David Foster Wallace Kenyon College Commencement Speech

Here is a portion of DFW's Speech that I found profound:

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don't just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

"This is water."

"This is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.

You can find the begin of the speech here.

Technorati Tags: feminism in action, author, David Foster Wallace

Prince Tribute Part 2

Beyonce, would sing "Pussy Control" for obvious reasons. I would love to hear her do the song mixed with "Check On It." My second choice for this song would be Missy Elliot.

Pussy Control

Lauryn Hill, would sing "Seven" because I want to respect her Jesus. And this will give us a chance to hear her sing. My hope is that she would re-think the melody and do it with a live band. I love to see her with her guitar.

Fantasia, would sing "Money Doesn't Matter Tonight" because she would do the song justice.

Prince - 7 - with lyrics

Prince - Money Don't Matter 2 Night

Fantasia Barrino - Summertime

Hope you like it Prince!

Technorati Tags: music, Pop Icon, BET, Prince

My Prince Tribute, Part 1

At the BET Awards, there was a tribute to Prince. Janelle Monet, Alicia Keys, Trey Songz, and Patti Labelle sung Prince's songs. I do not think that they did him justice. I really wanted them to pick artists that sing really well, which none of the above performers are great singers/performers, except Patti Labelle. I wanted them to imbue the songs with feeling, while hitting some sweet notes.

I grew up listening to Prince, my mother was a fan. She even went to see him in concert, back when he was still stripping down to his underwear. She used to play his records all the time. And when she was away we (me and my siblings) would listen to Prince. We tried to figure out what he was talking about in his songs. One song that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out was "Darling Nikki." I wanted to understand why she was so dangerous. I was like 5 or 6 years old. I sung that song and hummed it in my head millions of times. At the time I didn't understand what was wrong with a woman being a sex fiend. I didn't understand what sex was, all I knew was that grown-ups thought it was something that children shouldn't talk about it. Of course the taboo made me curious about it. I didn't know what masturbating was either, but I knew that I wanted to do it because it made a woman dangerous.

She was masturbating to a magazine, in a hotel lobby! How bold of her. What made the song different from most pop-tunes is that Nikki left Prince after the encounter. At the end of the song, Prince is desperate to see her again. He screams, "Come back, Nikki, comeback!" But Nikki has moved on.

Now, I know what sex is, and I know how to pleasure myself. Thanks Prince! I attribute sex-positivity to those revolutionary songs that made women's desire a thing to be desired, and women's pleasure attainable.

The following is my idea of a fitting tribute to Prince.

Mariah Carey, would sing "Diamonds and Pearls" because this song fits her voice, it is a ballad, and it fits her style.

Prince - Diamonds And Pearls


Usher would sing "Raspberry Beret" because he has enough sex appeal to pull it off. And he sings a sexy alto.

Prince - Raspberry Beret

Missy Elliot, "Darling Nikki" because it would allow the song to remain queer. Plus, Missy can sing. Madonna would be my second choice.

Patti LaBelle, "Nothing Compare 2 U" this would have been better than her doing "Purple Rain." My other choice is, of course, Sinead O'Connor who has already had a hit with her version of this song.

Sinead O'Connor

Notes on Animals, Animal Treatment, and the Supreme Court

Pitbulls and Parolees, a show on Animal Planet, features people and dogs that need second chances. When I watch this show, it makes me cry. I cry because it highlights the way that society throws people and animals away because of social constructions that deem some good and others bad.

Supreme Court decision, United States v. Stevens, dealt with the distribution of media that depicts Violence against Animals, specifically, dog fighting videos. They claim that they did it to protect hunting videos? Bleh! All that they have illustrated is the bias of the US justice system. Micheal Vick, who committed a heinous crime was sentenced to two years (not enough time) and this guy gets to distribute dog fighting videos across state lines to the general public. What! So selling videos about dogfighting is okay, but actually fighting dogs, now that is illegal. Where am I, bizzarro world? Doesn't the Supreme Court understand that by allowing the distribution of the image of dogs fighting, that they are encouraging people to fight dogs!!! Not only that they are encouraging people to make videos of this heinous act. Is animal abuse is only a problem when black men do it, specifically black men with money?



Of course animal abuse is a national problem that is heinous when anyone does it. But is it only a big news story when it is someone that the dominant society wants to take-down a peg? Where was the outrage about the recent Supreme Court decision?

The Huffington Post explains the US v. Stevens decision as such:

This brings us, though, to a second basic principle of First Amendment doctrine: even though speech was produced by an unlawful act, the speech itself may not be restricted for that reason. In effect, the law separates the underlying illegality from the resulting speech. Thus, a person who makes a movie with a stolen camera can be punished for the theft, but the government cannot suppress the movie; a person who illegally wiretaps a telephone call in order to catch a congressman taking a bribe can be punished for the unlawful wiretap, but a newspaper that publishes the story or a television station that broadcasts the tape cannot be punished for doing so; and Daniel Ellsberg could be punished for stealing Pentagon Papers from the Defense Department, but the New York Times and the Washington Post could not constitutionally be prohibited from publishing them.

Basically, The Supreme Court is allowing the visuality of the crime, supposedly to stop the crime of animal fighting. But really they are just allowing people that make money off of other people's crimes to continue their business as usual. What a crock.

The moral of this story is do not support these videos. Adopt an animal because we, humans, have over-populated the planet with cats and dogs, so it is our moral obligation to co-habitate with them and make sure that they have good lives. And landlords that do not allow cats and dogs (under 5 per home) are committing an act of discrimination that encourages the growing number of abandoned animals in shelters.

Furthermore, we need national public service annoucements about proper animal care because it would create a culture where animal co-habitators and non-animal co-habitators would be educated about proper care would do more community policing of animal abusers.

