My points of reference: 1. Rosewood

I anticipate this entry to be the first of a thread that I'm calling "My points of reference". It was inspired by largely by my father. When I was a kid my father, bless his soul (makes him sound like he's passed, but no: bless his soul is cos he's crazy), would make reference to some character called Hess. He'd say things to me and siblings like, "You Hess's child!" and cackle with glee at his witticism. We had absolutely no fucking idea was he was on about, though we gathered it was not a rather good thing to be related to this Hess chap. Finally I asked my amah (cos you can get no coherent chat from me da - fact) who Hess was. "Oh," my mother said, with an indifference off-handedness that can only be obtained by being married to the same nutjob for an extended amount of time, "Just some guy he went to high school with."

This "My points of reference" thread has also been inspired by what happened today, and it serves as the basis for my first point of reference, of which I shall explain to you now. So I was happily tweeting my dear high school BF ATW when we happened upon talking about music. I explained that I was trying to take in more rap and expressed my love for the new Bad Meets Evil album (can I just put out there how much I love Eminem right now? Like he gets me going big time. Which is weird cos I never thought he was attractive before. Anyway, let me get back to the point, cos I'm getting hot to trot). ATW returned that she didn't like the "overuse of the n-word". In response, I called her cliched.

Now, let me back up just one minute here and give even more background. For some reason, I have been on the Guardian website recently, making comments on stories about rap and hip-hop music. I am by no means an expert or full-on connoisseur (yet), but, as was the case from lots of other comment-makers, I can't stand when people slag off rap so vehemently (glorifies criminality and sexism) and I feel I have to defend it. OK, you don't get rap - fine. So don't listen to it, simple as. I don't listen to country much for exactly the same reason. It's violent and denigrates women, but it gets a lot more cultural respect from people. Why? Well, I'll let you figure that out on your own, my little lambs.

Anyway, when I get round people having a go at hip-hop and rap, I just kinda lose it a bit, which I was reminded of when tweeting ATW. I always refer to me losing it when it comes to thinking about race issues as having a "Rosewood moment". Rosewood is the name of a John Singleton-directed film starring Ving Rhames, described in IMDb as a "dramatization of a 1923 horrific racist lynch mob attack on an African American community". Essentially, this white community goes all klan on a black community.

When my mother went to see this film, she said she left the cinema so angry that she just wanted to bust on any white person she encountered. Which is hilarious. Don't get me wrong: violence is not funny. But my ma contemplating violence is. This is a women who would never whack me or my siblings with her hands, because "hands are for loving". Which made for interesting times when my mother did want to pop us one, for she would rush off looking for something to do it with. Her hands loved us, but that spatula certainly didn't! Still can't look a most kitchen utensils without hysteria rising within me.

So basically when I talk about having a Rosewood moment, I'm referring to my amah's very funny response. It's my way of not letting it get to me, I guess. The citing of a "Rosewood moment" labels the issue for what it is, but it also helps to de-escalate and diffuse things by reminding me of how absurd a really angry response, which I am prone to have, would be.

Maybe I should actually get round to seeing this film that serves as such a significant point of reference.

Touch your own mug, and other muddled thoughts on race

Maybe I'm saying something, but most likely it isn't anything. Proceed.


So my awesomely rad sister some years ago bought me a sloganed mug that has been a fave of mine ever since. It is now missing and I have decided to accept that it is now gone. RIP mug - you were loved and will be missed. And the slogan on the mug?

Touch your own hair.

I giggle just thinking about it, but it hasn't really been that well received. At one place I worked, a woman indignantly hissed, "What does that mean?" With that one question, it is clear that I was working in the UK when this question was asked, as I cannot imagine any American not understanding the meaning. The context is completely lost here.

Erm, how *do* I explain the often uneasy relationship in the US between Blacks and the predominant culture (i.e., white folks) that this mug satarises so succiently? Is it possible for me to express the audacity, radicalness, and sheer uppity-ness of the message? It's not that I'm unwilling or unable. I have no problem with making full use of audacity and I take particular advantage of my unique multi-cultural, multi-national personal make-up within this largely homogeneous society in which I currently live. And Scotland is a rare homogeneous society, cos there are large swathes of people here who actually like when others are a bit unusual and even provocative. In fact, it is to be expected of you. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but there is no worse insult than for someone to have bad craic. So yes, I have randomly and ironically accused people of being racist for doing unracist things.* So going back to the mug (and perhaps my weird craic), the problem is that context cannot be effectively established without a 9-hour PowerPoint presentation with diagrams and flow charts. Like Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, only going on about race.

So back to skewed context. It was 0330 on Sunday morning and I was in a pie shop in west end Edinburgh. To give you even more context, I was coming from a night out and was wearing a pair of red hotpants (over a pair of tights/stockings - get real thinking my thighs would have it any orher way). Not to be too up my own self, but my bodacious bum was on fine show. I have an ass that makes it clear to most Black people in America, even with my odd colouring, that I am in fact one of them.

One of the guys I knew and was with at the shop was winding up two random girls. "They're racist! They're saying you have a big black bum! Did you hear them?" The girls were dead offended and wanted to batter my pal for my sake, not realising I knew the dickhead.

Finally, I spoke. "Stop talking about my bum," I said. "I know you're all obsessed with my bum cos it's amazing. You all wanna get with it. You wanna get with it, then go back to your white women after having your black girl with a big bum!"

Some of the people in the pie shop looked back at me, dumbfounded. Most were too drunk to take notice of my tirade. I guess dropping a little bit of radical (and womanist) Alice Walker philosophy at half past three on a Sunday morning in Edinburgh, Scotland is a bit much.


* Well, I should clarify: it's ironic to me. It is probably distressing and not at all ironic to have some brown girl to go up to you and shout, "Racist!" when you're queuing in a Poundland.

My Rosewood, and my other films

Years ago, my mother saw the John Singleton film "Rosewood", which I, unfortunately, still have not brought myself to see. I don't remember her recount of the plot very well, but essentially the black residents of Rosewood feel forced to violently confront the oppressive white people nearby. After seeing the film, my mother said she left, feeling a rage against white people.

Well, in the last two weeks, I think I might have found my own Rosewood. With the Oscars being won at the end of the month, I am going through my annual ritual of desperately trying to see all Oscar nominated films -- by my count, 19 films. You can see which films I've seen and not seen:

Films seen
The Departed
Borat
Volver
Babel
Venus
The Last King of Scotland
Blood Diamond
Notes on a Scandal
United 93
The Devil Wears Prada
Little Miss Sunshine
Dreamgirls

Films not seen
Little Children
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen
Children of Men
Dreamgirls
The Pursuit of Happyness
Letters from Iwo Jima
Half Nelson

I won't be able to see three of the films (Little Children; Children of Men; The Queen) and might not see a further film (Pan's Labyrinth). The last 6 films I've seen have been in the last two weeks. The two that were the most disturbing to me were The Last King of Scotland and Blood Diamond. Both films had a helluva lot of violence, but I'm no prude. I know that it had to be shown to tell the story properly. It still depresses me though.

Both of these films are set in Africa, but the protagonists are white. I know, I know -- that's the point of The Last King of Scotland. But Dr Nicholas Garrigan is a composite character and many people gained Idi Amin's trust in the same way, including black people. Also, the violence that both films depict -- though showing the horrors of black-on-black violence (which, I don't know about you, I've seen plenty of) -- is ultimately rooted in white colonialism. It's enough to send anyone into a Rosewood rage. I hope Boy's not too scared.