That Lion, #SayHerName, and Sandra Bland

My mind makes odd connections, so bear with me on this post.

I know that there is an internet uproar about how much sympathy has gone out for this guy:

Cecil the Lion

as opposed to

Women in the U.S. Killed by Law Enforcement Officers

I do get this. How come human beings who live in the Land of the Brave, the Home of the Free cannot get this much sympathy when unarmed and killed by law enforcement officers who are rarely, if ever, held responsible for their transgressions? Where was all of this outrage when Sandra Bland was dragged out of her car by a Texas "law enforcement officer" for failing to put out a cigarette? Where was the outrage when she turned up dead in her jail cell after the system decided that she "committed suicide" in her jail cell? Where is the outrage in the context of 5 women having been declared dead by suicide in other jail cells across the nation?

And now we're supposed to feel badly because some damned lion on the African continent is dead? Killed?

There is one little thing . . . the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism that yokes all of this together. Europeans, in the context of building American societies (and when I write it this way, I don't only mean it in the context of the U.S.A., but also South America, Canada, and the Caribbean), had no problem exploiting resources on the African continent for their own good. In the 16th centuries through 19th centuries, that meant purchasing Black bodies for labor, using them up, and purchasing a new one to replace it. I think the way law enforcement targets Black bodies lately (regardless of gender), is the fallout from this long-standing precedent with which we have not made peace. Given the little respect given for anything that comes from the African continent, recently or much earlier, does it surprise you that a U.S. dentist who hunts exotic game would have no qualms shooting this beautiful lion, regardless of the meaning of it to the community? There are two underlying assumptions here: Blacks have no community; and what is on the African continent is for our own good.

I do not posit solutions here. I simply insist that there are more connections between wildlife and Black bodies than we are comfortable making. Not because Black people are wild animals, but because we are yolked in a common history vis-a-vis that continent.

#SayHerName. #BlackLivesMatter

Just sayin'.

Everything is not coming up roses

There's much more work to do on this academic article, but I need to get some things off of my chest before I return to carrying on as if I was a brave warrior.

So I received my first rejection. I am not alone here, yet it feels solitary. Dr. Belcher's book, Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks would be unnecessary if scholars weathered the storms of writing and rejection well. Yes, the book is aimed at submitting an article that does not get rejected the first time out, but she is candid about the process and rejection is part of it. "The only difference between much-published authors and unpublished authors is often persistence and not worthiness." And persistent I am!

Belcher ends her book with a story of a scholar who kept submitting his work to journals and kept getting rejected. Eventually, his work got published and it was the stuff that won a Nobel Prize. There were three morals to the story: "First, just because an article is rejected—one, two, even three times—does not mean that it is a bad article. Second, it may take thirty years for the Nobel Prize committee to recognize your genius . . . so hang in there! Third, you may have to go through hell to get a good article published. Fortunately, you will be in good company."

Let's make something clear . . . I will never win a Nobel. Not my goal. Also, this is not really hell. The process of publishing in academic journals is a fascinating business though, and if your work goes to reviewers, you actually get feedback from your peers. The feedback actually has me optimistic. It will strengthen the argument not only of the article, but the book I am also working on. I will have to remember that this does not necessarily mean that this is a bad article, bad idea, not a real contribution, etc. They said nothing of the sort.

On my website, I say, as a life coach, that I am unwilling to put my clients through anything I would not be willing to do myself. So yes, I will face rejection. I will face renewed critique. It is not the first time, and it won't be the last.

Just sayin'.

The Academic Job Market

Let me reassure you that I am not finished commenting on the political issues of the day. On the other hand, the state of higher education is a political issue!

I love what I study and write academically. I love teaching. I am working on publishing all manner of things at this point and have never had this much work in progress. It is exciting to work on a book. It will be some time before I can announce a publisher or even publication, but that day will come!

It took me two and a half to even look at my dissertation again. LOOK at it. I am glad I took the time off of it. All of a sudden I could see how to breathe new life into it and change it into something else. It is different writing without a dissertation committee (and advisor) sitting on my shoulders as I gaze into the screen of my laptop!

It is upsetting that academia has shifted so much that business principles dictate what we should be doing. Each item that we write becomes product by which to evaluate what we do, and if we are not in a STEM field, the work becomes more devalued except amongst our colleagues. God forbid we provide the literary, historical, political, and linguistic context to the society we live in! For those of us who work in academia on a contingent basis, our writing and teaching is devalued that much more.

I understand that the tenure-track job is unlikely to materialize for me. State and federal governments are putting precious few dollars into humanities research. Both private and public universities refuse to fill full-time positions with new hires, instead, they hire several adjuncts to do that job. More resource is placed into administration. These institutions try to force faculty to find outside funding for their pay (there's only so much of that to go around!) and some have been at the behest of private corporations that have their own research agendas. Yet, I will go on the academic job market this fall with enthusiasm anyway. At the same time, I have to provide for myself and my son, so I will supplement my writing and teaching as a life coach.

I have witnessed the power of living one's life according to their values. I have witnessed the power of having people give you a hand in doing this, helping you to remember what you want, helping you maintain discipline. This is the power of life coaching. I love it for myself, and you would be amazed at what it can do for you.

