Mint Juleps - "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me"

My Writing Process

For me, writing is a painfully slow labor of love. Writing is work. But work I enjoy. I can feel the mental sweat drip down the sides of my brain. And I like it. I actually think often about my writing process. I like meta-cognition or awareness of the ways in which I learn, produce and process.

Whenever I am tasked with writing, I keep my thoughts fluid for a very long time before I write anything. I conceptualize and organize and theorize and visualize until I like my direction. Then I outline. I give my writing structure and flow and transitions. I put to paper my thoughts, giving voice to those visualizations. I like to write first on yellow legal pads. Sometimes in pen but mostly in pencil. I move things around with arrows and scribbles. I rewrite my outline to perfection and neatness. And then I write.

Each paragraph already has an exoskeleton: an idea for an opening line, noteworthy insights I wish to include, quotes that I find applicable and an idea for a closing line. I write the body of my paper first, then return to my introduction. I don't want to write my introduction first because I don't know what language and direction my paper will take and I don't want to repeat certain diction or miss concepts. My conclusion is typically written in the waning moments before I am to turn in a paper. At this point, all points of the paper are floating around in my head and I look once again at the bigger picture, trying to stretch my writing out into a greater conversation.

Some would say I procrastinate for how delayed I am in the start of writing. Some would say I am overly-organized and structured in the way I write. Is it only me who thinks "some" are contradicting themselves? There is a method to the madness that is my life and I'm okay if the only one who understands that is me.

Emmanuel Jal - We Want Peace

In Response to "I'm So Done Defending Kanye"

I just read an article by a feminist writer who has completely written off Kanye West for his recent track, "Monster," that includes images of white women and corpses and black women as vampires and beasts. Watch the video and you might understand.

In reading about and watching interviews with women who have created aliases, the general explanation has been that the persona's have been created as a sort of escapism. Nicki Minaj took respite from a rough childhood by creating characters and living her life through them. Sasha Fierce, Beyonce Knowles' alter-ego, was recently "killed off" by Beyonce who said that she no longer needed the overly-aggressive, -strong, -sassy, -sexy character. I watched an interview of her in which she said that transforming into Sasha was a "out-of-body experience," created to protect herself but she is now confident enough to merge her two selves onstage and off. In an entirely different regard, Queen Latifah created her alias in direct response to the mistreatment of women by male rappers. Her intention for the empowerment of women was clear: "'If you think you are a queen, you are going to make people treat you like that and you'll start feeling like that."

I am not sure that I can get behind Leland's argument that reinvention or the creation of a stage persona "knocks a leg from under female authority." I could hold up Queen Latifah and Lady GaGa as prime examples of this: they have utilized stage monikers specifically intended to break down some of those damaging aspects of hegemony. In Queen Latifah's case: she gives voice to black feminists. In Lady GaGa's case: she reaches out to those living in what she calls the "trash glitter environment," populated largely by the sexual wallflowers, those on the fringe of mainstream heterosexual society. I don't believe either could have been as effective as role models and leaders of black feminism and non-heterosexual acceptance respectively without these persona's.

With this said, I also believe that these persona's are still, however authentic they are to the individual artists, caricatures of lived experience. In some respects, I agree that "mainstream hip-hop is...incompatible with a feminist conception of womanhood," for its continued denigration of women. But I would also add, as stated on the PBS site, that the greatest consumer demographic of commercial hip-hop is white. "White consumers...buy into stereotypes of blackness based on violence and caricature, while people of color also consume images of black manhood commodified as one-dimensional and devoid of social responsibility." I think it is important for us to remember that artists, including Kanye, are simply caricatures of the black male experience in American and perhaps of themselves.

But I wouldn't give up hope on all hip-hop or rap as dynamic, respectable and effective tools for feminism just yet. Gwendolyn Pough writes in “Hip-Hop Soul Divas and Rap Music: Critiquing the Love That Hate Produced" that "while we may not like what black women rappers have to say, specifically that their songs are not always positive, empowering, or socially responsible, all of their messages are ultimately educative because in one way or another, they teach lessons about some of the real-life struggles facing hip hop generation black women." If it takes an amplified persona to educate the mainstream, then I can get behind that. But we also take the good with the bad when we don't exercise our autonomy in choosing what music we listen to (i.e. Top-40 radio). There is A LOT of incredible music out there, created by women and men alike, that is positive in its message to and about women. And I'd much rather listen to them than Kanye West.

