Oh Sister my Sister

"No one is ever going to want you all the time. You have to want yourself" - Frieda LoveJoy [this is so real. Celie had to learn it. We ALL have to learn it]

The movie Sister, Sister (1982) Staring: Diahann Carrol, Irene Cara, Rosalind Cash, is in fact BIBLICAL.

 I might have been born in the wrong decade. Rosalind Cash and that Afro are straight up testifying to me. Irene Cara's posture can do no wrong. Diahann Carroll's face was sculpted by the same person who worked on Adonis. No. Lie.


Sister,Sister is just LIFE. The movie makes me pretty much want to go back to the 70's live a hard ass life and come back to this era as a Chicago fried version of Mama Odie. This movie deals with the burdens of the dead, loyalty to false images, hopes, dreams, broken promises, human flaws, humanity, potential, and the way we are both helped and held back by family. It is just so beautiful and real and it is of course written by Maya Angelou. And whatever, I'm not going to hell for pointing out the visual similarities between Maya and Mama Odie. IT'S THERE DAMNIT. IT. IS. THERE.
 
 MOVING ON. . .to the devotional part of this here blog. Dear Jesus, The Buddha, Vishu, and all Slave Mothers who died during the middle passage. Thank you for Dr. Maya Angelou. She brought me Sunday morning in this movie.

There were no-good men, no-good fathers, righteous men, do right gangsters and gray colored preachers doing the right things the wrong way. There were flawed mothers, martyred matrons, divorced headstrong women who drank too much, and little boys trying too hard to be men. Lord PREACH.




And if Diahann Carroll's beauty and acting doesn't just make you want to pour out some Chardonnay in honor of the potential for utter fabulousness held in your very own ovaries then you are missing some links.
 She is the very ESSENCE of class and grace.
Everything about her makes me want to learn what all the forks and spoons at the dinner table are used for. Even when she engages in a FIERCE cat fight with Rosaline Cash near the end of the movie you think . . .oh these bitches are FIGHT-TING but I bet they don't break not one nail. And they don't. ** sips tea** ** genuflects to the classes bitches **  Diahann represents black style above and beyond what blacks were told they could. During the 70's black people were just discovering their aesthetic place in Hollywood. Diahann went ahead and set that bar to 10 and dared you regular fools to follow.  She is black and killing it ALL day long. When she shows up to an event she brings her own undertaker to clean up average bitches she has left in her footsteps. She just parts the green sea of jealous lesser women with a toss of her hair and a downward look of her perfect cheeck bones. Quite frankly she's made from the best stuff on earth.

Am I exaggerating? No. She's a bad bitch. I worship at her make-up table and I respect her shoe closet. If I could touch the hem of one of her Hermes scarves I bet my Lupus could be cured.

Regrets

I'm pretty sure that JoJo needs to just go ahead and come out with a new album

Jason deCaires Taylor Underwater Sculpture

So This right here? This shit right here? Is in fact on my bucket list.

Prophet in music.

NO Adele.
No I don't want to remember. Thank you. But I appreciate you reminding me. Adele's album 21 makes me want her to be heartbroken for life. I feel like her in a healthy happy relationship might just be the worst thing to happen to my ipod. She hits the notes and presses lyrics into my mind that gives me the feeling that Black Jesus came down from heaven to save just me from myself.

"when was the last time you thought of me"
well shit. right now asshole. You know I can't erase you from my memory. I LOVED you dickhead. When you love someone they take a piece of you with them when they stomp out of your life with your heart in the bottom of their shoe.

Adele is that kind of artist who makes me KNOW for sure that I am not alone in my loneliness and despair. She let's me know that it's ok that I'm handicapped in love.

She throws all of her inadequacies out on the table and is bare and raw and real and humble and brave and indignant all at the same time.

" But I know I have a fickle heart, and a bitterness, and a wondering eye and a heaviness in my head . . .but don't you remember? The reason you loved me before? Baby please remember. . .me. . .once more. . ."

And you know WHY my heart is fickle? Why I'm a little bitter? Because of the LAST bitch who hurt my got damn feelings. Jesus is lesson learned. The Lord is a timid deer. He has brought me this far and he would like me to live to see a cure to my Lupus and that can't happen if I let my whole self get lost in love.

"You used to love me"

ha. Well. I also used to shit my pants. Really. And when I was a child I did childish things but then I because a woman and I put away the things of my childhood. (except for cartoons, and ice cream, and you know board games).

"You used to love me"

maybe you still do. Maybe I still love you. But on all that is holy and Tina Turner's wig just because you love someone doesn't mean you need to BE with them. And that is the lesson that is being eased into my the soft place at the base of my skull behind my ears with THIS song.

