Why Your Community Ain't Like Mine

Subtitle: And How You Make Sure I Know That I'm Not Welcome. A recent look around the blogosphere and mental cataloguing of episodes of epic fail prompted me to think about community, and lack of community, and "exclusion" right now. These are some of my (incomplete, choppy, certainly not perfectly worded) reflections.

Part One: Realize that parents are people. Realize that parents are the same people you knew before… Realize that parents can be activists, but they are also parents. -Noemi

when you have a child
no one finds it tragic.
no map records it as an instance of blight. -Alexis Pauline Gumbs

They would chop me up into little fragments and tag each piece with a label... Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me. -Gloria Anzaldúa

I’m teaching a class this summer in black women’s history. The other night, I previewed a film about Mrs. Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Commonly described as “unflinching” and “uncompromising, she was active in anti-lynching and civil rights agitation. She was also a suffragist. One of her friends was Susan B. Anthony. The relationship between the two women hit a rocky patch in the 1890s, when Wells married and began to have children.


Wells-Barnett noticed that Anthony’s attitude toward her changed. In the film, Paula Giddings, one of Wells-Barnett’s biographers, noted that Anthony began to “bite out” Wells-Barnett’s married name.

Eventually, Wells-Barnett felt it necessary to call Anthony out about it:

Finally, I said to her, “Miss Anthony, don’t you believe in women getting married?” She said, “Oh, yes, but not women like you who had a special call for special work. I too might have married but it would have meant dropping the work to which I had set my hand. She said, “I know of no one better fitted to do the work you had in hand than yourself. Since you have gotten married, agitation seems practically to have ceased. Besides, you have a divided duty. You are here trying to help in the formation of [the Afro-American] League and your eleven month old baby needs your attention at home. You are distracted over the thought that maybe he is not being looked after as he would if you were there, and that makes for divided duty.”*

Anthony was questioning Wells-Barnett’s dedication, her supposed prioritization. She had her own perception of what Wells-Barnett’s activism should’ve looked like and resented the change. What she didn’t understand, according to Wells-Barnett, was that “I had been unable… to get the support which was necessary to carry on my work [and] had become discouraged in the effort to carry on alone.”

I thought about this question Noemi asked wrt community-building:

[E]ver think why parents stop being involved in community events and meetings?

What does it mean when what you believed to be community abandons you?

I also thought about Kevin. He has, to put it lightly, been disturbed by the attacks on First Lady Michelle Obama by feminists who question her “feminist creds” and deride her dedication to family. “This shit goes way back, Kev,” I wanted to say after watching that documentary.

What I had said to him when he noted all the “Stepford Wife” comparisons, was “WoC are never supposed to prioritize our children and families.” Defined as laborers, our work is always presumed to better serve someone else's needs or goals. That other women think they can tell us how to be feminists is no surprise.

But my answer had it shortcomings. It’s not so much a matter of priorities. One thing I’ve learned by studying early black feminists is that some of those divisions are false—their activism was shaped to improve the lives of women, their families, and their communities. There was not necessarily a sense of "divided duty." Activism is not always easily divisible into neat categories. That's why those black clubwomen believed "a race can rise no higher than its women." That's why Anna Julia Cooper wrote

Only the BLACK WOMAN can say "when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me."

Susan Anthony's distress and the more spiteful critiques of Michelle Obama fail to take into account this interconnectedness. But these critiques prompt me to think also of Little Light's words, about how threatening our love and our attempts to define our lives and our activism for ourselves can be perceived:

It is time for us to acknowledge that our love is an act of war.

It seems distasteful to say. It feels wrong. Our love, our lives, our nurtured gardens and families, we say, these are not weapons. These are not acts of violence. To us, they are not.

Nonetheless, there are those who insist breathlessly, endlessly, that they are...

The very act of not getting to define everything for the rest of us is the end, for them.

Part Two: To build a community, parents and children should be welcome and not feel they can’t attend a meeting/event because of their baby(ies). ... [D]on’t you want the next generation to care about the same things you care about? When will this happen? -Noemi

[F]eminists have a choice in deciding what community they belong to. And they are implicitly choosing to stay away from and otherwise distance themselves from communities that make them uncomfortable or worried for any reason. This has consequences for the communities that they refuse to work with. Most importantly, it has consequences because WOMEN belong to those communities that they refuse to work with. -BfP

If feminism is supposed to work to improve the lives of all women, if it about forging connections and building communities for women, period, then I don’t understand this either. Oh, not so much the OP, though I think it does make some false divisions.

But the comments. At the very least, feminists should respect other women’s choices to have or not have children. But outside and within some feminist communities, childfree women are under excessive pressure to conform to what is considered normative. Those who choose not to have children are regarded as suspect, strange, threatening. Their choices are dismissed as temporary or mean. Those who don’t have children, but for reasons other than choosing not to, are pitied, regarded as incomplete and barren--which has to be one of the coldest words I’ve ever heard used to describe a human being.

As the mother of one child I get only a tiny bit of that, and it is wearying. I am routinely asked, “You really don’t want any more? What if you get married? What if a, b, or c happens?” Often, the implication is that I am selfish, both for not wanting to invest the enormous amount of time and effort required to parent a baby and because my son will be “alone” or “lonely.”

You know what my response to that is not? Attacking other women. I don’t think I have had some magical experience that childfree women are sorely lacking and will forever be deprived because of. I can honestly say that many days, I only survive motherhood. I don’t master it, I don’t excel at it.

But how do you nurture and create community when things like this stand? When women are called “moos,” “breeders,” and “placenta-brains” and their children “widdle pweshuses” and “broods?”^^ When you cast your community as one in which women who have children and women who are childfree are diametrically (perhaps, diabolically) opposed and that mothers (gasp) are taking over the movement and leaving slack that others have to catch up? When it becomes clear that some of us are not welcome into your community? When your remarks indicate that you are, in fact, chillingly “independent of community?” I borrowed that phrase from BfP and the moment she said it, my mind began clicking.

