THIS MONKEY NEEDS ANSWERS…

I have serious issues with human beings in general, and these stem from a sincere belief – often proven correct – that people really don’t give a fuck about anything else but their own selves. Which is a shame, because the world would be so much more of a better place were we all able to, every now and again, consider how our actions, words and motives affect others. But, no. It appears this is too much to ask.

I’m often accused by loved ones of being a little bit of a “bitch”. Reason? I will not be silent if I find what you say or do to me hurtful, neither will I be silent in the face of douchebaggery, but the fact that I am quite welcoming of criticism aimed at me doesn’t seem to mitigate people’s feelings about my apparent brashness. Still, I think it should be a very normal thing to say to anyone: “I don’t like what you did there. Please correct that behavior.”

Unfortunately, people almost always jump on the defensive, and often, rather than acknowledging the fault, they will raise past issues about “you do this”, “you do that”. I’m not saying I don’t, but please confront me as and when it happens, just like I have done. I think we can get along a helluva lot better that way. Were you never taught to not bottle shit up?

Anyway.

I am reminded of this because of the explicit racism and raw displays of white supremacy currently dominating public discourse. Yes, I am referring to the likes of Penny Sparrow, Chris Hart and many other, less recognisable apparent racists. I am reminded of this because, as people of colour, our expression of the hurt that white privilege and institutionalized racism inflict on us is always met with accusations of “you’re overly sensitive” or “apartheid is over, get over it”.

It hurts. It’s just like a loved one refusing to acknowledge that their actions are hurtful. Here you are trying to find a way to move forward, together with this friend, lover or sibling, and all they can do is jump on the defensive. Guess what happens next? Fights ensue, bitterness consumes you both, and the path to a solution becomes ever so elusive.

Between Penny Sparrow and the many others who see nothing but an oil slick at the sight of people of colour populating a public beach; between eNCA’s Andrew Barnes mocking Minister Angie Motshekga’s mispronunciation of an English word and the very loud longing for those days when an entire people were legally denied their dignity, it is becoming harder and harder resisting giving in to what would be a sad notion – that white people are ALL racist, until proven otherwise.

Please! Make me understand how hating me simply because of my skin colour makes any sense?

I have serious issues with human beings, and racists – and apologists – in particular!

HILLARY CLINTON, FEMALE SUPERHEROES & EQUALITY

A-Force, Marvel’s all-female Avengers cast

We often speak of glass ceilings that need to be shattered. Forget what your thoughts on Hillary Clinton are, the fact of the matter is, should she become US president after next year’s election, she will have shattered what is believed to be the highest proverbial ceiling known to man by becoming the world’s most powerful individual. That is no small feat for her as a person and it is definitely no small feat for society in general considering we are still really living in a man’s world.

I keep imagining Hillary in a superhero suit, actually flying and shattering that ceiling with her fist. In my mind, she is dressed in a suit similar to Wonder Woman’s (the things I imagine… I know).

I love this idea and I love the potential influence of a woman US presidency, what this will mean for children growing up in a society where the world’s most powerful person is female. Surely, that’s a powerful thing, no?

What’s most amazing about the timing of a potential Hillary Clinton presidency is that during her possible tenure we may see some female superhero solo movies coming out. Wonder Woman has been cast and will be making her first appearance in the Batman versus Superman movie next year. There are talks of a solo outing for her, as far as I am aware. While we won’t be seeing a Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johanssen in The Avengers) movie any time soon, Marvel is working on a 2018 release for Captain Marvel (yes, the Cap is a “she”).

Personally, I am crossing fingers they cast Laverne Cox for that. A black, trans woman playing a superhero? Imagine the power of that statement!

There’s been lots of negative talk about female led action flicks, with many falsely stating that these never work. But all this has been about people listing horrible movies like Halle Berry’s Catwoman. I love this statement from Marvel CEO Kevin Feige:

I very much believe that it’s unfair to say, “People don’t want to see movies with female heroes,” then list five movies that were not very good, therefore, people didn’t go to the movies because they weren’t good movies, versus [because] they were female leads. And they don’t mention “Hunger Games,” “Frozen,” “Divergent.” You can go back to “Kill Bill” or “Aliens.” These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done.”

Anyway…

The one thing I find problematic with Marvel and DC Comics and most of their female characters is that a lot of them are female versions of heroes that first existed as male: Supergirl, Batgirl and all of that nonsense. It would be great, I think, if Hollywood only made movies of originally female characters or at least characters that have never been given a big screen adaptation led by a male actor. I hate all this Catwoman, Batgirl, Supergirl, She-Hulk nonsense because I think it simply reinforces the dumb idea that there’s no “she” sans “he”. That Adam-Eve type crap, you know?