And thaaaaaaaaaaat is the point isn't it.  that's the entire entirety wholistic all inclusive point of it. Isn't it? The reason we break up with people. There is ALWAYS a reason. but then we break up and we fall in love again 10 minutes after that door shuts and in those quiet moments we turn to that empty space in the bed and we think to ourselves wait . . . Why are they gone? OR we deal with someone who has left us and we have to fight every adult instinct in our body to not beg them to come back. Some of us don't fight, and we do beg but really that is rarely successful.

Adele is brilliant in her honest portrayal of a broken relationship and the truth of something that cannot and should not be fixed. Memories fad and bad memories sometimes fad the quickest. For those of us who have suffered trauma at the hands of loved ones this is a blessing but we must be vigilant. Faded memories should never lead to ignorance and repetition of the mistakes that lead to heartbreak.

Poetry and Me

“Poetry is not a luxury “~ Audre Lorde 

What if words have soul potential?

What if words are capable of curing maladies one letter at a time

We just haven’t figured out how to “work” them yet?

What if words have a real and bitter

first kiss cosmic wormhole cool breeze

Summer sunlight promise?

What if words have veins and bleed?

What if every word is pregnant

With starlight and sunsets

Moonshine and rising tides?

My voice knows

That words can cast kingdoms

Built on veranda’s with no

Houses surrounded by moats

With no dragons.

My words throw keys

That unlock emotions

And rip through silence

With the vision of necessity

What if words could pull terror

To its knees?

Wake up addicts from their haze?

Words were meant to be a crutch

And free papers

Ice and a torch

Poetry is meant to be a

Traveling foundation

And the Bard,

The Bard is meant

To be the vessel

Where dignity swells up

Puffs out

And leaks through

The Bard smears emotions across lines, and stages, and

Crowds

And the sentiment creeps into minds

And through ears tickling spines

In a back and forth vertical motion

With familiarity

You see Poetry lives through me

But it’s owned by no one

Poetry is truly free.

“Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” 

I was not born a poet but I made to be one. The first time I heard (not just listened to)

 poetry I was 15 years old. Staying with my Uncle Jeff in California and I saw a show called Def Poetry Jam on HBO.



I was mesmerized. It was rap without the music. It was hip hop at it’s core. It was beautiful and it lit up my soul. Every hair follicle stood on end and my toes stretched towards the screen. Poetry entered me that day and made a home in my heart.

Then I started to see poetry. In song lyrics:

I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time...
I'll give it right back to you, one of these days
- - - Jimi Hendrix

In movie dialogue:

The jail you planned for me is the one you're gonna rot in.
---Celie in The Color Purple 

In Jamaican sayings/proverb:
He who feels it knows it

I saw poetry in dance:



 And for the first time I saw my world in the colors God painted them in. . . .

Audre says that, “The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us-the poet-whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free”

My poems are my diary. What I can't say I will often write. My Poems will ideally out live me. They explain me and understand me. My poems love me and share me. They are a privilege and a honor. They were never mine to keep. When I don’t write for an extended period of time I find myself uncomfortable, unhappy and off balance. That is because I have poems that are constantly boiling up within me that need to be released.

I am a knight of expression and I place my armor on a round table of dreams and lyrics. My quest is a journey of self discovery and revolutionary dialogue. I am a warrior of passion. I leave the memories of battle laid our in verse so that I may project the truth of mankind which is neither good or bad but real.

I am a wisdom hunter. Thirsty for knowledge. Brave in desire and constantly weaving fantasy into the perception I chose to dispense among my brethen.

Poetry is not a luxury for me. It is sacred calling that combines faith, glory, honesty, gods, love, everything sublime and everything degrading into something divine. With the passing of Gil Scott-Heron I have found my footing again and my writing has increased exponentially. Art is often the mother of change. If I want to be the change I want to see in the world then I have to see myself as an artist with the potential to change the world. It's really that simple and that got damn hard.

In honor of the DVD release

Why anyone would want to own this movie is BEYOND me. The movie is graphic and traumatic. It depicts an impossible situation that makes me want to crawl into a hole and eternal sunshine myself. Saphire has said that in writing the character Precious she compiled several of the experiences of many girls she encountered while teaching in Harlem. When she first started writing the book she envisioned it as a compilation of several stories. Upon reflection she ultimately decided to compile all of the characters into one girl who’s operatic greek tragedy worth makes her a more than worthy heroine. In her own words Saphire says, "I wanted to show that this girl is locked out through literacy. She's locked out by her physical appearance. She's locked out by her class, and she's locked out by her color," says Sapphire. "I encountered this. I had a student who told me that she had had children by her father." At that point I would go ahead and admit I'm a coward. I'd thrown in the towel move to L.A. and live like a hobo on the beach.

Precious is large. I mean just fat. . . like orca fat. She is bigger than life. She is eggplant black. She is soft spoken and reserved and introverted. . . excluding the occasional (and often warranted) violent outburst. Her soul is hard as nails and even as I gave thanks for her uncompromising spirit I worried about a soul buried deep in heavy armor. . . Precious survives for a reason I still cannot comprehend. Despite her sweetness and potential I found myself praying that she would not wake up each morning and have to contend with the Shepard of satan who masqueraded as her mother. ISSUE ONE –ABUSE and how Precious is failed over and over and over.