All kinds of feminists can nod when I write about the lie that is the capitalistic ideal of “rugged individualism.” They can see the cruelty and efforts at social control when I talk about the attacks on poor mothers that begin and end with “Why are you having kids and who do you expect to take care of them?” They can see the patriarchy at work in the divide and conquer strategy that is the “mommy wars.”

But they can’t see the damaging individualism inherent in their feminism. Of course, I don’t mean in choosing not to have children—familial and community obligations are commonly fulfilled by all of us, not just mothers. I mean the sentiment revealed in expressing aversion and revulsion towards women who do have children. As Noemi asks,

why is motherhood and heavens forbid, single parenthood a step back in the eyes of activists and feminists? If the choice to terminate a pregnancy is radical, why isn’t the choice in being a mother radical?

I mean feeling that it's okay to demean and dehumanize whole groups of people because they made a choice you would not or because of their age, and repudiating any suggestion that said groups can be an important part of your community.

They can’t see the analogy between conservatives saying, “Who do you expect to take care of them?” and some feminists “roll[ing] their eyes when someone brings up childcare.” They can’t see the divide and conquer so apparent in “women with children v. childfree women.”

If feminism is about meeting “our” needs and some of “us” are mothers, why is it seen as a hostile takeover if I ask about childcare? If I express concern about keeping a roof over our heads or clothes on my child’s back? If I write about how my feminist consciousness is often raised by my experiences as a mother? If that is what your feminist community is about, then to quote Noemi again, “This is not community. This is not a welcomed community.”

Part Three: What new skills and influences will single parents give their children if the community doesn’t think it’s important for them to be involved? -Noemi

you have chosen to be...
in a community
that knows that you are priceless
that would never sacrifice your spirit
that knows it needs your brilliance to be whole -Alexis Pauline Gumbs

I struggled for a few days trying to find the words to say what I wanted to say about my community of WoC, why I feel it as community, why I think other women feel it as community. Should I use the words mutuality, reciprocity? Should I use the word vulnerable--because in the loving and trusting, in refusing to hold ourselves "independent of community," we do make ourselves vulnerable, but we also make ourselves strong. "Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be," wrote Audre Lorde, "not in order to be used, but in order to be creative."

I don't know the exact words for an accurate description. I do know that I don't feel that I have to compartmentalize. I don't have to spend a lot of time developing a defense of why this or that is a "feminist issue" with clearly, neatly defined parameters. I don't feel that there are parts of who I am that I cannot discuss or bring into the community.

I do not feel the false divisions. Why?

Because if I had to choose one word to describe Alexis Pauline Gumbs, it'd be love and I am humbled by how it infuses her words and actions.

Because cripchick expresses pride in our kids as they journey to become revolutionaries. Also, I'm convinced the sun shines out of her.

Because Fabi, Noemi, Lex, Mai’a, and Maegan and others write about revolutionary motherhood.

Because I find myself wanting to take that machete out of BA’s hands and go off on people who make her feel “gunshy" and I know Donna does, too.

Because women cheer when Baby BFP speaks.

Because Sylvia virtually cheered me through that PhD and I smile each time I think about writing her name-comma-Esq.

Because Lisa writes letters to her Veronica.

Because BfP invites us to take our own journeys and come together to share the discoveries.

Because Adele always hears me. Always.

Because Kameelah writes of creating community with her students, centering their art and the way they see the world, and she invites us in.

Because Anjali answers my questions about caring for our communities on macro and micro levels.

Because BA agonizes when she wonders what La Mapu learned about the importance of WoC voices when she witnessed an event in which those voices were, once again ignored.

These are just a few reasons, a few examples of the sense of accountability, to each other, to our children, to our work on- and off-line (and thank you, Aaminah, for helping me to understand that). Maybe this isn't unique to my community. But as WoC, a community that finds us and our work and our involvement "priceless" is not common. What WoC do commonly discover in feminist communities are

real experiences of having hard work devalued – many members of a supposed community literally saying, your work is worthless, you’re haters, critique sliding off like teflon.

But back to that accountability, that rejection of "independent of community." I finally found words that reflect some of what I feel. And me being me, of course I found them in a book. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins writes,

[T]he conceptualization of self that has been part of Black women's self-definition is distinctive. Self is not defined as the increased autonomy gained by separating oneself from others. [S]elf is found in the context of family and community--as Paule Marshall describes it, "the ability to recognize one's continuity with the larger community." By being accountable to others, African American women develop more fully human, less objectified selves. Rather than defining self in opposition to others, the connectedness among individuals provides Black women deeper, more meaningful self-definitions.

Part Four: We are sistas with brown skin we knew that from jump. … [N]o one could understand what it was like… to wonder if this silence this ignoring this "forgetfulness" is planned or just the final realization that while talking about you is sufficient, privilege and entitlement means you can be ignored pretty fully and suffer no consequences, because someone is always eager to take your place -BlackAmazon

[I]f feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing... well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement. -BfP

I mentioned the example of BA and La Mapu last so that I could roughly segue into this. I’ll begin by saying that inclusion is rarely worth a damn--it is used as a substitute for "bona fide substantive change."** It’s arrogant to think it’s up to you to “include” us in feminism. We’ve been there, part of the foundation, existing as "the bodies on which feminist theories are created."

And you know what? People who think they have the power to include also often exclude.

Yes, in a specific sense, I’m talking about the Brooklyn listening party. I hurt for Mala, especially when I read this:

Pero it’s not real enough for people who said they would come to a listening party to support something that means alot to me and other hermanas that I love. It’s not real enough for them to visualize my carrying a stroller with a 30 poundish toddler up and down subway stairs, walking miles not for exercise pero so that I don’t have to buy subway fare and can afford milk, walking to change a bag of pennies, thinking of pawning some earrings. It’s real enough for me to go talk to young people about identity, media, gender and race, pero it’s not real enough for people to think it’s important to support what we do beyond a cursory pat on the head for a job well done little spic girl who we can’t even be bothered to name. I have been invited to two national conferences this summer, pero there is no money to get me there and of course the orgs who want my face, my race and my gender can’t be bothered to actually spend money. They will find another woman of color, mami of color, Latino blogger to take my place, one who they deem more worthy because they can pay their own way or because they play the game well, etc etc.

