The Future of {Urban} Magazine's: Thoughts on Jeff Chang's Vibe Roundtable

Last week, Jeff Chang posted a roundtable discussion with
Alan Light, former Editor in Chief at Vibe and Raymond Roker,
Founder of Urb Magazine.

Read the entire post here. It is fascinating because in many ways
it is an organic conversation about journalism, capitalism, Vibe,
and venture capital.

5 paragraphs in, Jeff gets cooking when he writes,

But by April 2005, they folded. The magazine industry had shifted dramatically. The middle–as in all media and entertainment industries, hell, in American society–could not hold

The idea of the middle not holding, and for the magazine industry
as an analogy for American, and Global society, if you will, is
fascinating. Initially, last week, when I wrote about class, race
and teens online I was going to include a chart about class distinctions.
It became clear to me that there is no such thing as a middle class.
There are owners. There are workers. The material difference is
in salaries, and unions.

That's it.

Which brings me back to magazines. Last March, I told S.bot
that Honey Magazine was relaunching as a social networking
website. (Background, I love magazines. My dad got me a Barbie
magazine subscription when I was 6. I also had a subscription to
Highlights and Weekly Reader.)

You see, S.bot is a start up genius. She does venture capital
marketing analysis and makes wireframes for billionaires,
so when she talks about businesses, marketing and money, I listen.

She pointed out to me that many magazines now have in house
marketing, record labels and publishing companies, and that the
magazines are just business cards for many companies.
We began to discuss, how Honey would have been different if they
started a marketing arm right after the launch.

We wondered how feasible this would have been given the way in
which whiteness, blackness and gender impacts the access to
capital in general and specifically in the NYC media and
marketing landscape.

Which brings me to Jeff Chang's comment about magazines and
marketing. Jeff writes,

Jeff Chang at 10:56am July 1
Alan, is there any middle ground at all to be found? Is it possible
to concoct a web/print model that can diversify income beyond
ad/sponsor revenues? E.g. For what it’s worth, and forgetting
how I feel about it for a second, most of the mags I know in the
high10K/low100k circ realm have become quasi- or real marketing
agencies.

Then Jeff adds,

Jeff Chang at 11:04am July 1
I guess I think of magazines like URB, The Fader, and Juxtapoz, and Swindle as businesses that are working. But again, there are a number of ancillary units working there aside from the content work. All of them have massive marketing arms. Juxtapoz is part of the Upper Playground clothing/street art business. Swindle is part of Shepard Fairey’s empire.

But yeah, media qua media? Not so much…

Alan Light at 11:07am July 1
if anyone sees this who works with any of those, please chime in. but my understanding is that the magazine parts of those companies do not make money – but rather are a good investment in terms of visibility. as a kind of calling card for the rest of the operation where the profits are. Raymond? Andy? You guys out there?

This blew my brain back because, it became clear that "Hip Hop journalism"
in many ways is now about consumption. That being said, if Hip Hop or
music journalism isn't about the journalism, and is a calling card
for a corporation, where is the journalism?

Remember The Source, the Mind Squad and The Source's
masthead? At one point, it stated,

We at The Source take very seriously the challenge being the
only independent voice for the rap industry...with respect to any
of our businesses relationships, we feel it is in our responsibility to
always strict police the integrity of our editorial content. On y in this
way can we continue to bring of the clear and unbiased coverage which
has won the respect of our readers.

Clearly this was pre-Benzino and The Almighty RSO.

In some ways, reading this roundtable, I felt like I was back in Mergers
in Acquisitions (M & A), because the conversation about magazines
turned into one about profits, venture capital, risk assessment,
parent companies and subsidiaries.

For example, Al Roker spoke on the fact that these businesses
that have both ad agencies and magazines may drop the
magazine completely. He writes,

Raymond Leon Roker at 11:32am July 1
The ways us smaller print brands have a chance is to become boutique agencies. Filter, Cornerstone/Fader, BPM, et al, everybody is in the agency game. The magazines become the branded company pitch. A measure of credibility and clout.

But as print continues to melt away, in the eyes of clients and under the weight of constantly increasing production costs, some of these brands may drop their mags too.

The assumption is that magazine brands, if they walk away from print, can’t survive. That hasn’t been proven one way or another yet. But IMO, the only way they will is by becoming media marketing companies instead. Ones where content and marketing blur (hello ASME). But the standalone magazine model died years ago.

After this comment, Jeff and Alan began having a conversation about
Vibes uniqueness, regarding readership. This, is where M & A comes in.

Jeff Chang at 11:46am July 1
And I note the irony of looking at VIbe as ‘ethnic media’ when the urban category was invented by Black marketers and other marketers of color to get beyond that box…

Alan Light at 11:51am July 1
First, publishing is a terrible place for VCs to be, the return is too slow and too gradual. And are there other examples of consolidation other than Vibe/Spin?