ISSUE ONE

Precious is sexually and physically abused by both her parents. Her mother forces her to overeat and verbally abuses her in a manner that is so consistent it almost becomes normal. In the rare moments when the apartment is silent the air is so charged with what Mary might do it’s almost difficult to breathe. The rape scenes (acts perpetrated by both her father and mother) are stomach churning. Her father is big, and sweaty, and hairy, and uses a Vaseline tub littered with pubic hair to streamline the rape of his daughter. Vom. It.

I’m almost unable to deal with the parts of the movie that go so far beyond sadness I had no choice but to laugh. Precious has her first daughter at the age of 12 and names her Mongo. She says “Doctors told me my baby had Mongoloid Down Sinder, so I name her Mongo ‘cause it sounds like it might be Spanish and it’s pretty”. . .all through the movie she regrets the fact that Mongo is raised by Mary’s mother (Precious’ grandmother). She is constantly thinking about Mongo and how she misses her and wants to take care of her like a good mother should. I can barely muster up the strength to be angry at an illiterate abused 12 year old naming her child after the disability/condition that afflicts it. If the nurse at the hospital didn’t pick up on the fact that Precious’ father and baby’s father is the same she is an asshole. The social worker that comes to the house to check on Mary and her children missed it. Precious’ teachers missed it. Her case missed it until . . .Precious accidentally mentioned the “two babies her father gave her”. I’m unimpressed with us all.

ISSUE TWO--humanity

Mary is vile and disgusting and I’m almost convinced that her portrayal and potential real life basis would persuade an atheist to abandon non-belief and pray there is a hell to keep Mary toasty for an eternity. Mary is wretched. Mary looks like she smells bad and if herpes had a face it would look like hers. She is a bully. Mary is pathetic and sad and blames Precious for the incest lamenting that “Precious never fought back or made any noise and she made her father want her more than me”. I think that what hurts me the most about this movie is the fact that Mary eventually shows a multidimensional humanity. I’m not using that word in its altruistic sense. I mean humanity as that which makes us human I mean those flaws that distinguish us from the divine (whatever it may be) and that which we wear on our sleeves, and around our necks, and leave in the depths of our footsteps. Mary gives glimpses of a damaged past accented with flashes of intense selfishness, ptsd, gross mental instability, and self hatred. She is clearly insane and aside from crackheads and clowns. . .crazy people scare me the MOST. I was dying to see Mary as a 2 dimensional villain a la the machines in the Terminator franchise, Number 1 from Afro Samurai, or Glory or the Preacher from Buffy. . . . but I couldn’t. Mary was a failure too and I hated myself for feeling sorry for her evil ass.

ISSUE THREE—gays

The two people who carry Precious to the caravan of change are dykes. Her teacher at the alternative school is the person who helps Precious find the strength to leave her mother and fight for her son. This same teacher –named Blu--- also helps Precious practically by locating appropriate housing for Precious and her son. Blu and her partner let Precious stay with them until she can move into her halfway house. Go. Lesbos.

Sub issue 3.5--

The movie deals with the fact that most straight black people feel superior to gay black people. Mary says that homosexuals are deviants and are going to hell. . .right well if anyone knows about hell it's Mary. . There is also a strong messagethat light people are more beautiful and all around more preferable than dark people. It's hard to find the appropriate stance. I fight with the urge to show a militant preference for dark skin over light skin simply to make up for the way Eurpean/American society treats dark skinned people but then I'm just perpetuating the arbitrary stereotypes I seek to fight. * sigh * I'm already tired just thinking about it.

ISSUE FOUR --- a woman’s job/place/duty

Mary does whatever she has to to keep her man. Including letting him abuse her daughter and violate her body/mind. Then she gets angry at Precious for “stealing her man”. Anger. Rage. Ignorance. I was almost blinded by it. The idea that you have to loose yourself for the sake of companionship terrifies and saddens me. This is the dark side of romantic obsession and crippling insane blind co-dependence

ISSUE FIVE ---moral compass

I’ve often heard people say “well I believe that criminal had to know that what he did was wrong and so he’s a bad person for doing it”. . .Precious as a movie makes me question the kind of right and wrong mentality that is anchored in black and white surety. More accurately most people grasp the idea of legal or illegal. They know that illegal things will get them locked up if they are caught but truthfully a moral compass is learned we are not born with it. . . or maybe we are born with the mechanics of the compass but outside influence and environment point it in the right direction.

If you grow up in a house where you are abused and ignored and torn down and defeated from birth you may not have a fully working compass. You may be a bad person but you were never given the tools achieve goodness. We as a society fail children like Precious and then we as a society have no sympathy when Precious fails us. When these lost children steal or lie or cheat or kill or hurt we are indignant and righteous in our repudiation. However, when these children are beaten and torn we are nowhere to be found. . .conveniently blind to what goes on behind close doors and perfectly comfortable pretending that we are more civilized than not. . .