I hurt for BA and La Mapu and Ms. Poroto and all of us.

And, yes, I was angry, too, about the listening party, about the general reception of the SPEAK! CD, about how it is reflective of how the voices and efforts of WoC are regarded.

From the moment BA wrote this

ONCE AGAIN

with people this time being extended the olive branch and courtesy of the voices of my sisters and the hospitality of my BEST FRIEND

have not tried to help contact or even SPEAK one iota

and did not have the COMMON FUCKING DECENCY to return contact on PERSONAL INVITATIONS.

I wondered, how is it made, this decision about which feminists are important enough to support? Why do I read about this book, and that appearance, and this podcast, and yay, yay, yay when it comes to white feminists…

But everything is eerily silent when it comes to the work of WoC?

The vows of support,

the “oh, yes, ‘your issues’ are important!”, ***

the “I totally recognize how very necessary your voice and your experiences are to feminism,” it all melts away, words belied by (in)action.

Not just this time.

I am left thinking of the name of Donna’s blog and the quote from which it is derived:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

I am left wondering, like Noemi, why are we a luxury?

Expendable and interchangeable--important enough to be invited, too insignificant for anyone to develop a real idea or plan for how we are to get there.

Flighty and abstract, with all that focus on love. Or, as Nadia says,

our solutions are disregarded as being…
-too imaginative, not practical
-amatuer, short sighted
-not real organizing / change-making / “movement building”

In/Ex-cluded.

Part 5: For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. -Audre Lorde

[T]hose tools [of patriarchy] are used by women... against each other. -Audre Lorde

Things I fully expect to happen in the aftermath of this post and this one and so many others: WoC themselves will continue to be ignored, while their words and theories are appropriated, depoliticized, made more "palatable."

There will still be attempts to define how our work, our activism, our "priorities" should look--and justifications for why our failure to adhere means we can't be part of certain of communities.

People will continue to scream "get off your ass and do it yourself, stop bitching, stop complaining, stop crying racism, stop stop stop, pull yourselves up by your boot straps and just DO IT!" while simultaneously ignoring that we have been "just doing it" forever with no need for outside motivation and admonishment.

I will from time to time, get angry, feel isolated, say, "Fuck this! What is wrong with you?!"

Then I will sigh, and take comfort in the fact that "there’s us.

it’s the best thing about being us."

I will take comfort in the fact that we know

our words are not a luxury

our love is not a luxury

we are not a luxury. We know that... and quite often, that is enough.

__________________________________
*Toni Morrison read this part of her memoirs in the film, but you can find it and the quote I mention a few lines later, here.

^^ETA: Clicking links led me to this critique by mzbitzca

**PHC, Black Feminist Thought, 6.

*** Wherein "our issues" are always about our victimization, never about our activism and agency--that's objectification, too.

SPEAK! CD

Coming soon...



A description:

Speak! is a women of color led media collective and in the summer months of 2008, they created a CD compilation of spoken word, poetry, and song. This is the first self-named album.

With womyn contributors from all over the country, Speak! is a testament of struggle, hope, and love. Many of the contributors are in the Radical Women of Color blogosphere and will be familiar names to you. Instead of just reading their work, you'll be able to hear their voices.

I can guarantee you will have the same reaction as to when I heard them speak, I was mesmerized.

Proceeds of this album will go toward funding mothers and/or financially restricted activists wanting to attend the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI this July. This is our own grassroots organizing at its finest with financial assistance from the AMC. We collaborated and conference called for months and here it is, ready for your purchasing.

In addition to these moving testaments, there will be a zine, featuring more of our work and a curriculum available to further process the meaning of each piece for yourself, education, or a group discussion. The possibilities are endless.


You get all of this for less than $20, you can order one for yourself or buy a gift card for friend which can be redeemed to buy the CD. Stay on your toes and look for more information come January 1, 2009. Only 200 copies are available.


Forward this promo vid widely and to the ends of your contact list. See the link here.

Much love.

When I first heard the CD, I described my reaction as something like, "it made me feel good in a place where I didn't know 'good' was possible."

The Gays vs. African Americans Meme Benefits No One

ETA: In the comments of Renee's post about the issue, I found this link to Shannika putting it down as to why "The Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8"

Kismet, La Macha, Pam Spaulding, Kevin and many others have brought my attention to the fact that African Americans are being "blamed" for the passage of the anti-gay marriage propositions on election day. There is a sentiment, from some (and Dan Savage is not alone if the comments on myriad blogs are to be believed), that African Americans betrayed gays (and forgive this simple explanation as if those don't ever intersect) who overwhelmingly supported Obama.

As Kevin notes, it is hurtful and troubling that an estimated 70% of African Americans who voted in California supported Prop 8. And, like Kevin, I also point to this quote by La Macha:

Black and Latin@ communities have some big time issues with queer hate.

The huge role of the black church in some black communities--institutions that I believe are largely socially conservative and patriarchal--assures the perpetuation and validation of homophobia.* So, too, does the emphasis on a certain "type" of black manhood, an idolization of "hypermasculinity" that defines black gay men as somehow lacking, less than men. These are but two factors that render black gays, to borrow a quote from Pam, "marginalized within a marginalized community."

But here's the other half of La Macha's quote:

I also think gay organizations have to confront their very real racism within their organizing strategies.

Pam and La Macha both point out that there has not been enough outreach from gay organizations to communities of color. I think we are often written off, as Dark Rose noted at Pam's, as "hopelessly unenlightened" or, in the words of La Macha, "just conservative." From one of Pam's commenters came this anecdote:

One of the groups fighting [Florida's Prop 2] made it very clear that they were going to do no outreach whatsoever to the black community.

