On 'Django' and the negligence of popular culture

by Shanelle Matthews

A.O. Scott’s ornamentally tailored Times review of ‘Django Unchained’ is excellently written but leaves out two analysis important for movies with historically complex plotlines – socio-historical and cause and effect. I’m not a trained historian and don’t have the skill set to evaluate the omitted socio-historical consideration, so I wont; but one thing in particular was painfully obvious to me – because of the vacillating relationship between popular culture and education we’ve become negligently uninformed. Unfortunately, for many of us, that is a luxury we cannot afford.

It is my personal belief that as a filmmaker (not a self-identified documentarian), Quentin Tarantino is not responsible for educating folks about the historical significance and implications of slavery however, because we live in a country that is more invested in popular culture (including the exploitation and avidity of genocidal, colonial legal institutions like slavery) than education, we are consciously and unconsciously propagating a careless discourse among a nation of folks who have no racial analysis. In other words, because we don’t teach people shit in school about race or other social constructs they leave the theater having received their education (which sometimes informs their behavior) from the likes of Tarantino and Spielberg. This kind of edification leaves the most vulnerable people (LGBT, people of color, women, immigrants, etc.) at the center of an oblivious shit storm.

In response to my frustration, yesterday someone said, “If you want historical accuracy go see Lincoln or watch Roots, otherwise just appreciate the storytelling and great film making.” Lincoln was not historically accurate but that aside, only someone with the privilege of education (obviously unwilling to acknowledge it) would say this.

I know that when I walk into a movie theater I can choose to wear one of two hats: excited, movie enthusiast who will laugh, cry and emote throughout or social and racial justice activist who will hyper-analyze every “nigger,” “bitch” and cringe-inducing scene that appropriates the culture and experiences of marginalized people. I can leave and write something like this or write nothing but feel completely satisfied that I know the difference between what the media teaches us and what really exists.

It is entirely possible, encouraged even, to both watch a movie and be entertained and to think critically about how filmmakers have the luxury of making art (and money) without considering the precarious social implications of  their work. Pending your radicalism, you may decide all together to avoid movies whose historical complexity isn’t coupled with an authentic and comprehensible analysis or like me you may reconcile that some battles can’t be won. Tarantino and other filmmakers have a lot of money to tease out their fantasies. And sadly, they have the privilege of not caring either way how their films inform public opinion – and they don’t have to — but it would be nice if they did. Even better would be a public schooling system that provided every citizen with a comprehensive and expansive global history lesson so upon entering the movie theatre we are all equipped with the skill set to separate fact from fiction.

A.O. Scott called ‘Django Unchained’ “brazily entertaining, brazenly irresponsible and also ethically serious,” and it is all of those. It is both excellently made and very difficult watch. It condemns slavery but delivers some of the most gruesome images I’ve ever seen in doing so. The liberal use of the word “nigger/nigga” and the reverberating laughs from the white faces next to me made my heart sink. Still, I was emotionally moved to tears, laughter and several reactions in between.  I feel some kind of way about Tarantino, a white man, making a U.S. slavery revenge fantasy. I also know that all any living person knows about U.S. slavery is a second hand experience, typically learned through reading and research. Still, welcoming it would have been easier if the director was of the African diaspora.

Exploring the nuanced complexities of movies like “Django” is important to expanding our understanding of how art informs popular culture and therefore public opinion. And while each of us experiences it differently we would all be better served with more contexts, more education and an opportunity to have critical conversations about race and privilege. Tarantino had to know that making this movie, as a White man, would resonate heavily (both positively and negatively) with people of color everywhere; and if that opens up a conduit for honest dialogue, well then it is worth every penny.

Shanelle Matthews is a blogger, new and online media professional and the Communications Manager at Forward Together. Follow her on Twitter @freedom_writer

Bully, Inc: Rhonda A. Lee, Black Women, and Workplace Bullying

Former KTBS-TV news anchor, Rhonda Lee 

By Jazmine Walker. 

