Women of Color and the Political Economy of Sympathy

Women of Color and the Political Economy of Sympathy

by Stephanie Troutman and David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

“Given the racist and patriarchal patterns of the state, it is difficult to envision the state as the holder of solutions to the problem of violence against women of color. However, as the anti-violence movement has been institutionalized and professionalized, the state plays an increasingly dominant role in how we conceptualize and create strategies to minimize violence against women—Angela Davis.

Words sadly ring true given the daily realities of state violence, and the limited care and concern for the daily realities of violence in our country. What is wrong with us/U.S.? The endless examples (in a long, sad history of violent acts) act of violence against a woman of color to NOT make headlines is beyond devastating.  It is pedagogical in pointing to the material consequences of the intersections of race and gender.

This has been all too clear with reports about the horrific circumstances of Glenda Moore, a Black mother who lost her two young sons during Hurricane Sandy.  According to The Daily News Moore was “holding onto them, and the waves just kept coming and crashing and they were under,” the mother’s sister told the Daily News at her home. “It went over their heads … She had them in her arms, and a wave came and swept them out of her arms.” In the midst of the storm, Moore knocked on doors searching for help to no avail.  As Moore’s sister recounted to The Daily News "They answered the door and said, 'I don't know you. I'm not going to help you,’”…"My sister's like 5-foot-3, 130 pounds. She looks like a little girl. She's going to come to you and you're going to slam the door in her face and say, 'I don't know you, I can't help you'?'”

Although there seems to be reticence and an unwillingness to talk about racism and sexism – implicit biases – in this case, the limited (yes there has been some media attention) concern and national mourning for the death of these children, and the pain endured by Moore is telling.  While people came together to raise over $313,000 dollars for a tormented school bus monitor, the Moore family is fighting just to raise enough money to bury their children (as of today, there is just short of $11,000 dollars). It is yet another reminder that not all pain, not all suffering is created equal.

While the reports surrounding Sharmeeka Moffitt, who accused several men of attacking her because she wore an Obama t-shirt, proved unsubstantiated, her experiences point to how racism and misogyny is operationalized within contemporary culture.  Yet another reminder of the violence besieging the United States and the media’s silence (and complicity) on the violence experienced by women of color; the fact that Sharmeka Moffitt’s name did not initially warrant front-page news, a lead story on the national news, or national conversation is telling.  The fact that people required more evidence in this stance is revealing.  The fact that people dismissed the initial reports by noting “We don’t know what happened;” “we don’t know the specifics;” “we don’t know if it is a hate crime” is not without consequence.  

Yes, her accusations prove to be false, but this doesn’t tell us anything about the silence and disinterest from dominant media and political leaders unless the claim is that the lack of coverage resulted from their investigations and conclusions that it wasn’t a story worthy of media attention.  If that was the case, why did the media and the national spotlight grow when the police concluded that her injuries were self-inflicted?  In other words, when the reports were that Ms. Moffitt was the victim of an attack, that left her with 60% of her body burned, there were critics.  Yet, when she became the perpetrator, when she became a cautionary tale, when she became a source of contempt, an example of pathology and criminality, the story mattered.  Invisible as victim but seen as threat, Sharmeka encapsulates the lack of care and concern for trauma and violence endured by women of color?

As with Trayvon Martin and countless other incidents, the specter of violence, when its victims are people of color, when its victims are women of color, registers limited attention within the United States. This has been quite clear with the lack of national outrage about the murder of Rekia Boyd. What about Anna Brown, who reveals the lack of care for women of color within our society?  While American media pundits and leaders rightly stand up to condemn the horrific and brutal attack of Malala Yousafzai, why can’t we fight for justice for both Malala and Pakistani victims of drone strikes? 

Why can’t we see the many women deported and the many more families split alongside of the national debates about Saundra Fluke and contraception?  Why can’t we see Glenda Moore as we saw the parents who lost their children in Aurora, Colorado?  Why don’t we mourn the loss of Connor and Brandon Moore as we did when other (white, middle-class) children lost their lives?  Why so casual, disinterested, and otherwise dismissive of the violence and trauma effecting women of color?

This response (or lack thereof) plays to the continuous imperative of neoliberal, color-blind ideology to distance contemporary America from its racial history and legacy of violence- including rape, medical/pharmaceutical testing and sexual assault against black and brown women. At the same time, this lack of response (never mind priority) continues a long tradition of the invisibility of black/brown female suffering. From Malala and Marrisa Alexander, from Rekia Boyd to “4 little girls,” from Glenda Moore to Encarnacion Romero, white supremacy has shown itself to be disinterested in the pain felt by women of color.

