladies," let alone First Lady. Hmmm, maybe my aunt has a point.

Part of the reason why Hilary and Obama have attracted so much attention to the possibilities of opening the doors to the White House on new representations of national leadership may well have to do with these unspoken gendered and racialized expectations. While either candidate has a viable chance to make history if either is elected, our nation is lagging behind even in this instance. Currently, there are 12 women serving as world leaders, including Chile, Liberia, Jamaica, Germany, and New Zealand. Quite a number of these women are leaders of both so-called developed and developing countries. So much for American women thinking that we are further ahead than others when it comes to women's liberation. However, I do believe the reason it has taken so long for any woman to become a U.S. President (and keep in mind the first female Presidential candidate ran in 1872!) has everything to do with the role that we know as First Lady. It's truly an encumbrance, and it prevents many sensible and liberal-minded citizens from viewing the Presidential role beyond its gendered positionality. The heterosexist set-up of President and First Lady has established these roles in a rigid and controlling fashion so that the First Lady's ultra-feminine representation upholds the President's hyper-masculine and militarized position.

Add to this gendered construction a racial picture of white middle-class heteronormativity, which then makes it essential to question, not only if America is ready for Barack Obama as their next president, but also if they would be ready for Michelle. Is she "feminine" and "demure" enough? If she's not considered "ladylike" enough, could this ruin Obama's chances? Interestingly, Obama's family has not made too much of an impact on the nation. Even that infamous You tube video sexualizing Obama makes no allusions to Obama's wife and daughters, as if they don't even exist for the woman who proclaims her "crush" on the presidential candidate.

Back in 2000, Colin Powell was considered a serious contender for U.S. President, until pundits began highlighting the emotional instability of his wife, Alma Powell, which was enough for Powell to bow out of the race altogether. Before I make up my mind about Obama and his chances to prevail over Hilary as the Democratic candidate, let alone the U.S. President, I think it will be most useful to pay attention to the national response to his wife and two daughters. My aunt may be on to something.

Book Smarts, Street Smarts: So Long at the Fair

My day at the Harlem Book Fair proved most illuminating. In years past, one could go up and down W. 135th Street, getting treated to some of the most exciting local and global books celebrating Black History, Black Pride, glorious African pasts (mythical and historical), great children's books exploring the joys and odes to being "nappy" and happy, and every now and then some great literature from those illustrious black authors in the past - James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, and Ralph Ellison - and in the present - Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Edwidge Danticat, J. California Cooper, etc.

Color me surprised to find, not my usual books about African kings and queens or the latest literary work by Danticat or even those great pamphlets spouting off on the latest "conspiracy theory" about white America's evil plots against the black race. Oh no! Instead, I passed by booth after booth, kiosk after kiosk, of the latest contemporary books known as "urban romance" or "hip hop fiction" or "street literature" with catchy titles like Down in the Dirty; Ride or Die Chick; Nothing's Wrong (written by one calling himself "Dr. M.F." with the most explicit book cover and poster of some black man's ass partially displayed with some fetishized woman's legs wrapped around him - and, yes, I chastised the author, who was there, for putting his R-rated material out there on the streets in the midst of this "family event" since he was right next to a children's books booth and the young ones were present; I couldn't help myself!); Betrayal of a Hustler; Hell to the No!; Girl from the Gutter; No Good Baby Daddy; Pimpology; Drug Dealer (soon to be a movie); Games Women Play; If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs: A Guide to Understanding Men; Maintaining a Keeper: A Woman's Guide to Loving and Understanding Her Man; and my personal favorite: F*cked (advertised as "the gift for all women").

I'm probably sounding quite elitist when I criticize this annual event for going overboard with their "pimps and ho's" display of street fiction, which was the predominant genre, and I know that the Black Arts Movement believed that our literature needed to reach the level of the layperson, not simply written for the upper crust in esoteric language. However, I do believe when the late Toni Cade Bambara expressed concerns for making her writing accessible to the masses who frequent book fairs on the streets, concerns for writing in a way that could be used for activism, I doubt she saw such writing as highlighting the most stereotypical depictions of "black urban life" - replete with thugs, pimps, drugdealers, gang bangers, strippers and other sex-workers. At the same time, Gayatri Spivak was very clear when she said the "subaltern cannot speak because the subaltern cannot be heard" precisely because their lives could not be illuminated by those of us who are academics in positions of power with the ultimate power - speech and the pen - to make their lives legible, according to our own mediated interpretations, or to silence them altogether.

