Mad Man Barbie Dolls

I saw the above at Jezebel and I could not help sharing.  An article in the New York Times states that they are a part of a "premium-price collectors' series" for adults.  The suggested retail price is 74.95 per doll and there will between 7,000 to 10,000 copies of each doll. They will be available at  amctv.com and barbiecollector.com.

Dodai points out that the mini Mad Man cast comes without mini alcohol and snifter.  Can you imagine Don going 24 hours without a drink?  So, she recommends a mini silver cocktail set to accessorize.  I gotta say I agree with Dodai on this one.

Finally, am I the only one that thinks they ought to ditch the Betty Draper doll and make a Peggy one instead? 

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New French Diet Eat Air

Well it seems as though a new diet fad  starvation plan created in France is the next big thing.  The diet is called “L'Air Fooding” and it involves putting food on a plate and pretending to eat it.  Yes, so very chic; put food on your fork and bring it to your lips but never take a bite.   Not to worry, if the hunger pangs hit you, you can always fill up on soup à l’eau (water soup) which consists of water and salt. Mmmm tasty.

To ensure that the diet  starvation plan is understood to be the next great thing, French Grazia is promoting it, using Madonna’s Dolce & Gabbana campaign, and other photos of celebs holding food to their mouths and not eating it.

I would love to have a word with the small brained individual, who thought this was a good idea.  Honestly, haven’t enough women died from eating disorders without making it trendy to starve oneself? Food is an essential part of life; it is the fuel that gives our bodies energy.  

We are constantly told that we should lose weight to get healthy, but if the plan involves starving yourself, I fail to see how this is a healthy option.  We should just be honest and admit that the media disciplines women is not out of a concern for health and well being, but to keep women constantly unstable and reaching for standards that are not normal for them or sustainable.

If your body is meant to be a size 14 and you are desperate to be a size 4, you will spend money on fad diets, surgery and exercise equipment/gym to achieve this look no matter the personal cost.  Not only will this cost an exorbitant amount of money, it will not necessarily amount to a healthier stronger version of you.  It will in fact drain you of essential elements even as it is impoverishing you.

This diet starvation plan is nothing but a recipe for an eating disorder.  Women already have a complicated relationship with food due to our stigmatization of fat bodies and poverty.  Did the inventor of this diet starvation plan even consider how this looks to poor women who go without to feed their kids? Do they even realize that some are lucky to get one meal a day?  Starvation is not something to do for fun.  It LEADS TO DEATH FOR MILLIONS.  There are families  grocery shopping at food banks and eating at soup kitchens, so you can just imagine how they might not be able to identify with this incredibly large brain fart masquerading as a diet.  This diet starvation plan reeks of class privilege.  Imagine that, I’m so privileged that I’m going to diet starve myself, how fucking chic.

Heaven forbid we just try to promote a message of balance and health that does not mock women and stigmatize fatness as the ultimate evil.  How about we stop actively promoting eating disorders and just for shits and giggles, how about we recognize the luxury that food really is?  How revolutionary, a world that actually considers what is best for all.

H/T The Diet Blog

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Wednesday What’s Up

Please use this thread to discuss whatever is on your mind.  Are you reading something wonderful, have you seen a great movie or play?  Is there an issue grinding your gears, or do you have great news that you would love to share? Let it fly in the comment section.

Today is Happy Black girl day and because I already broke the rules and blogged about Toure I will just have to wait until next month to throw in my contribution.  I will just have to share with you Sister Toldja’s contribution for March and vow to do better next month.

Editors Note: as I come across blogs participating in Happy Black Girl Day I will add links to this post.

The Happiest Black Girl I Know

Happy Black Girl Day X Assimilation X Whiteness

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Michael Bryan: let’s not discount depression

I have a new post up at Global Comment'

On February 26th, Michael Bryan, the eighteen year old son of Marie Osmond, leapt to his death. The Osmond family has asked for prayers of support in this extremely difficult time. According to ET Online, Bryan left behind a note explaining that the suicide was motivated by his life-long battle with depression. He wrote that this battle left him “feeling as if he had no friends and could never fit in.” Although he entered rehab in 2007, the reasons for that were never publicly disclosed.