The specter of white supremacy, misogyny, and ideologies of hate are all too familiar.  What is also all too common is our silence—our  complicit acceptance of violence, hate, and destruction when it is “over there.”  What is all too familiar is the refusal to stand for justice for all people; all deaths and all brutality are not treated equally. Campaigns against stop and frisk and campaigns to end street harassment, and non-profit organizations working to end rape and sexual violence against women (A Long Walk Home, FAAN Mail and particularly women of color, have stepped in to do the work that rest of our society, including our government and media, should be doing.  Many of us don’t even know (care to know?) the stories of these black and brown women and don’t care about their “Dreams Deferred.” 

The normalization of violence in our culture, due in large part to ongoing foreign conflict and media violence, is not an excuse for apathy—collectively or individually.  And because of the pervasive ugliness of racism, some folks out there are wondering (and possibly hoping) that the men who committed this act turn out to be black or brown. Though all evidence points to the contrary, if the assailants were men of color, we would still be left to deal with issues regarding violence against women as a racialized phenomena. Almost 30% of African American women are the victims of partner violence during the course of their lifetime (rape, physical assault or stalking).  According to Incite,

American Indian women are twice as likely to be victimized by violent crime than women or men of any other ethnic group. In addition, sixty percent of the perpetrators of violence against American Indian women are white and Asian American women are most likely to be victimized by whites as well (Greenfield and Smith 1999). Rates of violence against African American women as well are higher than the national average (Rennison 2001). In general, forty-three percent of women will be raped (including marital rape) and one-half of women in the U.S. will be battered in their lifetime (MacKinnon 1987, 23-24).

The silence and erasure of women of color victims, the blind neglect to the missing womenand children, and the overall disregard for the abuse, violence, and pain endured by women of color reflects the logic of racism and sexism.

These young women, and countless others have all faced violence under similarly disturbing circumstances.  All should have prompted national outrage and action or, at the least, for us to say their names.  How meaningful would it have been for President Barack Obama to suggest a moment of silence for Marissa Alexander, Glenda Moore  and/or Malala? Would this have been seen as race baiting…dog whistling? Who cares? It would have been seen as a gesture, signaling at least awareness if not a deep concern, for the safety and well being of black and brown women in the U.S. 

Please pause for a moment to consider the irony of a presidential debate on foreign policy and references to Malala but silence about drone attacks and countless other policies that inflict pain and suffering on women of color throughout the world.  Please pause to think about the narrow framing of foreign policy and “women’s issues,” which has seemingly erased the trauma and violence faced by women of color.  Norma Ortiz put this rather starkly:

In their second debate, the candidates for president talked —finally— about immigration, violence and women. What they did not talk about was violence against immigrant women and how our country's anti-immigrant laws make it worse for us and our children. 

Too many immigrant women, forced into the shadows of society, have had to make the choice between protecting themselves or keeping their families together.

I have had to make that choice.

I endured abuse by my partner, while worrying constantly about my then three-year-old son. But, because of my immigration status, I feared what would happen if I contacted the authorities. 

When I finally did make the decision to call, my fears turned out to be all too real.

Instead of helping us get away from my abusive partner, police arrested me. I spent five days in jail, separated from my son, before authorities moved me to immigration custody and began deportation proceedings.

Why don’t we know her name or that of Encarnacion Romero, whose parental rights were revoked because the court concluded that, “she abandoned her child when she was imprisoned after a 2007 immigration sting at a poultry processing plant.”  Where’s the outrage; where’s the appeal to justice and/or family values?

The selective invoking of violence elsewhere should give us pause? Why are we so comfortable looking for pain, suffering and violence elsewhere? U.S. exceptionalism . . . manifest Destiny . . . white man’s burden?  Yet, there is no reason to look at the outside for the horrific violence when it continues to plague our communities all while the media and “the leaders” remain silent, co-conspirators in the persistence of violence.  All point to the fallacy of a post-racial America and the shared level of violence between those who “we” see as uncivilized and “our” neighbors and society.  This same post-racial society has spawned notable and newsworthy reverse-discrimination claims and anti-affirmative action cases that only detract from the clear and present danger of such thinking as it manifests in the persistent inequality and violence, both structural and in cases of Alexander, Malala and countless others–physical, that black and brown men and women now experience at record levels since the abolition of slavery.

***

Stephanie Troutman is Assistant Professor of Women & Gender and African-American Studies at Berea College, Berea, KY. 

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of the just released After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press) as well as several other works. Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan, layupline, Feminist Wire, and Urban Cusp. He is frequent contributor to Ebony, Slam, and Racialicious as well as a past contributor to Loop21, The Nation and The Starting Five. He blogs @No Tsuris.

