All Around the World They Hurt Little Girls

"All around the world they hurt little girls" ~ Cersei  Game of Thrones

I'm not really comfortable speaking on global issues. I have my opinions of course but to be honest I shy away from watching the news. I stay current thru the media and social networks but I honestly feel that I don't have the mental capacity to cope with all of the horrific atrocities that occur globally on a daily basis. It's enough to test anyone's faith.

My father was Nigerian. He grew up in Lagos. Unfortunately, I know very little about his childhood and upbringing. I do know from history books that the Nigerian government is as corrupt as they come and they’ve been that way for an extremely long time. I can't even begin to understand what those nearly 300 girls are going thru. As a people, we always say that we don't want history to repay itself but it will. It will as long as some human lives are valued over others. It will as long as men continue to see women as commodities, objects for their sexual and viewing pleasure; women of color especially. There is no group of people more ignored, neglected and marginalized then women of color. I won't get into the fact that the media didn't even pick up the story of the Nigerian girls until 2 weeks after they were abducted. Perhaps I've become cynical we can write and hashtag #BringBackOurGirls but the way I see it aside from prayer (if that’s something that you believe), there is no comfort we can bring these girls and their families. Unless some major government or military steps in with force nothing will happen and nothing will change.

Which brings me to something else that I saw recently. There was a photograph of 13-year-old Willow Smith with some 20-year-old grown man in bed with her. I know that many people found no issue with the picture but I found the image disturbing. Is this now acceptable to us? There has to be a line drawn at some point. I haven't cared for Will and Jada for years. That's not to knock what they've done in the past but they've become caricatures of their former selves. Obviously Hollywood breeds delusions, which is obvious in how out of touch their children are with reality. But whateva that’s just my opinion and everyone has one. What I do take issue with is having your girl child lie up in the bed with a grown ass man. Where do u draw the line? Is there no line anymore? There's art and then there are delusions. Little black girls are sexualized, used and abused enough. For your parents to co-sign on your sexplotation is beyond foul. The Smiths are selling their child for what? For coin? For relevance? It’s not like she was chilling with her brother or her cousins or even somebody her own age. I don’t get it and I’d label myself as extremely liberal.

 I've spoken before about white feminist ideals and how they've irritated me. Writers in Jezebel and other outlets of white female privilege enjoy looking down upon the Rhiannas and Beyoncés. They suck their teeth and call them whores while, while standing on their pedestals knowing nothing of the history of women of color; especially Black women. But I digress; Willow Smith is not a woman. She is not Beyonce, Rhianna or even Miley Cyrus (all grown women). She is a little girl. The image is disturbing. Why is no one crying standing on their platform asking questions about that?

But you know what, it seems that we are a society that has become immune to violence. During the past couple of week there was several new stories about Black men enacting violence upon women. From Columbus Short to Floyd Mayweather, there was something new everyday. We sit back and make memes and troll World Star Hip Hop. We make comments on video recording and speculate about the drama surrounding other people’s lives. The crazy thing is, we seem to be excusing violence (I’ll admit that even I have in the past), we argue that such-and-such person must have been provoked, or that he/she deserved what they got. Where do u draw the line? Is there no line anymore? When did it become ok for people to attack one another instead of being adults and talking about their issues? Better still, it seems best to just stay away from people who are toxic and who threaten your emotional and physical well-being. A lesson that can be learned from yesterday’s leaked footage; no one should be attacking anyone else unless you are defending yourself or offspring.

The other day I was waiting for my friend in a bar. The news was playing on the tv. Apparently, Monica Lewinsky did a story with Vanity Fair looking back on her affair with Clinton and how it's affected her. She's now 40 years old; she was 23 at the time of the incident, the same age that I am now. Obviously she was grown enough to know better but she was still young and obviously naïve. (I honestly think that her privilege helped fuel her naivety.) Obviously, her reputation has been trashed for life while Clinton will go down in history as a fairly dope president. He'll certainly get a better rap than Obama despite many of his questionable policies. Today's Monica Lewsinkys are a dime a dozen. From Tiger Woods mistress to V. Stiviano.