MBAKS, BASSON & THE FUTURE OF NEWS

In case you missed it: over the weekend, Mbaks (that would be our sports minister Fikile Mbalula) had a go at Beeld editor Adriaan Basson following a pretty loaded Tweet from the latter. Basson wondered whether Mbaks had used taxpayers’ money to get himself to the fight of the century in Las Vegas. Many came to Mbaks’s defense and some came to Basson’s defense after Mbaks all but accused the editor of having a racist agenda.

I, for one, totally understood Mbaks’s reaction. I would have been royally annoyed by a suggestion that I am corrupt. Should there be concerns that I might be, Twitter is the last place a journalist should be directing such questions. Much as we live in a country with rampant government corruption, Basson’s loaded statement is an immediate assumption that Mbaks is guilty of corruption and that I find unacceptable to say the least. Do your digging and report to your readers (and followers) something that is not your own deeply held mistrust of politicians, particularly black politicians, I should also add. While Basson and other white people might see that kind of criticism as baseless and an attempt to racialise discourse, it isn’t. The policing of black wealth in this country is a real thing. This comes across as such and while Basson and others would say ‘well, it is his job to ask questions’, there’s a way of doing so. You are a person of influence and you are deliberately tweeting something that could be detrimental to someone’s image without even trying to find out what the facts are first. That is wrong and I’m pretty sure the reasons why are obvious.

We do live in those times where social media seems to dictate the news agenda. Just think of where you get your breaking news first or where it is you go when you know that a story is currently breaking. Social media is our first stop. Little wonder then, that social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest, are looking for ways of entering the news media domain. This is according to reports by Business Insider. Twitter reportedly tried entering the media game by buying media start-up mic.com and Facebook is reportedly in talks to have news organisations use their platform to break original content rather than just posting links to their own websites. If this comes to pass, it will be quite interesting to see how this changes the way news is packaged. Will we see more off the cuff, carelessness akin to Basson’s ill-conceived update on Mbaks? I can imagine how this is a possibility considering the instantaneous nature of social media. As a journalist myself, I worry about what this means for my profession and I am especially worried that it opens up the door to a further loss of credibility for our industry. What distinguishes us as the traditional media from, say, an alarmist blogger telling the Afrikaans community that South Africa is on a slippery slope and doing so on no factual basis other than to broadcast a deeply held belief that the country is run by “monkeys”?

The inevitable move towards social media as the leading news platform requires a strengthening of gatekeeping mechanisms if our industry is to retain even a smidgen of credibility in the eyes of ordinary people. With that said, it is great to have these very important discussions openly on social media! It is important that editors also be called out when they err. In the same way that they are keeping those in power in check, they too, because of their power, must be kept in check.

How Blackness Found Her Groove Back

“My hair is nappy, my dick is big, my nose is round and wide” – Kendrick Lamar

I’ve jokingly told many people that “consciousness is back in vogue” most probably out of the excitement I feel about music from the likes of Kendrick Lamar (heard ‘Complexion’ yet?) and what I generally see as a new embrace of things like ethnic hair and a refusal to accept whiteness as a standard.

No, honestly, it feels like 1998 or 2000 all over again except it’s not Lauryn Hill or Fat Belly Bella reminding us- blacks- that it’s okay to wear one’s hair in locks or a ‘fro.

If you asked me what the most beautiful thing to me is right now I’d have to say a line from Rapsody on Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Complexion’

Black as brown, hazelnut, cinnamon black tea and it’s all beautiful to me/ Call all your brothers magnificent/ Call all the sisters Queens

When you start seeing models with natural hair- for lack of a better term- on the runway and fashion campaigns in a world where the standards of beauty remain largely confined to a Caucasian aesthetic, where my round nose, nappy hair and thick lips make me unattractive even to my brethren, that’s a small victory! Brandee Brown, Solange Knowles, Imaan Hammam, I see you! Rihanna, how’s things at Dior. Lupita, keep holdin’ it down!

But even in my own life, seeing black women increasingly turning towards black hair styles, shunning the weave and typically Caucasian aesthetic- not that there’s anything wrong with a weave- makes me want to believe that the Afro-catharsis that most black people I know went through mostly in late teenage-hood has returned demanding one’s attention once more. I couldn’t be more pleased to be confronted by my blackness and how I- and no one else- feel about it again.

Of course all this consciousness doesn’t just come out of nowhere. I don’t for a second believe Azealia Banks’s anger towards the embrace of Iggy Azealia as a “rapper” is misplaced. I don’t for a second believe #RhodesMustFall and even To Pimp A Butterfly (that would be King Kendrick’s latest album) are things that just happen spontaneously.