At the Borderlands of Mass Incarceration: A Review of Middle of Nowhere

 

At the Borderlands of Mass Incarceration: 

A Review of Middle of Nowhere

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

With all the talk within social media circles since Ava DuVernay won best director at the Sundance Film Festival, I cannot remember anticipating a film as much I anticipated Middle of Nowhere.  While a testament to the film’s use of social media, my excitement reflected its storyline and its offering of a humanizing story.  The New York Times aptly described the film as follows: a “poignant portrait of Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi), a nurse doing hard time in emotional limbo while her husband serves a prison sentence.” The Los Angeles Times summarizes the film’s story as somewhat classic with a story of marital crossroads, personal transformation, and self discovery: “the focus is on the couple's relationship and, gradually, on a different kind of journey that Ruby is making, the classic one of self-actualization, of finding yourself when you feel emotionally in the middle of nowhere, a journey that allows for no shortcuts or easy answers.”  While the film does play upon dominant themes, its embrace of tropes and themes specific to the history of African American film, and its intervention in the hegemony of dehumanizing narratives, especially those surrounding prisons, illustrates a film that is battling and challenging in a myriad of ways.

Middle of Nowhere gives voice to an all-too-familiar circumstance facing million of American families, particularly those of color.  It chronicles the impact of mass incarceration on families, living on the outside, with relatives on the inside. According to a report entitled “Children of Incarcerated Parents,” in 2007 America was home to 1.7 million children (under 18) whose parent was being held in state or federal prison – that is 2.3 percent of American children will likely be celebrating father’s day away from dad.  Despite hegemonic clamoring about family values, the prison industrial complex continues to ravage American families.  Since 1991, the number of children with a father in prison has increased from 881,500 to 1.5 million in 2007.  Over this same time period, children of incarcerated mothers increased from 63,900 to 147,400.  Roughly half of these children are younger than 9, with 32 percent between the ages of 10 and 14.  This reality is not just about children but about families forced to live at a crossroads between lack – of contact, lack of physical contact – and desire – to be free, to touch, to be with family.  It is a reality that separates families and pushes members farther and farther apart.  On average, children live 100 miles away from their incarcerated parents.  This is the same of partners, and other family members, who are dislocated, punished and literally left out in the cold.

Chronicling the story of Ruby and Derek (Omari Hardwick) Middle of Nowhere shines a spotlight on trickle down incarceration, whereupon arrests and imprisonment travel downstream to the detriment of both families and communities.  From Ruby’s conflict with her mother over her decision to wait for her husband to be released from prison to her choice to forgo medical school for a career in nursing because of their financial needs; from Derek’s inability to pay child support to his daughter’s mom, to the amount of time families must spend on buses just to remain connected to their loved ones; Middle of Nowherebrilliantly reveals the costs and consequences of mass incarceration.  Derek is literally stuck in the middle of nowhere, detached geographically, physically, emotionally – he cannot see his daughter; his wife cannot kiss him.  With no his release precarious at best and his future bleak given the lifetime sentences resulting from felony convictions, Derek is resigned to the middle of nowhere, existing without any paths toward freedom or even existence. It is not just Derek and his fellow incarcerated men and women housed in places like Victorville are confined to the middle of nowhere, hidden behind barbered wire fences, walls, and isolation, but their families as well.  

Ruby is also stuck in the middle of nowhere, at the borderlands of the prison industrial complex.  Waiting for her partner to emerge from the shackles of mass incarceration, yet wanting to move forward with her life, Ruby is stuck; wanting to be touched and loved, but denied the pleasure principle of happiness she shared with her husband, Ruby must confront her precarious position.  She must reconcile her location, which is of no fault of her own.  She struggles to reconcile her loyalty and love for Derek with her yearning to be free; to exist outside a place called nowhere. 

Falling for another man, she realizes that she cannot remain in the racks between two worlds, torn by guilt and desire, freedom and emotional emptiness.  The film’s subtlety, its ability to capture the nowheredness embodied in the gap she lives within represents the film’s power.  She is stuck in a space between freedom and the unfreedom; the past and the future; the rural and the city; the mobile and immobile; the inability to be touched versus the ability to feel; and love and happiness.  She is in the middle of nowhere.

Rudy struggles to reconcile her desires, navigating the messiness resulting from mass incarceration.  The film makes clear how incarceration and the desires of movement prove incompatible not just for Derek but Ruby and her entire family.  After kissing him goodbye, in violation of the rules, she offers the following soliloquy: “You were with me.  Now it’s scary.  We are somewhere in between in between the forgotten and the foreseen.  In the middle of some place.  That scares me.” Powerful, indeed.

A common trope within the history of African American cinema has been movement.  Given the history of slavery, Jim Crow, migration, de facto segregation, stop-and-frisk, and racial profiling, movement has been central to the representational field.  Middle of Nowhere most certainly adds to this cinematic landscape.  The constraints on movement, the violence directed at bodies of color defines the era of mass incarceration.  Yet, the film pushes viewers beyond the immobility and isolation resulting from the prison industrial complex.  Reflecting a certain level of irony, Ruby takes a bus to the “middle of nowhere” with dozens of other women and children.  The bus, in this instance, is not the inversion of the Underground Railroad taking her from her unfree life in Los Angeles, to the capital of confinement.  Yet, the bus, which transports her from work to home, is where she finds the necessary tools to move forward, leading her not to another man, but to a space of independence and power.  

