What Goes Around

I haven't seen Roots in a while.  It was broadcast on consecutive nights during my junior year in college.  I remember only bits and pieces of it because it was hard to watch.  I remember the view of the middle passage because it made me realize what stern stuff I come from and am made of.  I remember Kunta Kinte's name for white people (toubob) and though I try to never call or think bad names about people (I hate the term "white trash;" humans aren't refuse), the word holds a solid place in my consciousness.

What I remember most, though, is Kizzy's story line.  Kizzy.  Kizzy meaning "stay put."  Kizzy:  daughter of Kunta Kinte and Bell.  Kizzy:  living doll and close playmate to Missy Anne, who Missy Anne taught to read as a lark, causing, upon discovery, Kizzy to be sold away from her family as punishment for being able to read.  God, I cried as Kizzy was hauled away in a wagon, shrieking for her parents.  I remember Missy Anne, played by Sandy Duncan, one of my favorite actresses as a child, felt nothing though her carelessness caused the rending of a family.  I knew that that or something like that happened or more importantly, could have happened, to my ancestors.

In one of the last episodes of the series, there was a scene that has, like the word "toubob," stayed with me.

It is decades later for Kizzy.  She's old and has weathered losses of her own.  Missy Anne, also old, is in a carriage and stops for a rest, perhaps, at the plantation where Kizzy is now property.  Kizzy instantly recognizes Missy Anne.  Leslie Uggams, playing Kizzy, gives such a look of almost joy at seeing her childhood friend.  The cruelty of Missy Anne's youthful actions is not yet remembered by Kizzy.  Kizzy calls Missy Anne's name.  Missy Anne is hot and thirsty and demands, in that fashion that flints off the backbone that I and just about every person of color my age recognizes, that water be fetched by Kizzy.  Missy Anne holds no more recognition for Kizzy than she would an old shoe.  And then Kizzy remembers.

Kizzy walks to the well, dips a cup for water, turns her back to Missy Anne and her entourage, and spits in the cup.  Kizzy gives the cup of water to Missy Anne with a smile and satisfied eyes.

Jesse Helms passed on to his judgment on Friday.  Jesse Helms, who could no longer while out and about, hurl nigger, nigra, boy, gal, or if he was being kind, colored at a black person, instead assigning "Fred" for such same intent.  Jesse Helms, who surely knew that his actions emboldened like-thinking Americans to commit all manners of terrorism against fellow citizens, and was steadfastly unrepentant.  Jesse Helms, who rather than help grant hope for those whose lifestyle he didn't agree with, made it his business to bring to them to ruination.  Jesse Helms, who is being hailed in death as, in the words of President Bush, "...a kind, decent, and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called 'the Miracle of America,'" corrupting the definition of kindness, decency and humility.

Any judgment I might accord Jesse Helms is given to faults of my humanity, of which vengeance is certainly at the top of the list.  I try to resist thinking that.  I resist because I believe in something more profound than I -- nature, fate, balance, spirit, God -- that has a sense of justice more righteous than mine.  And on the selfish hedging your bets side, I really don't want to be judged harshly for the many mistakes I've made in my life when the time comes, if indeed that is how it is.

Still.  It's too bad I never got the chance to spit in his cup.

Elite? Who? Me? Ha!

Jack and Jill Politics has a great post (by way of Aunt Jemima's Revenge) about the charge of elitism leveled against Sen. Obama and his wife.  I very much like the point that the majority of White America, and much of Black America, has no idea that there is this demi monde of true black elitists in society.  This is interesting; if you have the time, check out the links in the quote:

Unless the Obamas are leaving this information out of their personal biographies, the Obamas are not members of The Links, Jack and Jill of America, or The Divine Nine. The Obamas don't have a summer home on Martha's Vineyard....(Valerie Jarrett does) or Sag Harbor, where many of the real black elite are currently sipping mint juleps right now. I also don't believe that either Obama had a cotillion that "introduced" them to society.

[...]

Lawrence Otis Graham who wrote, Member of the Club and Our Kind of People, can tell you who and what makes one a member of the black elite. These are black folks that even the average black person maybe unaware of and most certainly the average white person is clueless about. Black generations of wealth, power, and prosperity, like the Kennedys, the Bushes, and the Vanderbilts. (You don't actually believe that CNN's Anderson Cooper has to work, with his mama being Gloria Vanderbilt?) The Johnsons of The Johnson Company and Ebony magazine are part of the Black Elite, three generations removed from their founding grandfather's humble beginnings.

Even as I read about the Black American upper crust and their self-reverence, my racial paranoia will remind me of the old old old joke:

What do you call a black man who is a doctor/lawyer/executive/politician/ThirdGen$$ with a thriving and successful practice/business/campaign/closed society who went to Harvard/Yale/Princeton?

I won't supply the punch line, but it's certainly not "elitist."

And I further don't think for a minute that conservative talking heads and politicians sit around lamenting how this "elitist" is snatching voters from their heretofore victorious jaws.  I think they save that term for the cameras and the public, some of whom are hungry for a reason to not vote for Sen. Obama.

To quote the Eagles:  I could be wrong, but I'm not.

STREAMING, FLAXEN, WAXEN

This post appeared first on Attackerman on May 30, 2008.

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Okay, I’m going bring up black hair care for a hot minute.  Hey!  Don’t you roll your eyes at me.  It’s in line with Spencer’s mandate to write about things he’d never think to write about.  Spencer?  Would you write about black hair care?  Okay, then.  Feel free to blast past or stick around and maybe see something new.

Tuesday on Jezebel, over 200 comments were lodged on a post written by Dodai entitled “Do White Families Need ‘Special Training’ Before Adopting Black Children?”  The subject was a report that took issue with the 1994 Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) that was passed to make it easier for black children to be adopted by families who were not black, namely white families.  The report said that color consciousness was important in shaping the MEPA’s policy.  Dodai’s post was informative and as usual, well written, throwing in something about Angelina Jolie’s dedication to providing all of her children with cultural references personal to each of them.  (Call me, Ange.)

The subject was deep.  (In answer to the question, one commenter cut the bull and said “yes.”)  Right off, black hair care became commenters’ subject matter, focusing on Zahara Jolie-Pitt.  Jezebel posts a lot of pictures of Zahara because the child is adorable, her daddy’s rich and her mama’s good lookin’.  As usual, something is said about the need for someone who knew what they were doing to pay attention to the child’s head of hair.  I, along with those I can only construe as my fellow black women commenters, do a lot of the saying.  It may not seem important to an observer, but those many comments about hair were directly on point to the topic of the post.

Black hair shouldn’t be washed every day.  Black hair can’t be combed when it’s dry.  Black hair hates fine toothed combs.  Black hair needs some kind of heavy leave in conditioner.  Black hair is delicate and breaks easily.  Black hair can’t run wild on a consistent basis.  Black hair running wild consistently will loc.  Black hair is not slippery.  Black hair is shiny.  Black hair will hurt you like the torments of hell if the kitchen (the finer hair at the nape of the neck) is tangled.  Black hair eats rubber bands.  Black hair on little girls should be braided so the ordeal of getting the hair did is not a daily one.  Black hair being braided is a joy to watch.  Black hair being braided is hell to endure.  Black hair loves bright ribbons.  Black hair ties us together.  Black hair will wend its way through generations and all manner of multiethnic dilutions and peek out to show its gentle or harsh nappy edges proudly.  Black hair is extraordinary.

Something to embrace if the morning, and I mean the whole morning, is spent doing an adopted child’s black hair.