Of course I'm not saying all people that behave badly are victims of abuse. Some people are in fact just assholes. But a lot of people are shaped by the monsters who raise them. The dark (dare I say black) beauty of this story/movie is that Precious is not a monster. She does have a good moral compass. She is an exception that defies all logic. While I love her and I am proud of her sucess I am also terrified that the message will once again become--- It doesn't matter how you grow up you can be a good person--- that marginalizes all the children who weren't as strong as Precious but need just as much support and compassion. Precious was an amazing film and now I'm sitting here remembering the horror wondering what I need to do to make this icky feeling go away . . .

For Colored Girls

Tyler Perry’s version of “For Colored Girls” which is an adaptation of the “choreopoem” For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf accomplishes a lot but could also accomplish so much more. Le Sigh.

Fist there is the shortening of the name. Yes ,the play was and

primarily is directed at colored women. Ntozake Shange wrote this book for herself and for the women she knew but it’s not just for colored girls. It is for damaged, whole, complicated, difficult, warm, wise, rebuilding, wretched, and divine girls. We say girls because even if we are biologically mature there are parts of us that remain fragile innocence. When that part is severely damaged it is at that moment when women look inward and see nothing good left and decide that death is preferable to image in the mirror that this book is most needed. The title needs to be complete. The rainbow must be included. Suicide must be included. In the end it is that rainbow of women and feelings and conquering of life that proves enough to beat back self destruction and that must be the call sign for any woman looking to find strength in this work.

I bought this book before I knew I needed book. It had colored girls in the title and I figured one day I’d get around to reading it. This book is not for the light-hearted. It is impossible to truly comprehend and ingest if life has given you no chance to gain the experience of emotional trauma. I bought this book and then life offered me the opportunity to truly appreciate the words betweens it’s covers. Wisdom fell into my lap with a huff and puff and it blew away my naivitee. Lupus, heartbreak, disappointment, despair, failure, hurt, anger, abuse, desire, unrequited love, hatred, apathy, and unfulfilled needs all came together wrapped around each other to pull me into a big teepee of adulthood that I wasn’t quite ready for. All of these things churned inside of me and I had no idea what to do with them until I picked up this book. This book says things a mother can’t, a friend shouldn’t, a sister won’t, and a brother wouldn’t even begin to know how to articulate. This book tells the story of other women who might be you but aren’t so they are safe to view and learn from. They are colors that are abstract and accessible and they find love and joy and pain and heartache and horror but in the end they find each other and freedom and self and most importantly GOD and she redeems them.

Tyler Perry turns this dramatic yet triumphant story into something of an overwrought soap opera. He doesn’t have the women stick to the dialogue attached to their colors. So if you have read the book before seeing the movie you might be a bit confused. The characters aren’t so much justifiable and reactionary in their unique responses to their environments so much as they are “crazy” or “cold” or just plan “off”. Luckily he has a cast of first rate phenomenal actresses to keep the spirit of the book alive.

First: Janet Jackson was HORRIBLY directed. She’s like a black Meryl Streep in Devil Wears Prada without the depth (or talent sorry Janet I still think your sexy). She is recipient of my favorite monologue in the book. After her husband has betrayed her and said he’s sorry (after saying sorry a million times before she’s finally over all of his sorrys). She gives him a piece of her mind and the flow of words that come from her are words that I feel a million a day should say to their men and vice versa. They are the words of an independent person who is finally over being with someone who is not worthy of their company. The words of a person who would rather be alone that with someone who makes them feel lonely. I call it the "I can do bad all by my damn self so go fuck up some other bitch's life" rant.

“One thing I don’t need

is any more apologies

I got sorry greeting me at my front door

You can keep yrs

I don’t know what do wit em

They don’t open doors

Or bring the sun back

They make me happy

Or get a morning paper

Didn’t nobody stop using my tears

To wash cars

Cuz a sorry

I am simply tired of collectin

“I didn’t know I was so important to you”

. . .I can’t get to the clothes in my closet

for alla the sorries

I’m gonna tack a sign to my door

Leave a message by the phone

If you called to say yr sorry

Call somebody else. . .

You were always inconsistent

Doing something & then being sorry

Beating my heart to death

Talking bout you sorry

Well

I will not call

I’m not going to be nice

I will raise my voice

& scream

& holler

& break things & race the engine

& tell all yr secrets about yrself to yr face . . .

I loved you on purpose

I was open on purpose

I still crave vulnerability and close talk

& I’m not even sorry bout you being sorry

you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna

just don’t give it to me

I can’t use another sorry

Next time

You should admit

You’re mean/low down/ trifling/ & no count straight out

Steada being sorry alla the time

Enjoy being yrself”

* three snaps and a neck twist fo yo ass*

I love LOVE love this monologue. If I had a dollar for every sorry a lover ever gave me I would be Warren fucking Buffet. And it’s my fault really because I knew they were sorry. 

