“These jokes are dangerous in the wrong hands.” –Dave Chappelle

No one would call me “cutting edge.” I’m not on the front lines of any artistic movement. Still, I’d like to think I can recognize a good thing when I see it.

I watched season 3 of the Chappelle Show about a week ago: some funny, some bleh. I asked my brother, a die-hard Chappelle Show fan, if he had seen those three episodes.

“Nooo, I haven’t seen them.” It was the way he said it, almost as if I were betraying something.

I started to think of why I initially hadn’t watched them, how I had lost the appetite to view them upon hearing a couple lines from Chappelle’s Oprah interview. He’d recalled knowing the difference between being laughed at and laughed with.

I began to think, “Was I wrong for watch the Chappelle Show: The Lost Episodes?”

Because I have a tendency to overthink things, a mini-storm of guilt dusted up: The introductory banjo-playing and singing men with jolly attitudes of “Eff it” when they realize Chappelle isn’t showing up. Charlie Murphy and Donnell Rawlings introducing the skits as Chappelle would have. Are we allowed to do all this without . . . Dave?

My sane self says, “Cyn, you’re taking this way to personally.”

But listen to the interviews, read the articles—Chappelle makes it so. Not coming completely undone, he is vulnerable without the comedic security blanket, which, upon returning from his South Africa trip, he seems to have lost the taste for, at least “business-wise.”

How can I not feel the personal affront Chappelle himself feels as he talks of being treated like a commodity, even to the point of his inner circle using manipulation to keep the merchandise flowing from him as if he were a factory? We perceive that all of this is “part of the business,” but it is clear that Chappelle cannot handle this part of the business.

With that same candor that holds the rawness of his comedy being exposed in a different way, telling a very personal tale, how could I not feel as if I’d betrayed Chappelle in some way–betrayed his legacy, of which part of me does not count these three episodes as being part? Am I doing the same? Am I treating him like a commodity?

I viewed those episodes, too, searching for that moment Chappelle spoke about, when he was being laughed at, aware of the dangerous jokes of which he spoke. Those jokes dangerous in the hands of those viewers who are looking for something else, who look at Rick James, Prince, even Dave himself as caricatures only, not making fun of these characters or stereotypes as a way of thinking critically about society or embracing / uniting a people but as “other,” lives they’ve never lived, gotten close to, or been affected by. The people who shout, “I’m rich beotch” at him because they think it’s cool.

Is that what scared Chappelle as well? It scares me too—but what’s the alternative? Not laughing at ourselves? Chappelle is in the business, and even he doesn’t know the answer.

Turns out, my brother just hadn’t watched the three episodes because he heard they were whack. Go figure.

What’s your take AOI-ers? Do you feel guilty for watching the Lost Episodes? Where do you draw the line in racially charged comedy?

“Sci-fi nerds are respectful, honorable. You can trust them.” –Claudia Christian

“Being a nerd, which is to say, going too far and caring too much about a subject . . .” –Sarah Vowell

“We’re all nerds on one subject or another.” –Jonathan Lethem

Are you a nerd? Have you ever been one? Chances are in high school—and possibly in college—like myself, you witnessed the sectioning off of cliques. Cool kids and athletes in one group. The best dressed had their corner. Goths had the bench by the tree. Nerds, wherever they could find refuge.

Or maybe there was a nerd in every clique: The jock-nerd. The cheerleader nerd. The cool kid who was also heavily into comic books.

Often ostracized during painful coming-of-age years, nerds really get put through it. True to life, however, the nerd world is not a monolith. We come in all shapes and fashions.

Using your brain...not the worst thing you could do.

Take, for example, the socially inept nerd. Never the life of the party, this nerd cannot sustain the right balance of small talk and whatever she is nerdly obsessed over. At the homecoming dance she may share too much of her fascination with the sex lives of plants instead of chatting about who brought who—or she’ll be so unfashionably dressed and shy she’ll spend the dance alone.