When the authors of the previously mentioned books pen their own words through self-publication or through "ghetto" publishers, are they in a better position to speak a subaltern voice? Are they making their own lives legible, or have their own interpretations of the "black experience" been completely overwritten by a larger, predetermined script dictated to them by BET or the latest hip-hop CD and urban drama? Many of the authors present who were peddling their latest books, especially female authors, resembled the girls that we see in those rap music videos - weaves, extremely thin bodies, and revealing clothes. One such author I immediately recognized from one of HBO's raunchy specials as the porn star Heather Hunter, who was on hand to promote her erotic fiction, Insatiable: Rise of a Porn Star. I was curious enough to ask her if her book was an autobiography; she in turn interpreted my inquiry as interest, so she gave me an autographed poster (personally signed to me "classy lady" since this was her summation of who I was, I suppose) and a gift bag of some "goodies" (oral fixation mints and a "blow pop", hee).

Needless to say, I'm quite conflicted about how to feel with this preponderance of raunchy, violent fiction marketed as "black life." My cousin, who was with me, also called my attention to the fact that, the only vendors who were there selling African American cultural books (literature, art books, history books, etc.) were all white. I am pleased that so many black folk have taken to writing, to creating literature out of hip hop culture. I'm equally pleased to see so many other black folk filling up their bags with these diverse offerings. I'm ashamed, as a published author, that I didn't think to set up my own booth to sell my own book (academic though it may be), but my cousin said that I have as much right and freedom to do this, and how will the readers of street fiction know there's anything else to read if I and my ilk don't go out in the same numbers and promote our books at such events. She has a point, and I've already committed myself to setting up a booth next year. I'd like to appeal to all my academic, feminist, and radical authors to join me in the cause and offer Harlemites and other tourists venturing to such events some alternative books to read.

Perhaps our books are not "popular" enough or "street" enough, but at the same time, while I saw numerous books and "guides" for black women's sexual survival, I did not find any books by bell hooks, Alice Walker, Patricia Hill Collins, Audre Lorde, or even T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting's recent book Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women. Nor did I see any booths set up by local feminists involved in sexual violence and reproductive rights or HIV/AIDS Awareness, even though there were more black women (young and old) present than any other group at the fair. Today, I witnessed the "street smarts" of the Book Fair and saw an opportunity to bring in some authentic "Book Smarts"; I'd like to start with my own authorial booth and build towards a whole "black feminist corner." As more and more feminist bookstores disappear, book fairs may still be a democratic space to claim and promote our radical offerings. However, when we artists and academics stay away, our space is immediately filled with the most corporate-sponsored and self-authored trashiest of the literary junk food to be gobbled up by the masses who will eat what's available, especially when the literary sumptuous meal is outpriced and out of reach.

Mark Anthony Neal recently came to Michael Eric Dyson's defense (one of the few academic authors featured in the fair) when he reminded us all that Dyson is in tune with the critical masses and not just writing for his academic crowd. While this is true, I do think there is a balance to be struck when bridging the popular and the intellectual. We don't need to compromise our intellectual output, but we should try and expand outlets so that non-academics can access our work. At the same time, we also need to promote an interest in being intellectual, learned, in short: being "book smart." Today, news pundits reported that, despite all the fanfare over J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and the billions that have been sold worldwide to this franchise, children have not expanded their reading materials. Those who devote themselves to Harry Potter's adventures have not branched out to other types of books. And, as one reporter lamented, "If Harry Potter can't turn children on to books, nothing will!"

However, I think parents and educators and peers have failed in this capacity. We missed opportunities to entice readers of Harry Potter to check out other tales with similar plots, characterizations, and myths. I know that I used to read all kinds of fluffy romances in my youth until others showed me the way to meatier material. Likewise, I believe we can at least try and whet the appetites of readers of popular street fiction to tackle deeper books. I have nothing against anyone who would rather read a book called F*cked, but how much more critical thinking she would be able to apply if she learned to read Toni Morrison's Sula or Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider. Then again, I don't remember seeing Morrison or Lorde at the fair.