Reposted with permission from Furious and Brave. 

A little over a week ago, meteorologist Rhonda A. Lee lost her job at KTBS-TV, an ABC affiliate in Shreveport, LA, when she responded to a Facebook post criticizing her short afro. The viewer wrote:

"the black lady that does the news is a very nice lady. the only thing is she needs to wear a wig or grow some more hair. im not sure if she is a cancer patient. but still it’s not something myself that i think looks good on tv. what about letting someone a male have waist long hairdo the news.what about that" (cq)

Despite responding with patience and tact, while acknowledging how outrageously offensive this viewer was, Lee was not only reprimanded, she was fired. Like the good folks at Feministing implied, I recognize that unlike the white anchor who publicly spoke out against bullying with the support of the news station, Lee continues to be depicted as a person who violated an unwritten, unofficial rule. What is most striking about Lee’s unfortunate situation is that it’s part of a larger trend in how advocates define bullying. People continue to limit bullying to certain contexts, and though the viewer/commenter has been described as a “bully,” the term implies that this is an isolated incident perpetrated by an individual, while not fully acknowledging how Lee’s employer(s) were also acting as "bullies" by enforcing rules that benefit their dominant status within this workspace.

The relationship between black women and bullying at work is an interesting one. The bullying of black women at work is commonplace and rarely contextualized as “bullying.” In order to be thought of as being “bullied” one must be a worthy victim. Embodying the “angry matriarch” or “black bitch” stereotypes, as black women so often do, renders them incapable of being bullied as they are framed as perpetual aggressors and instigators that need to be controlled. Bullying is seen as simply necessary when dealing with black women, and therefore, acceptable. This control manifests in white normative workplaces where black women are undervalued and subjugated to being overworked with narrow opportunities for advancement. These inequalities are constantly reproduced and rarely framed as bullying.

One of the ways these inequalities are reproduced is through symbolic boundaries. Symbolic boundaries are created when stereotyping is used to classify groups by race and gender (Fiske, 1998; Lamont & Molńar, 2002). These symbolic boundaries create racial frames and maintain systemic racism through symbolic violence, which Pierre Bourdieu (2001) defines as a “gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition...” (p.2). It is a form of social or cultural domination that seems so natural that it is unperceivable to the people experiencing it. Though I do not wholly agree that black women are unaware of the multiple physical, emotional, and psychological oppressions they experience at work and in their everyday lives, these oppressions are normalized and not contextualized as bullying.

Black professional women commonly report being forced to transform themselves within the workplace, a concept that has been called “dissemblance” by Darlene Clark Hine (1989) and “shifting” by Charisse Jones & Kumea Shorter-Gooden (2004). According to Durr & Wingfield (2012), black women feel judged based on their dress and communication skills and rely on racialized and gendered impression management in order to “fit into gendered and racialized norms of these environments” (p. 558). They must conform to the imagined white male worker which devalues the perspectives black women bring to the workplace as well as their ability and competency as workers. As a result, black women are excluded from social circles and struggle to find mentors, which makes advancement--largely based on inter-office relationships--difficult. What's more, they must suffer in silence, as speaking out against these injustices can result in increased stigma that further limits their potential for upward mobility or jeopardizes their employment status as in the Rhonda Lee example. These factors combine to create a stressful working environment that is omitted from the bullying discourse.

The general public needs to expand the ways that it conceptualizes bullying: currently understood with children as both the primary victims and also castigated as the key players in reproducing such violence. It is important to remember how adults within institutions use symbolic violence to maintain and reproduce inequality. Maybe if people can recognize how bullying is a means to maintain and reproduce race, gender, and class hierarchies, we can actually have meaningful mainstream conversations about racism, sexism, classism, and the many “isms” that form the foundations of the institutions in which we work, learn, worship, and socialize.


Jazmine Walker is a participant in the Black Women's Media Collective, a project of Strong Families. She lives and works in North Carolina for Rural Support Partners. Her personal blog is Furious and Brave.