And from La Macha's second post:

Gloria Nieto had a sense of those demographic forces, too. When Nieto, a lead organizer for the No on Proposition 8 campaign in San Jose, wanted to distribute campaign signs in Spanish and Vietnamese this fall, she had to get them made herself because the statewide campaign only had signs in English.

I agree with Kevin when he says it's a two way street--and not in the "You owe me because I did A B or C" sense. As Kevin says:

[I]t doesn’t work that way. You vote for, you give aid to, you advocate for other people and causes because it is the right thing to do. If you’re doing it because you expect something in return, your doing it for the wrong reasons. No one wins in this situation because nothing has changed. No fundamental shifting of paradigms has occured. It’s simply, “I’ll throw you a bone if you throw me one back.” And the falling on the convenient (always marginalized, conveniently enough) scapegoat is just plain tired.

This is not the way to build connections and support. And, as many of these bloggers have noted, the simplistic equation of gay = white and the resultant Gays vs. African Americans denies the existence and experiences of black gay people.

Work has to be done, by us, within our communities, too. The last year has brought home to me the privilege and complicity I've shown in ignoring or discounting homophobia. When I was trying to take Alex and Coti's side when so much of our small town and black Baptist church were vehemently against them, I was amazed by the rumors and questions that flew. Was I gay? I must be gay! I must be secretly sleeping with one of them! The pastor of my church announced after a sermon that there was a special place in hell for people who were leading young people astray--though I'm sure I wasn't the only focus of that attack, I know I was a target. I complained aloud one day about being "tired of this shit" and Alex looked right at me said, "You're only going through a little bit of what we've gone through for years."

And then there was the time when Alex, Coti's brother, V (who is gay), and I went to the drive through at Wendy's. I recognized our order-taker as one of my students and said so. V looked at him in response and the guy went off. "Why are you looking at me?" he kept asking. "Don't be all up in my face like that, punk." I pulled up and told V to get out and got talk to the manager. That shook me so badly and V was like, "Oh, I'm used to it. Forget him." But I made him go in and the manager pretty much stated that he didn't believe that because the guy wouldn't act that way.

But the last straw for me, with my town and "my" church? When my sister told me that she had been horrified because the pastor stood and used the word "fags" and "freaks" during service. I vowed that I would not go back. This church that bears my great-great grandfather's name on the cornerstone as a founding deacon. This church where I was baptized at four, went to Sunday School for years, worked in the kitchen, socialized with the youth department, sang in the choir.

It was suddenly no longer "mine." I suppose it hadn't been in a long time, but I'd just reached a point in my life where my brain couldn't support the cognitive dissonance required for me to be one person "in the world" and another "in the church." And still, it was hard to let go.

I've seen black gays and lesbians met with overt hatred--vicious name calling, physical violence, gay men being characterized as all "sneaky," "promiscuous," and "down low" and thus the cause of the truly alarming incidence of HIV/AIDS in black communities. I've seen the less overt resentment and ignorance--my experience in particular is that the personhood and sexuality of lesbians are erased--they are not gay women, they are male impersonators. I've had people tell me Alex didn't really like girls because Coti (who identifies as a stud) is "so much like a boy" and that black women are gay only because of a shortage of men. And I've repeatedly heard that lesbians can be cured by the mythical powers of the almighty penis, literally fucked straight.

But there have been good moments within my intimate community, too. I had my kid watch the Hilary Duff and Wanda Sykes "think before you say that's so gay" commercials sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and we talked about them. A couple of days ago, he told me his friend Jacob said that it was "gay" that my son was on the jump rope team at their school. My son said he asked Jacob, "What does that mean? Gay is not bad." And then he parrotted the commercials and told Jacob to think before he says stuff.** Now, whether this is how the conversation actually unfolded, I don't know, but he remembers and he got the point of the commercials.

When I was younger, my paternal great uncle M.C. was one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. I wasn't even ten when he died. When I was a little bit older, I was watching a talk show with my mom's mom and, while I don't remember the exact topic, I remember the discussion centered around gays. My grandmother said hesitantly, "You know your uncle M.C. was... like that?" I remember being shocked and shaking my head. And she reached over and patted my hand--my grandmother was not a physically affectionate person, that's why I remember that--and she said, "That's okay. There ain't nothing wrong with it at all." My 60+ year-old, southern grandmother told me that, in awkward language, but with a lovely sentiment.

She knew, having been an unwed mother, what it was like to be talked about and ostracized. I have never forgotten that moment. That and my mom's constant affirmations of people's dignity and right to live their own lives and her reminders, rooted in her Christianity, "to love everyone" and "not mistreat anyone," had more effect on who I am than all the negativity I heard in my church and in the street.

Not everyone had a grandmother like mine or has a mama like mine, though, and that's why I think the work of coalition-building is so vital. When people like Pam and Dark Rose and Alex and Coti and V are disappeared, marginalized, treated as if they don't exist by two of their communities, it's easier for the dehumanization to continue.
____________________________________
*Is every black church like this? Of course not, but that has been my experience.

**My son is growing up and making me so simultaneously proud and frustrated that I see myself morphing into one of those, "My kid is the greatest, most complex person in the world!" parents and I'm not even fighting it.

In Honor of Community Organizing

H/T Kevin and Sylvia.

When I first heard, via tweets from mattt, Donna, and Kevin, how the Republicans snarkily maligned community organizing to attack one prominent former community organizer, I was floored.

As a historian of African Americans in the American South, my respect for community organizers is measureless. These were the people that got tired of the status quo and shook things up, who kicked Jim Crow’s ass mercilessly after he had beaten them down for decades. For the organizers who came from the communities seeking change, there was not even the little bit of escape that organizers from outside the communities had—there would be no going home (or back north) to rest your weary body or regroup. Your home might have been firebombed or riddled with bullets or you might have been evicted from it.

And yet, because they were “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” they persevered.

So here is some suggested reading about the power and effect of community organizing:

Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change



Charles Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle

And here are two community organizers, women I love, historical figures whom I highly revere.