Maya Angelou says, “When someone shows you who they are. . .believe them”.

 So I would see that a person was a sorry, low down, no good, trifling, piece of shit and I would think “it’s ok . . .they’ll change or I can save them. . .or their problems aren’t that big of a deal.” BULLOCKS. It’s a two way street. That’s what the lady in Blue realized. So I now say to people be a fucking piece of shit. Own your fuckery. Wear it proudly like a badge. And find someone who would like to participate just leave me out of it. I’m over the sorry’s I’m over giving myself to people who I know don’t deserve it. There is an esteem issue wrapped up in the lady in blues character one that she remedies after her husband has betrayed her for the last time. There is also a sense of ownership. She yells and is shockingly passionate in this dialogue because she knows she is partly to blame. She saw the sorry’s and the signs and she let it go on MUCH longer than it should have. She is not just raising her voice at her husband. She is raising her voice at herself and to God. She is making a promise to herself and to GOD and she is saying never again will I let the GOD in me be trampled like that. Tyler has Janet deliver these lines with all the emotional ferocity of a corpse. This monologue is the Lady in Blues' FREEDOM SCENE, her emotional emancipation. She has spent the entire play/movie being confined to formality and protocol. NOW she is taking off her heels and putting her man’s bullshit on 21 jump street and she says IN THE MONOLOGUE I’m going to yell, I’m going to scream, I going to lay our shit bare because we have both been living wrong. That is Ntazake TELLING YOU Mr. PERRY HOW THE SCENE SHOULD GO. Janet needs to be standing up, she needs to be over her husband (physically, metaphorically, and emotionally) and she needs to be proclaiming that she is taking back her body, her pride, her esteem, her mind, and her place, from this no good low down trifling piece of shit negro she’s been giving herself over to. However Mr. Perry decides to have her sitting on a bed, speaking softly, looking like Michael in a wig , with tears running down her eyes. Ugh. Dis- A- Point- Meant. I blame him for it. It's because of him the terrorists are winning damnit! Janet might be an actress but she still needs a LOT of direction. She is not seasoned like Whoopi, Loretta, or Phylicia, or Thandie, or Kimberly or Anika Noni Rose. Tyler led her astray and ruined one of the most powerful monologues. And I mean powerful in deliverance and effect. Bullocks. Shitballs.

Second: Thandie Newton should have brought subtly to a character who in the book wore her sexuality and her vulnerability like a fine cashmere sweater. Sexual promniscuity is complicated and delicate despite the energy that fuels the act. When Thandie is left to herself she is quiet and reflective. The sex finds her and she has it because she is complelled to. That type of behavior should be deliverd and studied like a fine spanish waltz not thrown onto the screen like paint splashed on a wall. It is a dance between filling up one's emptyness with physical pleasure or emotional healing.

She delivers one half of my favorite lines from the Lady in Yellow saying to her little sister Nyla (played by Tessa Thompson) “Being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven’t conquered yet”. The rest of the line is saved for later in the movie. But that breaks up the beauty of the moment. She is supposed to continue and say that she is a spirit that is too ancient to separate soul from gender. And her love is too delicate to have it thrown back on her face. The ladies all say what their love is at the end of the movie but it doesn’t follow the book. Tyler doesn’t have the women follow the lines assigned to their colors because it would ruin the continuity of the character connections he has established. He simply divides the dialogue up as it fits and places it in the mouths of the characters in the scenes as he determines appropriate. He has Thandie play this weird shrill sex harpie and Thandie does her best to tone it down. Her relationship with Whoopi is played up well. I do think that their scenes together are some of the best and I give him some credit for that direction. Some I say not a ton.

Third: Tessa Thompson is a relative newcomer and she does a beautiful job of playing Nyla. In her opening scene she speaks about losing her virginity in the backseat of a car. This is supposed to be recounted as a positive experience. In the book she’s exited and happy to have reached her womanhood. She wanted to loose her virginity and she enjoyed the experience. Tyler needed to catch that youthful new sexual energy he grasped the tip of it but couldn’t capture the whole thing. I will say that her scene with Macy Gray was brilliant and I think and Macy is actually a seriously untapped acting talent. Macy portrays a beautiful woman broken by the ugliness that usually finds beautiful women in a poor neighborhood.

Fourth: The other seasoned characters make the film more than worthwhile and an excellent experience. Kimberly Elise did a marvelous job as an abused woman and I think Michael Ealy played the part of her PTSD soldier boyfriend just perfect. Plus their kids are hella cute. When you see the movie go ahead and know that’s what J.R. and my kids will look like one day. Yes it’s a vision.