This is clearly a difficult time for Marie Osmond. Yet instead of conveying sympathy for her loss, comedian Roseanne Barr has publicly blamed Bryan’s apparent suicide on homophobia within the Mormon Church.

The church was very active in the fight to ban gay marriage in California and church doctrine considers same-sex attraction to be a sin. The church has also been known to practice aversion therapy, though its results have proven to be harmful. Barr attacked Marie Osmond in a blog post entitled marie osmonds gay son killed himself: “because he had been told how wrong and how sick he was every day of his life by his church and the people in it.”

Stating that “depression is a lie!”, Barr wrote:

“Marie please don’t talk about how your faith in your church has helped you get through this one! Please get some integrity and tell that church of yours that you will leave it and stop giving it ten percent of your money if they don’t stop trying to destroy your kids’ and all gay people’s civil rights and dreams and hopes!!”

Other than Republican Mitt Romney, the Osmonds remain the most public face of Mormonism in the U.S. and given the churches stance on homosexuality, it is quite easy to lash out at them.  Bryan’s death could publicly signify the toll of the homophobic behaviour engaged in by the Church, but since he never publicly stated that he was a gay man, any such assertion is conjecture. Using his death like this simply co-opts his existence.

What we do know, without doubt, is that Michael Bryan battled depression. The true nature of depression, like many mental illnesses, is often discounted despite its seriousness. GLBT youth are more likely to commit suicide than their cisgender heterosexual counterparts, but it is the addition of depression that turns rejection into a life-threatening circumstance.

Finish reading here

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Touré Praises Raped Slaves For Seducing Massa

It takes a lot to leave me sputtering and incoherent but Touré accomplished that with his recent tweets. Touré is a journalist and talking head for BET, MSNBC 

Sexually heroic?  They were raped repeatedly..any intercourse between slave and master is RAPE because the power differential would eradicate the possibility of consent.  If you don’t understand this basic fact, it is because on some level you believe that men have a right access women’s bodies. 

Black men have repeatedly spoken about the ways in which racism effects their life's chances, without acknowledging that this does not remove gender privilege. And to even suggest that love could exist in an environment in which the woman was considered chattel is ridiculous.  If you love someone, you don’t hold them in bondage and force them to satisfy your  every need.  All this argument does is justify the crimes of White slave holders but leave it to a Black man to find the good in slavery, when it involves the oppression of Black women.

Touré claims that his twitter account was hijacked, but I don’t believe him for one minute.  Let’s just face the fact that he is not the first man to display his inner fool for the world to see – John Mayer anyone?  Black men are no different than White men; if the opportunity arrives for them to oppress a woman you can be sure that they will because their  entire existence has been in support of patriarchy.  They are betrayal sprung from our very wombs and yet it is on our bosom that they expect comfort and salvation

This story is once again not getting any circulation and I highly suspect it is because the people being devalued are Black Women, the unwoman of the world.  When we rage against the world ,we are angry and uncouth and yet the violence and emotional venom aimed at us goes unnoticed, except by those of us who carry the pain of being the worlds punching bag.

Touré has scrubbed his twitter account and though the words have been erased, the pain has not.  You see, once you send something out into the world you cannot take it back and you cannot erase the hurt that you cause.  There has been no formal apology and neither MSNBC or BET has had anything to say about his commentary.  MSNBC already has a history of forgiveness (see Imus and nappy headed hoe commentary), so I suppose the silence is really unsurprising. 

Once again, I am going to ask for your support in denouncing behaviour that is clearly damaging. 

MSNBC President Phil Griffin at 212-664-4444

(they are going to transfer you to viewer services HELL, but get creative with it.)

EMAIL: viewerservices@msnbc.com

I think that what bothers me the most is the knowledge that this kind of thing is going to keep happening, because though Black men are our partners in the struggle against racism, the pursuit of power has caused them to ignore the harm that they do in the name of patriarchal privilege.  It is perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow.

