Jezebel.com recently wrote an article on how International Women’s Day has been generally overlooked, by media and by women. One of the main arguments againt Women’s History month and Black history month is that this sets these groups apart and therefor are decremental to establishing equality. When people counter, every day is white history day, every day is men’s history day, this is not just evasive it is true. We celebrate and bring specific attention to the historical impact of minority and discriminated upon groups because our culture, as a whole, does not recognize the contributions on a daily basis. The old saying, History is written by the victors, is true…and the victors have been primarily white men. So take a moment and think about some important women both historically and in your life. Smith College is also celebrating International Women’s Day, they have posted a wonderful collection of digital media in support of social change for women.

What did you do for International Women’s Day on Saturday? According to Carolyn Byerly of WIMN’s Voices, you probably did nothing, since IWD was so roundly ignored by the media this year. “My own hometown newspaper Washington Post had not a single op-ed piece today, nor national or local news,” laments Byerly. “IWD doesn’t exist here in the nation’s capital, as far as this agenda-setting paper is concerned.” The first national women’s day was observed in 1909 in New York after the Socialist Party of America designated the day to honor striking garment workers; the day went international in 1911 when Copenhagen socialists adopted March 8 as a day for women’s rights advocatin’. Perhaps it is the pinko taint of IWD that keeps some women away — it certainly ruffled the feathers of insane conservative and anti-ERA agitator Phyllis Schlafly!

Continue reading at Jezebel

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Minstrel shows are an important part of American history, but that is how we think of them, as history. A recent comedian has just made past history current by reviving the old minstrel show and giving it a new twist, cross dressing. Charles Knipp is a white gay comedian who performs in blackface as Shirley Q. Liquor ““a welfare mother with nineteen kids who guzzles malt liquor, and drives a Caddy.” If there were a meter for offensive comedy, this should have busted the mercury bulb.

I feel to fully grasp this horrow-show being passed as comedy, it is important to have a brief understanding of what a minstrel show is and where it came from. The minstrel shows were popular primarily in the 1800’s. They were performers, both white and black, who painted their faces with burnt cork and acted out the worst of the prominent stereotypes of the chosen culture. At this point some of you are wondering why I am being vague by using the word cultures. Well, this is where some of the misunderstandings of minstrel history come in to play. The minstrel shows are generally thought of as white people making fun of black people or black people making fun of black people. This is part of the truth. However, there was a time when the Irish and the black communities were at end with one another as to who was the most societally denigrated and discriminated against. Before you start rallying about that, there is a lot of research to substantiate this, but I am not going into in this posting. If you are interested go read, Ronald Takaki “A Different Mirror” or any of the books listed below. These books go into depth on the establishment of Irish as white, which just touches the surface on race as a social concept. But I digress, the minstrel shows often featured grotesque caricatures of Irish and Black men and women being sexually inappropriate, drinking excessively, joking, laughing, acting like children, being overly aggressive and being represented as just a step above animals.

The Irish and blacks were often paired against each other, spurned forward by the acceptance of the dominant white culture. Here is a drawing of an black man being weighed against an Irish man and the two coming up equal.

As you can see, this is not a flattering portrait of either culture. What the minstrel shows often became where blacks and Irish making fun of each other for the pleasure and acceptance of the white culture. The Jim Crow Dance, was actually a combination of and African and Irish jig. So on stage you had black and Irish men and women all wearing black face grotesquely making fun of one another in the hopes of gaining favor with the racist demeaning dominant white culture.

Lets jump back to today. Now we have a white gay man putting on black face representing a caricature of black women in a comedic attempt to elevate gay culture? If you are gay is this how you want to be elevated? Is this how you want to gain your equality by denigrating another culture? Is this where we want society to return to? I know there has been a lot of talk about returning to family values, but just how far back are we going?

This is a white man wearing black face makeup and makeup painted on like a clown. His humor consists of the most base stereotypes, which have been around since slavery, about drinking and sex and excessive reproduction, riding the government dollar, being stupid or “ignant” as he so nicely puts it. He is degrading to all women and all black culture and should be offensive to all who see him. He is a racist and should not be thought of in any other light.