A Note from the Universe - 1.27.11

It wasn't ever supposed to hurt, Callie. You weren't ever supposed to cry. And I never dreamed you'd sometimes feel so helpless.

Yet, as things have turned out, lots of folks have trouble getting out of bed on cold, dark mornings.

Anyhow, Callie, should there also be the occasional pain, tear, or touch of sadness beyond that, please realize these were anticipated, bargained for, and even sought after. As each would illuminate your resiliency, prove your strength, and help you blast through every flimsy notion that would otherwise keep you from seeing that even now I hold you in the palm of my hand and that all things are possible.

Such a deal,
The Universe

P.S. Callie, couldn't you just turn on all the lights and pretend the sun is already up?

Sharing is NOT Caring

In defining shared powers, we must first recognize the powers that each branch holds constitutionally as well as those means of checks and balances granted by the Constitution. The legislation makes the laws; executives enforce the laws; and laws are interpreted by the judicial branch. The powers of Appointment, Veto, Impeachment and Judicial Review were created to ensure that no one branch could act unilaterally on issues, inherently maintaining some sort of agreement across the branches as a consequence. This, I feel, is where the United States has evolved into a muddying of branch delineations, expectations and powers.

The idea of Shared Powers, therefore, is rooted in the blending of branch responsibilities and authorities. Executive Orders allow the President to bypass Congress in enacting the use of our military; Congressional Committees on the Judiciary make rulings on whether or not athletes used performance-enhancing drugs; and the Supreme Court of Florida decided the 2000 presidential election. Change has come by pragmatism, natural selection and force, with countless examples of each throughout our history.

Though the separation of powers in the United States has repeatedly been criticized for promoting inefficiency, I find this division a necessary component of our republic. Each branch of government has specific, intended purposes and has been created to meet those purposes. The intention and agenda of the actors in each of these branches is inherently different as is their expertise and experience.

Even as I consider myself an activist (in social and environmental justice), I cannot stray from the notion that change must happen within our federal government in a manner that is calculated and appropriate. Otherwise, as we are seeing now, partisan politics becomes an untamable beast. The originally intended balance of Judicial Branch (no party), Legislative Branch (at least two parties) and Executive Branch (one party) evolves in a battle where the loudest voice wins.

Four v. Six Year Terms

I like the idea of having a single, six-year term instead of our current model of a four-year term with the possibility of reelection. For a long while now, I have felt as though our four-year tradition is quite antiquated in the face of the current political climate surrounding the position. I have come up with four ways in which I see that this alternative system could be beneficial to our nation.

1. Citizens would have to be smarter about who we put in office. A six-year term is not conducive to flash-in-the-pan celebrity figures or highly polarized political figures. I think our citizens would begin to see who we elect in office as more of a long-term investment.

2. Likewise, I think the other branches of the federal government, in particular Congress, would be forced to work more cooperative – or at least diplomatically – rather than in partisan opposition, effectively stalemating the legislative process long enough to get someone else in office. Under the six-year model, I see a lot of the political maneuvering and smoke screens could fall to the wayside with the introduction of a more lengthy period of time demanding substantial, legitimate policy-making.

3. The tangible policies – not simply election or reelection rhetoric – would have a better opportunity to come to fruition. Change is happening so rapidly yet the effects of a president’s in-office policy changes are often not seen until the year or two after a president has left office. I think we need some consistency in office right now in major issues such as the direction we are going to take in environmental, economic and health care matters.

4. With the way our presidential campaigns are being funded, strategized and sensationalized (especially with the recent legislation legalizing corporate sponsorship), I think having an election every six years could elevate our political discourse to more substantial movement rather than partisan rhetoric of campaigning. The thought of reelection is a huge distraction from policy discussion and action for everyone.

SIDENOTE: In my world, I would have six-year terms for the reasons stated above WITH the possibility of reelection but not in consecutive terms. I think this would allow for the stated benefits to occur while still applying the healthy pressure on the office of needing to do well by the constituency. Having the non-consecutive rule would allow for presidents to gain perspective on their policies by employing pragmatism.

Toni Morrison

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.