Prince's Revolution: Ode to an Artist

So, I'm enjoying the leisurely days of summer, away from home on vacation, finally taking some time to catch up on my blog...not feeling terribly "anxious" but, you know, I thought I'd check in and share my excitement for the artists who simultaneously turn me on and pump me up with their radical acts.

Earlier in the month of May, I had posted a blog entry on the subject of American Idol's corporate empire, its reliance on multicultural illusions, its squashing of individual artistry, and how established music artists - Prince to be exact - have responded in kind to the relentless imperialism of the corporate music industry. I had waxed poetic on the original Sexy MF, the Purple One, He of the badass guitar and commander of multiple musical instruments, falsetto notes, come-hither glances, kissable lips, and oh-so-sexable (is that a word?) body. The Artist, the one time "Slave" to Warner Bros., this year's Superbowl halftime envelope-pusher and phallic trickster, and promoter of non-marketable, authentic new talent in music. Prince (ne Rogers Nelson) of Minneapolis has just reminded the world why American Idol and corporate music are not worthy to sell music, let alone define it. That's right, according to the BBC, Prince gave away free copies of his new CD Planet Earth earlier this week in the Sunday newspaper of London's The Mail.

Confounding music industry types, I doubt those of us with our ears close to the offerings of true artists and revolutionaries would find such a move stunning. This is, after all, the man who wore the word "Slave" on his cheek when publicly disputing with his then record company, Warner Bros., over artistic control and their limited vision based on album sales. This is also from the same man who seemingly embraced the talent-trampling, TV-ratings pulverizer that we all know as American Idol while simultaneously promoting music artists in a concert that he headlined while remaining on the sidelines, simply to offer the general public the sounds of that soon to be obscure product - non-corporatized music.

A good friend of mine had once described Prince's actions as "obtuse clarity." In other words, he seemingly acts in ways that we can only view as "odd," but when you really think about it, he's quite clear and eloquent in the statements that he makes. He has defied the financial incentives of his record company and placed his CD directly in the hands of his audience - without benefit of the Internet, indeed distributing his music through an old school version of media (seriously, what's more "snail mail" than receiving the newspaper IN PRINT through post office mail?). He picks a newspaper called THE MAIL for crying out loud! I should have known that big, gigantic middle finger he pointed at network TV during the Superbowl (which we all thought was his big ol' phallus, silhouetted by his luscious fusion between body and guitar) was just the beginning of his badass behavior. Talk about resisting both the allure of major music studios and Internet downloads! In one fell swoop, Prince tore down the walls between the artist and his audience, not just appearing in concerts, but finding radical ways to get his music to his adoring public without the benefit of Corporate America (I'm sure there's a reason he chose to make his move in the UK, but dammit, I'd love to see this done HERE!).

So, this is my ode to Prince, to an artist who understands fully that "the revolution will not be digitized," that an artist's responsibility is first to his music and then to his audience. I have been energized and excited by his actions and only hope that, for once, we don't ignore the radical meanings behind his equally radical behavior. I don't even care if Planet Earth is a superb album, it's got my full support!

Prince, I would happily join your "revolution" band!

Power to the people! All hail the Prince!

It Ain't Over Until the Black Woman Sings

On a more uplifting and patriotic note, I thought I would share a video I came across featuring my favorite American Idol contestant, Melinda Doolittle, singing the national anthem.



Here's another amazing, a capella performance by another sistah, Jill Scott, who gets far too little attention compared to her skinnier counterparts and those who have come through the American Idol machine. This one is called "Ain't a Ceiling."



Enjoy, and have a Happy 4th of July! :)

Changing from a "Me" Nation to "We" Nation: Am I My Sister's Keeper?

As we celebrate the Nation's birthday today, let us remember the huge work ahead that's needed to shift from our individualistic, self-absorbed ways to a communally oriented society that values "justice" over "just us." Case in point: news reports today reveal that a victim, LaShanda Calloway, died after a fatal stabbing in a convenient store in Wichita, Kansas while a store video shows that shoppers casually stepped over her body while she lay dying (one person even took time to take a picture of her with his cell phone!). America, we can do better than this, at least! Or, have we all lost our humanity?

Rape, Hate Crimes, and the Struggle for Survival

Today, the Associated Press ran a story about the suicide death of David Ritcheson, a Mexican-American teenager from Texas, who was savagely beaten by a gang of whites yelling "White Power!" as they sodomized him with a plastic patio umbrella pole last year, on April 29, 2006. The cause for this brutality? Apparently, he kissed a white girl at a party. He died on Sunday, July 1, by jumping off a Carnival Cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico.