And FYI, I don’t know how these numbers developed over the years, but in the years I was at Vibe it was amazing how close a 50/50 split we had in black/white and in male/female readership. Which was a bit of a problem until sales team were able to convince people it was a strength.

Jeff Chang at 11:58am July 1
Re: that’s so telling on the ad tip. And so when Wicks Group bought Vibe the writing was on the wall?

Alan Light at 12:00pm July 1
who knows? i mean, i guess there was cause for concern if, as i said, no magazine companies wanted in. i can’t comment on the state of things as of time of sale, long after i was gone.

Vibe was unique because of its readership, however, I never thought
about the fact that advertisers may not know how to market to
such a diverse crowd. It speaks to our history as a segregated
society, and the history of segregated publications and advertising as well.

Andy Cohn, group publisher of the Fader Media Network, posted a comment
in the comments section that made me think about venture capitalist and
the lack of profitbilty in the magazine industry. He writes,

andy cohn says:

July 1, 2009 at 12:33 pm

VC’s have no business (never have) getting involved in the media business. there is a long trail of INCREDIBLE media properties (or ones that had the potential for greatness) left in the dust by VC’s who thought they’d get some great rate of return on their investment. When i first started at Spin magazine in 1994, i remember reading that the average print magazine took up to 10 years to turn a profit. i’m by no means a financial wizard (just opposite in fact) BUT that would send some red flags to me if i was the one calling shots on who to invest with or not.

I think if we all really did the research, it’s NOT solely about the magazine or the content that drives it’s success, it’s about the OWNERSHIP structure, and willingness to cultivate and organically grow a property.

So, and i mean NO disrespect, because i have had the good fortune to meet Quincy, and admire and respect him tremendously, i find it perplexing that he can come out and bash the VC’s for ‘messing up’ VIBE when it was HE that sold it to them in the first place. if VIBE had been maintained by the great people that started it and came in along the way, and it remained with Quincy/Bob Miller etc, i have no doubt we would NOT be talking about it’s closure today.

FULL DISC: i have worked for Spin/Vibe, The Source and have been Group Publisher of The FADER Media network for the past 6 years.

Organic growth is the complete anthesis of Capitalism.

Capitalism's central premise is accumulation, get money,
getting more, allways, regardless of the costs.

Even though I will be be a social science doctoral candidate in the fall,
the M & A hound in me loves analyzing why a merged business will
succeed or fail, A merger in many ways is a marriage of two businesses,
and it is often done for the purposes of saving money. We read in the
news that that Live Nation with Ticket Master. Jobs are slashed, buildings
are sold, stock goes up, shareholders are happy.

But, but, but, what is the impact of those actions for the long term?

Ask Umair, who wrote an interesting piece recently about the "bloodsucking
nature" of the music business in the case of Michael Jackson. He writes,

If the world's biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from
his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where
did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels'
pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope — they made
Britney and Lady GaGa.

It can be for a plethora of reasons. This conversation about VIBE is
important because it reflects the magazine industry and also because
of my personal investment in Danyel Smith's career.

The end of Vibe was personal for me, not because of the magazine
per se, but because I have followed Danyel's career since the early nineties,
when she was in the the Bay writing about Hip Hop. While there are
five or six newspapers and alterantive weeklies in the Bay Area,
very few of them, then and now, feature writing by African American women.

So when she wrote about the Boom and the Bap in the SF Bay
Guardian, and the East Bay Express, I stayed looking for her byline.
When I ran into Danyel in NY, a few years ago she was kind and warm.
Furthermore, she encouraged me to write and blog, which was affirming.
Last December, i mentioned to her, that I was writing a series
of essay's on Hip Hop and feminism, and that I was shook. She asked
me why, and I responded that I was scared of failure and scared of success.
She encouraged me to press "send", always.

In some ways I am not thinking about Vibe per se, but the symbolism
of a Black woman, who came up the ranks as a writer, who
eventually ran magazine, and what it means to us, when that
magazine is no longer running.

It's like that feeling of seeing Michelle and Oprah on the cover
of O, when you know Oprah don't share the cover with nobody.

With that being said, who knows what the future holds?

If the magazines, as we know them fall away, and start over digital,
I smile at the idea of an Urban Vanity Fair. Given the fact that we
have a Black president, it would be kinda awesome to have some
in depth, urban (Black, White, Asian and Latino) political and music
coverage, organically grown.