H/T What About Our Daughters

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R.I.P Corey Haim

Like most people that grew up in the 80’s, I had a picture of Corey Haim on my locker.  Haim was best known for his role in “Lost Boys” with Corey Feldman.  In recent years he starred in “The Two Coreys” on A&E. It became quite clear on that program that despite his struggle, he was still far from clean and so it came as no surprise to read that he was found dead this morning of an apparent drug overdose.   Corey Haim has become a sad cautionary tale.  He did not have the career that he should have had due to drugs and now he is dead at the age of 38.  That’s far too young for anyone to die.

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African Americans are the First Gay Couple To Marry in Washington

Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend were the first couple to marry.  They wed at the office of the Human Rights Campaign, along with two other couples. Below you will find a portion of their wedding ceremony (editors note: please grab the Kleenex before you hit play)

When the minister declared them partners in life, my heart swelled.  Though marriage will never end homophobia because it is institutionalized, it is beautiful to see gays and lesbians publicly avowing their love and promising faith and fidelity to one another.

I think that it is important that all see this video.  There is so much talk about homophobia in the Black community, that  those who are same gender loving, who are both gay and Black are erased.  Their stories and their truth is ignored and silenced in order to push the grand narrative.  Let their love stand as a testimony that gay rights are an issue for people of colour because Black gays and lesbians are affected by homophobia. 

To those within the Black community who still see homosexuality as a White thing,  right before your eyes is the truth of the opposite.  When you support heterosexual privilege, you are oppressing your own people.  Even though the media is content  to paint the GLBT community as a monolithic group filled with race and class privilege, today stand aware that they are as diverse as any other group on the planet.  The monolithic identity is the oppressors truth and it flourishes to keep us separated from each other.

Congratulations Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend, may your love grow and blossom in the years ahead. 

H/T Think Progress

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Tune in Tuesday: Boy George

Okay, so maybe my friends have a point about my love of aging British pop stars, but I LOVE Boy George.  When this song came out, I was just learning about different sexualities and the way in which gender is constructed.  I think back at those times and realize all of the assumptions I made based in the fact that I had grown in a culture that privileges not only my sexuality but my cisgender body.  Today I know that there were a lot of problematic messages in “The Crying Game” the movie to which this became the title song.  (Little known fact of the day: George actually wrote this song long before the movie.)  At any rate, that movie and this song was what got me thinking that perhaps my truth was not universal…gah young ignorance eh? 

“Love is Love” is one of my favourite Culture Club songs.   Boy George was the first gay man that I saw on television.  I remember asking my parents if he was male or female because at the time, it was really important to me to discern gender because I had not been taught how damaging the gender binary is.  I thank George for not only this song, but every song he has ever written or performed because as I said earlier, he was quite often the spark that caused me to challenge dominant ideas.

In recent years he has had a lot of difficulties.  There are those that are quick to dismiss him as though he has not given something wonderful to our culture.  I think we need to hold on to Boy George because he is a talented musician and because he was/is never afraid to be who is is, warts and all.   Most of us just go through the motions like little automatons and never figure out why we are so unhappy.  Life has not been kind to Boy George, but at least he has the courage to face it head on, which is more than I can say for a lot of people.

Your turn, please share your memories related to any Boy George song or share, or share your favourite Boy George/Culture club song.  Don’t forget to mention why it means something to you.

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Nelson Mandela Behold The Truth

Some time ago I wrote a post regarding Nelson Mandela in which I took much criticism.  The central question I asked was whose hero is he?  It has become impossible to truly question the myth that Nelson Mandela has become; however, because of the ways in which racism is institutionalized, it is imperative that Blacks seek truth rather than accept the oppressors truth.

In a piece written by Nadira Naipaul entitled, “How Nelson Mandela betrayed us says ex-wife Winnie,”  the true legacy of Nelson Mandela is explored.  Hers are not simply the words of a bitter ex wife, they are the words of an angry compatriot continuing to wage battle in a world that has told her that her struggle is complete.

