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i am: 40...a capricorn / moon in pisces / libra rising...an old soul with a young spirit...older than i look...contemplating my 3rd tattoo...NOT a web designer...a lesbian...working things out with the g.f....a native iowan...a graduate of cornell college and ohio state...a critical reader and thinker...really rather shy...agnostic...an ardent feminist...a bleeding-heart liberal...a pacifist...and so not your average white grrl...
e-mail me
feeling generous? *grin*
Who Links Here
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July 11, 2002
a piece of the puzzleIt's an old confusion, people turning into things. When folks is gone (sold, dead, run-off), you got a corn husk doll, a walnut-shell ring, fingertips of dirt on the hem of a dress. It happened so much, maybe now things turn into people.—alice randall, the wind done gone if i were a cartoon character, a lightbulb would have suddenly appeared above my head when i came upon this passage in this book (which, by the way, is described as "a provocative literary parody that explodes the mythology perpetuated by" gone with the wind and is definitely worth a read).
in books like all about love: new visions and salvation: black people and love, bell hooks discusses how racism, as a legacy of slavery, has affected the ability of black people in this country to form healthy, nurturing, and lasting love relationships. what struck me about this passage from alice randall is that it speaks to yet another legacy of slavery: the conflation/confusion of things and human beings that has its roots in the fact that (white) people actually owned other (black) people.
i've often wondered how it is that hyper-conspicuous consumption, an overwhelming obsession with "bling-bling," and the devaluation of women as objects have become so pervasive in not just hip hop culture, but in the lives of a whole lotta otherwise "regular folks." i mean, i think that most of us want to live comfortably, and not have to scramble just to have a few small luxuries—a dependable car, a comfortable place to live, enough extra money for an occasional new outfit or dinner at someplace besides taco bell…not to mention that we’d like to not have to scramble for the necessities. but come on…are 5 multi-million-dollar homes, 15 expensive, custom-made cars and iced-out everything REALLY necessary?? when these are the standards by which we “regular folks” are encouraged to judge our own success, what happens to the things that are truly important—things like love, laughter, humility, compassion, respect for others? what happens is, they often end up being devalued…sometimes completely.
i'm acutely aware that racism and its various manifestations can affect, in myriad ways, the relationship of black people to money and material possessions. i also know that black folks certainly don’t have the monopoly on obsession with that money and those possessions...and that sometimes it’s just about poverty, and race isn’t even really a part of the equation.
yet somehow, alice randall’s painfully beautiful words about this “old confusion” represented, to me, a piece of the puzzle.
2:20 PM
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