Sources:

Durr, M. & Wingfield, A.H. 2011. “Keep Your ‘N’ in Check: African American Women and the Interactive Effects of Etiquette and Emotional Labor.”Critical Sociology 37 (5): 557-571

Fiske, S. 1998. “Stereotyping Prejudice, and Discrimination.” Handbook of Social
Psychology.

Hine, D.C. "Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West." Signs 14 (4): 912-920.

Jones, C. & Shorter-Gooden, K. 2004. Shifting. New York: HarperCollins.

Lamont, M & Molńar, V. 2002. The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences. Annual
Review in Sociology 28, 167-95.

Michelle Obama Should Be Brave: Black Women and Reproductive Health Disparities in the 2012 Presidential Election

by Jazmine Walker 

Cross-posted with permission from Furious and Brave.

During the Democratic National Convention, just after Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, announced that the Democratic Party was pro-choice, Michelle Obama proudly boasted that her husband, Barack Obama, “believes that women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and healthcare… that’s what my husband stands for.” Though choice is a significant part of gaining gender equality, I remain struck by how our First Lady, a black woman with black daughters, has yet to talk about reproductive health as broader than ”choice.”

I recognize that black women’s issues are marginalized, and even black women themselves were invisible throughout this election. But when a black woman as influential and powerful as Michelle Obama talks about reproductive health, I expect her to talk about it from her own standpoint. Universalizing women’s issues and minimizing her black identity does not protect her, her daughters, or the countless other women of color whose reproductive health issues are far larger than choice.

Although black women are less likely to develop breast cancer than white women, black women are 40 percent more likely to die from the disease. Black women are three times more likely to develop fibroid tumors. Black women have an infant mortality rate double that of their white counterparts. They are also twice as likely to die from cervical cancer in relation to white women. These health disparities are the result of more than simply a lack of about access to proper health care. Black women across class lines deal with these reproductive health disparities, borne of systemic gendered racism embedded in health care delivery, where health care providers rely upon racist and sexist stereotypes when providing care for these women. White feminists have the privilege of ignoring Michelle Obama’s race around women’s issues in a way that Michelle Obama does not, especially given how her race is hyper-visible in many aspects.

Competing controlling images are prevalent. Because she is the First [Black] Lady, Michelle Obama has to navigate the politics of respectability, while her black body prevents her from realizing full lady-hood. Despite challenging stereotypes of both the overbearing black matriarch and deviant black motherhood in discussions of her roles of wife and mother, she is still is hypersexualized and often criticized for supposedly dressing more provocatively than a First Lady should. But the criticisms don’t stop there. She has been depicted as a nude slave in Spanish magazines and has been decried by conservative whites openly lamenting the absence of a First Lady that “looks and acts like a First Lady."

Yet, in resisting her own negative racialization, Michelle Obama has had to walk the same post-racial political line as her husband. President Obama is compelled to remind whites, and others, that he is “not the President of Black America. [He is] the President of the United States of America.” In a post-racial society these assertions are not only expected but necessary in order avoid being categorized as separatist or anti-democratic. Similarly, Michelle Obama’s universalization of women’s health issues seems like a necessary maneuver, but at what expense? Sasha’s, Malia’s, or even her own reproductive health? Certainly, this universalizing and de-racialization of women’s reproductive health issues by the First Black First Lady, is a paradoxically powerful obfuscation of the particular reproductive health issues that disproportionately affect black women and families.

As activists and scholars we have an obligation to not only demystify this notion of a post-racial society that obscures racism and racist practices in this country but also show how “post-racism” has dire consequences along gender lines. Though I am advocating for Michelle Obama to be more vocal about black women’s issues, I recognize that her silence is a consequence of two narratives that have historically overshadowed our victimhood and our resistance. Discourse around black women’s reproductive health remains on the margins, caught between a white reproductive narrative that still ignores the multifaceted needs of women of color and discourse around systemic racism that centers the tribulations of black men.