Considering that his rape occurred just one month after the Duke Lacrosse incident, I'm deeply saddened that I had heard very little of this case. Had I been more aware, I would definitely have tried to initiate useful conversations this past year that linked both cases and that made the necessary connections between rape and hate crimes. I am, of course, concerned about this sudden wave of racialized and sexual violence. My heart is heavy thinking that, while David did what he could to work on Hate Crimes legislation, in the wake of his attack, he was still left alone in anguish to deal with the effects of this brutal violence.

In light of the incidents that occurred at the NWSA conference this year, I urge everyone to be vigilant, to pay attention to the hostile climate that has been getting hotter and hotter - and I'm not just talking Global Warming. Should we really be shocked that such violent acts are now occurring - having witnessed in the past decade such torturous and pornographic violence the world over - from September 11 to Abu Ghraib to New Orleans post-Katrina to the senseless killings in Afghanistan and Iraq to the ever continuing femicide in places like Juarez, south of Texas, and Guatemala? And what we don't see or hear about in the evening news, we witness in our "entertainment," from CSI to any Viacom-owned porn-influenced cable channel.

I wish I could just dismiss both cases as the result of misguided youth, but to do so would be to ignore the ways that such youth are simply following in the footsteps of their elders. The youth who sodomized David Ritcheson, who demeaned Crystal Gail Mangum (the Duke lacrosse accuser who has mysteriously disappeared), and who tortured the prisoners at Abu Ghraib are merely mimicking those in power who routinely rape and sodomize whole nations and continents and peoples - from our military to multinational corporations to health insurance companies (yeah, Michael Moore's Sicko is still on my mind).

We must not let the evil doers reign supreme over the rest of us. Let us raise our voices in protest and do what we can to protect ourselves and each other. Let us demand that we live in a world of peace, tolerance, and justice. And for those who did not survive - David Ritcheson, Matthew Shephard, James Byrd, Jr., Amadou Diallo, Kendra from Oregon, and countless others - let us pour libation for them and lift their names up and repeat their stories, lest we forget.

Sicko: The Summer Movie to See

I saw Michael Moore's new documentary, Sicko, yesterday, which shows much more maturity and more humanity than his previous films, so I highly recommend that you go see this summer movie. And after watching it, become active and start a healthcare movement for universal health coverage (whatever your political leanings - let's hope that we can at least recognize healthcare as a human rights issue).

Rather than give my own review here, I will link you instead to another Review, which highlights all the points I would have made.

NWSA 2007: No Longer a Safe Space?

I'm returning from a long weekend at the National Women's Studies Association Conference, which was held this year in St. Charles, Illinois - a suburb of Chicago. I had gone, having already read PBW's admonishments of what NWSA gets wrong too many times, and surely, I should have been prepared to add to this list.

While I was forced to stay at the Holiday Inn, since the main conference hotel - The Pheasant Run - had filled up quickly before I registered, I was struggling along with other conference participants to shuttle back and forth between our hotel and the Pheasant Run, mostly complaining of the terrible service the shuttle provided (only running between 7 and 9 am, and then picking us up later in the day on hour intervals, at 5:30, then 6:30, and last shuttle at 9 pm). Hardly giving anyone any time to stay for many of the conference events, some lasting well past 9 pm, nor giving us opportunities to travel back and forth to our hotel rooms where we could relax in between sessions. The one night I got stranded and took a taxi back, it cost me $20, because the hotels were 15 minutes apart. We had complained about why organizers did not bother to just hold the conference in the city proper of Chicago rather than in some backwater suburbs. And, lest anyone think I'm being urban-centric, there's a reason why I'm blogging and, subsequently, WARNING others - particularly those who are people of color or LGBT, or in other words, anybody who's not a straight, middle-class white person - to be very careful when venturing into suburban areas like St. Charles. Little did I know that my trivial complaints about shuttle services would pale in comparison to other conference participants' nightmarish and hellish experience at the Pheasant Run.

This was my first NWSA conference where I actually felt unsafe, due to the testimonials shared by others who stayed at the Pheasant Run, some who were targets of hate crimes. Those testimonials include:

Incident #1: three women of color who braved the pedestrian-unfriendly streets of St. Charles to find a restaurant outside the hotel, only to venture back late night while narrowly escaping a firecracker tossed at their feet by a gang of white boys who sped by them in a fast moving car.

