Posted on by slb · 13 Comments

ManWomanBoogie.

Can man be stronger, if a woman is there?
I would have to say yes.
Can woman make it without men being there?
She would have to be blessed.

— Q-Tip

For the first ten years of my life, I was raised in a matriarchy. I lived with my mother and her mother (or, intermittently, with my mother alone) until I was ten. I don’t think it’s possible not to have feminist leanings, being raised in households like these. There is no male energy and, by extension, no male “authority.” Women are paying for everything that is essential to life–and they’re doing it on far less income than a man would have to. When you’re disobedient, women are doing the chastising. When you’re obedient, women are doing the work of positive reinforcement. When you’re broken, women are mending you, to the best of their ability.

If you’re fortunate, they’re doing all this without pining for the men who have been long absent or the men they have yet to meet. If you’re fortunate, they’re doing this without bashing the whole of the male species.

But that’s only if you’re incredibly fortunate.

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Considering the Neo-Mammy.

Yesterday, PostBourgie published my essay on the idea that Hollywood is slowly reconstructing its traditional archetype of the “Mammy,” to curious, problematic, and vaguely uncomfortable results:

Hmm. It isn’t often that Hollywood strives for any sense of honesty about what was really going on in the hearts and minds of black domestics, as they scrubbed floors and diapered white folks. Though The Secret Life of Bees is no trailblazing manifesto, it isn’t exactly mamby-pamby in its discussion of black-and-white-woman relations in the 1960s, either.

Read it all here and be sure to leave a comment.

Posted on by slb

I Hated “Lakeview Terrace.”

I really did. If you want to find out a bit more about why, check out my review over at PostBourgie.com:

I should probably tell you right now that this movie isn’t about Abel Turner. It isn’t about Lisa. And it certainly isn’t about Ron Glass, who phones in a few scenes as her father, Harold Perreau.

In fact, this film treats all of its Black cast as tertiary in order to reveal its true intent.

This is a film about how hard it is to be a White man married to a Black woman.

It gets better. Read on.

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The Tao of Don.

Watch me weigh in on the career trajectory of the illustrious Don Cheadle over at PostBourgie.com:

It’s kind of interesting to note that Cheadle recently told the Detroit Free Press that he’d like to do a big, lighthearted comedy with no sociopolitical underpinnings. Whether or not anyone will cast him in one remains to be seen, although we can’t imagine it’d be too big a stretch for a studio to envision him in a comic role. A director need only dust off some old footage of Cheadle in that now-classic Fresh Prince ep where he guested as Hillary’s erstwhile love and Will’s loose cannon “friend from the hood,” Ice Tray.

Posted on by slb · 1 Comment

Blacks and the Jesus People Movement.

Image from http://www.hollywoodfreepaper.org.

Greetings All!

I’m working on a biography featuring African Americans who were integrally involved in the Jesus People Movement of the late 1960s and ’70s.

History has long suggested that African American involvement in the Movement was minimal; however the
music of artists like Andrae Crouch and Leon Patillo, as well as the story of South Chicago’s New Life Community (and its eventual fusion with Jesus People USA) suggest otherwise. The biography will focus on the pop cultural contributions; the unique challenges and triumphs; and the subsequent spiritual journeys
of African American “Jesus People.”

Current Jesus People USA members and former participants in the Movement who’d like to be interviewed for this book project should contact me here (in the comments section).

Posted on by slb

PostBourgie on Omar Tyree’s Retirement.

Check out my piece on “Street Lit pioneer” Omar Tyree’s absurd open letter of retirement over at PostBourgie:

A few things strike us as eyebrow-raising about this opening paragraph of Tyree’s open letter to both his loyal reading audience and the retailers who’ve been primarily responsible for the sale of 1.5 million copies of fifteen of his arguably mediocre serviceable books.

Tyree is insulting his readership by assuming that, because his readers complained about the content/quality of the fourteen books following his first two, they’re unwilling or unable to “develop a liking for fresh material.” Dude, you just admitted to writing sixteen novels in the “urban fiction game.” How can you gauge what other kinds of material audiences may prefer, when you’ve deepened the ridges of your own one-track rut for close to two decades now?

Read the rest here.

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“Prodigal”

I do not believe I am prodigal. To proclaim me as such would mean assuming that I left the churches I attended or questioned my beliefs because I thought I knew better. You’d have to believe that I’m arrogant and need desperately to be humbled. You’d have to say that, even though I’ve asked Christ to redeem me, one or more of my actions thereafter have voided that redemption.

Though I adore Jesus’ parable, I cannot say that I relate to the son who demanded an early inheritance and swaggered boastfully off to destroy himself. I am not penniless in a pig’s trough and neither are any of my wandering, currently churchless friends. I’m confused and broken and spent, to be sure, and on occasion, I long for the days of old when the tufts of wool adorning my eyes still felt warm and comforting.

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Posted on by slb · 5 Comments

Phantom Limbs

On occasion, I hear hymns. I hear Hosanna Integrity and Dayspring songs on AM radio. I see an infomercial about purchasing the latest Christian Contemporary compilation CD and watch as seas of tear-streaked faces gaze at ceilings with their arms upstretched and their fingers splayed, while 30-second snippets of Third Day and MercyMe songs play.

Other times, I find myself in a room full of people, and I happen to hear one guest greet the other.

“God is good!” the woman in the knee-length skirt calls.

“All the time,” the lady standing next to her answers.

“And all the time?” a man nearby chimes in.

“God is good!” they happily exclaim in unison.

Recently, I asked a fellow adjunct professor if she was considering the pursuit of a PhD, and she answered, “Only if that’s what God wants for me. I’d have to be intentional about it and make sure it’s His will. Otherwise, I’m not sure how far I’d get, trying to do it on my own.”

These are commonplace occurrences, though every time I hear a hymn or see a commercial full of earnest, tearful worshippers serenading Jesus with the lyrics of Jars of Clay or I try to make small talk with someone who only speaks Christianese, I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.

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Poking Fun at Tyra

PostBourgie just published my sort of tongue-in-cheek piece voicing my befuddlement over Tyra Banks’ Daytime Emmy win:

Not to discount Ms. Banks’ accomplishments, but have you ever watched an episode of The Tyra Banks Show? You have??? So this is your fault.

Seriously, though. We’re really over here trying to figure out how Tyra “Me Me Me” Banks won a Daytime Emmy Award—and in the category of Outstanding Talk Show – Informative, no less. I know I, for one, learned a great deal about John Edwards’ eating habits when he appeared on Tyra. Watching him refuse Wendy’s French fries because he only eats them with Elizabeth on their wedding anniversary was quite informative.

Read the rest here.

s.

Posted on by slb · 5 Comments

Them

They’re wondering what happened to us, the youth leaders we left behind, the deacons and prophets who watched us sing solos with the children’s choir or mumble through recitations in Easter pageants. They do not feel that they’ve failed us. They think that we have failed them.

But we remember the day T.J. dropped dope in the men’s bathroom when he was fourteen and fatherless. We remember Eugene and Damont being gunned down before their twentieth birthdays. We remember the Park Heights cats with stony eyes and priors who rushed the stairs leading up to Youth Church, looking to jump Raheem. We remember the succession of girls whose bellies began to swell and recall how naively they loved, despite prophetic words and without prophylactics (because advocating teen birth control meant advocating sin). We still hear your voices hardening as you discussed them, as though all their adolescent missteps reduced them to footnotes in a series of cautionary tales.

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