Jazmine is a big, fine woman and a fellow at RuralSupport Partners in Asheville, North Carolina. Follow her on Twitter, @JAZonyaMINE

Opponents of Medicaid Expansion Adopt Reganesque View of the Mentally Ill

by Shanelle Matthews

Sasha Matthews watches as her 4-year-old son Gavin sleeps soundly in his bed. The soft, paisley printed blankets hugging his small frame – his left foot hanging loosely off the edge. She watches his chest rise and fall and wonders when, if ever, Gavin will look her in the eye and say, “I love you.” Gavin is one of many children born with autism, a spectrum disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others.  Like many other parents of children on the spectrum, Sasha is optimistic that through rigorous therapy and treatment, Gavin will lead a healthy and happy life – free of the stigma that often plagues the mentally underdeveloped. However, she doesn’t have many people advocating for her, especially not the Governor of the state where she and Gavin call home.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is one of several Republican governors who have vowed to reject the federal plan to expand Medicaid under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The national health laws Medicaid expansion says that the federal government will pay the full cost of the expansion through 2016. After that, the states will only pick up 5 percent of the cost through 2019, and 10 percent of the cost thereafter helping to cover an estimated 7 million more Americans. States would benefit tremendously from this federally supported subsidy and millions more Americans would have access to healthcare.

Louisiana is facing is a nearly 860 million dollar budget cut to its Medicaid program as a result of a change in the state’s Medicaid funding formula to correct what has been characterized as an error in the funding that allowed the state to draw down more federal money than it should have. The state of Medicaid coverage in Louisiana is already dismal. Most states base Medicaid eligibility for parents on household income and how it compares to the federal poverty level, which was $18,530 for a family of three in 2011. In Louisiana, the eligibility cutoff for a working parent is 25 percent of federal poverty or $4,633 for a family of three. Effectively if you make more than $5,000 a year, you do not qualify for Medicaid.

Due to these cuts, Southeast Louisiana Hospital (SELH), home to over 200 mental health patients, will soon begin the closure process.  Officials of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals have been vague about how they will provide services for the psychiatric patients (including adolescent and adult patients with Autism). Without insurance, Medicare or Medicaid these patients will be displaced. This places a burden on the poorest and most impacted people in the state, a burden that policy makers are familiarly dismissive of.

During his post WWII tenure as Governor of California, Ronald Regan began closing all state funded mental facilities and cutting aid to federally funded community mental health programs (in an effort to realign the economy). This left the country in a haze of confusion as those with little to no mental capacity were discharged with nowhere to go. Patients were left homeless. Families were burdened with relatives they could not care for overall confirming the fast growing notion that those with the least mattered least.

52% of all the money Louisiana spends on Medicaid services is allocated to people with disabilities. Similar to Regan’s economic realignment policies, the state budget cuts will leave the mentally ill in a precarious limbo.  The cuts, coupled with the rejection of the Medicaid expansion bill, will leave hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients and their families guessing about their access to quality healthcare, including Sasha and Gavin.

Accessing quality resources to help Gavin hurdle the barriers of autism is a constant struggle for Sasha. Yet, knowing they live in a state that refuses to prioritize the needs of people with disabilities leaves her gravely concerned for his future. If hospitals like Southeast Louisiana, that have serviced patients with disabilities for over 60 years, fall victim to unfair budgets cuts, where will people like Sasha and Gavin go for help?

Shanelle Matthews is a blogger, new and online media professional and the Communications Manager at Forward Together. Follow her on Twitter @freedom_writer

How Obamacare Will Help Low-Income Mothers Battle Depression

Re-posted from ThinkProgress

By Sy Mukherjee

At an Urban Institute panel on depression and low-income Americans on Thursday, Marla McDaniel of the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population pointed out that low-income American mothers are “more likely to have severe depression.”