Incident #2: a white lesbian received threatening phone calls in her hotel room, which she reported to the police. One of the calls was traced inside the hotel, another outside of it.

Incident #3: another white lesbian (I believe, it's possible it could be the same person in incident #2) entered her hotel room to find it vandalized, including homophobic slurs smeared on her door and bathroom mirror.

Incident #4: a woman of color reported her purse stolen while in the lobby.

Incident #5: another woman of color took note that mostly women of color, who had reserved rooms in the hotel, learned that the hotel had re-booked their rooms to others since the hotel accommodated another group.

And those are just what have been shared by others. In my own experience, once I finally got to the Pheasant Run to pick up my registration materials and attend sessions, I was LIVID to walk through the main walkway, which was decorated to simulate Bourbon Street and the rest of the French Quarters in New Orleans (I'm pretty touchy about all this since I'm still recovering from my secondary trauma of having witnessed the political and natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina on my TV as it unfolded in that wonderfully chocolate and Creole city) in this all-white, "anywhere USA" type suburban town that's so uninteresting they have to appropriate another US city just to give themselves some kind of flavor. But, the minute these towns people actually encounter diversity (outside of the many Mexican immigrants employed in the service sector), they have to flip out and act out in these barbaric and uncivilized ways?

Part of what makes me angry about all this is this: no matter how often the predominately white American organizers of NWSA struggle to understand racism and sexuality issues, they usually understand the basic concept of "safe space." And, while I oftentimes make fun of my Women's Studies students for getting stuck in thinking that "safe space" is synonymous with "everyone agrees with each other, everyone avoids conflicts and don't have arguments because, if we did, then we weren't creating 'safe space,'" I would at least hope that we as feminists understood that "safe space" is the space that allows us to come together without anyone getting hurt. Yes, we have our arguments and conflicts, but "safe space" means that no one gets hurt, that no one is targeted for violence. I am disappointed that NWSA organizers, who usually scout out cities and suburbs for potential conference sites, did not pay attention to the important details like: is this a city or suburb that is tolerant, gay-friendly, open to diverse groups, or has a low incidence rate of xenophobic, homophobic, or other hate crimes? No one should have to check into a hotel and find her room vandalized! Especially when the crime is committed because of who you are!

Despite these occurrences, I was still uplifted by some of the sessions. Sandra Cisneros, the keynote speaker and Chicana poet and author, gave a moving tribute to Gloria Anzaldua and reminded all women of color academics to not get lost, to not let our enemies slowly kill us, to write and find our voices through art, because that is how we will survive. And then the next generation of women of color "warrior poets" including Daisy Hernandez of Colorlines and co-editor of Colonize This! and the amazing Chicago-based hip-hop sistah team of Aqua Moon shared their beats and verses to remind us that young feminists are, indeed, "dismantling the culture of silence." My last night, I finally got a chance to view in full Aishah Shahidah Simmons' documentary film, No!, a beautifully moving and painful film about black women's experiences with rape. But, it provides such a stunning tapestry of testimony and action and healing and resistance that you couldn't just watch it in despair. There was real hope at the end of it all.

But, walking away from it, since I was left to return to my hotel room in the middle of the night with newfound knowledge of the bigots surrounding me, it hit home how unsafe these times are. The ugliness, the violence, the sheer intolerance of other people who find your very existence an offense. NWSA and other feminist spaces offer crucial sites for intervention and celebration and collaboration as we share our ideas, theories, and art/practices with each other. Let's keep those spaces "safe" and let's ensure that when we gather together, we do so in cities where such violators will be held accountable for their crimes and where we can create inviolable enclaves of peace and good will. At the very least, when these incidents occur, we should hold an emergency summit meeting AND an impromptu "take back the night" rally. We should have demanded refunds and complimentary services from the hotel. I'm really disappointed more wasn't done in response to the violence, as I learned about all these events on my last night at the conference.

Let us not whisper about these violations (as was done when I learned about these occurrences) but raise our voices and shame the town and the hotel for allowing these acts of intolerance. As for my part, I wouldn't want anyone to pretend these incidents did not occur, which is why I'm relaying them here on my blog. NWSA must be a safe space for all the women who attend it each year.