Then there’s the Dungeons and Dragons nerd. This guy loves comic books and the world of sci-fi, possibly enough never to care about the opposite sex. One might find him at Comic-Con or watching reruns of the Lord of the Rings on TNT. He sports an appreciation for the fantastical and sleeps in line waiting for Star Wars tickets.

Embrace it...Feels better already, huh?

Computer geeks and the book smart come to mind when most folks think of the term nerd. Stereotypically they don pocket protectors and strut wicked skills at repairing your motherboard or tutoring you in physics.

Still, we all have our favorite nerds. And for those of us who endured high school life labeled as one, somewhere along the way we embrace our individuality and work it to our advantage. We wear it. Embrace nerd-dom.

The fraternity Lambda Lambda Lambda featured the best of all these categories (or combinations of them) in the movie Revenge of the Nerds—and in the end, they made everyone want to be nerds. In their words:

“No one’s really gonna be free until Nerd Persecution ends.”

“To succeed, you will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics of education – literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills.”
–Alan Greenspan

I agree with education reformer Horace Mann that education is the great equalizer. Institutional education has a fundamental place in society, serving many purposes.

Educated 'T' from Fall2010 "Back to Cool" line

As Mann asserts, formal education can widen the options of the have-nots, providing more lucrative employment and networks that bring opportunity to pursue passions and business avenues one may not even have known she wanted to explore.

Formal education can also bring tools to the oppressed, arming them with reasoned argument, organization, and understanding of systems they seek to change.

Educational institutions also socialize us, positively and negatively. They give us one language and set of mores, reinforce myths that, on some level, are necessary for participants of a society to believe in.

With all this, it is easy to read the above Greenspan quote and view institutional education as a means to an end, to believe that once the formal expectations have been met, one has all the knowledge he needs to navigate his environment or, in fact, the world.

A+ 'T' from fall 2010 "Back to Cool" line “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination” - Albert Einstein

Good education, though—institutional and social—should be a door to appreciating and integrating experiences outside ourselves, to realizing the socialization brought by that foundation is a mold insufficient for every being.
Fruitful educational experience helps us understand that the fundamentals are a door, a starting point where true questions begin to be explored. It teaches us to think critically, question hard, and love the process of acquiring answers, handing to us the gift of curiosity and discernment.
Though we have the fundamentals, it is through these two things, that we build the character and integrity of our lives. Questioning brings value to our experience, whether we come back to that which we originally second-guessed (and cherish it all the more) or build a bridge to a new chapter in our lives.

Instead of a ride with an end, true education teaches us to appreciate journey.

“It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail.”  –Albert Einstein

“Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.” –Ezra Pound

“You don’t lead by lip service. You lead by example.” –Jim Leyland

Inspired by Clutch Magazine, it came to me to post on what it means to be politically or socially progressive, the contradictions therein, and misperceptions of the stereotypes.

The obvious first example is that of the stereotypical Black voting bloc, fiscally progressive but socially conservative. We might even use as examples those elected to uphold the Constitution but have tough times practicing that. I’m also, however, speaking on when progressivism morphs from the abstract to the personal, the moment you must walk your talk.

So...what do I really do?

For example, one could support her Latino sisters and brothers in the struggle for immigration reform, and in contrast, be pressed to rationalize the influx of Hispanic immigrants looking for opportunity in her hometown.

One could give emphatic lip service to reversing Prop 8, holding that we should be happy love is found anywhere in this sometimes-maddening world, and conversely be uncomfortable with man-to-man or woman-to-woman expressions of affection. (As a friend of mine says, the world is fine with Ricky Martin coming out of the closet, but when will we see him sing love ballads to the objects of his affection?)

Of course, I’m not immune, so I don’t say these things from on high. Folks assume that because I’m a vegetarian, I should be sporting “Save the Whale” T-shirts and such, picketing my local grocer because folks shouldn’t be eating eggs anyway. Au contraire, I will kick a squirrel in a heartbeat if it looks at me too hard. Too, I’m an advocate for the safe use of chemicals in our food and cosmetics, but I ain’t going a week without this (in my defense, it doesn’t contain parabens).

