Now you see?? This is exactly why I don't ride the Greyhound, except in moments of sheer desperation! Imagine, you're minding your own business and some psycho just starts stabbing you and hacking off your head??! What is the world coming to?? While I enjoy the liberties of cheap travel, I say DOWN with Greyhound!! It's gross and unsafe!
::crosses fingers and says silent prayer never to have to take it again::
I had meant to post this a while ago when I saw it on Kanye West's infamous blog, but I never got the chance to until now. I love this song, particularly because the scenario in the video fits into a certain part of my life right now. The video is interesting in that we all could be either of the main characters, who hasn't both broken a heart and gotten their heart broken? Or in this case, cut out of the chest cavity and served to an ex-significant other on a plate, because you knew you'd be messed up after that...
Enjoy :) (lyrics follow the vid)
I got some bad news this morning Which in turn made my day When this someone spoke I listened All of a sudden, has less and less to say Ohhhhhh how could this be? All this time, I've lived vicariously Who's gonna save my soul now? Who's gonna save my soul now? How will my story ever be tollllld now? How will my story be tollllld now?
Made me feel like somebody Hmmm, like somebody else Although he was imitated often It felt like I was bein myself Is it a shame that someone else's song Was totally and completely dependant on Who's gonna save my soul now? Who's gonna save my soul now? I wonder if I'll live to grow old now Gettin high cause I feel so lowwwww down
And maybe it's a little selfish All I have is the memory Yet I never stopped to wonder-ahhhhh Was it possible you were hurtin worse than me Still my hunger turns to greeeeed Cause what about what I neeeeeed?! And OHHHH~! Who's gonna save my soul now? Who's gonna save my soul now? Ohhhh I know I'm out of control now Oooh-oooh, tired enough to lay my own soul down
I was recently pointed towards a clip on Youtube of a portion of a British ITV special about 5 teenaged kids who went to a Teenage Tourette's Camp and their experience was filmed documentary-style. "blog bout this," he said, "...lil racist retards." At the time I couldn't give the video clip the attention it needed-- I was busy doing something else. But this morning I logged on to the computer and decided to give it a look.
After watching the clip, I messaged my friend.
"They have tourette's you jerk!"
And that was the beginning of a looong debate. Now, stepping back from the argument, I see that we both just held two opposing views. He was of the strong opinion that the children were racist because their tics caused them to yell racial obscenities. Where, he asked, do they get the knowledge of those words from if not from some kind of internalized racism? Someone in their environment is teaching them that these words are deviant and so they are saying them and they need to be held accountable for the racists that they and those teaching/caring for them are!
My first reaction was to be angry at a viewpoint that I saw as so completely ridiculous. So I ceaselessly refuted his claims. I did some research on the disease and found that a person with Tourette's can have vocal tics, one kind of which is coprolalia--the involuntary use of obscene words or socially inappropriate words and phrases.
Taking a step back from the argument (and after consulting a third party) I came to the following conclusions:
I understand that the clip shows a little white girl saying "Nigger!" when she sees a black person. That is going to "spark fire" in any reasonable black person who is culturally aware (Thanks Jay). Questions will naturally arise in the mind of any sensible person: where/who did she learn that derogatory term from?
It is reasonable and plausible to concur that she may have gotten that term from someone in her family who is racist or have heard the term used in a racist context. As the word obviously belongs to her repertoire of vocabulary, it arises from somewhere in her psyche.
If the case where simply that we have a white girl saying "nigger" then maybe we could take the argument of her racism to great lengths. But instead, what we have here is a girl with a neurological disorder, thus, the argument has to change.
The only thing that we can ascertain as fact is the nature of her disease, which, if people would do a little research, they would come to understand is uncontrollable.
By definition, people with Tourette's Syndrome say things which they are aware are obscene. So while we have a mechanism that allows us to filter what comes out of our mouths, they have a desire to say what they know should not come out of their mouths. Imagine, you love your dad to death, but you say "F*CK OFF!" to him, and you cant help it. You don't actually want to say it, but you do, because your brain actually has the urge to say that which is wrong.