More about VIBE
Harry Allen
Belle in Brooklyn
Aliya S. King

More about Money, Art, Technology
Michael Jackson and the Zombie Media Economy
The Next 5000 Days of the Internet
The Future of Free

When Magazines Sell Access to Politicians, Lobbyist
The Atlantic
The Washington Post

BET's School for Nappy Headed Ho's: BET, Drake & Lil Wayne

The jump @ 3:55 sec

"I like a long haired thick red bone."
~Lil Wayne

No nappy headed ho's allowed.

I have been having a conversation with Moya and Nuala about
BET, Drake, and Lil Wayne.

The conversation has been interesting in that I have been
pushing hard against being reactionary. Its challenging, because when
you react you feel empowered.

But, we, the masses, always have the power, whether or not we use
it is another question. We outnumber the executives and the politicians.

Always.

Black Women
It is important to note that there are Black women who
are only angry because Drake's video features light skinned
Latina's and White women. From the Sandra Rose website,

"Sandra as a woman I am offended that this is all Kanye West, the director, could come up with for one of the hottest songs of the summer. He should be ashamed of this depiction of females. This video in a nutshell basically says a woman’s beauty is defined by how big her boobs are and light her skin is. And Kanye being a black man raised by black parents and Drake being bi-raicial (half black and half white) why are they only showcasing ALL Hispanic girls in this video? I don’t get it, they couldn’t get ONE pretty chocolate sister up in the video like Lanisha Cole, Jessica White, or Natasha Ellie to be in the video alongside the Hispanic girls?..."

I read this, thought about it, read it again then realized that,
getting more Black women to care about rap videos, simply takes
only featuring Latina's and White women. Hmmmp.

In fact, on Tuesday. I tweeted that in some ways the the only
way for Black women to be upset about rap videos is if they
are excluded. I was surprised that five people responded. We
have allies after all.

What does it mean, and what does it say about Black women,
and the recognition of Black beauty in mainstream media,
if we are only mad because a clearly sexist video doesn't have
any brown skinned women in it?


Apologies and Boycott's
BET and Drake have both apologized.

An apology without an action is worthless.

Especially when the apology does nothing to materially impact
harm that has been done.

Lets review the facts.

BET has received its ad dollars.

Advertisers commercials were exposed to 10M viewers.

Some Black people have written letter and a petition and get an apology.

The first two points have to do with an exchange of money,
the last one doesn't.

One question for BET? What is your apology worth?

In my conversation with Moya, we are talking about boycott's
and how they are reactionary. The idea is that if we spend
all of our time reacting to what some one is doing to us,
then we will have no energy left to advance our own agenda's.

The advertisers for the Bet awards were, Dodge, Procter & Gamble,
Target, CIROC Vodka, Ford, Coors, Pepsi, Verizon Wireless and Akademiks.
You know, in case you were wondering.

According to Target Market News, In a recent mulitmedia engagement of 5,000 African American adults, Simmons market Research Bureay found that BET viewers are 21% more ad receptive when they watch ads on BET, and 31% more ad rece[tive when they see ads on Bet.com, versus other networks.

[Sidebar. Why do corporations cause harm and governments
stay taking forced free labor and or ad dollars, and giving
us apologies? It's rhetorical]

While there are many people who are angry about
what BET has done, just because folks are angry,
does't mean that they care enough to take
non-reactionary action.

Take Imus, he was censored temporarily,
there was a big hullaboo, and he is back on the air.

Capitalism stay eatin', nothing stops it.

Imus nor Wayne, nor Drake, are the problem. They
are symptoms of a larger one.

Moya astutely pointed out we often say that "Them rappers
ain't talking about me", she then noted that, Wayne just said he
"wish he could fuck every girl in the world", that includes all of us,
you too Love.

BET?

What do you think of the women being angry because
no brown skinned women were featured?

You see the awards?

Have you thought of alternatives to reactionary
boycotts?

Thoughts?

100 Visionaries? Yes!

Digital White Flight: On Twitter and Race

Courtesy of John from ColderIce

Twitter and Race
Two major events have happened in the last few days involving Twitter
and race. On Sunday night, during The BET awards, the trending topics were:
The BET Awards, Beyonce, Ne-Yo, BBD, Mary Mary, Keith Sweat, Tiny
and Toya.

Yesterday afternoon, the trending topic became "fakeassnigga"
because many, presumably Black, folks were retweeting @lilduval
who tweeted about "fakeassniggas."

Then all of a sudden the trending topic, "fakeassnigga" was gone.

The Twitter administrators apparently deleted it.

This action reminded me that as much as we think that the tweets
are ours, there is in fact a firewall, and by using the website we have
consented to Twitters written and unwritten rules of usage.

In response to the deletion, I tweeted, "Wassup with the digital race scrubbing"
and "Why should we expect people to be any less racist online than they
are offline?"