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer:

She grew tired of a life dictated by sharecropping and white supremacy and decided to make a change. She tried to register to vote and took some members of her community with her. After being arrested and evicted, she kept on. She worked to register voters. She was arrested again and beaten. She helped organize Freedom Summer. She, along with other delegates of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, appeared at the Democratic National Convention to show the other Democratic Mississippi delegation as a farce--it only represented white Mississippians. After the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, she didn't stop working for her community. From Wikipedia:

She continued to work on other projects, including grassroots-level Head Start programs, the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign.

I don't think that's anything to make fun of.

And here is Mrs. Septima Poinsette Clark:

I know her most for her work with adults, teaching them to read and about citizenship education, through the Highlander Folk School. From the AT&T South Carolina African-American History calendar:

Long before sit-in demonstrations and bus boycotts, Mrs. Septima Poinsette Clark waged a personal war against racism. in the early 1920s, she was involved in efforts to allow blacks to teach in public schools in Charleston. But after she was named vice president of the Charleston branch of the NAACP, she was barred from teaching in South Carolina public schools. She was firm in her resolve and never wavered in her support of the NAACP. Mrs. Clark spent all of her life to insure a better lifestyle for all people. She worked with the YWCA, the Tuberculosis Association, and the Charleston Health Department.

She provided valuable training to the residents of the Carolina sea islands. She also established schools for illiterate adults. Septima Clark's national prominence came as a result of their work to establish citizenship schools throughout the 11 states of the Deep South. When legislation called for Americans to be able to read and interpret portions of the Constitution in order to register to vote, Mrs. Clark devoted her time to teaching these skills to thousands of southern blacks. Based on her experiences at the Highlander Folk School near Chattanooga, Tennessee, the citizenship schools were formed to teach blacks to read, write and understand the basic structure of the government.

So this idea that community organizers are somehow not valid, that community organizing is not important, honorable work? Lots of people are calling bullshit on that today. Kevin has a list of them.

Fast Food Moratorium

I’m no great fan of fast food. My personal tastes lie elsewhere. I’ve done the obligatory reading of Fast Food Nation. I think it’s repulsive that so many food ads target kids. I also know the hell that McDonald’s Chicken McNugget and subsequent “further processed” items have wrought for poultry processing workers—think I’m kidding? Read Steve Striffler’s Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food.

But something about this is not quite reassuring:

City officials are putting South Los Angeles on a diet. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to place a moratorium on new fast food restaurants in an impoverished swath of the city with a proliferation of such eateries and above-average rates of obesity.

Maybe it’s the reporters “cute” use of the word diet, when we all know how well those don’t work.

My real complaint is that banning fast food restaurants seems just to skim the surface of this issue. How will the city bring more healthful alternatives to poor communities? More importantly, how will people in South L.A. afford it? Closing fast food restaurants does nothing to address the underlying issue of poverty. Residents will still have limited resources for buying food, as one man attests:

South Los Angeles resident Curtis English acknowledged that fast food is loaded with calories and cholesterol. But since he's unemployed and does not have a car, it serves as a cheap, convenient staple for him.

On Monday, he ate breakfast and lunch -- a sausage burrito and double cheeseburger, respectively -- at a McDonald's a few blocks from home for just $2.39.

Emphasis mine. With less money to spend on food, people typically by cheaper foods. Inexpensive foods are packed with fat and sugar, the cheapest additives, Striffler argues, to give them taste.

Relatedly, how will declaring a moratorium on fast food restaurants help people who can’t afford to eat out anywhere? Within this group, if we focus on the subset who receive food stamps—and I say subset because many, many people who qualify for food stamps don't receive any--and get most of their foods from local stores, a moratorium will not bring more grocery stores with better fresh food offerings to the area. Lack of access to such stores is a problem in South L.A.:

South Los Angeles lacks grocery stores, fresh produce markets and full-service restaurants with wait staff and food prepared to order.
South Los Angeles only has four major grocery stores, as compared to 13 in West Los Angeles

The emphasis on fast food obscures at least one other detail, as well. Fast food restaurants, defined “as those that do not offer table service and provide a limited menu of pre-prepared or quickly heated food in disposable wrapping,” aren’t exactly unique in their less-than-healthful alternatives. The menus at so-called “casual dining” and upscale restaurants can be daunting.

In our e-mail discussion of the article, Liss noted that the moratorium brings up employment issues. Fast food restaurants offer entry-level jobs to unskilled workers. I do not claim they are pleasant or particularly fulfilling jobs, but that they are often needed. My co-blogger, mrs. o, helped her mother care for a family of five by working at McDonald’s. And for a few people, it offers some upward mobility through management jobs.

Finally, this sentence aggravated me:

The moratorium, which can be extended up to a year, only affects standalone restaurants, not eateries located in malls or strip shopping centers.

I’m assuming that it’s not poor people who are spending lots of money shopping; I wonder why the city exempts malls. It gives me a whole, “Let’s regulate the poor,” feeling.

Or, more specifically, “Let’s regulate the brown and black poor.” Speaking in terms of substances that are legal, we have constructed the process of taking things into our body as highly personal, a matter of free choice. The limitations that the government places on our alcohol consumption or where we smoke, for example, are primarily to protect the safety and well-being of other people. Americans, as the myth goes, are individualists who would not take much more governmental interference with such intimate choices.

Yet, the symbol of that rugged American individual who gets to choose and to benefit from free will has, by default, been white and male. I think it is no coincidence that officials in South L.A., which is overwhelmingly Latin@ and black, decided to enact this moratorium. I think one very valid question is would it be suggested or implemented in poor area composed of primarily white residents? In a country that has typically held the choices and bodies of white men in highest regard? A healthy dose of skepticism is absolutely required when the government claims to act in the best interest of the health and welfare of people of color.