If you want to help or do some advocacy on behalf of animals check out The Humane Society, they are not racist and sexist like PETA.

Building Feminist Community in the Classroom « Pedagogies for the Revolution

Here is something that I wrote for another blog. It is about my teaching and creating a feminist space in the classroom.

This year, I have been thinking about what it means to build feminist community in the classroom. You would think that this would be easy to do within a department of Women’s Studies; however, it is not. Like many feminist goals, this one takes a lot of work in terms of challenging norms, changing minds, and re-directing the momentum of the group.

In trying to create a feminist community, I am often reminded that there is a difference between Women’s Studies and feminism. Women’s Studies is about looking for women wherever they might be and asking questions about the economic, social, cultural, and historical impact of their existence. Feminism, for me, is a political project that seeks to end all forms of domination, patriarchy, racism, colonialism, ableism, heterosexism, capitalism, discrimination based on national identity, and create a socially just world.

Click the Link to read the rest. Building Feminist Community in the Classroom « Pedagogies for the Revolution

Jessica Simpson and Tyra Have it all Wrong: The Beauty Myth Updated

I miss the old Tyra; yes the one that told American beauty standards to kiss her fat ass.

Now, she is on a diet and extolling the virtues of not eating pasta for the last two months. What happened to her? On her talk show, she says that she realized that she was getting too big/fat. Then she started doing a workout regime while watching DVDs of "Sex in the City." The symbolism is hard to deny. Tyra who was attempting to do some good work around opening up beauty standards, succumbed to the Beauty Myth once again. The Beauty Myth is the title of a book by Naomi Wolf that was published in 1991. In this book, Wolf outlines that "The Beauty Myth" is a form of political backlash against the gains that women have made since the 1960s. Wolf writes, "this counterforce is operating to checkmate the inheritance of feminism on every level in the lives of Western women."  So the more political, social and economic power that we gain, the more heavily society weighs on us to be beautiful. She writes that after "the sexual revolution promoted the discovery of female sexuality; "beauty pornography" which..links a commodified  'beauty' directly and explicitly to sexuality--invaded mainstream to undermine women's new and vulnerable sense of self-worth."

On a micro-level, but played out in front of thousands of viewers, Tyra succumbed to "The Beauty Myth." The papparazzi called her fat, she went off on them, then she went on a diet. When she went off on the papparazzi and the print media that carried the photographs I was proud of her. Women and girls all over the country were proud of her owning her body, cellulite and all, telling the world to kiss her ass. Tyra was more than a budding feminist that day. Today, you turn to her show and she a shadow of her former self. Small, hollow-eyed, non-existent. Some might say that I should not have hoped to find feminism in a former-supermodel, but I hoped that she could stand up with other women and for young women, who dare to say that they are more than their measurements. She could have continued to create a space where women are thought of as people who have something to contribute to society and are deserving of respect no matter how they look. Well, that did not happen.

Jessica Simpson has had a rough couple of years. A divorce, the mom jeans incident, and John Mayer. Now she has a new show entitled "The Price of Beauty." She claims that the premise of the show is autobiographically motivated because she has been critiqued for being "fat." So now, Jessica is going on a search to find 'beauty' all around the world and to colonize practices of people from non-Western countries. I hate the whole idea of the show. The first reason I don't like the show is because she is taking her hairdresser and friend, who has had more plastic in his face than Barbie. The second reason is that instead of critiquing the idea of beauty, Jessica goes out to colonize beauty practices of non-Westerners. Basically, she is going on a colonizing mission to find out how the 'natives' live. Bad idea. Third, Jessica Simpson should be telling the media to kiss her fat ass like Tyra did. Jessica has a beautiful voice and is a talented singer. Now, I will admit that because she is not the smartest person in the world her music is not great because their is little feeling or intelligence behind her words. But there is a market for pop princesses like her, so why is she doing reality television? She should be focused on sharing her voice with the world. But, I digress.

As Naomi Wolf argues, beauty is tool used by a patriarchal society to discipline women by making them feel personally inadequate. She writes, "The beauty myth tells a story: The quality called "beauty" objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it. This embodiment is an imperative for women and not for men....None of this is true. "Beauty" is a currency system...Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact." This system leaves women "to unnaturally compete for the resources that men have appropriated for themselves."

What this boils down to, is that Jessica and Tyra are sadly misguided because it is not that beauty standards need to be more accepting, in actuality, women should refute and rebuke beauty as a standard by which to measure a person's worth in the beginning. The focus should be on what young girls add to our society in terms of politics, social relations, and community, rather than making them feel beautiful. Beauty should be one of the last things a girl worries about in the US because we face a crumbling economy, rampant acts of violence directed against women, and an eco-system that will expire if we continue to consume at this rate. How is beauty going to solve any of these problems. Moreover, how does beauty enable a woman to get the skills that she needs to survive in this world? As a a black woman, I would love to re-write the black female body as beautiful in this racist society, I would rather go to bed knowing that all black children in the US are going to bed with a full stomach and a warm place to lay their heads.

So, Jessica and Tyra both miss the mark. Some will say, Miss Lady, why are you going in on two women about a beauty culture that is patriarchal in nature. Isn't that just another form of bashing women? To that I say, Tyra and Jessica have an opportunity at the big microphone (mainstream popular culture), to actually reach millions of women, and instead of offering something revolutionary they just recycle and sell the beauty myth from a new angle and call it empowerment. Furthermore, in this day and age it seems that they would have some contact with feminist critiques of beauty--don't they research these topics. They must have one intern that is capable of doing a google search on feminism and beauty. Basically, there is no excuse for them to be manipulating young women into thinking that they are just one-step away from achieving beauty.

For now, I will just turn-off the television, catch a break from the beauty industry, and continue to work for social justice.