I then received a direct message from @allaboutgeorge for a link
to danah boyd's essay, "Viewing Class Divisions through Facebook
and Myspace."

boyd's essay provides an accessible theoretical framework
for understanding race, class and social stratification on the internet.
The essay was exactly what I needed to read at the moment.

Digital White Flight
boyd's general thesis is that some teens are flocking to Facebook
and others are going to Myspace and their reasons for doing so have
to do with class.

She observed that the issue wasn't that Facebook wasn't becoming larger
than Myspace. The issue is socio-economic class. She writes,

Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture
is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some
teens are flocking to Facebook. Who goes where gets kinda sticky...
probably because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.

Which brings me to her general thesis which is that "what we do in society is
mirrored in our behavior online."

She has four notable points.
The first is that,

As a society, we have strong class divisions and we project these values onto our kids. MySpace and Facebook seem to be showcasing this division quite well. My hope in writing this out is to point out that many of our assumptions are problematic and the internet often reinforces our views instead of challenging them.

The second is that Facebook appeals to teens who,

tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to
college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are
primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking
forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens,
"burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths,
gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant
high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't
go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school.
These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after
schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace.
MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school
because they are geeks, freaks, or queers..

The third is that what we do in society is mirrored in our behavior online.
She writes,

The division around MySpace and Facebook is just another way in which technology is mirroring societal values. Embedded in that is a challenge to a lot of our assumptions about who does what. The "good" kids are doing more "bad" things than we are willing to acknowledge (because they're the pride and joy of upwardly mobile parents). And, guess what? They're doing those same bad things online and offline. At the same time, the language and style of the "bad" kids offends most upwardly mobile adults. We see this offline as well. I've always been fascinated watching adults walk to the other side of the street when a group of black kids sporting hip-hop style approach. The aesthetics alone offend and most privileged folks project the worst ideas onto any who don that style.

Lastly, and I was surprised to learn this, but there is apparently a
class division in the military that is reflected in social network usage.
boyd writes,

A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This
was a very interesting move because the division in the military
reflects the division in high schools. Soldiers are on MySpace;
officers are on Facebook. Facebook is extremely popular in the
military, but it's not the SNS of choice for 18-year old soldiers,
a group that is primarily from poorer, less educated
communities. They are using MySpace.

In light of boyd's Facebook & Class doctrine, I began to see Twitter's
move to erase "fakeass nigga" from the trending topics
as a move to protect its brand, and prevent it from looking
too young, urban, working class and ghetto. In some ways,
it can be seen as an effort to remain on the hegemonic,
Facebook side of the equation instead of the moving closer to
the subalternative Myspace side.

Lets take a look at some of the comments made
about the "fakeassnigga" trend by some of the
presumably white, users,

@zacharyskinner Why do retarded subjects like "Fake Ass Nigga" keep
becoming trending topics? Is twitter being overrun by the idiot crowd

@moohalaa I don't have a "Fake Ass Nigga" clue why its a trending topic, I
must admit

@sandy7172cat OMG! This "Fake Ass Nigga" is horrible. Twitter you should be
ashamed.

@Kashaseptember Why are all these black people on trending topics. Neyo, Beyonce,
Tyra, Jamie Fox. Is it black history month
again? LOL.

During The BET Awards some of the tweets were saved as screen shots
and posted on Tumblr, on the site titled, "OMG! Black People"
Tumblr, took the site down. In true internet fashion the , OMG! Black People
sprung up on Wordpress. Here are some of the tweets,

@peggyrossmanith The current trending topics make me sad for America.

@Jennibenn1 screw these stupid trending topics, I am going to bed

@brighteyesjulie did anyone see the trendning topics. I don't think this is
a very good neighborhood. Lock the doors kids.

@sweethayle So many black people!

@rolololodan Why are all the trending topics about the BET awards.
Fuck that channel.

In many ways, what we are seeing on Twitter are the racial
comments that folks would normally keep to themselves,
or only mention to their peers with whom they feel safe.

These tweets run counter to the mainstream press's notion
of a post racial America. Keep in mind that I write this with
the understanding that noticing and understanding our contradictions
is the only way we can reconcile them and have real change
and progress.

The added dimension of the internet means that off handed
comments that where once private and racial are now public,
racial, screen saved and posted on blogs.

In many ways, Iwe as a nation are so afraid of dealing
with race and class that we hope a technology will come along
and serve as some sort of microwave social justice tool that will
and deal with it for us. The consequences of four hundred years of
chattel slavery will not be erased with the internet.

The truth is that technology will only further magnify the stereotypes,
class distinctions and our general efforts to avoid dealing with each other.

boyd's research, Twitter's censorship and the comments made during
The BET awards evidence this.