In the same vein, we need to examine other motivations behind the ban. As South L.A. is an impoverished area, many of the residents are probably eligible for Medicaid and Medicare programs. According to one 2005 article, these two programs paid for half of all health-care costs attributed to obesity (quite the blanket category and one of which I am particularly wary given my own experiences with doctors who fault patients' weight for a wide range of problems).* Is this moratorium, then, about a nanny state protecting people from themselves, as the link Petulant posted earlier suggests, or is it like other governmental limitations protecting the (economic) well-being of others?

Either way it is framed is problematic. Either people who are black and brown, poor and fat, cannot be entrusted to care for themselves--a framing that ignores the very real lack of choice mentioned earlier and other obstacles to quality health and health care. Or, their fat, black and brown bodies represent a threat to taxpayers' wallets--and "taxpayers," when we talk about funding of social programs like Medicaid and Medicare, are constructed as white and non-poor.
_______________________________________
*Eric A. Finkelstein, Christopher J. Ruhm, Katherine M. Kosa, “Economic Causes and Consequences of Obesity,” Annual Review of Public Health, 26, (April 2005): 239-257. Can't find this article for free online, but Dr. Michelle Mello mentions the statistic here.

Fighting Violence against Black Women

Via Nora at The SAFER Blog:

The following letter was forwarded to me by a fellow student, and I then asked the author if I could share it on our blog. Thanks to Kendra Tappin, Stanford University, for asking others to join her in taking a stand to combat sexual violence against black women.

The text of the letter:

Dear Friends,

On Wednesday, June 25 a 20-year-old black woman was raped and robbed in her apartment in Philadelphia. A man forced himself into her apartment and once he was inside he called up two of his friends. After four hours the three men left. The victim was left to walk a mile alone to the closest police station where she reported the crime. The woman’s next-door neighbor has said that she saw the initial intrusion and heard the screaming but that she went to bed and did nothing. Other neighbors reported that they also heard the woman’s screams but that they did nothing.

Twenty-four hours before this incident a 48 year-old woman was raped just a few blocks away. She was lying in her bed when an unknown man intruded into her home. He raped her and he stabbed her in her neck. Police say that they do not believe the two crimes are related or that any of the same men are involved.

I have been silent on this issue, but this morning I woke to a note from a friend who reminded me of the powerful ways in which our silence condemns us.

I am writing you this letter because I know we must do the telling even if we feel afraid, anxious or alone. I am writing this letter to urge you to take up this issue as though you or your family member were the victim, and because I am troubled.

I am troubled because there seems to be an epidemic of violence, sexual violence, against black women. I am troubled because this country’s history is replete with instances of violence against black women, denigration of black women, sexual violation of black women and then turning a blind eye those crimes. Presently I am reminded of:


• The acquittal of R. Kelley

• Megan Williams, a 20 year old black woman in West Virginia who was kidnapped and gang raped by 6 other people, three of whom were women, forced to eat animal feces and insulted with racial slurs.

• A 35 year old black woman in Miami, Florida living in the Dunbar Village Housing Projects who was gang raped by up to 10 men. For three hours the men beat and raped her. They also forced her to perform oral sex on her 12 year-old son whom they also beat and doused with household chemicals. Several months after the crime 4 teenagers, aged14-18, were arrested and charged in relation to the crime.

• The New Jersey 4, black lesbians ages 19, 20, 20 and 24 who were sentenced to prison terms ranging between 3 to 11 years because they defended themselves against a physical and sexual assault from a man who held them down, choked them, spat on them, pulled out their hair from their scalps all because these women are lesbians.

• A conversation with a friend who was distressed because she had heard signs of domestic violence in her neighbor’s apartment but did not know what to do. She was anxious about calling the a hotline because she didn’t think they would offer real alternatives, and she was anxious about calling the police because she thought they’re presence would exacerbate the situation.

• My interaction with a visibly pregnant woman in East Palo Alto with whom l sat and spoke on the street corner after seeing her walking and sobbing, hearing her engaged in a public shouting match with her boyfriend, and noticing black and blue bruises on her arms.

I am troubled by these cases because they reflect, I think, what seems to be an epidemic of violence against black women, little action on the part of our communities and the police/judicial system to protect them, and few strategies for how we might respond.

I am troubled because of the rate at which crimes of sexual and physical violence against black women seem to be occurring. Thinking about it I wonder:

• Why are these crimes happening?

• Is it that black women are being sexually assaulted with more frequency or is it that more cases are being reported?

• Why is it that crimes of sexual violence against black women, particularly as they are happening in such high instances, do not spark movements in our communities like the one to free the Jena 6? See for instance see the case of the New Jersey 4.

• Do these cases just serve as flash and puff for the media but nothing else?

• Is it that black women are quite simply expendable?

• What are we to do?

• For instance, I am for abolishing the prison industry, but how do we hold our communities and these men accountable in the interim when we do not as yet have the means set in place to do so?

I am deeply frustrated, traumatized and pained by the continued disregard for black women’s lives. But a sister-friend has reminded me that it is imperative that we transform our rage and frustration into a vision for action and that it is the power of all of us together that makes us brave.

I am asking you all to be courageous.

I am asking you to read Audre Lorde’s essay “Need,”* a trenchant call to end violence against black women, and her poem ”A Litany for Survival,” a reminder that our silence will not save us. I have attached both pieces. Audre Lorde wrote “Need” in 1979 when 12 black women in Boston were killed in the space of 4 months, but the police and the media ignored the killings claiming that these women were mostly prostitutes. Audre Lorde’s essay and poem are tools for our liberation and creation of a space for community action and healing to protect black women. Her powerful essay provides creative ways that we can respond to gendered violence.

Please read these pieces and share them with at least one other person.

Please sit and talk with people in your community to strategize and brainstorm ways that you could respond to sexual violence or any other kind of violence in our communities.

Please create ways to end gendered and sexual violence against women.

With love, love and more love,

Kendra

Kendra Tappin, Stanford University

_______________________________________
*I remember, as I struggle with the same issues, Lex recommended this piece to me as well. And I highly recommend it to you.