"This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You all must realise that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle, and there were others in the leadership too, like poor Steve Biko, who died of the beatings, horribly all alone. Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a burning young revolutionary. But look what came out," she said, looking to the writer. He said nothing but listened.

It is hard to knock a living legend. Only a wife, a lover or a mistress has that privilege. Only they are privy to the intimate inner man, I thought.

"Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we are still on the outside. The economy is very much 'white'. It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded."

She was pained. Her uncreased brown face had lost the softness.

"I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel [Peace Prize in 1993] with his jailer [FW] de Klerk. Hand in hand they went. Do you think de Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart? He had to. The times dictated it, the world had changed, and our struggle was not a flash in the pan, it was bloody to say the least and we had given rivers of blood. I had kept it alive with every means at my disposal".

We could believe that. The world-famous images flashed before our eyes and I am sure hers. The burning tyres - Winnie endorsed the necklacing of collaborators in a speech in 1985 ("with our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country") - the stoning, the bullets, the terrible deaths of "informers". Her often bloodthirsty rhetoric has marred her reputation.

"Look at this Truth and Reconciliation charade. He should never have agreed to it." Again her anger was focused on Mandela. "What good does the truth do? How does it help anyone to know where and how their loved ones were killed or buried? That Bishop Tutu who turned it all into a religious circus came here," she said pointing to an empty chair in the distance.

"He had the cheek to tell me to appear. I told him a few home truths. I told him that he and his other like-minded cretins were only sitting here because of our struggle and ME. Because of the things I and people like me had done to get freedom."

Winnie did appear before the TRC in 1997, which in its report judged her to have been implicated in murders: "The commission finds Mandela herself was responsible for committing such gross violations of human rights."

When begged by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to admit that "things went horribly wrong" and apologise, Winnie finally said sorry to Stompie's mother and to the family of her former personal doctor whose killing she is alleged to have ordered after he refused to cover up Stompie's murder.

Someone brought in the coffee and we took the offered cups in silence.

"I am not alone. The people of Soweto are still with me. Look what they make him do. The great Mandela. He has no control or say any more. They put that huge statue of him right in the middle of the most affluent "white" area of Johannesburg. Not here where we spilled our blood and where it all started. Mandela is now a corporate foundation. He is wheeled out globally to collect the money and he is content doing that. The ANC have effectively sidelined him but they keep him as a figurehead for the sake of appearance."

As I read the above piece, I once again found myself asking whose hero is he?  Blacks still live in townships largely impoverished while all of the power still lies largely in White hands.    We cannot and should not re-write history to make Whiteness comfortable.  How can we turn the other cheek and forgive when equality and justice has yet to occur?

Across the globe Whiteness is content to tell us how far we have come and yet POC see how far the road ahead still is.  If we were to settle now, we would only bequeath to our  children a world in which the battle is not finished and they are still second class citizens.  Each generation has fought and our ready acceptance of the oppressors truth is a betrayal of their struggle.  We decide our heroes and not the White power structure because only we know the true humiliation of marginalization.

Along the way Whiteness has fought to slow our progress and maintain White supremacy and therefore; the idea that Whiteness would suddenly revere a Black person without an agenda is unrealistic.   Look how Whiteness has embraced Martin Luther King, only to ignore his more revolutionary statements.  Why would we assume that this somehow magically  does not extend to Nelson Mandela because apartheid is no longer in existence?  If Blacks are still undereducated, and living in poverty and Whites still control the economy and live in largely White neighbourhoods, how much has really changed?

As westerners we are told that the struggle has ended and that we should look at South Africa as success and I once again ask a success for who?  Whiteness seeks to pacify and therefore, it is up to us to speak truth to power.  Whiteness, like every other oppressor will never willingly give up power and it would be foolish to allow them to declare victory over racism, when its continuance benefits them.