Who we are in our daily lives is who we are online, a key board,
some plastic a hard drive will never change that.

What do you think of the removal of the trending topics?

What do you think of danah boyd's theory about Facebook, Myspace
and digital class distinctions?

Have you noticed anyhing else racial that has been censored recently
online?

The Children of Alcoholics Either Marry One or Become One

Me and Dig Dug in August '05. I had no idea at the time,

but my whole world was about to shake.

I woke up this morning with this thought, the title of the post,
in my head, probably because it ties into so many other things
that I have been thinking about, as usual.

Thinking. Thinking about Michael Jackson, about stolen
childhoods, about adult onset addiction and what it means
to live in a culture that doesn't have a language to grieve.

Thinking and observing the ways in which we are dealing
with Micheal Jackson's death. Thinking that if we do not
deal with our history as a people,as Americans, as Black
people, as the children of abusive people, we will be
trapped in it and triggered into our childhood fears
whenever any new loss occurs.

A dear friend of mine has been recently doing work on dealing
with his childhood. It's painful to watch, yet awesome because
I suspect it will make him a more human human. Often times,
I don't know what to say when he tells me about making a
connection between something janky from his childhood
that carried over into his adult life, so I just sit there speechless
and attentive, trying to be a good friend.

My father has both struggled with an addiction for twenty years
and he also works incredibly hard everyday to maintain his
sobriety. Four years ago, in July of 2005, he came back east to visit me
and to reconnect with his momma and forgive her for giving
him up for adoption. It was incredible. In watching him do this,
instead of telling me who a man, a human was, he showed me.

He showed me the power of forgiveness.The importance of humility.
He showed me the gift of not harboring resentments. He showed
me that if he could forgive her, then I should forgive him, if I
already hadn't. He showed me that adult Black men, that men,
did in fact do the necessary emotional work to get their family
lives and emotional lives in order. Despite what CNN's Black in
America, the Black intellectual or Black Politician du jour
were saying.

This visit is material because my grandmother died in March of
2007, just two years after that visit.

You and I know that there is nothing quite like a person dying
before you can tell them, I am sorry or I forgive you.

He showed me that a man, a man who has dedicated his life to
healing his own wounds from 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago must
make it a priority to deal with the events from childhood that
never have been addressed, or else he will be trapped by them.

It was on this trip that my father noticed that I was "angry." Of
course I was. Anger is often times the only emotion that we
are permitted to have publicly. Yet, there is a caveat for Black
women, as we are presumed to have attitudes and be angry
often times before we even open our mouths. This
of course is rooted in myth of Black women that go back to
slavery. Damn near everybody in East Oakland is angry and
with good reason. East Oakland houses the bodies that
capitalism no longer needs, (to a greater or lesser extent.)

But trip, I wasn't in East Oakland. I was in downtown Brooklyn,
bourgie as all get out, about to get married and go to law school.
What did I have to be angry about?

Well, in the ensuing months, the angry ripped through some
more relationships and played a huge role in my ability to adjust
to law school. It also played an active role in killing two relationships,
and in killing credit score (which was perfect when I started) by
shopping instead of dealing with the grind that is law school by
developing new tools to cope. Instead I tried to assimilate into the
existing culture of play hard and work hard and I became a little
bit to comfortable with cappuccino's in the morning and Black label
at night and trying to read four hundred pages in between.

Some days I failed miserably, on others, I knocked it out the box.

However, the above three tendencies were bad for the wallet,
bad for the kidneys, bad for my eye sight. After Dee Dee got
stolen in Prospect Park, and I moved back to the Bay, it was
clearly a sign that I had enough and I started to deal with
how I reacted to the anger triggers head on. That was fun.

Anger is a drug, anger is also a secondary emotion that is usually
a cover for how we really feel. When I accepted that, I became willing
to be the person that I was put here to be, not the person
reacting to twenty years ago, and certainly not the person
that my friends or family thought I should be.

Every since I learned of Michael's death, I have been thinking about
childhoods and the way we grieve or don't grieve in our society.

I have been thinking about how he provided the soundtrack to
our childhoods, yet he was denied one.

This post is for the kids who had no childhoods. For the Michael
Jackson's of the world who for one reason or another got robbed
of theirs. To be fair to my parents, I had an awesome childhood, until
Crack came, that is. It was awesome and irreplaceable. Both pre and
post Crack, I couldn't or wouldn't change it, it made me who I am.

I only hope that for anyone reading this who may see a little
Michael Jackson getting robbed of his or her childhood,
steps in to do something.

No one stepped in for him.

Further Reading
The Road Less Traveled
Homecoming
All About Love

No questions for this post.
A little too deep, feel me?
Thoughts?