Fortunately, Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion will help offer those low-income mothers the crucial preventative and mental health services they need to treat their clinical depression. Especially considering the economic disparity between those who are affected by depression — and the lack of sufficient treatment options for low-income Americans — states that choose to expand Medicaid under Obamacare will make important strides toward ensuring low-income mothers have the health resources they need:

Eighty two percent of infants living in households with depressed mothers were enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP programs, health care programs for low-income people, according to a separate 2010 report by the Urban Institute about children affected by maternal depression. Of the mothers, at least 40 percent were not receiving any treatment. Outcomes were consistently worse for uninsured families.
Having a lower-income household also affected the type of mental health provider treating the women, according to the draft paper. Ten percent of lower-income mothers visited a psychiatrist and received a prescription to treat their symptoms, about half as many as the higher-income mothers. Seven percent of the low- income mothers received treatment from social workers, compared to 2 percent of higher income women and 5 percent of the uninsured.

But states choosing to participate in the expansion of Medicaid could improve access to the prevention and treatment women need, said Larke Huang, a psychologist and senior adviser at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, who was also part of the forum. Medicaid currently covers pregnant women considered “medically needy,” who might not meet income requirements. The coverage continues until six months after they give birth. In states that expand the program, many of those women will now qualify for the program after the six-month period, she said.

In fact, when mothers’ depression goes untreated, it results in significant social costs that extend well beyond the early childhood period. According to Scientific American, depressed mothers are less likely to have a strong cognitive bond with their children or be employed, leading to excess stress in households — and ultimately perpetuating a vicious cycle in which untreated mental health conditions negatively impact the prospects of future generations.

Furthermore, a disproportionate number of Latino and African-American children live in single-mother household, and seven in ten children in such families are in a low-income household. These are communities that are already struggling with the effects of decades of racial and class bias — and a lack of preventative mental health resources only exacerbates that historical gap.

But while Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion could provide some relief to these families, GOP governors in poor states with high uninsurance levels have been refusing to take part in the program. So far, Nevada’s Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) — whose state has a high concentration of poor Hispanics and African Americans — has been the only Republican state official to embrace expanding his state’s Medicaid pool.

First Ever Congressional Hearing to "End the School-to-Prison" Pipeline

Re-posted with permission from Justice for Families

For the first time ever, as far as we know, Congress is holding a hearing on "Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline." The hearing will take place Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. This is an incredible opportunity and comes as result of the hard work of amazing organizations such as Dignity in Schools, the Advancement Project, Books Not Bars, and many others too numerous to list. Justice for Families will be represented at the hearing by Co-Director Grace Bauer along with local partners. As they debate the "fiscal cliff," Congress should be made aware that low-income youth and youth of color have been pushed out of schools and 'off the cliff' for decades. Justice demands a wholesale reassessment of our priorities and reinvestment in an equitable educational system and meaningful job opportunities for all youth. The idea that we can't afford to make these investments crumbles under the weight of massive well-funded youth and adult prison systems. Justice for Families is submitting testimony to Congress urging them to do two things:

1) Support families navigating the juvenile justice system by advancing legislation and supporting programs that make it easier for families to keep their children in school and out of the justice system; and
2) Follow the lead of states that have embarked upon "justice reinvestment" initiatives to reallocate resources away from failed 'tough on crime' policies toward direct investments in the communities most harmed by them.

Please support our work by making a donation. Your contribution is fully tax-deductible.

If you are in or near DC, please attend the hearing. Justice for Families is a member of Dignity in Schools and we are following their lead in helping to get youth, families and concerned community members to this hearing. So please email us if we can help you get people to the hearing (you can just reply to this message).

If you can't make the hearing. Please check out our testimony to Congress and let us know what you think. Justice for Families is building grassroots power to impact local and national policy that impact families of system-involved youth and we need your support.

Below you will find a series of family interviews detailing just what families go through and demonstrating why our work is necessary. (Thanks to Richard Ross and his students at University of California at Santa Barbara for their support in putting these videos together).

With Appreciation,

Zachary Norris and Grace Bauer