Clearly Middle of Nowhere ties movement to feeling, emotion, and pleasure.  The ability to be moved spiritually, lovingly, physically, and sensually is all constrained by incarceration.  This is evident not just in the denied kisses and connection that results from imprisonment, but the film’s ability to capture the passion and sexual energy between Ruby and Brian (David Oyelowo).  With shots of their embrace and their connected bodies, Middle of Nowhere repels Hollywood’s tendency to define love and attraction through graphic sex scenes. It moves beyond the erased realities of black love within the history of Hollywood.  Challenging Hollywood’s male gaze, which privileges heterosexual desire to consume feminine nakedness on screen, Middle of Nowhere defines the passion and meaning of their relationship through subtle and humanizing cues.  It leaves viewers feeling not just the sexual passion but also the psychological and emotional connection.

Another source of power with Middle of Nowhere rests with DuVernay’s use of silence.  The sight of Ruby sitting in darkness contemplating life’s horrors encapsulates its emotionality, its effort, and its ability to compel viewers to feel pain, anxiety, and fear.  Resulting from brilliant acting performances, gripping cinematography and DuVernay’s genius directorial eye, Middle of Nowhere is 90+ minutes of sheer emotion; it is emblematic of what makes film so powerful.  With its appeal to emotionality, it’s deployment of humanizing narratives, and its point of entry into our era of mass incarceration, Middle of Nowhere leaves viewers with not just a lot to think about but even more to feel.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness was just published by SUNY Press in May of 2012.

Review of 'The Passion of Tiger Woods'

A Review of  The Passion of Tiger Woods:

An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal by Orin Starn

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

For some golf is a game; for others it is leisure.  Golf, at its core, is about mastery; it’s about fantasy; it’s about fulfillment of the possibility of greatness.  It is about that hole-in-one at the local public course or the bullet drive that covered 300+ yards.  Golf provides the fulfillment of a myriad of “fantasies.” With his new book, The Passion of Tiger Woods, Orin Starn leads on a journey not to Pebble Beach or the courses of Hawaii, not into these fantasies playgrounds, but into the treacherous world and real-life drama that he describes as “Tigergate.” 

Starn starts his discussion with a foray into the sociology of golf, highlighting the emotional appeal of the game.  Describing golf as the “last chance to do “childish things” and as a cheap replacement for masculine yearning for outdoor adventures, Starn locates golf’s appeal within the mental stimulation and imagination afforded by golf’s immense challenges.  It’s appeal rests not with improved cardiovascular health, the camaraderie of pickup basketball or soccer, or even tradition (fathers and sons bonding), but with the mental stimulation; it appeal rests with its similarity to a video game rather than basketball or soccer.  “The game’s most elementary lure ... is that flush of satisfaction and even inner delight that comes from a good shot.”  The popularity of the game that Mark Twain once described as a “good walk spoiled” rests with the prospect of making “a twisting twenty-five foot put curving into the hole; a cleaver escape from under the tree.” While “none of us will ever know the ecstasy of running as fast as Usain Bolt or cutting through the water like Michael Phelps,” every once in a while, “even a rotten golfer will hit a shot as magnificent as if it had been hit by Tiger Woods” (15).

It is no wonder that golf is one of the most popular games despites its cost.  While not at the levels of baseball, football, or even NASCAR and basketball, golf is tremendously popular as a spectator sport and a leisure activity.   With over “17,000 golf courses, covering an area the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined” (XV), golf may not be America’s national pastime it might America’s most prominent and important hobby.  Golf is a national obsession, at least within certain (white; male; middle and upper-class) segments of the American populace. 

This analysis isn’t simply an interesting examination of golfing cultures but one that provides an important backdrop for understanding the rise and fall of Tiger Woods.  The popularity of golf, its cultural meaning, the ascendance of celebrity culture, and the increased power of new media all contributed to his ultimate tumble before the nation. 

Starn identifies the media spectacle surrounding Woods as evidence of the hegemony of the scandal industrial complex.  “Now scandal has become a multibillion dollar industry.  Talk shows and trash television, glossy magazines, supermarket tabloids, and gossip blogs power this vast and viral entertainment complex” (45).  Identifying “Tigergate” as the perfect storm, Starn argues that the media obsession and sensationalism embodied in the “celebritaization” of modern athletes.  Yet, his discussion goes beyond the missed placed priorities of today’s tabloid media circus to highlight Tiger Woods’ specific place within the American landscape.