We live in a time where Black people are targeted by both the state and individuals. We live at a time where we refuse to acknowledge sexism as an oppression that wrecks the lives of women all over the world, including comparatively affluent places such as the United States. We live at a time where the misinformation about the upsetting state of the environment is being silenced for pure economic gain. Academic teaching and publishing is one of many ways to fight these trends. Our ongoing denial about our history and our future is disheartening. I am committed to continuing that work, but I do not want the audience to only be other academics, but also with the public at large.

I write this so that if you are unsure how to proceed, know that not only are there other who are in the same spot, but there is also help for you. I honestly believe that we the people cannot continue on the path we are on. Figure out what you want and how to get there. And if you do not know how, find the resource to get there. I am always happy to help!

Just saying'.

More Writing

I earned my doctorate 3 years ago. I had not taken a single look at anything related to my dissertation until Fall 2014. That's when I started to convert a chapter of it into an academic article. I'm proud to say that the article is under review after a series of corrections. It will, for now, likely come back as a revise and resubmit, but I'm game to revise and resubmit and move it into proper publication.

But those of us who engage in academic writing cannot rely on only one piece of writing at a time (I suspect this is the case with other writers as well). The process of revising writing for an article reminded me of the following:

1. It doesn't matter whether or not I get a tenure track position (I was damned close this spring!). What does matter is that I publish my work. 
2. My work is interesting and although it is about another time and place, it provides much perspective about the U.S. today. What happened in Jamaica happened across the hemisphere!
3. I like writing. This isn't a new conclusion, but I also like academic writing. So write I shall do.

This means that I have all manner of writing projects lined up for this summer. I want to have the outlines of a book proposal based on my dissertation by the time the school year starts again. I am absurdly energized about my project again and am making better sense of what it is all about! This is refreshing. And I don't think this would be possible without taking a two-year break. The journal I submitted my piece to had a suggestion about writing up a couple of other sources, and I shall do that.

I love my dissertation, but editing makes me sleepy. 

So yes, you'll be hearing from me as I seek to keep myself accountable for writing. You all have to do that with me.

And if you need someone to keep you accountable doing your writing, oh yeah, I'm a life coach who can do just that. Or maybe you don't want to write and you want to do something else. I can help with that too!

Just sayin'

My N*****r!

As a Black female who is not a fan of the term nigger, I learned something new about "My Nigga." Check out what Trinidad has to say about it.

Trinidad was eloquent in expressing that only people who have a close relationship with him may call him that. He quickly debunked Ben Ferguson's argument about using the expression to make money by reasserting the primacy of relationships over capital.

Which brings up something very real. Most White people don't have the requisite relationship to Black people to use that term to address them. All of this noise about "rap stars use it, why can't we" is a red herring (and ignores the social, political, historical, and economic context in which that term arose). The real question, the one that actually would transcend the history of the term, is what would it take for Whites to build genuinely close relationships with Black people. Or men with women. Or the able-bodied with a person with a disability. Or a cis-gendered person with a transgendered person. Or a middle/owning class person with a working/poor class person. You get the point.

Trinidad referred to the social context he shares with his compatriots. In other words, people who are "his niggas" share solidarity with him in the ways that the state targets Black people (men and women may I add) for imprisonment and death, targets Black labor, and targets Black wealth. We've yet to hear about an unarmed White man killed by the police! To build relationships across race requires appreciating the historical, political, and social context in which Black is created. Don't presume an understanding of it. Don't whitesplain history to Black people. We don't need an explanation of why we're systematically paid less than Whites and why we have less overall wealth. One consequence of "White" is that not everything is earned by good old fashioned elbow grease. It doesn't make you bad, it just provides context.

To build relationships across race may require LOADS of listening. More listening than you're comfortable with. Making a decision not to be the center of the conversation. Not to make your experience center. There may be LOTS of quiet at first. You may feel awkward and uncool (this is what Ben Ferguson could not figure out in this segment). It may take years of such listening before Black men and women (poor people, GLBTQ people, etc.) actually open up to you about a day in the life of Blackness. And once we tell you something, we don't need your opinion or feelings about it. Smile as if it was the most important thing you've ever heard (it may well be). Think to yourself what if it was and what impact that would have on your life.

But ultimately, it's elbow grease that will build these relationships. It's the decision to make someone else central, someone else's point of view, relationships central as opposed to your own experience. Maybe then you'll become someone's "nigga." However, maybe then you won't feel as compelled to use the term at all.

Suffice it to say, the SAE house mom doesn't have that relationship with anyone Black.

So it doesn't work for her to parrot Trinidad's work.

When I set out to write this post, I didn't intend for it to be a how-to guide. However, historically, nigger was born out of a context of capital over relationships, in other words, the ownership of people over the relationship. This is a relationship; however, it is not a relationship that wins trust, respect, and admiration. It is in this history the term was born.

Soooo, put the relationships above everything else. Maybe that Black person won't take a shine to you. That's fine. Hopefully you grew as a person and learned something. Maybe take notes about what went well (for that person) and what didn't and try again.

By the by, no one has a close enough relationship to me to call me "nigga," or "bitch" for that matter. Just sayin'!