Phylicia Rashad could get my panties any day of the week (twice on Sundays) I don't care how old she is. Her acting is less like reciting and more like breathing life into a character who was lying dormant in her body. She is a persona who was patiently sitting back until the day Phylicia just allowed her to take control of her body. She is flawless, effortless, stone-cold precise, perfect, and ever brilliant. That has nothing to do with Tyler and more to do with her just being an exceptional screen presence.

Whoopi Goldberg (praise Jesus hallelujah) back on the big screen is an absolutely stunning religious zealot (read: nutjob). She’s one sip away from offering us ALL kool-aid on the street. I believe her and El-Noaim are gonna make it one day. Tyler doesn’t need to direct her. He should have hired a director to help him with Janet. I’m sure he tried to give Whoopi some pointers and she looked at him over her glasses and was like “negro please I’ve been acting since before you knew you had a penis”. She’ll captivate you end of story.

Anika Noni Rose (a.k.a princess Tiana) has a smile so wide I think you can see her molars. Tyler makes a mistake during one of her scenes that I won’t give away let’s just say he should have rethought the Opera music. Also she recites every lines the way I always envisioned it. Kudos and props.

Loretta Devine lives up to her God given name. . She delivers her lines with a breathless fervor that has the audience leaning forward trying to catch her words as they flutter through the scenes like a butterfly with 3 foot wings. She is a robber. She hijacks every scene she is in. Every one. Hands down. My favorite scene is when she talks about how her man almost walked away with her “stuff”. Stuff in this context is “dignity, esteem, sense of self, humanity, pride, and joy” . She’s speaking to a group of women at a health center and that is an excellent adaptation on Perry’s part.

Lastly: The movie runs relatively smoothly. I’m sure that every line you find memorable from the movie was directly pulled from the book. I’m also sure that everything you find obnoxious about the movie will be a direct addition by Tyler Perry. I am however bothered by the ending. Tyler has all the women come together for a group scene that includes a laying on of the hands.
It’s a scene where all the women (minus Whoopi) realize there is GOD in them and she is beautiful and filling. However Tyler has them somberly gather around one woman who has had a particularly tragic ending to her tale and just hold her like Waiting to Exhale without the wine. . .WOMP. The end of the book is a CELEBRATION. There is dancing. Singing. Joy. Exhaling. These women have come into themselves and in their godliness. The women are all in their colors and they circle the stage creating a rainbow of hope and possibility TYLER. That’s the point of the play. The idea is that yes life throws us tragedy and heartache and pain and sometimes we can’t see through the blood and tears but there is always GOD in us and GOD in friends and help in self and belief in one’s own ability to survive and that is something worth celebrating.

The movie ended like a lifetime movie. I looked around and was surprised I wasn’t at home in my PJs.I give it an overall B. And that’s only because he was able to incorporate so much of Ntazake’s work into it. I needed Tyler to tune down his Divo and get some help. But alas it’s hard to do with the sound of your own greatness is ringing in your ears.

Little Bee blog
The norm is now to fight for peace. We must demand goodness and require decency from ourselves if we want to see it in anyone else. This book speaks about outside forces trying to destroy an individual but it spoke to me because of my own internal threats.

The book Little Bee is compulsively engaging. It deals with honor, immigration, bravery, death, redemption, flaws, honesty, and ultimately the choices we make that define not just who we are but who we want to be. I was glad to have read it and simultaneously sad to have been exposed to the story. I want the opportunity to sit down with the author and say wow that was amazing and fuck you (as I punch him in the face).

I began the book on a roat trip to D.C. and could barely put it down. Little Bee comes from a country where the natives are destroying each other for the privilege of servicing the western world’s commercial needs. She lived in a small village that was simple and easy going until some oil company discovered there were oil reserved underneath and fuck all ensued.

There is an inappropriate voyeuristic component that captured my attention when reading about the violence in the Nigeria described in Little Bee. It mirrors the destruction that is happening throughout the African continent. With primitive weapons and modern methods Africans have become the world’s most methodical mass murders. Rape has become the first line of attack. Machetes are the most common weapon of force. Guns are more prevalent than books The armies there have taken their internalized hatred and created diabolical travesties. They tear children from their families at a young age. They break the girls morally and emotionally through sexual/physical torture and they destroy the boys humanity by making them commit the acts that subjugate the girls. Small boys sleep with guns and are giving drugs and alcohol to dull the pain of lost childhood and deadened hearts. The cycle is vicious and more effective than an atom bomb . . mostly because it’s in internal weapon. When was the last time you heard of a country dropping an atom bomb on itself? This is the world Little Bee escapes from.

We are then allowed to see our world through her eyes. The book focuses mostly on her time outside of her native land with flashbacks and memories providing us with a vivid view of what she left behind. She spends two years in a depressing detention center that is cold and unfeeling. It is common knowledge that without some sort of miracle she will be deported. Not all of her memories are bad. She spent a good portion of her life living a simple life. Simple for me used to mean boring which used to mean bad. . .now it just means simple. . . nothing more and nothing less.