Like the allure of the game itself, the rise and fall of Tiger Woods is equally about fantasy, about lost hope in a symbol of a post-racial America.  The passion for Tiger Woods and the anger resulting from his martial disrepair reflects the fantasies surrounding America’s most prominent multiracial citizen.  “Woods, America’s multicultural son, is a seductive element in a national image archive figured on the paradoxical claims about the nation,” writes C.L. Cole and David Andrews.  “While African American basketball players are regularly charged with violating national core values, Woods has become revered for his cultural heritage and cultural literacy” (p. 37).  As America’s multicultural son, as America’s symbol of racial progress and post-raciality, his indiscretions and the subsequent reactions not only put in question the declining significance of race, but the interest, anger, and fallout highlights how Woods did not simply betray his wife but the agreed upon narrative surrounding Woods, American exceptionalism, and the march toward racial progress. 

Highlighting the general sentiment amongst online commentators, and that emanating from the media in general, which consistently imagined Woods as one of “the last of the good ones,” as different from contemporary (black) athletes, Starn concludes that the emotional nature of the discourse highlights Woods’ meaning within the national landscape.

Many Internet posters seemed most disturbed by the hypocrisy of what they perceived to have been Tiger’s selling of a false imagine.  Tarquinis1 compared Woods to an infamous Ponzi schemer: “He’s professionally marketed himself to a worldwide audience as much more than a talented athlete but as a descent man, a family man who loved his wife and children . . . . Just how is this fundamentally different from Bernie Maddof?  Professionally marketed frauds, for the sake of a literal ocean of financial reward . . . . Many of Tiger’s former fans believed he had fallen altogether rom the pantheon.  They saw the golfer now as a “sexual psycho,” “uber cad,” or as in one’s poster thesaurus of invective, “arrogant, spoiled, bad tempered, childish, immature, foul-mouthed, whiny, disloyal, condescending, infantile, repugnant, loathsome, abominable, detestable, offensive, despicable, abhorrent, and damnable” (61).

While potentially an outlier in its anger and its verbosity, Starn makes the case that these posts, and the online discourse general, are not only a mirror into larger societal sentiments, but is in fact a better gauge.  He concludes that “racial anxiety and distrust often find most direct expressions in the surreptitious, off-stage arenas of our private thoughts … or most accessible to the anthropologist, an anonymous post on some blog, comment board, or chat room.”  (86-87).

Starn, thus, concludes that the fall of Tiger Woods and the nature of the demonization he experienced reflects the waning appeal of his narrative – the fantasy of Woods could no longer deliver.   “The amazing success of this young brown-skinned man in a formerly white sports seemed to support the familiar Fox News, Rush-Limbaugh-style view that the only real impediments to black advancement are black laziness, broken families, or … inferior genes.”  Starn sees the fallout as resulting from anger at this lost narrative: “When white fans cheered for Tiger, it sometimes felt as if they were also congratulating themselves demonstrating their own enlightened racial good will be embracing a golfer of color” (p. 73).  Tiger took this away, leading to ample anger and bitterness, highlighting that he did not just cheat on his partner but he cheated on his fans and the narrative surrounding his ascendance into the national fabric.

Tigergate also revealed longstanding anxiety over black male sexuality, opposition to black-white sexual relations, and the hegemony of racial stereotypes.  It was not just sexual infidelity from an uber sports star in an era of tabloid journal and online spectacles, but all of those things from a black male engaged in sex with white women.  From photoshopped pictures of Tiger with Snoop as dueling pimps to jokes about Tiger’s penis, Tigergate was fueled by and gave life to longstanding ideologies surrounding black male sexuality.  “Tiger’s fall from grace – in particular, the expiration of his exemption from racist hated and stereotyping” was crystal clear with ubiquitous focus on his penis and his sexual prowess.  “Tiger was cut down to a single body part by this coarse modern variant of the primordial racist trope of black savagery: the big black phallus” (p. 91).

The power of Starn’s narrative rests with its ability to explain Tiger’s cultural power (as greatest golfer and as participant in most notorious celebrity scandal) for golf fans and nonfans alike.  I don’t really like golf; I like Tiger. I would agree with George Carlin, who once described golf as less appealing than “watching flies fuck.”  They might as well rename the PGA (Professional Golfer’s Association) the TGW – Tiger’s Golf World. Despite his recent difficulties on and off the course, my relationship with golf begins and ends with Tiger Woods.  For me, my interest in golf and my love for Tiger has only increased since Tigergate.  He has faced endless criticism shaping my hope that he will soon be able proverbial middle finger to his haters.  It isn’t about redemption but rather seeing media critics, and bitter fans choke on their wars.  With each victory, with each brilliant chip shot and putt and with each step closer to history, Tiger is finding his way to silence the haters,

Golf is not simply a game; Tiger Woods is not simply a golfer; Tigergate was not simply a scandal.  Orin Starn makes this clear highlight the many ways that golf, Woods, and Tigergate offer a mirror into larger social, cultural and racial realities.  So next time you find yourself rooting for or against Tiger, or cracking joke about Eldridge Woods, remember, it is never just a game or joke.   Without basketball, my summer sports TV watching often centers around golf.  More precisely, without the NBA, I find myself watching Tiger Woods.  When he is competing, I watch golf; when he is atop the leaderboard, Tiger Woods changes my schedule in part because golf is never just a game.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness was just published by SUNY Press.