What My Mind Is Turning Over

The Newsweek article that Kim directed me to earlier this week about black women supporting R. Kelly. Though there were some things I agreed with, this, in particular, bothered me:

Sex crimes may be viewed as less important in a community defined by race and the issues surrounding it. Sexism isn't discussed much in the black community...

Then, tonight, Mrs. O suggested I break my no BET rule and watch Hip Hop vs. America II. I only caught the second half, and, on one hand, I was perturbed (isn't that an ugly word :-P) by MC Lyte's determination to portray black women's life as a constant battle with "THE CHOICE" a.k.a. "Which is more important, race or gender?" I've noted before that I believe that thinking creates a false dichotomy.

But, OTOH, I think some important points were made (and can I just say I really liked Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell and how San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris explained her support for Senator Obama?).

So I'm going to write a post about these two things--I rushed to the computer to do so tonight, but I think I'll let it marinate.

loving us to death

**Please welcome my best friend, Mrs. O, to the blog -elle**

R. Kelly is a free man! The guy on the radio declared that with such joy and pride, you would have thought he had won the 42 million dollar powerball. Now who am I, you may wonder, to wish ill on the great R. Kelly? Well, I will tell you who I am. I am a hardworking, intelligent African American woman who is so tired of the beatings-physical and emotional- that many women in THIS here United States suffer, at the hands of the men who profess to love them. It seems that the world we live in has lost its mind when it comes to treating women with the decency and fairness one should treat another human being. A man harms or kills his girlfriend or wife, she must have deserved it or she did not save herself is what many headlines scream at me from television news shows, news articles, and magazines.

Being a secondary educator, I have heard every excuse from my young African American students--male and some female--who try to get me to understand that R. Kelly is innocent. To that I respond with a GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! R. Kelly had been a pedophile every since I have been fat (and that has been forever). I can not remember a time when he was not in the news for sexing some young girl up. Whether it was marrying Aaliyah when she was just 15 and her parents having to arrange an annulment or settling out of court with young women to keep himself out of jail. It is common knowledge that while R. Kelly was engaged in many of these liaisons, he was married with children. I count his wife and daughters among the women he has hurt deeply.

And then there is the spectacle of the trial. He was indicted on 14 counts and found not guilty on all 14. So I ask you, how can he be on video tape (and yes it was him) having sex with two young ladies and be found not guilty because he says it was not him, although the other young lady
(who was his girlfriend at the time) testified that it was Kelly, herself, and the thirteen year old in the video? Does money talk that much? Or is it okay because the victim is a young black woman and, well, everyone knows how sexually ready and available we always are...

Elle posted about a case recently that I find especially ironic in light of the R. Kelly verdict. Tracy Roberson can be found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison because a judge felt she should be held responsible for her HUSBAND’S actions when he killed her lover. Now, she should be held responsible, BUT here we have R. Kelly on video and he is not responsible because his attorneys say it was not him on the video tape. Why is it that when women do something wrong, something that violates sexual norms, society says let’s burn them at the stake? Men, on the other hand, do something wrong and it seems we (and yes, this time I am looking at some of my sisters angrily) gather around them, sing Kumbayah and pray that God shows them the light? Well guess what? At this point, I do not care if they see the light. I would like to give them a light-under their asses so that they get their shit together.

To the R. Kellys, Bobby Brantleys, and other sexist jackasses(if you are not a sexist jackass then I am not talking to you) please do us women a favor and stop gracing us with your so called love, respect, and care, because you are loving us to death-physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

*Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women*

**On the day we found out about the R. Kelly verdict, my best friend, Mrs. O, called me, very upset. "I'm going somewhere where women matter," she told me. "Good luck with that," was my response. I haven't written about the verdict here because she wants to do so as soon as she gets back from a work-related conference.**

Via BfP

*The statement below was forwarded to me by friend, colleague and comrade William Jelani Cobb. Please feel free to add your name to the statement and to forward it to others.* http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

–Mark Anthony Neal

*Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women*

Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly’s absurd defense and find “reasonable doubt” despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.

We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly’s claims to innocence. *It is about our survival as a community*. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

o Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

o Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well

o Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music

o Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation

o Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.

o Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood

We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:
Who’s Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Films:
I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Simmons

Organizations
The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org
Men Stopping Violence: www.menstoppingviolence.org

Where to Begin

Inspired by BFP

Poster from a talk, based on one of my dissertation chapters, that I gave in February

So, a number of things have me thinking about vegetarianism/veganism. One, as noted above, are the thoughtful discussions BFP has about potentially becoming a veg*n.

Another is the nature of my work. Invariably, when I talk about my dissertation, I talk about conditions in poultry processing plants. For the workers, there is exhausting, dirty work, at unbelievable speeds. There is routine underpayment of wages. There are supervisors who treat you as if you are nothing. There is the huge company that will do almost anything--legal or extralegal--to keep workers from organizing. There is the exploitation of the most vulnerable workers. There are the "chicken" rashes, bone splinters, musculoskeletal disorders, cumulative trauma disorders, cuts and amputations, slippery, fat-slick floors, extreme temperatures, dealing with frightened, live chickens and dead ones that rest in a "fecal soup."

Here are the hands of a 22-year old man who works in live hang.

What happens in live hang really troubles me. The workers are scratched, pecked, and defecated upon. Frustrated and hurt, they take their anger out on the chickens. They throw the birds against the wall. They break their necks. One employee told me that once, a chicken scratched him so deeply, he took out his pocket knife and stabbed it.

I am also struck by this merging of memories that my mind has done. The first dates to the serious burns I suffered when I was twelve or so, the memory of seeing my skin actually blister and become translucent.

The second occurred when I was pledging. One of my line sisters, Ginger, was a vegan (I didn't even know the word back then). We loved her but thought she was so out there--she used to sit in our meetings drinking rice milk and twisting her short fro into what would soon become the beginning of locs. For one of our meetings, we decided to pick up some Popeye's chicken for dinner. Initially, it was in the car with Ginger and another of my line sisters. I was in the car behind them. Ginger flagged us down and three or four cars pulled over on the shoulder of the freeway; we all knew something terrible must have happened.