Douch Bags, Wife Beaters and Vagina Music

I was reading the Bitch Blog this morning when, I came
across a post on Vagina Music by Andi Zeisler.

I instantly suspected that Vagina music was derisive term
because vagina's are used in popular language to describe
things that we hate, because we are socialized to hate women.

Our use of language reflects our reality.
As I read it, my suspicion was confirmed. Andi Zeisler writes,

But it wasn’t until I heard an acquaintance refer to Coldplay as “vagina music” that I began to rethink my own casual use of the phrase as a catchall descriptor for the descendants of Cris Williamson and Tracy Chapman. Because , while I am no fan of Coldplay... it’s clear that describing them as vagina music was not this person’s way of saying that their latest album reminded him of the oeuvre of Paula Cole.

So from this, we can infer that vagina music is not only music that others feel subjected to/wish to avoid, or music that sounds generically female, it’s music for pussies. And pussies are pussies because they’re…like women.

Masculinity, in mainstream American culture is largely
defined by trying to be oppressive or violent towards
other men, and to most certainly be oppressive towards
woman. This is why homophobia is rooted in our hatred
of women.

Which leads me to the question, without dominating women, what
would American masculinity look like?

We use language to organize how we relate to one another
in the world. I was reminded of how our word choices can
normalize the hatred of women when I read the following
passage in Taking Back God American Women for Religious
Equallity by Laura Tannenbaum. She writes,

...inclusive language is needed because words and the images
they evoke, have the power to shape our attitudes: male dominant language creates and reinforces a hierarchical order in which women are regarded as subordinate; words indicate our basic belief and assumptions about ourselves, about others and about God.

Again. Words indicate our basic belief and assumptions about
ourselves about others and about God.

Calling a group of men a "girls" is an insult because in a
system where men are dominant and women are
dominated, the last thing the world you want to be is a
woman or gay.

I do not refer to mixed gendered groups of people as
"guys." I call them folks or if they are my friends "party people."

I use this because I try and use language that reflects an
understanding of how gender and power is obtained and
maintained in pop culture, in mainstream media and day to day life.

Our language and our laws reflect a tendency to classify humans
as men by default.

Being a man is not the default status of humanity.
Being a girl is not an insult.
If I believed that hype, I might hate myself.

The Pervasiveness of the Douche Bag
If a douche bag is a feminine hygiene product, why is it used to describe
people in general and men specifically who are inconsiderate
and self centered?

What exactly is idiot like, inconsiderate, self centered or moron like
about a feminine hygiene product?

The passive acceptance of the usage of the term is indicative of our
acceptance of the public dislike of vagina's. The loose usage of the
term indicates passive acceptance of the public hatred of femininity
and women.

Which brings me to wifebeaters. I don't call white tank tops
wife beaters I call them white tanks. If I am in a real snarky
mood I call them wife killers which completly throws people off.

Why wife killers?

The majority of women killed in this country are murdered by
an intimate partner.

I would imagine that the term is derived from the stereotype of
a white beer drinking man in rural America who beats his wife.

I will concede that this steroetype may be based in fact. However,
describing a t-shirt as a wife beater when most women murdered
are killed by their intimate partners is careless and perpetuates the
notion that hitting women (and people) expected and for that matter
is accepted.

From Vagina music, to douche bags and wife beaters, the
ways in which our day to language reflects our tendency to
normalized hatred towards women.

Have you given any thought to how the language that we use
reinforces stereotypes and gender hierarchies?

You ever thought about what a douche bag is and why
it is an insult? Am I wrong?

Or does language in fact reflect the way we see women?

**This post was informed by Douche Bags and Wife Beaters

The End of Journalism, the Beginning of the Future

A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, Toure went back and forth with
several people, one of which was Aliya S. King, on the future or
the end of journalism.

Given the dismissiveness of Toure's tone, I was reminded
of calling Derrick Bell a couple of years ago, as I was fighting
being dismissed from law school. Yes, I picked up the phone
and called him, told him my situation and requested some
advice. My aunt was on me to advocate for myself, to not be
a victim and to show me how to be empowered. It is an
important lesson that I carry with me every day.

While Professor Bell, was kind and encouraging, he is also a
lawyer, and as such he asked me period point blank "Are you
sure you are meant to be an attorney?" My feelings were hurt
and I blinked back the tears. It felt like he was assessing my
ability, without knowing me very well. In reality, he was explaining
to me how I would possibly be perceived and, hence forced
me to think about what was the best option for me, not simply
what I wanted to do.

He also understood and explained to me the pedagogy of law
school and the ways in which it isn't beneficial to Black folks,
or so called "at risk" populations.