The Color Blue: Remembering the Death of a Child

The Color Blue: Remembering the Death of a Child

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Today is the 6^th anniversary of the death of our daughter, Sophie.  Some 12 hours after we first met, she would succumb to an infection, dying right as we sat powerless.  In an instant, we had lost our child; we had joined so many other families worldwide who have lost children.

The day and our loss still haunt me.  I wrote about this part of my life here:

Each and detail of that day remains with: a graduate student dropping me off at the hospital; how sick my wife looked when I entered the room; the muted cries when she was born; the concerned look on our doctor’s face. More vivid and painful are the memories of me sitting on the floor when she went into cardiac arrest, the clothes I was wearing, the hospital smell, and the sounds of “code blue.”  Almost weekly, the sight of a helicopter prompts thoughts, painful memories of the 60+ mile trip I took in the dark as we searched for someone to help her.  I was so close to my dying daughter yet unable to help or hold her. 

These sights and sounds remain with me.  The fear that paralyzed me as sat in a hospital at 2 AM hoping, praying, and begging for her to get better, is still with me. Six years hasn’t quieted these visual memories, although time, family, and friends have been immensely helpful as we work to move forward with these memories.   The process of moving forward with these memories, with Sophie, was not an easy process.  I don’t even think about “healing” as it has never been about getting better but instead of taking steps forward with these memories, with our love for her, and with her being present in my life.  Therapy really helped in the process, allowing me to process my feelings about vulnerability, life and death, and a sense of powerlessness.  Writing has also been really important for me.  Her death led me to start writing spoken word pieces as a way to express my pain and sorrow.  With this in mind, I decided to share with you this piece, which entitled “The Color Blue”

The Color Blue

Blue Skies

Lighting my day

Sandy beaches, smiling under the hot sunny, blue skies

Blue water

Whether the Pacific Ocean or a calming lake

Childhood memories of a family splashing and merely enjoying the blue water

My Blue shoes

Certainly not suede, but my first pair of Jordans

White with blue trim

Looking fly with my Dodgers jersey and hat, ballin in blue before I know how to ball

Looking fly with my Dodgers jersey and hat, rockin in blue before I know what to do [with life]

Blueberry pancakes

The perfect remedy to a cold Sunday morning

The smell intoxicates the house; sweet and hot, comforting on even the dreariest day

I use to love blue

Even the blues

Because through other’s expressed pain I found my happiness

Not now

I am the blues

I have the blues

I am defined the blues

Because of the pain of the blues

No longer blues skies or pristine blue waters reflecting off the sun

No longer about fly blue gear or comfort food on the bluest of days

But blue as pain

Blue as despair

Blue as the beginning of a new life

And Blue as the end of several lives

Code Blue

Code Blue

Blue sirens blazin

As the doctors race to save her life

Wearing their blue scrubs

Code Blue

Code Blue

Blue sirens blazin

“She’s not breathin,” they yell

She’s turning blue

Code Blue

Code Blue

Blue sirens blazin

No longer pink and innocent

Her skin turns blue with each comment without the nourishment of Oxygen

Code Blue

Code Blue

Blue sirens blazin

Ifs that not enough, the needs and medicine leaves bruises

Dark blue, the color of those once comforting blueberries

A deathly blue

Code Blue

Code Blue

For her or me

Because my blues define me

Are me

Yet unlike my Sophie’s blue, my blues won’t kill me

***

 

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of the just released After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press) as well as several other works. Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan, layupline, Feminist Wire, and Urban Cusp. He is frequent contributor to Ebony, Slam, and Racialicious as well as a past contributor to Loop21, The Nation and The Starting Five. He blogs @No Tsuris.

So You Want to Talk Solutions? White Denial and the Change Question (Part 1)

So You Want to Talk Solutions? White Denial and the Change Question (Part 1)

By David J. Leonard | HuffPost Black Voices

One of the common responses to discussions about racism and other forms of injustice is the demand for solutions. The commonplace entry into public and private discussions about racism, the efforts to take over comment sections, to silence those who work to highlight inequality with responses like "what's the solution" does not engender solutions but rather works to derail the conversation. Usually deployed alongside the descriptor of wining and complaining, this disingenuous demand (as opposed to a desire to figure out the path toward justice) for solutions illustrates the manner that white male privilege operates. In my many years of teaching and writing, the majority of those who felt entitled to have answers NOW and remedies yesterday were white men. The "shut up... stop complaining...give me solutions" reframe is the embodiment of privilege.