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Spark of Wisdom: Tolerance VS. Acceptance

 This is a guest post from Sparky, of Spark in Darkness.  Many of you are  familiar with him from Livejournal, as well as from his insightful and often hilarious commentary here. Each Tuesday, Womanist Musings will be featuring a post from Sparky.

I have been thinking, in a random sort of way, about the difference between Tolerance and Acceptance.

First the difference - to use a couple of trivial examples: I ACCEPT that Beloved, despite being the ripe old age of 28, still decides to dye his hair colours that would make a hippie gasp, it's part of the cuteness of him. I ACCEPT that he will burst into song for no apparent reason. I accept that he loves his shiny gadgets that we'll never use but he gets so enthusiastic about. I ACCEPT his unholy love for all things spicy. I even ACCEPT his sudden obsessions that he will abandon within a couple of weeks after turning our lives upside down for them. I accept these things, they're part of the things that make  him who he is. They're delightful little quirks that are a part of my life and I'm generally happy about.

I TOLERATE him being a morning person that will not be quiet before noon like any decent human being. I TOLERATE him putting away things before I'm finished with them. I TOLERATE his damn fishies. I TOLERATE him constantly borrowing my car because he will keep tinkering with his. I TOLERATE these things. They annoy me, they vex me and I'd much rather they go away and if exposed to them for any length of time I'm likely to get rather irritable. I don't like these things, but I am prepared to endure them.

This is the difference. Acceptance is something we accept as part of life, part of society, part of people. It's there and we don't have a problem with it, we're happy to share our space with it, happy to share our lives, our world with it.

Tolerance is something we endure. Tolerance is the trial, the chore, the annoyance. It's something we wish would go away, something we avoid exposure to as much as possible. Something we deal with only as little as we can.

Some time ago, on my LJ, I made a promise to myself. I promised myself that I would be as uncloseted as possible. I wasn't going to announce the wonders of manlove at the Westboro Baptist Church Guns & Flamethrower convention, no but I promised to avoid the little lies, the evasions, the endless avoidances and silences I used to keep me within the shadows of the closet..

And I was surprised - because of the number of people who knew I was gay, apparently had no problems with my being gay and reacted well to me coming out - were suddenly a lot more hostile to my STAYING out. They had no problems with my gayness - just with my being gay. Talking about Beloved, or what we had done on the weekend or my life in general was seen as provocative. I was annoying them by not hiding my gayness, despite my topics being exactly the same as theirs.

They didn't accept me. They tolerated me, they endured me - and I was testing their tolerance.

Another was happy to gossip and talk with me. We gossiped about hot guys and hot celebrities, watched the eye candy. And she was very very pleased with herself. Very pleased - proud in fact, because she was doing such a nice thing and was such a nice person.

Is this acceptance? Because we don't normally pat ourselves on the back for being nice to someone. But for tolerating someone? I think she tolerated me - and expected kudos for her effort. because if it wasn't effort, if I was just a natural, normal part of accepted life - why should she expect cookies for it?

Tolerance has been a large part of the fight for equality and it certainly has it usefulness, especially in the early movements. When people, especially the powerful and/or majority of people think it's ok, even laudable, to attack/kill/drive you out then arguing for full acceptance can seem like a distant dream. We argue for tolerance because our very existence is not tolerated. We argue for tolerance when it's not even about equality - it's about living and being able to have a life with even a modicum of safety. We argue tolerance out of basic SURVIVAL.

But I do not want to be tolerated. Obviously, I'd much rather be tolerated than not tolerated at all - I like my body unbruised, my blood to stay where it should be and my limbs unbroken. So, yeah, I'm not going to throw tolerance out. But it's not what I want.

I'm not some trial to tolerate, some burden to endure. You don't get any cookies or praise for putting up with me. I'm not something foisted on you. I am a part of society, a part of this world, a part of my country and culture, a part of my workplace and neighbourhood.

I am a part of this life. I want - I demand - to be accepted as that, as me, as having a place here and a right to be here. Not some other you magnanimously tolerate.

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