He changed my life that day. Professor Bell is a man who
resigned from Harvard's Law School in the mid nineties
over its unwillingness to tenure "a" Black woman
professor. I respect him. He put his money where his
mouth was, which influenced my willingness to call him and be
vulnerable. At that time, I was still considering going back to
law school. His point was that people, implicitly white
people, from my school with excellent grades can have
a challenging time finding work, so he urged me to really
think about my whether being an attorney was meant for
me.

Well. I told my then partner, *David, about our conversation,
and his response was, "You are a child of God, it is not for
him nor anyone to say what are you are to do with your
career or your life." I instantly perked up and felt protected
and little less sad.

I thought of this child of God moment when I read King's
piece on on her exchange with Toure.

I was also reminded of an editorial that I came across recently in
Art Voices Magazine. In April, Terrence Sanders, the publisher
wrote an eloquent, powerful and vulnerable editorial letter
last month, that in many ways captured the sentiment of the
you are a child of God moment. He writes,

I was told by my mother that when I was three months old, my biological father attempted to suffocate me while she was out shopping. She left him and relocated to NYC, where she re-married a Marine who had just completed a tour of duty in Vietnam. I was raised in tenements and housing projects on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I was exposed to asbestos and lead poisoning. I was categorized as a “have not,” I attended Head Start, I hated school, I was sent to schools that taught me just enough. My neighbors were Chinese, Jews, Italians, Hispanics; I was physically abused by my stepfather until I was 16 years old, when ran away from home. I slept in 24 hour movie theaters on 42nd street, park benches on the FDR drive, rooftops of housing projects, and trains. I was exposed to petty criminal elements during my informative years. I was lost, I had no skills to survive in a capitalist regime; my role models were actors, athletes and Jesus....

...In retrospect, I never gave up on myself, I didn’t want to be a slave or live in fear, I didn’t want to walk amongst the walking dead. I’m an Artist, my son’s an Artist in his 2nd year at Cooper Union. Art and Art alone saved my life; it completes me. It is my therapy, my weapon of choice; it helps me to cope with the day-to-day struggles of being a human being. My contribution to humanity will be my art, my voice, and in that and that alone I am alive.

Never let anyone tell you what you what you can and cannot do, let my life be an example. Listen to that inner voice, and not power-hungry elitists with hidden agendas. While they are the fraud, Artists are the truth. We are in the game, and they are on the sidelines. So, I stand before you stripped naked and not afraid to bare my soul. I created my own jobs, my own opportunities, and now I’m living the dream.

Best Regards,

Terrence Sanders, Editor & Publisher more here.

Yes. Terrence gets it. In many ways he is like Camus
in his understanding of how art and humanity functions.

Yet, that doesn't take care of the messiness of figuring out how
to make a living as an artist.

Don't get it twisted. I understand that the news, journalism and
advertising landscape will never look the way that it has in the past.
Three reasons come to mind, based on ideas from people who
are experts in their respective areas.

Kevin Kelly says that data linking is the future.

David Simon says that corporations screwed newspapers
by treating copy with contempt, worshiping advertisements,
and passing along corporate profits to shareholders instead
of investing in journalist who could and arguably would
create copy that people would WANT to pay for online.

Chris Anderson says that there will be two versions of
everything available on the internet. He was
quoted last week saying that, "Everything that becomes
digital will become free. There will be a free version,
either you will be competing with free or giving it
away for free and selling something else. If it is
not zero today, it will be zero tomorrow."

And lastly, The Washington Post just fired one of the most
analytical, largely bipartisan and accessible cats covering the
White House, Dan Froomkin.

The ground is in fact moving beneath us. But I was raised
with earthquakes, so we know what it is.
At the end of the day, If one wants to write, write. If you want
to write, and can't, don't do it. It will work its way out. For true,
if writing has gotten a hold of you it will not turn you a loose.

Trust me, I learned this the hard way. For example, last March,
I wrote about Honey Magazine, Kierna Mayo and my personal
process of accepting the fact that I am a writer.

Last fall, I used some of my blog posts on hip hop, feminism
and labor and other personal experiences as fodder for my
grad school applications. This is material because, if I am
passionate enough to spend my time blogging about it, then
studying the same issues in a classroom setting arguably
is for more enticing than say, civil procedure. I am happy to
say that I will be a graduate student in the fall.

I mention this because I had to accept that I was a writer.

No one could do this for me.

When I accepted this, I set out on a course to act like one,
to choose my goals and take the necessary steps to
try and achieve them.

I hope that this helps you accept the writer, the artist in you.

Related Post's
Is Blogging Journalism?
Cognitive Surplus: Did TV Kill the Book?
The Curse of Being a Black Artist


Thought about being an artist lately?