Recognizing our forms of denial and challenging our social and racial myopia is the solution. Refusing to accept the lies and distortions, the misinformation and stereotypes is a remedy. However, for those who are desperate for solutions, who feel disappointed with our collective failure to provide a road map toward justice you don't have to look any further, I got you.

Reparations: Given the history of racist violence, evident in slavery, Native American genocide, Jim Crow, forced sterilization, racist immigration laws, the conquest of Southwest and other crimes against humanity, I think reparations are in order. "Sorry isn't enough!" According to the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCBRA):

A necessary requirement of all forms of reparations is an acknowledgment by the government or corporation that it committed acts that violated the human rights of those making the claim for reparations. Some groups may want an explicit apology; however, neither the acknowledgement nor apology is sufficient - there must be material forms of reparations that accompany the acknowledgment or apology. Reparations can be in as many forms as necessary to equitably (fairly) address the many forms of injury caused by chattel slavery and its continuing vestiges. The material forms of reparations include cash payments, land, economic development, and repatriation resources particularly to those who are descendants of enslaved Africans.'

Financial restitution, especially given the amount of wealth generated through white supremacy, because of enslavement, genocide, and exploitation, is a necessary step of racial reconciliation. White financial and political success has been predicated on white racism. Malcolm X rightfully destroys the myth of meritocracy, bootstraps, and the white protestant work ethic as reasons for success:

If you are the son of a man who had a wealthy estate and you inherit your father's estate, you have to pay off the debts that your father incurred before he died. The only reason that the present generation of white Americans are in a position of economic strength...is because their fathers worked our fathers for over 400 years with no pay...We were sold from plantation to plantation like you sell a horse, or a cow, or a chicken, or a bushel of wheat...All that money...is what gives the present generation of American whites the ability to walk around the earth with their chest out...like they have some kind of economic ingenuity. Your father isn't here to pay. My father isn't here to collect. But I'm here to collect and you're here to pay. (From By Any Means Necessary, New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970, 123.)

Prison abolition: The history of America's prison systems and the criminal justice system as a whole is wrought with racism. As Angela Davis remarks,

In order to imagine a world without prisons -- or at least a social landscape no longer dominated by the prison -- a new popular vocabulary will have to replace the current language, which articulates crime and punishment in such a way that we cannot think about a society without crime except as a society in which all the criminals are imprisoned. Thus, one of the first challenges is to be able to talk about the many ways in which punishment is linked to poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and other modes of dominance.

America's addiction to incarceration requires dramatic intervention. No reform will suffice given the entrenched nature of the criminal (in)justice system within every institution, from the political to the educational, from the cultural to the economic. The systemic incarceration of people of color, of the poor, represents an assault on families, communities, and a betrayal of the principles of equality, fairness, and democracy. The addiction to incarcerating people of color, particularly the poor, continues a history of systematically breaking apart families and communities. It contributes to stop and frisk, racial profiling, and a culture of criminalization. As noted by Robert Gangi, one time Executive Director of the Correctional Association of New York, "Building more prisons to address crime is like building more graveyards to address a fatal disease." It is time to rectify a societal plague - mass incarceration. This would be a step in the right direction. In the next installment I will lay out some additional solutions.

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of the just released After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press) as well as several other works. Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan, layupline, Feminist Wire, and Urban Cusp. He is frequent contributor to Ebony, Slam, and Racialicious as well as a past contributor to Loop21, The Nation and The Starting Five. He blogs @No Tsuris.

Ballin’ at the Graveyard: A Film Review

Ballin’ at the Graveyard: A Film Review

by David J. Leonard | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Growing up in Los Angeles, I spent many weekends, some evenings, and most of my summers on the basketball court. Whether on the courts at my high school, at any number of local parks, or other spots spread out around West Los Angeles, pickup basketball was a fixture of my teenage years. I love to play ball; while a mediocre player on my best days the chance to run with my boys or prove myself to others was something I relished growing up.  

Through college and graduate school, I continued to play whenever I made it back to Los Angeles; visits home came with an expectation of multiple days of ballin’.  Although kids and AGE, not to mention geography (not a lot of pick-up games in Pullman) has resulted in my retirement from the game, the cultural, social, and personal significance of this space remains strong in my mind.  Based on both nostalgia for the Saturdays spent on the court, calling “next,” and even the arguments about a travelling calls, and my intellectual curiosity about the subculture of the “pickup game,” I was very excited to watch Ballin’ at the Graveyard, a new film from Basil Anastassiou and Paul Kentoffio.

Chronicling the weekend battles at Albany, New York’s Washington Park – the Graveyard – the film is much more than a basketball film.  It is a glimpse into the sociology – the rules, the community – of the subculture of pickup basketball.  The filmmakers describe the film as such:

For millions of basketball players across America and throughout the world, there are no refs, no sneaker deals and no doctors on call. To get in the game, you have to show up at the local park or gym, claim a spot and fight to keep it. The next game isn't a guarantee. Every point matters. That's pickup basketball.