I'm not sure why Ms. Lewinsky thought it was a good time to talk about her life to anyone at this point. Certainly her life has been difficult she'll never be able to run away from that incident. I really can’t understand why she didn’t change her name, or even her appearance in any real way. I'm not saying Lewinsky’s life has been easy I'm sure it hasn't. Women are never praised for being sexually notorious. I'll even add that time has done her well. But as I looked at her photographs from the interview all I can do is pity her. She discusses the fact that nobody ever fought for her. No “feminist group” ever stood up for her. And I suppose that’s the disparity then isn’t it? As a Black feminist I’ve always understood that no one is going to fight for you or save you. You have to save yourself. It’s a lesson that unfortunately Lewinisky never learned.

xoxoxo Chocolate Girl In the City xoxoxox

50 Shades of Grey and My Thoughts on "Feminism"

So like many of you but perhaps not so secretly, because apparently I'm vulgar and graphic. I've recently read the 50 Shades of Grey books. Why did I read them? Well, I've just graduated from college, I have a whole lot of free time and my social life leaves little to be desired lol. So alas I downloaded them on my Kindle and read all three books in about five days. Let me be real, the books are not the best books ever written and the storyline can be predictable and repetitive, but whatevs it was hot and steamy and provided me excellent entertainment on warm Chicago & New York nights while I sipped my evening tea. One of my besties ridiculed me for the books are first but he was still intrigued and I got my cousins and some of my aunts to read it also.

I guess what has shocked me, and what has always shocked me about things like this is the backlash from "feminist critics". Now obviously I believe that woman are equal to men, that we can do anything that men can do that we should have ALL rights to do what we want to our bodies and so forth. We are the MASTERS of our destinies.( I'm just  gonna be the master of mine is heels and lipstick). I was disturbed by the fact that some people feel that the book is sexist and that the author E. L. James (who is a woman) is trying to say that ALL women want to be dominated, remain submissive to their men so on and so forth. Essentially, this entire discussion brings up some of the ambivalence that I have surrounding "feminism" itself. Firstly I would just suggest that as a Black woman, feminism for me is very different from "mainstream feminism" because the culture that I grew up in is very particular and the history of Blacks in this country is also very particular especially in the way that men and women relate to one another going back to slavery. But I'm not gonna get into that now.  What I tend to get frustrated with is the fact that SOME feminists (NOT ALL), seem to always position women as victims. I don't know about you but at 21, chocolate skinned, 5 ft 3 inches and one hundred fifty some odd pounds I am no one's victim.  I don't think E. L. James was trying to suggest any of those things to her readers, I think she just wrote a kinky book, based off of Twilight fan fiction for people to read on vacation. So called feminists kill me sometimes, maybe I just wanted to read a dirty book for my own personal entertainment. Maybe suburban mothers who sometimes get bored with routine want to spice things up. Maybe I just want to read what I want to read when I want to read it. I'm more concerned with the fact that this country is still banning books at libraries *side eye * Obviously we can read sexism, racialism, hetro-normativism into so many things in pop culture.  (Look at Game of Throne, Mad Men, Girls, Think Like A Man, New Girl, etc). But at the end of the day all we can hope is that people will constantly educate themselves to recognize some of the issues while enjoying themselves, maybe even laughing at some of the foolery.

Nobody said shit when people were laughing at Friends (the whitest show on earth) for ten years. I would just say to feminists, yes women have a long road ahead of them in this world, especially women who are in much more oppressed conditions that those in Western countries. Those of us who have the education, means and resources should be doing all we can to help others in ways that are CONSTRUCTIVE.  Other than that please keep your bitterness and anger to yourself, I'm not here for that, so please stop speaking for me. Its like our lovely ball of Caribbean trash Rihanna said, "At the end of the day I'm still gonna do what I want to do", as a grown woman I think that that's as liberating as anything.

Until then I will be patiently waiting for the film to come out, Focus Features just brought the rights :) xoxoxo Chocolate Girl in the City xoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxo

PS. The biggest thing we can all do for women in this country is keep that fool Mitt out of the office SMH