The point is, folks, as I’ve been saying from the start, we’re all walking contradictions. I’d rather be in the surface-level progressive camp with the following in mind, though: that following my lip service I incrementally incorporate these stances into my walk, eventually to be proud and confident that I am not spouting these “for” and “against” notions because they are PC, but because I believe in them and want to work toward a world where they are fully executed.

So we shout the slogan and think on what it means—then we do a little more. Shout and think—and do a little more . . .  till we’re walking revolutions.

“Every path has its puddle.” –Proverb

“In seeking the truth you have to get both sides of a story.” I’m sure Walter Cronkite knew stories have more than two sides. At the risk of simplifying history, I thought recently how yesterdays’ fights were simple. There was an identifiable evil from which it was necessary to steer the nation away. Slavery? What about “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”? Genocide? World War II, nations come together. Separate but unequal? Unequivocally unacceptable.

Two Sides to Every Story

Granted, there are still these types of battles to be fought (e.g., Prop 8), but many of our battles—just like our economy and educations—are global or multifaceted. My friend in Thibodaux, Louisiana, who often listens to my environmental justice rants, and I talk about the BP oil spill and the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling. He tells me that there is a rig close by that’s already moved to Spain and how just about everyone in his town feeds their families via oil. Even him—he translates for Mexican workers who’ve moved to the city to work the rigs.

There’s always more to consider than our dogma or convenience. We put our trust in bottled water, and leave our local governments with dangerous leeway to relax regulations on our tap water’s cleanliness. No one’s drinking it, so who will put the pressure on to keep it clean?

I’m balancing doing the “right” thing: buying local, buying organic. Researchers keep throwing more bowling pins into my juggling act. My search for a meaningful certified label such as “USDA Organic” in this age of pesticides and genetically modified foods led me to sources stating the label doesn’t have much teeth. Only large-scale farmers can afford the time and money to invest in tracking for certification. Beyond that, certifiers inspect farms just by looking at them, and to get the label requires no soil samples. How do you know what chemicals are present or not with no soil samples?

I think we have enough of this.

Pile that on top of U.S. agricultural policies and subsidies to farmers that push Mexican and Haitian farmers into destitution, and I’ve failed at balancing. At this point, I’m just trying to keep track of just one element. If I buy from conventional farmers, I’m surely not feeling the true cost of that product. If I buy local, there is a good chance—from a political standpoint—I’m feeding a system that favors wealthy older white men who for years have owned land and can afford to farm organically.

It may sound like a lot of rubbish. Many consumer acts, though, have global effects today—and there are many factors to consider.  Lots of times “right” and “wrong” come down to judgment calls in this age. It’s a scary world that begs more proactivity, more citizenship and seeking of information—more brainpower. In the era where what we’re selling is knowledge, I think we’re up to it.

“The world must be filled with unsuccessful musical careers like mine, and it’s probably a good thing. We don’t need a lot of bad musicians filling the air with unnecessary sounds. Some of the professionals are bad enough.  –Andy Rooney

I’m listening to an NPR interview with Paul McCartney. He recalls his first sight of future band mate John Lennon, who was playing with another band at the time. Lennon remembered the chorus to a song named Come Go with Me but made up the lyrics as he went along. McCartney thought he was “inventive,” with a creative nature.

Cut from that scene to one where the villain of American Idol, Simon Cowell, slices a hoping-to-be-manufactured contestant. There, pulling a John Lennon, no matter how creative and talented you are, could cost you your ticket to Hollywood.

John Lennon

Far be it from me to say there are no benefits to a show such as AI (it bought Fantasia more tatts and an honorary high school degree….I kid, I kid)—to those who win and the listeners of their music. I am also not saying that truly creative voices such as Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, don’t exist in our current music climate. I am snarking at mediums like AI that force a manufactured but textured perfectness, always marketable ones. Unwholesome boofuglies with great voices don’t win—they never win.