Little Bee learns English while in the detention center and her dialogue is mature and calculated. She is full of pithy observations and simple conclusions that describe her surroundings exceptionally well. Her perspective is at turns amusing and sobering.

The author juxtaposes Little Bee’s point of view with that of a British woman Little Bee has a past connection to. Looking at the world through each of their eyes is like switching tv channels switching from a documentary to a realistic sitcom. I recommend the read because I think there are some really engrossing passages and some deeply memorable characters.

On the drive home from D.C. I saw several houses that were in the middle of open fields and I remembered family trips from my youth and how I used to LOATH those types of houses. I used to think that those homes would have been my idea of hell on earth. Why would you want to live away from noise and bustle and excitement? Fast forward to a sub par performance evaluation from my job and my subsequent spiral into situational depression. Later that evening I contemplated throwing myself out of my 11th floor window. Then I realized there’s a balcony 6 floors down and unless I could figure out how to project myself far enough and land squarely on my head I would most likely only maim myself and that would just be further proof of how pathetic I truly am. . . another visit to my therapist is clearly forthcoming. . . So there at the hinterland my emotional well being and with my mental health rolling boldly down a hill of self loathing I picked up Little Bee to finish the 1/3 I had left to read.
After finishing that book I struggled to accept the validity of my own anxiety disorder and depression. A quote that I remember vividly from the book is “Until I was 14 my entire world was 3 casava fields and some jungle”. Ten years ago that would have seemed horribly boring to me. I would have felt pity for that girl. I would have said, “But Bee! You are missing parks! And movies! And fireworks! And basketball! Broadway! Smoothies! Trains! Waterslides!! And air conditioning! Oh poor Bee! If only the rest of the world could be as civilized and advanced as we.” I think . . .would I have Lupus if I lived in that village? Would I get so many headaches? Would I need to be so busy? If I had never heard of a Broadway play would I have the desire to see one? This desire for more is like a cancer that continues to consume not just those who want but those you have what is desired. I myself am a gadget ho. I am fully aware of this. I have two laptops, a Kindle, a tv, cable, a dvr, countless things in my kitchen, and dvd’s up the ying yang. I am fully convinced I acquire these things to make up for the abysmal failure that is my personal (and recently my professional) life. But what if my life was 3 cassava fields, my mom, my dad, my siblings, and a boy from a neighboring village that I was bethrothed to? Would life be easier then? Would I need to take medicine for Lupus and migraines and depression and anxiety? Would I be a walking pharmacy if my life was 3 cassava fields and maybe some jungle?














Then I think. . . what utter bullshit. Despite my flare for the dramatic I know better. I could not marry Thembe from the next village because penis makes me gag. I would dream of something more than my cassava field. I would dream of something more than my village. I know that the world is a big place and I want to see it even if it’s just on my television. When my world gets tough I want to run to a cassava field and pretend like I’m a root. I want to disappear and forget about Avenue Q and Lorraine Hansberry


and
Nina Simone


and Muddy Waters. . .














but then I come out of my sadness and I appreciate all the things that have enriched my life and have shown that beauty is a limitless horizon.

Nelson Mandela spent the most virile years of his manhood in prison working his body into degradation. I am young and full of enough potential to change at least one life in this world. I have charged myself to do at least that. . .even if it is my own. Benazir Bhutto was the daughter of a man who was assisanated. She woke up everyday with a purpose and looked death in the face. They are bigger than life but who says that one day I can't be bigger than my imagination too? The very LEAST I can do is take my soft Johnson and Johnson baby oiled ass to the doctor and get something to regulate my wretched mood. Inspiration much like despiration comes softly and slowly and then snowballs into substance.


Little Bee is a fictional character. But she embodies a truth that I can adapt to my life. Her situation is intense and severe. Mine is light and not life threatening. If I was to ever fail I could retreat and regroup in my parents basement and probably live off someone else until I got back on my feet. Every time I fall I have to get back up. I have to pull myself together. I make stupid decisions and then have difficultly dealing with the consequences. Lesson you dolt. . .stop making obviously stupid decisions. I am more sensitive than I'll realize. Lesson you wanker. . .do not open yourself to people who obviously have nothing to offer in return. Work is work.. . I know I can succeed at it I just have to do it. I'm still learning and still growing.

We are all given our own personal demons and sensitivies and if I ignore mine they will one day overtake me for lack of attention to detail. They will creep into my mind and overtake my senses because I did not vigilantly keep them at bay. Admitting flaws and weakness have never been my strong suit. But this story reminded me to face my fears and shortcomings for they are not afraid to make themselves known. A fake story helped me come to terms with a real problem. Alright Little Bee you are the new emblem for my new Do Better express.