The deaths of black folk at the hands of white policemen in the US, the failure of largely white juries to find these killers guilty of murder, the misappropriation of black culture: these are all things that make one sit up and think “hol’ up”!

It forces one to question: who am I in this world and what’s my position? Am I really that inferior person history has always sought to define me as? Wait! But this, hip-hop… This is what I created for myself. A culture I created after mine was taken and obliterated, erased. Now they want to take that, too???

I know a lot of white people and “new Blacks” hate it when one speaks about race but check your privilege! Of course you never have to remind yourself that you’re attractive when every magazine on the stand tells you your kind is on the daily! Your intelligence is never questioned because it’s assumed that you already have a level of intellect that is above what the rest of us are capable of conceiving. You never have to feel other because, well, it’s you who decides what “other” is, so, please, allow!

As for the “new Blacks”… Blackness has her groove back!

#PASSINGPRIVILEGE

Today I learned a new term: passing privilege!

It’s what I’ve been looking for- a term to describe the privilege that those of us who can’t hide who we are don’t have. So, for example: a closet case gay male has passing privilege if he is able to pass as a heterosexual male in public. I, on the other hand, am perhaps too obviously gay and so this is a privilege I don’t have. Is this unfortunate? Well, as far as dating is concerned I am at a bit of a disadvantage because a lot of straight-acting gay males tend to want to date people similar to them; the kind that won’t embarrass them by coming across as feminine and outing them by association. That, in most cases, cuts me right out because I don’t like concealing who I am. It’s downright uncomfortable. Not that I can’t act straight, I just choose to act like myself. Sometimes that means I come across as masculine but more often than not I come across as what society labels feminine. So, if I happen to like a straight-acting dude I’ve kind of learnt how to ignore that because I’ve come to expect rejection. I know I shouldn’t assume that everyone of them is the same, but I can’t help it. Hands up, those of you who are not even slightly intimidated by the possibility of being rejected! Kudos to you.

It doesn’t just end there for poor old me with no passing privilege: a lot of gay males that are often referred to as “femme” are also not into other “femmes”. More than any other type of gay person I know, “femme” gays tend to advocate for the silliness of the highly heteronormative ‘bottom’ and ‘top’ roles and they tend to associate straight-acting with being ‘top’ and taking on the role of ‘man’ in a relationship and during sex, which is absolutely absurd! I know a lot of very straight acting guys who love sucking dick and being penetrated, so the argument really just doesn’t stand. Similarly, a lot of femme gays don’t like playing ‘bottom’.

Anyway, I have Laverne Cox’s show “The T Word” to thank for teaching me the term “passing privilege”. One of the cast members, Shane, looks and comes across as a straight white male but he is a trans male. Shane realizes that he is privileged in this sense because a lot of other trans people can’t walk the streets without blending in with everyone else.

There’s something I find very fascinating about transgenderism, maybe because I can identify with a lot of what trans women, specifically, go through. I wear a lot of women’s clothes and, this one time, as the image on this post shows, I wore my hair in blind braids. I cannot even begin to describe how “other” stepping out on the streets made me feel. What, with all the cat-calling and the questions. Someone once jokingly asked me if I was transitioning and while they found it funny, to me it came across as quite ignorant. Just because I am wearing my hair a certain way doesn’t mean I am trans. But what fascinates me about transgenderism is that it totally turns on its head our ideas of gender and sexuality. It is possible, I’ve learnt, for a trans woman to not be sexually attracted to males, etc. There is a lot that we can learn from transgender people about liberation in the real sense of the word. It comes across to me as something that totally shatters all stereotypes around gender and sexuality. I love it! I have no passing privilege and what I am learning from listening to the stories of how trans people are living their lives outside of the boxes we are assigned by society inspires me to never forget that I am unique and had I chosen to keep my passing privilege I’d most probably be just another ‘after 9’*.

*a slang term to define closeted men who date women but creep with other men

Quotes and other things I learnt from Laverne Cox presents: The T Word

“TRANNY” IS AS DEROGATORY AS NIGGER, FAGGOT & BITCH

“Being in that body made me feel like I didn’t want to be alive anymore.” – Kye, 24

“I’ve had so many opportunities to have sex but I haven’t been comfortable enough to let a girl touch me, even in relationships. The relationships have to rely on something other than sex.” – Ari, 18

“I was worried, like my mother said: ‘who is going to love me?’” – Shane, 23

“I’m not going to be scared of who I am but I also understand that being who I am can be dangerous.” – L’lerret, 20

TRAILER “THE TRUE COST”

“Materialism… It comes at a very high price.”