There’s much today in music shops (and I think American Idol would classify as a music shop) looking for just the right package of marketable individuality, measured spontaneity—manufactured art, a very subjective term, I admit. I have to ask, though, do these operations make lasting contributions to the world of music? Is this too weighty of a question for AI? Would anyone’s life be different without Taylor Hicks?

Maybe I’m being unreasonable. Isn’t AI just a modern incarnation of a machine like, say, Motown?* Where groups/artists were assembled, taught how to conduct themselves, what to wear, and molded into “stars”? Complete with focus-group testing of “the sound” to ensure marketability? Am I calling AI out on practices every record label’s marketing department executes out of my sight? Good voice —good

American Idol

music—has many origins, right?

Still, there is something to be said for paying one’s dues. Assuming that waiting in that miles-long audition line to show Randy and Simon your chops isn’t exactly paying dues,** what we’re doing with this instant fame may be much like that tale about the man helping the moth out of its cocoon:

So, he took a pair of scissors, and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily. But, it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the moth, because he expected, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life, crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was, the restricting cocoon and the struggle, required for the moth to get through the tiny opening, were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth, into its wings, so it would be ready for flight, once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, the man deprived the moth of health.
What say you AOI-ers? Is American Idol a great contributor to American music?

* Motown might’ve had Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye—classic ladies’ men—but it also had Ronald Isley (the voice is sweet but not the face—keeping it one hundred…).
** I am aware that some contestants are out there paying their dues before they get in line.

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.”
–John Hope Franklin

Last week we gave you a starter list of summer reads. Continuing this thread of mental exploration and amusement, today’s post features treats for summer days via film and music.

Waking Life is about an unnamed young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. He initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions of issues such as reality, free will, the relationship of the subject with others, and the meaning of life. Along the way the film touches on other topics including existentialism, situationist politics, posthumanity, the film theory of André Bazin, and lucid dreaming itself. – (Description from Wikipedia)

Food, Inc. Topping the list is the 2008 documentary exposing the underbelly of industrialized food, from treating animals as units of production as opposed to living beings to exploring the power our consuming choices/dollars hold.

We Shall Remain. In 5 parts, PBS’s American Experience series chronicles the history of Native Americans and their fight for their land and culture. RE that reparations argument: The folks you’re petitioning for that 40 acres and a mule don’t really have the right to give it.

The Story of Stuff. Annie Leopard’s simply presented 20-minute cartoon sheds light on Americans’ disconnect from the millions of consumer products we indulge in then discard, from extraction, production, and distribution to consumption and disposal.

The Corporation. Calling the corporation the “dominant institution of our time,” this film explores and critiques today’s giants and features interviews with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva (woman crush!), and Michael Moore.

Wattstax. Captures the Wattstax concert of 1972, featuring acts such as the Staple Singers, and interviews with black men and women and snippets of Richard Pryor commenting on race relations and the black experience. If nothing else, watch it to peep Isaac Hayes in orange spandex and gold-link suspenders.

These are just a taste, so stay tuned to the blog and our tweets for other interesting links! @ArtOfficialShop on twitter

“We want . . . people who can support the commercial businesses . . . . But . . . We don’t want to be smothered by them, and we want to make sure the working women and men . . . are not run out of the neighborhood that they stuck with and fought for and even died for.” –Rev. Calvin O. Butts III on gentrification in New York

Common Conceptualization of Gentrification

It all started with a ride down Paris Avenue in New Orleans, near the neighborhood where my mother grew up. Large families inside the St. Bernard Housing Project. They were poor and life could be harsh—some fighting but it wasn’t “life-threatening” to live there. Bad things happened, as they do in any neighborhood. Times were good.

At least that’s how I saw it as a child. I spent many hours after school and weekends playing there with my cousins or visiting my grandmother as she sold candies, nachos, E-Z Wider from a small truck on the corner of her drive (she eventually moved out).

It wasn’t until we lived there one summer before we moved into our own house that I felt it could be an unsafe place for a young girl, walking three blocks even, alone on a rainy night. At nine, I could’ve felt that way about any neighborhood. Still, it was the familiar—it had its dangers, its crazies, but I was connected to folks there.