Ginger got out of the lead car, marched to where I was sitting and thrust the chicken into my lap. "Here," she said. "I cannot stand the smell of cooked flesh." We rolled our eyes, mumbled about how dramatic she was, and continued on. But her phrasing stuck with me. And sometimes when I have meat and I watch as it cooks, I am turned off by the blistering and browning of the flesh, remembering how horrible my own ordeal was.

Finally, I think an animal-free diet would work wonders for my health and my son's. He doesn't really eat a lot of meat, but his digestive system is in a mess and has been since he was small. He's on a 30-day glycolax prescription right now to ease chronic constipation and soiling.

But I am afraid. I have sworn to myself several times that I'm going to give up meat, one animal at a time. And I'm scared to do it. I think it is the result of this that BfP mentions, "many black feminist vegans I have read/talked to say that veganism is unfathomable as a choice to most of their community."

First, I spend an inordinate amount of time cooking. It relaxes me. I love trying new recipes. I love seeing things emerge from a group of ingredients to a beautiful, tasty whole.

But I also cook to nurture. I know that's problematic--to encourage people to seek comfort in food--but it's something that I know and am hesitant to unlearn. I cook for people I love. I cook for families when they are bereaved. I cook for friends when they're having parties. I cook when my closest friends and I are sitting around doing nothing. I cook for the kids at my summer job. It is something I like to do, something I take pride in, something I am comfortable with.

So imagine the idea of shaking all that up. What if people don't like my cooking anymore? What if I'm no longer good at it? What if I can't share meals anymore?

And then there is the outside resistance. My family looks at me crazily or with smirks when I bring it up. The other day I tried to discuss it with my mom. She stopped in the middle of sweeping and looked at me. "Why would you do that?" she asked. She sounded genuinely offended.

"Think about the processing industry, for one thing, Mama," I said.

"elle, I work in a plant and I eat meat." That threw me, gave me the feeling I get when I see people appropriate others' struggles/pretend to know more about others' plight than the people themselves. Did I sound like I was contemplating it for purely academic reasons? Was it a luxury I could afford to think about when so many other people cannot?

So there are times when I "don't feel right" about eating meat and others when I "don't feel right" about the idea of giving it up.

At this point, however, I have vowed to at least try.

Little Master Deuce

Yes, he will punch your lights out.

Okay, I've waited until the last minute again, so this will stay on top this week. My nephew, Deuce, is in a "Little Master" Pageant that culminates next Sunday (June 15). One of the things contestants are doing is raising money to help fund a new community center in my hometown. The center is needed desperately as the old one--built quite generously by a certain ex-NBA player from the area--has been taken over by a board of people who are hesitant to let people use it, particularly our youth, because they fear it will be damaged or people will "make too much noise."

There is very little for our kids to do outside of school activities and we want desperately to change that. Because I blog pseudonymously, I'm not posting up locations, etc, here, but I'm perfectly willing to tell you more via e-mail.

In any case, if you'd like to donate, please do so via Paypal. No amount is too small.

**If the donate button below won't work, please use the one in the right sidebar. I'm too tired to keep trying to fix it.**

Louisiana Politics (or Why I'm Mad at William Jefferson)

"Here's to no longer biting our tongues!" said a brilliant woman I know. In the spirit of that declaration, I just have to write hastily about one William Jefferson.

I don't know much about the Jefferson case; anyway you look at it $90,000 frozen dollars is a bit troublesome, especially given the allegations of past issues. But I'm mad at him. Yes, for the obvious reasons--because he's black and from Louisiana and a Democrat. Trust me, black Louisianans had (and apparently have) a lot of hope and pride tied up in this guy.

But you know why I'm really mad at him?

Jefferson was born in Lake Providence, a small town in East Carroll Parish in far northeastern Louisiana, where he and his eight brothers and sisters worked alongside their father, who was a sharecropper and a heavy-equipment operator for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Though neither of his parents had graduated from high school, Jefferson graduated from G.W. Griffin High School in Lake Providence and received a bachelor's degree from Southern University... He later earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1972.

The child of grade school drop-outs, sharecroppers, William Jefferson is probably a "first." Part of the first generation in his family to reap the benefits of civil rights struggles, to go to college (an Ivy, no less), to escape. Not to downplay what he means to his constituents, but can you imagine what his successes mean to his family and community?

I am a "first" myself. And I can't tell you how many people in my hometown expressed pride in me when I was working on my BA. How many elderly people came up to me in church or at the store and pressed soft, wrinkled dollar bills in my hand--a little something to take back to school with me. They used to make me stand there while they rummaged in their bosom, or reached for a safety pin that held money to the inside of their dresses, or dug slowly in faded backpockets for crumbling wallets. They were praying for me, they'd say, and they knew I'd be fine.

Or how often my hairdresser, who'd been doing my hair since I was a six-year-old getting a press and ponytail, waved away my payment and told me to "Save it for a book or something you might need." Or the number of little "scholarships"--like the one from the Parents' Civic and Social Club or the church education fund--that helped me buy books or eat off-campus or make a trip to the store. These people had a vested interest in me, much as I'm sure Jefferson's community had an interest in him.

Moreso than I, Jefferson comes from rural poverty. In 1990, for example, Lake Providence was the poorest commmunity in the nation--not just in Louisiana, which is something in and of itself, but in the whole damned country. I can't believe he's not some kind of symbol, a source of pride, proof that there is a way out of Lake Providence. His story, his legacy, means something to those people.

If he is guilty of wrongdoing, that is a lot to throw away, a lot to forsake. No one, not even firsts, can live their lives for other people; after all, people take a chance if they choose to live through you--God knows I've disappointed some. But I don't think there's anything wrong with realizing that, in the eyes of your community, you represent much more than yourself. I can't help thinking that ignoring that makes you a bit selfish.

That's why I'm mad at William Jefferson.