How do you shut out the critics, but take their advice
about being cautious seriously?

PSK, what does it all mean? <<<>

How has '09 been?

*Not his real name

Girls and Math

Last month I spent 30 minutes of a 50 minute tutoring session
trying to teach a 12 year old year the common denominator.

Often times, as a tutor, it is hard to teach a young person
what you take for granted for knowing, almost intuitively.

But somewhere in the distant past, someone hung in there
with me, so show me the common denominator.

When I noticed that she just started guessing answers I said,
"I know that you can do this work, you just have to take you
time and follow the rules. Math is a language, and it is linear,
you cannot guess at the correct answer. Learn the steps,
and follow them every time and you will get the correct answer.
I know that you know how to do this."

A week later, I was tutoring another young lady, 12, with a higher
math capacity, but get this, she was still visibly uncomfortable
doing the work.

I mentioned this to another tutor and her response
was, "Yeah, the girls think that math is for boys."

The more I paid attentive the more I noticed, that the girls,
regardless of capacity to do the work, looked really uncomfortable
doing the work.

So I started paying attention to the boys. Some of them, ranging in
ages from 9-12, were better than others, many were on grade level
and many where by behind. But, what stuck out to me was
their tendency and will to sit there through the tedium of doing 12
triple digit multiplication problems, 15 fraction conversation
problems, and 10 long division problems.

Page after tedious page, some grumble, some were right at home.
I realized that doing math problems is a kind of meditation.
When I told Birkhold about the distinction he said that math is
a masculine gender performance and that there have been
oodles of studies on math, girls and gender performance.

He also said that girls being scared of math is part and parcel to
the maintenance of women being oppressed and maintaining
capitalism. I just looked at him like whhhhutuuuuuuuut?

He responded saying that the two engines of capitalism are
entrepreneurship and scientific and techonological advances.
You need math in order to do all of these successfully. So, by
making it the domain of men, we undermine the future
prosperity of girls.

Who knew?

Math and Girls any thoughts?

Teach any young people math lately?

What was the outcome?

What are three material changes that
we can make to change math education for
children in general and girls specifically?

Chris Brown x Rihanna Fenty x Perez Hilton

A couple days ago, Chris Brown pleaded guilty for
beating Rihanna Fenty last February. He looks like OJ in
that picture. By pleading guilty to felony assault if he so much as
sneezes the wrong way, he is going straight to jail.

This was a strategic move.

In the court of popular opinion, it silences those
who think that he didn't do it, or at least he shows
that he was willing to plead guilty to something.

But then again if you don't want to believe, you won't.
It also raises the stakes legally, if and when he
beats someone else.

It prevented a trail, that neither of their careers arguably
never would have recovered from, that is to say, if their
careers recover.

Many of us in the Black community think that it is okay
for Black men to beat on us. It isn't. Nor is it okay for the
police to beat on Black men. I use the police example to
show how we are socialized tolerate one kind of violence
yet be enraged by another.

With regard to Chris Browns corporate appeal, he became
another violent Black man, hence untouchable at least for the
moment, but fans and capitalism have tendency to only
have short term memories. The Perez Hilton assault case
proved to be an interesting hypothetical
for three reasons.

The first is that not only was he assaulted,
but he was assaulted after having called a famous Black man in
public, Wil.i.Am. a "faggot". The second is that Hilton is gossip blogger
who traffics in bringing discomfort, angst and judgement to the
people that he writes about for the purpose of earning
cash. Third, he gets money by making fun of people. This is material.

Remember when cats used to get threatened and beat up at The Source
for writing reviews that emcees and labels didn't like. I say this
not to rationalize it, but to give it some context.

I had to struggle a bit with my rule regarding zero tolerance for violence
because he traffics in pain. When you walk in the dark, the darkness is
your friend, and will be a material part of your life. I know this because
I have done it and seen it in the lives of others around me. Simple as that.

But, the counter arguement to that is that he is just spewing
words, he hasn't laid a hand on anyone.

I then had to ask myself, is the rule, no violence, or no violence
for people only for people he don't traffic in pain?

I don't know Hilton's work. I checked the site yesterday and there were
fairly innocuous photos of Britney Spears and other A list and
B list celebs being made fun of. Because it is true that he has in
fact ridiculed others, and gotten paid for it, there is the
inclination to say that he has earned what he has coming to him.

I figured out the answer to my rule question.
Ultimately, no one, no angry rapper, or angry rap manger, lol, has a
right to lay hands on a writer based on an epitet or a bad album review.

Just another day of reckoning with violence.

Did you compare Rihanna to Perez?

Why or why not?

Why is it so hard for us to consider the ways in which
our actions teach the young bucks?