It was not a place, I imagined, with which white people would feel the same comfort. In part because white faces would be out of place (notwithstanding demeanor and swagger, a black person can ease into a “black” neighborhood as “kin,” at least to ask directions).

Imagine my surprise, then, to ride down Paris Avenue and look to the left and see the relics of my mother’s childhood razed and on the right a white man and woman walking a dog—at 8 o’clock at night. In the Seventh Ward of New Orleans. Up is down. Cat is dog. Where am I?

The American Dream...

I think about the neighborhood before Hurricane Katrina, how this scene would never have been. I say as much to my sister with a mix of amusement, disbelief, and a twinge of stolen ownership. I think about scenes of the HBO series Treme, where white folks “salten” the crowds at a second line (I’ve seen the same on recent visits to N.O.—white people sprinkled in the stream of dancing revelers)—wondering if the writers explain that this was not a regular occurrence before the storm.

Releasing these thoughts and emotions, I realize they aren’t rational. What am I saying when I say the scene on Paris Avenue could never be? With pride almost? Am I saying I like the fact that white folks couldn’t walk their dogs without (possibly perceived) threat of violence? And that I’m content with the fact that that same level of violence might keep my own people—the elderly, the parents, their kids—from enjoying a night stroll as well? Am I proud of intolerance toward others via the same methods of intimidation that might have caused members of my race to forego bathroom stops traveling the highways in the 1950s?

My thoughts shift to the larger idea of America. The Melting Pot. Possession is so transient—and that is such a hard idea to consider when Donald Trump is buying the houses around you and making your property taxes rise (on the house your great-grandmother sacrificed so hard to buy). Just as the projects in New Orleans were once occupied by a majority white population, the ghettos of New York occupied by Italian and Jewish immigrants, neighborhoods change. The country changes. Sometimes it’s downright ugly. Sometimes we’re just having the fire lit under us to create a new narrative. Which is the case here?*

“Change is constant in modern city life. So what do we mean by ‘gentrification’? How does it happen? Who wins and who loses? What comes next?”

*I fully acknowledge that I can talk about gentrification in the abstract because I am far enough removed from it. Let me know your thoughts.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”  –Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I still haven’t found the secret to executing this advice when it comes to environmental issues. Sometimes the benefits aren’t tangible, the “goodness” of it too abstract. What the saint here is suggesting has a proactive nature. Much of what we do regarding the environment is reactionary. So it is with this latest, unprecedented disaster: the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

I’m from New Orleans, and even though I’m a city girl, I know how important—in myth, in economic and cultural reality, in marketing—the Gulf, the marsh, the swamp is to Louisianans. The latest estimates show the collapsed BP oil well dispersing 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day, 1.3 million gallons.

Between the two “I Hate BP” groups on Facebook, there are almost 9,000 fans. But what does it mean to hate BP in 2010? (And for that matter, do we also hate Exxon, Shell, and Chevron, who also have deep-water rigs with equally shady oil-spill contingency plans?) Does this mean we are willing to change our behavior to put BP out of business? Is that the focus, the recompense for their (our) greed?

The U.S. uses almost 20 million barrels of oil a day: 60% on transportation, 25% industrially, 4% residentially, 2% commercially. We all have to heat and light our homes, (and surely we use oil for other positive purposes—e.g., medical supplies) but oil is used in so many other ways. If we all agree that the oil plumes we’re seeing on the news are sizeable, then doing the following could drastically change the amount of oil we consume.

Peace out to Petroleum

· 12 million barrels of oil are used to make the 100 billion checkout bags we use every year. We bring our own cloth bag to the store, it’s like cutting the equivalent of 9 or so days of the spill from our oil consumption.

· 12 million barrels of oil a day are used in transportation across the U.S. Carpool, walk, bike, train, bus it to where you gotta go—at least a couple days a week. Close to another 9 or so days’ worth of oil deducted from our numbers—daily.