The issue that I had with this particular debate is it's construct. The first impulse is to play the race card. Understandable if you are a person who is, as Jay said, culturally aware. Especially in black America, where the ghost of Jim Crow has made everything about race. But even after it is discovered that a person suffers from a disorder of the brain, it is still irrelevant. No, they are racist. Their deviant behavior is a testament to their racism, not to the uncontrollable nature of their sometimes crippling disease.
It is much easier to believe in mental disorders that we have no trouble understanding or identifying, like a person with down syndrome or someone who is cross-eyed in a wheel chair drooling and with a hand permanently suspended in the air and against their chest. So in the case of these unfortunate souls with the often comically protrayed coprolalia, they aren't just neurologically ill, they're "racist retards".
Why is it so difficult to imagine that the words chosen are no less a construct of their disease than the sloping forehead of a child with 47 chromosomes?
I redyed my hair. After the first wash it was looking like cotton candy-- pink, purple and fluffy! Now, we all know I could pull off orange and green hair if I wanted to, but everyone has their limits! I had to say enough is enough and get the subtle shade of violet I had originally been going for! So, for now, my hair looks jet black with streaks of ultraviolet violet in it... maybe if it stays this way I can leave it dyed for work. I'll be in bank meetings perplexing folk when my head moves and appears to be streaked purple but they blink and it's black again--I gotta get my kicks somehow, right?
Men do not love. They possess. They subjugate. -Mama Yaya, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
For the most part, I've spent the majority of my time back in Pittsburgh reading cheesy romance novels. Is it wrong for me to titillate myself with stories of courtship and desire, soul mates and passion? Maybe a little. But I figure that I may as well hide behind stories woven by idealistic, patriarchal-minded, sedated, frivolous women. They do weave them so well...
But of course, my true desires snuck in whilst I browsed the shelves of the library. In the "African-American" section I stumbled upon Maryse Condé's I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem... I left it for last. I just knew that there would be no women getting thrown over any burly men's shoulders and thrown into bed for unabashed nights of passion. No happy endings with glass slippers and modern-day Ever After's.
After one completely ridiculous romance novel by some obscure author and two mildly entertaining ones by Nora Roberts, I finally picked up Condé's book. I thought it would bore me. As it turns out, I couldn't put it down.
I had discovered Condé months before during an Africana studies course (we read Hérémakhonon). It stood out to me that she was Caribbean. We so oft hear of the slave trade bringing our ancestors to the New World. Jim Crow has etched such a deep line through the middle of the Slave's history in the world, that it is almost forgotten that slaves were displaced from their homes and brought to the Caribbean also. But there she was, someone whose quest for her origins resembled my own. She spoke to my subconscious, my insecurities, and divine femininity. So when I recognized another work of hers, I had to experience it.
Needless to say, I was not disappointed. I, Tituba has sealed this affair in blood. Her prose more closely resembles poetry. It's just beautifully written. So the next time you walk past a library, pop in and check it out....
Memorable quotes: "Blessed is the love that carries man on the waters of oblivion. That makes him forget he is a slave. That rolls back the torment and fear."
"Life is too kind to men, whatever their color."
"There is something indecent about beauty in a man. Tituba, men shouldn't be beautiful!"
"Then with one skillful blow of the mallet he smashed my chains to pieces. He did the ame thing with my wrists while I screamed. I screamed while my blood, which for so many weeks had ciculated poorly, rushed back into my flesh, pricking my skin with a thousand darts. I screamed, and this scream, the terrified cry of a newborn baby, heralded my return to this world... Few people have the misfortune to be born twice."
"The truth always arrives too late because it walks slower than lies. Truth crawls at a snail's pace."
"Nevertheless I had to face facts. A child in fact is not the fruit of love but of chance."
Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 12:41PM 