You can go to the website Ban Shirley Q. Liquor and see some of this disgusting humor for yourself and while you are there, sign the petition to ban this comedian from performing.

When people say, why can’t black people stop revisiting the slave legacy? Well, Shirley Q. Liquor is a good reason why, because that legacy still exists in our society and right now it is loud and proud. We ended the minstrel show by making it unacceptable in society, it is time to repeat history.

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DISTINGUISH LOVERS FROM DADS & MOTHERS by Sasha Lessin, Ph.D.

If you or a lover react to each other as though you’re a
parent, you might consider this:

Bob Hoffman suggests you developed one of your (or your
lover’) personality facets, the Inner Brat, from your emotional pain
and from adopting parents’ worst traits. If parents didn’t
completely love and accept themselves and others, their
childrencopied this. Parents couldn’t model self-love and
overflowing love to others if their parents, in turn, didn’t model a
totally loving model for them to imprint.

As a child, when you lacked genuine love, you settled for
attention. Hoffman says that whether you deadened yourself
emotionally or developed a “nice” person or rebel facade, you’re
still angry at your parents. You try to hurt your parents by failing,
as though defeating yourself (as they defeated themselves) hurts them
for not giving you unconditional love. You continue self-defeating
behavior because it lets you to vent your childish anger.

Self-defeating behavior is also a desperate plea for their
sympathy and love. Your emotions remain childish, defiant, falsely
compliant or dulled, though your body and intellect continue to
grow. Your adult intelligence may tell you that smoking,
overreacting and pushing people away are self-defeating. Yet you
continue these behaviors because you remain a brat inside, still
copying or rebelling against your parents and their symbolic
substitutes.

When you’re unloving and self-defeating, you express
negative
love you learned from your parents. You can unlearn it. Stop being
a brat still getting even with them. Let your emotional development
catch up with your intellectual and physical development. “Get a
loving divorce from Mother and Dad.”

You achieve a loving divorce when you rise above parents’
negative example and realize they’ll never meet your childish demand
to love you “selflessly, wholeheartedly, and with nothing asked in
return.”
In Hoffman’s system, you prosecute Mom and Dad as you
remember and emote anger for the poor examples they exhibited and
wrongs they did you. You next put yourself in their places and
understand how the negative attitudes their parents gave them
conditioned them to imprint your negativities. You then experience
deep compassion, forgiveness and love toward your parents.

You copied some of your parents traits (by “parents,” I
designate the older folks in charge of you as you grew up–whether
biological, adopted or other). You probably love some traits you
copied–maybe Mom’s manners or Dad’s humor.

You could also have copied traits you’d like to change. If
so, try the rites in this section. Explore your mother’s model, then
father’s. Then reprogram yourself and you’ll love and forgive your
parents and yourself. You’ll leave your parents’ limits behind.
This model may, of course, help you understand why your lovers may
treat you like a parent, and you could discuss Hoffman’s model with
them.

Mend Mom’s Mistakes When You Mate

Hoffman suggests that one of your personality facets, your
Inner Brat, developed from your emotional pain and from adopting your
parents’ worst traits. If Mom did not completely love and accept
themselves and others, you copied this. If she couldn’t model self-
love and overflowing love to others if her parents, in turn, didn’t
model it. If that’s the case, when you’re unloving and self-
defeating, you express negative love, some of which you adopted from
her.

Stop getting even with Mom. Lovingly divorce her, rise above
her negative example, realize she’ll never meet your childish demand
to love you with nothing asked in return. First prosecute Mom: you
emote anger for her example and for wrongs she did you. Then you put
yourself in her place. You get how she was molded into giving you
negative attitudes by her parents’ attitudes. Then you then
experience deep compassion, forgiveness and love toward your mother.

Delete Dad’s Defects in Your Love Life

Hoffman says that if Dad didn’t completely love and accept
himself and others, you copied this. Divorce Dad, rise above his
negativies; realize he’ll never love you unconditionally. You express
anger, then you put yourself in his place and feel how his parents
imprinted him to imprint you. Finally, you forgive him and tell him
you love him.

[Based on Hoffman, B., Getting Divorced From Mother and Dad, New
York: Dutton, 1976.]

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