· Little stuff: shea butter instead of petroleum jelly, glass or ceramic containers instead of plastic Gladware, no Styrofoam, cut down on plastics (go for high “post-consumer material” content).

I’m making comparisons with the number of barrels spilled, because if anything, the spill gives us an idea of what these barrels/gallons look like and how fragile the ecosystems are around them. We begin to change our behavior by being conscious consumers. But don’t think I’m so naïve in my idealism to think it’s only up to the people. The new “I hate BP” also means cities have to up their public transportation games, making them attractive, clean, and reliable alternatives. Workforce development is another factor in shifting jobs that will be lost if we take seriously our need to scale back. Hard tasks and truths.

It would change the kind of country we are. Transitions are scary, but they shouldn’t stop us from taking steps that will help us, the animals around us, and our environment in the long and short run.

“The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.” –Ralph Nader

“Women . . . Who made ‘em?  God must have been a . . . genius.  Their hair.  They say that the hair is everything, you know?  Have you ever buried your nose in a mountain of curls, and just wanted to go to sleep forever?  –Bo Goldman, “The Start of an Education” (made popular by the movie Scent of a Woman)

I’m always a bit tickled when a woman gives me a compliment on my hair and she’s with her man. If she uses a relaxer, she might ask for tips on the transition process to going natural—and her man looks scared as hell. Sweating bullets all of a sudden and giving me a side-eye, his face reads: I hope you’re not thinking of coming home with that s&*t on your head. My afro and I may have just started construction on the yellow brick road of his relationship.

Hands On

But seriously, when black women turn away from relaxers to go natural, for fashion, for mental liberation, just to see how it feels—whatever the reason—we may go through a cluster of emotions as we get accustomed to looking at, feeling, and caring for our new coifs—and dudes are just to accept it and go along for the ride with not one (not one!) word.

We are mindful, however, that this is a time of transition for you as well. You, too, have to familiarize your eyes, hands, and minds with our “new” textures and hair rituals. Hopefully, some of the tips below can help you through the process.

Remember, it’s temporary / always changing. And process is first on the list, because that’s what transition is. Every time that voice in your head whispers you don’t like the way she looks or She just doesn’t look the same, tell yourself that in three months, you’ll feel different—because you will. And in three months, especially if she’s looking at blogs and scouring websites as most of us do—she’ll probably look different as she gets a handle on what works for her.

Be hands on—literally. Feel it. Grease or massage her scalp if that’s what she’s into. Express interest—don’t give the silent approval (thinking you’re being supportive by not saying anything ugly, but not actually saying anything positive). When you become invested in her crowning glory (damn, I promised myself I wouldn’t use “Nubian” terminology on this post), you just might fall in love with it yourself, and laying hands on your lover’s scalp during such a (possibly) vulnerable time can add another level of intimacy to your relationship.

Butters

Explore your own feelings, even the history of them. I know, I know. Stereotypical dudes don’t do feeling exploration. But you’re not those dudes. You’re here, at AOI’s Power Your Imagination, so I assume you’ve got something extra (wink). So do that and communicate with your lady.*

Tell her she’s pretty. Kiss her. Make whoopee. The point is, no one likes rocking a TWA (teenie weenie afro) and a frown. It’s much easier if they feel appealing and appreciated. Makes life better for the both of ya.

Be overall supportive. Remember, guys can be cheerleaders too! If you’re going through such emotions watching from the sidelines, imagine how she’s feeling in her new hair digs—she’s in the game.**

Obviously this list includes many tips outside of you—that’s because it really (really) ain’t about you. Directly, that is. That said, we realize that your feelings and well-being are mixed up in this too, and we want to grow with you. (We wanna look hot for you too, of course.) Sure it can be a big change, but wouldn’t you agree that couples need to shake things up?

* Ladies—I know you won’t but—try not to bark when your man expresses misgivings. Surely, though, because these guys have that something extra, they’ll come at you with the most delicate approach.

** I’m tempted to compare this with such a life change as men balding—it’s largely a man’s issue; women experience it from the outside (but it’s not exactly the same…)