Ballin' at the Graveyard is a gritty, intimate look into the culture and community of pickup basketball as told by a group of hardcore ballers at Albany NY's Washington Park - aka, the Graveyard. It offers a courtside view of the unwritten rules, hierarchy and special code of ethics of pickup ball, and provides a revealing glimpse into the off-the-court struggles and triumphs of a core group of players who call the court their home. It's a thought-provoking portrait of urban basketball that will challenge what you think you know about the world behind the chain-link fence.

Ballin at the Graveyard tells the story of America’s weekend warriors.  It chronicles the importance of ballin’, which one person describes as “like food.”   To him, “other than job and family,” there is nothing more important than the Saturday run.  Ballin’ at the Graveyard explores why this is the case, explaining why these asphalt sanctuaries are so important: family, community, and brotherhood. 

The pickup game is a place where everyone has a role, where the players come together not just for the game but the experience; they become a community because of the shared hours spent on the court and off debating politics, war, relationships, and what is going on the community.   They are not just ballin; they are all chattin, debatin, and lovin one another in the graveyard as well. 

The film focuses viewers attention on the rules of pickup basketball – you have to know who to pickup on your squad; you have to know how to get next; you have to know who gets a call (all about status); and you have to know how to make a call (“the walk”). If you want to stay on the court all day long, you have to perfect these rules.  Ballin at the Graveyard highlights how everything goes back to the desire to stay on the court. 

Knowledge, however, isn’t simply about surviving the graveyard but rather fitting into the community as well.  New arrivals have to learn the system, becoming part of the community.  In this regard Ballin’ at the Graveyardnot only highlights the process of basketball acculturation, but the ways that players, especially new arrivals, must prove themselves within the community.  Whether through withstanding (and dishing out) the physical play or engaging in trash talking; whether by “respecting the call” and not backing down, pickup basketball is about integrating into the community and its established rules and mores. 

Assimilation is as much about mental toughness as one’s crossover and ability to finish at the rim.  It is also about proving one’s manhood over and over again.  This is quite evident in watching Ballin’ at the Graveyard, although the film misses an opportunity to complicate and unpack these gendered performances.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not asking for Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu to critical interrogate gender identity on the court (although their voices would be greatly appreciated) but a little more attention to the performative dynamics within this space. The desire to let the players speak for themselves, to elevate the voices of those from inside the community, leads to limited critical analysis and depth throughout the film. 

The decision to privilege the voices of the players limits its potential to unpack the ways that masculinity and race plays out on the court.  With the handful of white players, one being Basel, Ballin’ at the Graveyard leaves viewers without the necessary depth regarding race.  It argues that race matters on the court, but that the omnipresence of race doesn’t result in conflict and tension.  In one scene a player laments a white competitor’s success against him, describing the humiliating experience as one where he “bust[ed] my ass.”  In another instance, Basel describes himself as a “minority” on the court where his “whiteness isn’t an advantage.”  These moments point to the immense potential of the film whereupon the social, cultural, gender, and racial realities on the court could have taught viewers about how race matters on and off the court.

As an ethnography, the film offers very little space for intervention and expanded complexity.  Whether in regards to race, gender, identity, or even the ways that segregation remains a distinct reality on (and off the court), the film never moves the discussion beyond the court.  Yet, the film isn’t about sociological analysis or cultural theory, unless articulated by the ballers of Graveyard, but rather shining a spotlight on this community.

The privileging of the players represents the strength of the film in that it concludes by telling the stories of several of the Graveyard’s legends.  Although these back-stories would have better served the film had they been integrated throughout, they represent a powerful part of the film.  Those on the court are teachers, counselors, principals, and others committed to enriching the lives of others.  The film documents how they are preparing the next generation on and off the court.

The film’s success rests with its ability to elicit a range of emotions.  I found myself analyzing, and thinking, reflecting on my own pickup ball experiences all while analyzing it as a scholar.  I found myself crying during parts of the film and laughing at other moments.  For me, one moment encapsulated the rich texture of the film. In that instance, a white player finds himself being ridiculed for getting dunked on by a black player – “he dunked on you for segregation.”  As such, the film gives viewers this range of emotions all while conveying depth, humanity, and complexity of the players.  Although the film had the potential to turn pickup ball into a spectacle, into a touristic experience defined by a white gaze at the trash-talking and hard fouling,  Ballin’ at the Graveyard stays away from this territory, leaving viewers with much to think about. 

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of the just released After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press) as well as several other works. Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan, layupline, Feminist Wire, and Urban Cusp. He is frequent contributor to Ebony, Slam, and Racialicious as well as a past contributor to Loop21, The Nation and The Starting Five. He blogs @No Tsuris.