KING KONG IS DEAD

This is also an oldie but goody

“And the Beast Looked upon the face of beauty and it stayed it’s hand from killing, and from that day it was as one dead.” ß-an “Arabian myth” applied to a white woman

So. . .King Kong. Yea. In 1933 King Kong was a piece of Euro-centric propaganda. But since the very first feature length film titled Birth of a Nation was made only a few years prior (1915) I’d imagine King Kong was very much the bees knees. Racism can be overlooked for the right camera angle apparently. Because of it’s sheer originality and never-been-seen before appeal this movie was a gigantic powerhouse in the film industry continued to be revered by film makers and film aficionados alike for generations to come. It has been remade twice: once in 1976 and again 2005. Peter Jackson’s King Kong remains true to the original. He has created a masterpiece homage to the work of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. But as I was reflecting on the fact that I will never get any of the 187 minutes I lost to that movie back I wondered: what is the statement PJ made by staying so true to the original??

Now I must admit that since going to Law School in Little Dixie (i.e. Indiana) I have become a bit more race conscious. However in this case I believe that many of the observations I made during 187 minutes of soft aryan adoration were valid concerns. The Caucasian woman as the zenith of beauty myth rears its head at every turn in American Society manifested expertly by this year’s biggest film. Every day I am buried beneath a barrage of images that inadvertently reaffirm this countries obsession with the aryan woman. 

Blonde hair and blue eyes are held on a pedestal that was never meant to be occupied by the darker skinned members of this fair land (pun intended). Light features are part of the American cult of beauty. In fact the message I received from this movie is that aryan women are so beautiful they transcend the norms of various species. AnnDarrow is thin, pale, with light eyes and so close to absolute perfection that even a dark ape-beast (an obvious parallel to the black man brought to America sedated and kept here in chains) can’t help but revere her. In fact he is willing to die for her. The Natives on the island sacrificed dozens of their own people and King Kong was more than willing to gobble them up, but he could not bring himself to even really hurt Ann Darrow.

And let’s talk about the damned natives. I excused Peter Jackson inability to find one brown-skinned person in 6 hours middle earth malarchy. And at the start of King Kong I applauded the entrance of a black sailor on the ship sailing to Skull island. Then I saw the Natives. . .and the black man was promptly killed. The natives have dusty, smoking, ashy, dark skin. They have stringy hair and apparently it rains all the time where they live ‘cause there hair is always greasy and grossly smeared across their faces. 

They have bones through various parts of their faces. They have awful teeth. . .worse than the damned mutant ape. Now really when was the last time you saw a bunch of dark-skinned natives with bad teeth? PLUS PJ found these dark skinned people in NEW ZEALAND. So he DOES know how to find brown people. . .he just chooses not to. . . sometimes. . .hmmmm (like when he's populating middle earth).

King Kong remains a parable of exploitation, cultural self-importance, the arrogance of the West, all issues that were obvious in the original but unexamined; they remain unexamined here, if more vivid. ( Steven Hunter Washington Post http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-oppin154551776dec15,0,2915817.column)

Of course I’m not suggesting that Peter Jackson does not have an artistic right to recreate racist propaganda. Colonialism is big and grand and full of vigor. All that victory over "savagery". The noble conqueror who brings modernity to the culturally less fortunate. PJ played into the hype and was paid handsomely for holding true to the status quo. 

And to be honest I enjoyed the first half of the King Kong vs. T-Rex fight but the fact that most people don’t see the inherent racism in this film worries me. I’m forced to be the militant black girl who’s always been so “well spoken” before law school. It seems like I sees racism everywhere therefore it cannot exist anywhere. I’m 22 years old and within the next 8 years I plan to start having kids of my own. 

My daughters will have to face the same race self doubt with regards to their aesthetic value that I had to deal with and that is unacceptable. My sons will look at skin first and personality later because they’ve been taught that beauty takes only one form. Everyday entertainers make their features lighter and every year young black America follows in their wake. The civil rights movement was over 40 years ago and there are still scabs that America insists on picking so that everyone does not have the same chance to heal. The open wounds fester and burn reminding those who don't fit the dominant aesthetic that they will never be the most desired. People can straighten their hair, change their dress, speak differently, and try to pay for new features but ultimately they will never be desired like the white woman. The white woman in all her shining blessed glory is America's most valuable natural resource and this movie just confirms how she is revered world wide. 

Black girls who see that movie will be damaged, whether or not they realize it. Anytime there is a size 4 on the screen they will want to hurt their bodies to achieve that end. Anytime there are light eyes on the screen there will be another order or ridiculous contacts for a sista as dark as the ace of spades. Little black girls can even die their hair blonde but at the end of the day they are black. They cannot be Ann Darrow. And I say they should not be Ann Darrow. We should redefine beauty to be more inclusive and more socially affirming to all people. 

The only way things are going to change is if we as consumers stop supporting these types of narratives. We have to change the status quo. We have to stand up for our children and ourselves and demand that our beauty be respected and appreciated just as much as the white woman.